PAUL CASSELL: When I first started working on crime victims' rights, crime victims were treated like the barbarians at the gates. But I think that misses the bigger picture. Unless victims are willing to come forward, report crimes, cooperate with prosecutors, testify at trials, we can't hold criminals accountable through our criminal justice system. We need to create an independent voice for crime victims through lawyers and advocates.
After I got to the University of Utah College of Law, I helped to draft the Utah Victims' Rights Amendment. I began advocating for crime victims, litigating for crime victims, doing research and scholarship on crime victims' rights to try to make sure that crime victims weren't ignored in the criminal justice process.
As a litigator, I tried to look for what I would call precedent-setting cases, where the ruling in that case would make a difference, not just for an individual victim, but for hundreds or thousands of victims that might follow.
Amy's losses come from a vast, faceless anonymous crowd of thousands of people. I was fortunate enough to be able to represent Amy, who was trying to get restitution in some child pornography cases. For the first time in the U.S. Supreme Court's history, we had a three-sided argument. We had the prosecutor, we had the defense attorney, and we had me arguing on behalf of a crime victim, to make sure that victims in these kinds of cases would get appropriate restitution. And I think that's the way you get justice done in this country.
I've seen so many people whose lives have been completely changed by the result of a crime and as the result of the way they're treated in the criminal justice process, so I created the Utah Appellate Project to provide an opportunity, not just for me, but for my law students and for others that we work with, to litigate on behalf of crime victims' rights on a pro bono basis.
HEIDI NESTEL: He's influenced thousands of students, thousands of lawyers who are now practicing, who even if they aren't victims' rights attorneys, they understand the importance of victims in the criminal justice system.
PAUL CASSELL: Heidi Nestel now runs the Utah Crime Victims Legal Clinic, which is one of the premier clinics in the country.
We may not be able to completely prevent all crimes, but we can certainly shape the way that we respond to crimes once they're committed by making sure that victims are treated fairly in our criminal justice process.
