Celebrity Justice and Victims' Rights Initiatives

Abstract

As played out in the recent Roman Polanski case, there is a decades old tension between prosecutors who want to hold celebrities to the same criminal standards as everyone else, the special privileges that and wealth inherently provide to the accused star, and the desire of the victim to avoid the spotlight and intense scrutiny that accompanies a trial.This paper discusses the nature of victims' rights in California. Victims' rights have become increasingly important in California stemming from recent legislative changes. These changes present broad possibilities in terms of impact on the criminal justice system. Part III considers the abuses of victims' rights under the current system. Defendants with higher bank rolls have the power under present standards to offer their victim an enticing settlement. Their can also give them an aura of credibility, and the very nature of celebrity means that these defendants are already known to, and probably admired by, the jury. Part IV outlines a proposal for balancing the victim's needs with the system's needs to avoid buying justice. This proposal is two-part: (1) Victims' rights laws should be amended to address situations in which victims give up their rights in exchange for financial compensation. In these cases, where victims are willing to waive their rights through a civil settlement, they should be compelled to participate in the criminal case; (2) The existing victims' rights legislation can be amended to address this divide between the civil and criminal courts. Whereas victims can control the civil suit, the state interests are at stake in the criminal case. The victims' rights laws could be changed to more specifically direct which victims and how victims may receive civil settlements.