be treated consistently with laws that will ensure all levels of our judicial system will respond in a timely and just manner.

I not only believe that we need the Constitutional amendment, but it must also contain the proper language to ensure victims that if they are not being afforded their rights in the judicial system, there is a process to hold those who violate their rights accountable for their indifference. I would urge you to consider that a very clear penalty be included so victims who are revictimized will be offered relief.

In closing, I find it difficult to find words that are powerful enough to convey to you how strongly victims feel about their need to be treated fairly and consistently within the judicial system. Just as important, they need to be treated with the dignity and respect that would be afforded to them by this Constitutional amendment. Thank you.

Senator ASHCROFT. Well, thank you very much. The ideals of fairness and consistency I think are very important in the sense that we all want to be able to understand that we are part of the rule of law, and that it is not capricious. Any disparity between rural and urban settings would be similarly unnerving.

Thank you for your testimony.

Joe Taylor is the president of the Board of Aid for Victims of Crime. He's a partner of the Taylor and Taylor law firm, which represents victims of crime.

Aid to Victims of Crime is one of the oldest not-for-profit organizations helping victims in the Nation, and we're grateful for your appearance here. Thank you for your willingness to come and help us better understand how we might address these issues.

STATEMENT OF JOE TAYLOR

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Senator.

I'm proud to be here this morning representing an institution that has helped thousands of people regain dignity they lost due to a criminal act.

Aid For Victims of Crime was the first victims assistance program founded in this country. Carol Vittert, our founder and current Board member, began what is now known as Aid for Victims of Crime by gathering daily police reports from local law enforcement. She and other volunteers would go knock on the doors of crime victims, reaching out to their needs.

Aid for Victims of Crime now plays an integral role in victims services locally, regionally, State, and nationwide. Each year AVC serves between 1,500 and 2,000 victims of crime in the St. Louis area. The range of services available is so broad, and often requiring improvisation, they cannot be sufficiently cataloged in this forum.

However, by way of example, I would like to describe how AVC responded to two victims who called the agency for help. These illustrations are relevant to the hearing this morning as they involve victims of nonviolent crime.

A woman in her 30's, a professional woman, contacted AVC after her home was burglarized. AVC staff went to her house with plywood and nails to temporarily secure the broken window through

which the intruder entered. Staff noticed that the victim was physically shaking as if she had been victimized by violent crime.

AVC staff offered her services as if she had been victimized by violent crime. The victim told Ed Stout, our executive director, that this invasion was the closest thing to her being raped as she ever could imagine experiencing.

In another instance, an educated woman and neighborhood leader from North St. Louis was cheated out of several thousand dollars by two men who talked her into investing in a "no-lose" situation. She almost immediately realized she had been deceived and reported the crime. During the ensuing criminal prosecution, Aid for Victims of Crime staff pursued restitution on her behalf.

The victim did not know she might be entitled to such a remedy, but due to the embarrassment and guilt she felt for allowing herself to be so deceived, she probably would have never asked to what, if anything, she was entitled.

Regionally, AVC staff initiated and now actively correlates a three-county crises response team that organized services of 20 agencies when responding to crises in the workplace, in neighborhoods, and in corporations of all sizes. This crisis response team supplied valuable services to help our community, the campus of Washington University, and family members deal with the trauma of Melissa Aptman's brutal murder and her friend's abduction and unspeakable attack in May 1995.

The same crisis response team also responded to the suffering of St. Louis employees of TWA in the aftermath of the crash of Flight

800 en route to Paris in 1996.

Statewide, AVC participated and is active in the MOVA, the Missouri Victims' Assistance Network, which has been instrumental in making victims part of the criminal justice system, rather than an appendage to the system. MoVA, as was already testified to, was integral in supporting and passing the 1992 amendment to the Missouri Constitution guaranteeing rights in this State.

Finally, nationally, AVC have been active and well represented on the Board of NOVA, the National Organization for Victims' Assistance. NOVA's accomplishments are just too numerous to address here today.

I would like to recognize Ed Stout, our Executive Director, for his never-ending efforts to restore dignity to all those victimized by crime.

Senator ASHCROFT. Is Mr. Stout here?

Mr. TAYLOR. He is not able to be with us today. He is out of town.

up.

Senator ASHCROFT. If he were, I would have asked him to stand

Mr. TAYLOR. Right. If asked, few, if any, would report being against victims' rights in theory. There are many, however, that oppose extending Constitutionally recognized rights to victims of nonviolent crimes for fear that the already overloaded criminal justice system would grind to a halt if these victims were allowed to participate and to receive reasonable notice of criminal proceedings. This attitude is often heard by victims of nonviolent crimes as the system telling them, of course we support victims' rights, as long as they don't get in our way. The uncomfortable truth, how

ever, is that this attitude adds to the trauma already suffered by the victim. All too often, the victims of nonviolent crime suffer the same type and intensity of trauma as those victimized by rape, robbery, and assault.

These victims will perceive the crime against them as life-threatening. Burglaries, for instance, can shatter the family fabric. Their victims are infused with feelings of vulnerability and fear for years beyond the actual crime. "What if" questions overflow their thoughts. What if my family had returned home too early? What if they come back?

How many times have we heard of the devastation caused by the likes of telemarketing fraud committed against our elderly, as you spoke of earlier? These crimes go far beyond the financial losses alone.

The victims' fears must be heard over those whose fears are simply an inconvenience to our justice system. Fundamental rights do not come free. Ask anyone who has ever fought for the right to vote or for the right to simply be free of oppression. Rights do not come without pain and sacrifice.

Moreover, those anxious individuals opposed to guaranteeing the rights of all victims are not considering the success in those States that have. Reports from the States where victims' rights amendments have been implemented show that the system is not bogged down as a result. And, in fact, the system may become more efficient because those victims whose rights are being honored are inherently going to be more cooperative and responsive to the system's needs.

A constitutional amendment is not taken lightly by our Government or by those governed. Victims of all crimes have earned basic fundamental rights, and victims of nonviolent crime represent over 80 percent of all crime victims.

If we only guarantee those rights for the vast minority of crime victims, we will only engender a greater lack of respect for the criminal judicial system by those precluded from participation. Thank you.

Senator ASHCROFT. Thank you very much.

Senator ASHCROFT. Our next witness is Joseph Bednar. Mr. Bednar is the chief counsel for the Governor of Missouri.

STATEMENT OF JOSEPH BEDNAR

Mr. BEDNAR. Good morning, and thank you, Senator, for inviting me to testify.

My name is Joe Bednar, chief counsel for Governor Mel Carnahan. Before that I was an attorney in private practice. I'm also the former chief assistant prosecutor in Jackson County. In recent news accounts, your spokesman has raised a question about the status of Missouri victims' rights laws.

I'm pleased to be here today to update you and your committee on the status of our law. It is important to remember that for every crime, there is a victim who will feel the crime's impact for a long time to come. Governor Carnahan recognizes the importance with the aftermath of crime and with helping victims recover. Working with the law enforcement community and the advocates for victims,

we have made a tremendous amount of progress on the behalf of crime victims.

In 1993, the Governor supported and signed into law House bill 476 and Senate bill 19. House bill 476 increases protection for victims of stalking and makes stalking a crime. Senate bill 19 expands the rights of victims, including the right to more information: About the crime, about charges filed against the offender, hearing dates, court dates, sentencing and probation revocation hearings, and commutation.

In 1994, the Governor supported and signed into law Senate bill 554, which extended victims' rights to include the rights to be notified and present at each and every phase of parole hearings. In 1995, House bill 174 and House bill 232 were signed and supported by the Governor. House bill 174 increased the amount a crime victim could receive for counseling.

House bill 232 requires the courts of Missouri to honor adult protective orders issued in other States and registered in Missouri. The Governor also supported and signed House bill 104 in 1997, which expanded the statute of limitations for sexual offenses against people under the age of 18 to 10 years after the victim reaches the age of 18. In 1998, the Governor supported and signed House bill 1405, House bill 1918, and Senate bill 722.

House bill 1405 mandates that the Attorney General inform victims of sexually violent offenses of all actions regarding civil commitments of sexually violent predators. Senate bill 722 prohibits insurers from discriminating against victims of domestic violence. House bill 1918 establishes a minimum sentence for persons proven to be prior or persistent domestic violent offenders, and allows the admissions of prior convictions into order to demonstrate a history or pattern of domestic violence.

Governor Carnahan has also taken administrative actions that has focused much needed attention on victims' rights. Under the Governor's direction, the office of Victims' Service Coordinator to provide services, notification and information to victims of crime in Missouri. And even though no action is required by law for victims of crimes that occurred prior to 1991, our Corrections Department went through 21,000 of those pre-1991 files and contacted the prosecuting attorneys across the State to seek information on those victims.

Ours is one of only three States that actively seeks out victim information. Legally, victims of dangerous felons are supposed to be notified of certain information regarding offenders. However, the law allows States to play a rather passive role in how it obtains the names of the victims. In Missouri, we actively seek to identify victims by sending inquiry letters to prosecutors.

This year, the Carnahan administration invested the largest amount of funds in our States' history for services that support crime victims. That funding represents a 230 percent increase since 1992. Also, the Carnahan administration was the first to dedicate general revenue funds for services for domestic violence victims, funds that you vetoed during your term.

In fact, our efforts to assist the families of crime victims date back to January 1993, when the Board of Probation and Parole made the first effort to contact the family members of two homicide

victims. You may not recall the details, Senator, but you commuted the sentences of the defendants in those two cases, yet made no effort to contact the families of those victims. You and your staff are quick to point out our deficiencies in this area, but you did the exact same thing as Governor.

The only difference, Senator, is that we made the effort. We didn't know they existed. We tried to contact them. We tried to find out if there were relatives; we were told there were none. It was a human error. I say this not because I want to be here to take you or anyone else to task for this. We are all imperfect human beings.

I say it because it's obvious that you created this forum not so much to learn about the needs of crime victims, but for the purpose of exploring a controversial decision and related human error by the Carnahan administration to further your own reelection campaign. I believe it is not only unjust and inappropriate, but it is also a disservice to the cause of crime victims' rights, which I personally worked on for 26 years and continue to work on today.

Let me address the Mease and Lawrence case. Specifically, Governor Carnahan believes very strongly that victims' families need to be notified, and they were not, in this instance, solely because of human error, not because the law didn't require it.

On behalf of the Governor, I apologized to the family members I could reach the day after the commutation, and I apologize again today. This is especially troubling to me. As a former prosecutor, I was an advocate for the victims of crime, and I made victims advocacy a priority during my time in Jackson County. We deeply regret the mistake and are committed to ensuring that it never happens again. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

Senator ASHCROFT. Our next witness is Professor Cassell, Professor of Law at the University of Utah College of Law, and very active in working for Federal protection for victims. He has worked closely with Senators Kyl and Feinstein on their proposed Amendment, and has testified numerous times in support of the Amendment.

Professor Cassell is testifying here at the request of both Senator Kyl of Arizona and of me, and I would like to welcome Professor Cassell to the St. Louis area and welcome his testimony at this time.

STATEMENT OF PAUL CASSELL

Mr. CASSELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to be here on behalf of the National Victims' Constitutional Network, which is an umbrella organization of victims' groups around the country that are concerned with the Constitutional protection of victims' rights.

Senate Joint Resolution 3 is strongly supported by the great bulk of network's members, including some of the Nation's oldest and most prominent crime victims organizations; members such as the National Organization for Victims' Assistance, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and Parents of Murdered Children.

Now, in possible contrast to the previous speaker, we very much appreciate the Chairman setting up this forum, particularly in this historic building, and indeed on this very day. May 1, as the Sen