Victims in the Criminal Justice System

Week of 10-17-11

Brian Blanchard. Former DA (10 years), now Ct. App.
Dana Breunig. Channel 15 for 7 yrs, now DOJ public info officer.
Mike Miller. Cap Times reporter, courthouse beat for 30 years.
Had the victims had standing, they could have enforced their right to privacy. Of course, the court still gets to the same result, but the point is that the rights could have been vindicated.
DoJ has a set of advice that they give to victims about talking to the media. See office of Crime Victim Services; they are not speaking from the perspective of a prosecutor. A prosecutor will tell the victim they can talk to whomever they please, but will lay out the potential consequences.
Interesting question about conficting rights of notice: what if you have mutual victims, and you're trying to get pleas out of both of them?
What about gratuitous recitation of facts in a court opinion-- if, e.g., the question presented is totally procedural, and the facts aren't important to it?
OK, so we prosecute to name names, but we don't identify sex crime victims. What do you do in an incest case?