West Virginia University Presentation on Victimhood

Postscript to Security Breach: The Murder of Tod McQuaid was used in West Virginia University Victimhood study within Dr. Nolan's "Criminal Justice Systems" course by Rog McQuaid.  The student can review his talk as part of a post mortem by Dr. Nolan where student is asked to provide responses to the presentation material.

Security Breach Postscript Presentation .pdf requires an Adobe Acrobat reader or equivalent.

During the presentation, the class received a suggestion/challenge to create a project concerning:

"We also found that the West Virginia Victims’ Rights laws have no feedback within the judicial system to ensure Victims’ Rights law compliance by the criminal justice professionals.

 "(I am trying to format a petition to address this last issue.)

 "(Perhaps this 'monitor and ensure compliance' could be presented to the WV House of Delegates as a class project.)"

Picture a survey done by a class of 58 students each calling several Judges over 55 counties before the December holidays, to ask if the Judges who can be contacted would enjoin a policy of delaying a trial if the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney had not certified to the Court that the prosecutor had complied with Victims' Rights laws. Similarly, calls to the Prosecuting Attorneys in the counties could survey them while collecting comments.

Would those statistics help Delegates decide to enhance Victims' Rights? Who might start that project to help victims? (Resumes are enhanced with words like initiated, controlled, etc.)

Everyone surely realizes that the Court cannot monitor and force compliance for all Victims' Rights. But if one starts an Impossible Mission, one needs to find the first doable subordinate mission.

Here are some reference .pdf's and Links for those interested in working for Victims' Rights:

1) Legisbrief V13#13 Enforcing Victims' Rights Laws by National Conference of State Legislatures in 2005 (www.ncsl.org).

2) Enforcing The Rights Of Crime Victims state law audit by National Center for Victims of Crime (www.ncvc.org).

4) West Virginia Victims' Rights Laws as compiled audit by NCSL in 2004.

Alternate Exit options: WVU Book Order Page

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