Moving Towards Victim-Centred Criminal Trials

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Moving Towards Victim-Centred Criminal Trials
1st North-East Conference on Sexual Violence
Matthew Hall, University of Sheffield m.p.hall_at_she
ffield.ac.uk
November 2007
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Methodology

• Ethnographic observations of criminal trials at
  three criminal courts in the north of England.
• 2 Magistrates Courts and 1 Crown Court.
• Courts users survey at 1 Magistrates court
  (including victims and witnesses).
• Interviews with judiciary, practitioners, court
  staff, court administrators and central
  policy-makers.
• Collected documents about these groups.
• Attempted to developed an understanding of their
  culture.
• Wrote up a detailed account of this setting.

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Breakdown of empirical data

• 247 Trials (112 effective)
• 42 Interviews
• 113 survey responses

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Proposed model of victim-centrality in criminal
trials
Cultural centrality
Practical centrality
VICTIMS
Narrative centrality
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Practical Centrality

• Resources, facilities, processes.
• Effective Trial Management (Pre-Trial Reviews,
  Case Progression Officers etc.).
• Flexible listing and resource allocation at
  courts on the day of trials (not an economic
  argument).
• Keeping victims up to date channels of
  communication.
• Service rights (Ashworth, 2000)
• Avoiding over-reform and promoting training?

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Cultural Centrality

• Occupational cultures, legal cultures, local
  cultures?
• Resources, facilities and processes are useless
  if not applied properly and with genuine
  understanding and enthusiasm (hence a triangle).
  
  
• Lawyers challenging delay and inefficiency rather
  than accepting delays as inevitable
• Domestic violence not seen as unusual or
  messy work.
• Advocates culture of eliciting evidence.
• Genuine belief in the importance of the victim
  to the process (and belief in victim rights?)
• Consultative participation.

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Narrative Centrality
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Peoples story-like constructions of events that
include explanations, decapitations, predictions
about relevant future events, and effective
reaction
Narrative Centrality
Account-Making
(Orbuch et al, 1994250)
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This confrontation is best accomplished by
translating the chaotic swirl of traumatic
ideation and feelings into coherent language
Narrative Centrality
Benefits of Account-Making
(Harber and Pennebaker 2002360)
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Subjects homicide survivors were very clear
that coping is not recovering completely,
returning to normality, or going back to the
way they were before the murder. Instead,
subjects referred to the ability to live their
lives around it and go on
Narrative Centrality
Benefits of Account-Making
(Kenney 2004244)
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Expressing emotions about the assault
cognitively clarifying aspects of the assault
resolving some of the resultant anger, fear, and
paralysis of action and actually moving on with
ones life constructively
Narrative Centrality
Benefits of Account-Making
(Orbuch et al 1994261)
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We may regard the total information in a case as
a story concerning one or more criminal
offences in which the reporting officers,
defendants and witnesses express their findings
and views, and which may contain contradictions
and points which are unclear this can result in
different interpretations of one and the same
file
Narrative Centrality
Stories in Criminal Trials
(Van Duyne 198115)
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Victims Narratives and Account-Making at the
heart of Criminal Justice

• Bringing victims to the heart of a system
  mainly characterised by stories
• Bringing victims stories to the heart
  of that system
• Bringing victims to the heart of the system
• Affording some benefit to victims
  participating in that system which can be
  achieved though account-making

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Victims Narratives in Current Criminal Trials

• Witness Statements
• Victim Personal Statements
• Giving evidence in court

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Victims Witness Statements

• Purport to be victims own version of events
• Look like stories
• Not written by victims/witnesses themselves
• Content may not be as witnesses envisaged
• Written a.s.a.p. with no time for reflection
• Written by police based on evidential criteria
• Lawyers decide how they will be used

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Victims Personal Statements
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Victims Personal Statements

• Intended to be written in victims own words and
  own hand
• Victims can make supplementary VPS statements at
  a later date
• Low take-up rate
• Confusion as to how they are given/taken
• Restrictive interpretation by the courts
• Lawyers still decide how they will be used

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Victims Evidence in Court

• Their singular opportunity to present information
  first-hand
• Lawyers control what they are allowed to say
• Must be oral
• Unnatural setting/language
• Unfamiliar concepts (e.g. hearsay)
• Intimidating/upsetting questions
• Not necessarily voluntary

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Timeline of victims narrative
T1 time of victimisation T2 time of
giving witness statement T3 time of giving
evidence at trial
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Special Measures The Way Forward for Victims
Narratives?

• Still largely based on orality principle and
  traditional evidential values.
• BUT free narrative phase afforded to child
  witnesses through pre-recorded examination in
  chief.

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Internally-enforceable rights
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Internally-Enforceable Rights?

• Rights, judicable from within the criminal
  justice process, enforced by judges.
• That is, rights to ensure the three forms of
  centrality are realised. Both positive and
  negative rights.
• Internally-enforceable rights means problems are
  dealt with immediately and that practitioners see
  them being enforced by judges ? improved
  occupational cultures in relation to victims.
• But enforceability? Endless delays?
  Trials-within-trials? Appeals?
• Persuading the judges Code of Judicial Ethics?
  Judicial Complaints?

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The wider criminal justice system?
Cultural centrality
Practical centrality
VICTIMS
Accounts centrality
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Moving Towards Victim-Centred Criminal Trials
1st North-East Conference on Sexual Violence

• Matthew Hall,
• University of Sheffield
• m.p.hall_at_sheffield.ac.uk

November 2007