DEFINING “VICTIM” THROUGH HARM: CRIME VICTIM STATUS
IN THE CRIME VICTIMS’ RIGHTS ACT AND OTHER VICTIMS’
RIGHTS ENACTMENTS
Paul G. Cassell
*
and Michael Ray Morris, Jr.
**
ABSTRACT
Who qualifies as a “victim” is the foundational question for the Crime
Victims’ Rights Act (“CVRA” or “Act”) and other crime victims’ rights laws.
This article provides the first comprehensive exploration of this “victim” defini-
tion question. It traces how the CVRA (and many states) define “victim” as
broadly covering anyone who has been harmed as the result of a crime.
This article begins by reviewing how the definition of “victim” has evolved in
the criminal justice system since the Nation’s founding. In the last several deca-
des, as crime victims’ rights protections have proliferated, it has become neces-
sary to define “victim” with precision. The definition of “victim” has evolved
from a person who was the target of a crime to a much broader understanding of
a person who has suffered harm as the result of a crime. The CVRA provides a
good illustration of the expansive contemporary definition of “crime victim”—a
definition not fully appreciated by courts, prosecutors, and other actors in the
federal criminal justice system. The Act defines “victim” as a person “directly
and proximately harmed” by a crime, extending crime victims’ protections to
many persons who may not have been the target of a crime.
This article then analyzes important categories of crimes—violent, property,
firearms, environmental, and governmental-process crimes—where “victim” def-
inition issues often occur. It also takes a close look at a significant recent case
involving the CVRA’s crime victim definition: the Boeing 737 MAX crashes case.
The article concludes by arguing that legislators should adopt, and courts
should enforce, a broad conception of a “crime victim” as anyone who suffers
harm from a crime. This conception would ensure that victims’ rights are
extended to all who need their protection.
* Ronald N. Boyce Presidential Professor of Criminal Law and Distinguished University Professor, S.J.
Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah.
** J.D. 2022, S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah; Attorney, Bennett Tueller Johnson &
Deere.
The authors thank Shima Baradaran Baughman, Teneille Brown, Russell Butler, Patricia Cassell, Lingxi
Chenyang, Edna Erez, Meg Garvin, Amos Guiora, Ruhan Nagra, Victor Stone, Matt Tokson, and Steven Twist
for their helpful comments. The authors remain solely responsible for any errors. © 2024, Paul G. Cassell and
Michael Ray Morris, Jr.
329
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
I. THE VICTIM’S ROLE IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE PROCESS 332 . . . . . . . . . . . .
A. The Victim’s Evolving Role in the Criminal Justice Process . . 333
1. Victims as Private Prosecutors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
2. Victims as the Forgotten Person in the System . . . . . . . . . 334
3. The Return of the Victim in Criminal Justice. . . . . . . . . . 335
B. Modern Victims’ Rights Protections and “Victim” Definitions in
the States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
C. Crime Victims’ Rights in the Federal Criminal Justice Process 341
1. Early Federal Crime Victims’ Protections . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
2. The Crime Victims’ Rights Act. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
II. ANALYZING THE CVRA’S “VICTIM” DEFINITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
A. The CVRA’s “Victim” Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
B. The Requirement of “Harm”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
1. All Forms of Harm Qualify Under the CVRA . . . . . . . . . 347
2. Exposing an Individual to a Risk is a CVRA “Harm”. . . . 349
C. The Requirement that Harm Be “Direct and Proximate”. . . . 352
1. “Direct” Harm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
2. “Proximate” Harm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358
D. The Requirement that the Harm Be as a Result of the
Commission of a Federal Offense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
E. The Requirement that a Victim Not Be the Perpetrator of the
Crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
III. APPLYING THE CVRA’S “VICTIM” DEFINITION TO IMPORTANT
CRIME CATEGORIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
A. Victims of Violent Crimes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
B. Victims of Property Crimes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
C. Victims of Firearms Crimes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
D. Victims of Environmental Crimes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377
E. Victims of Governmental-Process Crimes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380
1. Harms Flowing from Governmental-Process Crimes . . . . 380
2. The Illustration of United States v. Boeing. . . . . . . . . . . . 382
CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
330 AMERICAN CRIMINAL LAW REVIEW [Vol. 61:329
INTRODUCTION
In recent decades, crime victims’ rights enactments have spread across federal
and state criminal justice systems,
1
promising victims protections throughout the
criminal justice process, such as the rights to be heard at a bail hearing, to confer
with a prosecutor about a plea bargain, and to provide an impact statement at sen-
tencing. Because these rights are afforded to “crime victims,” an important founda-
tional question is who qualifies as a victim.
This article provides the first comprehensive legal analysis of this question. The
article’s thesis is that crime victims’ rights enactments originally focused only on
persons targeted by a particular crime, such as the person who was the victim of a
robbery or a murder. But as crime victims’ rights laws have expanded in recent
decades, a broader conception of victim status has developed. Now, in America
(and elsewhere), crime victim status exists if a person has been harmed as the result
of a crime, even in situations where the person harmed was not the specific target.
2
Expanding the conception of “victim” makes sense considering the rationale
for protecting crime victims’ rights. In enacting such measures, legislators inject
the victim’s voice into criminal justice processes for many reasons that relate to
harm. For example, victims’ testimony about the harm they have suffered may
provide useful information to a judge handling a case. Victims’ involvement in
court hearings may provide useful psychological or cathartic benefits for those
persons and help them heal from the harm they have suffered. And victims’ par-
ticipation may increase public confidence that the outcomes of criminal pro-
ceedings reflect the harm that a guilty criminal has caused. Broadly defining the
victims who are allowed to participate in criminal justice processes helps to
achieve all these goals.
3
This article uses the influential federal Crime Victims’ Rights Act (“CVRA” or
“Act”)
4
as the springboard for its analysis. Adopted in 2004, the CVRA is the
Nation’s preeminent crime victims’ rights protection. It expressly adopts a harm
approach for defining the crime victims protected under the Act. Specifically, the
CVRA defines a “crime victim” as a person “directly and proximately harmed” as
a result of a federal crime.
5
Now that the CVRA has been in effect for nearly two
decades, it has produced a body of victims’ rights caselaw that can be cataloged,
1. See Paul G. Cassell & Margaret Garvin, Protecting Crime Victims in State Constitutions: The Example of
the New Marsy’s Law for Florida, 110 J. CRIM. L. & CRIMINOLOGY 99, 104–05 (2019); Paul G. Cassell, The
Maturing Victims’ Rights Movement, 13 OHIO ST. J. CRIM. L. 1, 2 (2015) [hereinafter Cassell, Victims’ Rights
Movement]. See generally DOUGLAS EVAN BELOOF, PAUL G. CASSELL, MARGARET GARVIN & STEVEN J. TWIST,
VICTIMS IN CRIMINAL PROCEDURE (4th ed. 2018) (canvassing the sources of victim participation laws).
2. See infra notes 127–32 and accompanying text.
3. See generally Paul G. Cassell & Edna Erez, How Victim Impact Statements Promote Justice: Evidence from
the Content of Statements Delivered in Larry Nassar’s Sentencing, 107 MARQUETTE L. REV. __ (forthcoming
2024) (discussing how victim participation in criminal proceedings promotes justice); Paul G. Cassell, Listening
to Crime Victims . . . Merciful and Others, 102 TEX. L. REV. __ (forthcoming 2024) (discussing how victim
participation in criminal justice process is important).
4. 18 U.S.C. § 3771.
5. 18 U.S.C. § 3771(e)(2).
2024] DEFININING “VICTIM” THROUGH HARM 331
