Victim Impact Statements: Vices, Values, and Justice

Abstract

There is considerable debate surrounding the place of victim impact evidence (especially victim allocution) in a criminal court of law. In particular, the efficacy and legitimacy of these statements in the context of the capital trial are questioned. The inclusion of the victim's voice during the penalty phase of a capital trial is a significant criminal justice concern. In short, this involvement is largely regarded as a means to provide those harmed (including family members) with much deserved recognition and, consequently, some amount of power and control in the system in which they find themselves as unwilling participants and in a process from which they have been alienated as non-contributing outsiders (Davis and Smith, 1994a, b). While some commentators celebrate the inclusion of such voices (Long, 1995), others question if victim impact statements (VIS) represent a misguided initiative, displacing the general purpose of criminal justice processing altogether (Luginbuhl and Burkhead, 1994).