Scholarship@WashULaw

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2022

Publication Title

California Law Review Online Symposium

Abstract

This Essay responds to Bennett Capers's article, "Against Prosecutors." I offer four critiques of Capers’s proposal to bring back private prosecutions: (A) that shifting power to victims still involves shifting power to the carceral state and away from defendants; (B) that defining the class of victims will pose numerous problems; C) that privatizing prosecution reinforces a troubling impulse to treat social problems at the individual level; and (D) broadly, that these critiques suggest that Capers has traded the pathologies of “public” law for the pathologies of “private” law. Further, I argue that the article reflects a new, left-leaning vision of victims’ rights. I see "Against Prosecutors" as illustrating an impulse among many progressive and left commentators to suggest that decarceration and victims’ rights actually could go hand-in-hand. Ultimately, I argue that this (re)turn to victims’ rights has some promise but should be cause for concern for critics of the carceral state.

Keywords

Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Criminal Justice, Criminal Justice Reform, Abolition, Prosecutors, Victims' Rights

Publication Citation

Benjamin Levin, Victims’ Rights Revisited, 13 Calif. L. Rev. Online 30 (2022)

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