High court cracks down on emotional testimony

This article is an embarrassment to reporting.  If this "reporter" was even remotely interested in reporting the news, the article would be entitled, "High Court upholds right of victim's story to be told".  Instead, you are led to believe that because three liberal justices whined about the majority opinion that the lower court ruling be upheld, they somehow banned such victim testimony from death penalty cases.  How about you report the news as it is, Pete?  If you just want to espouse your liberal ideology, then write an opinion piece about why these judges are right to try and deny a victim's voice to be heard in such cases and we'll talk about that instead.

The use of produced video presentations should not be allowed. As any movie director knows, you can create any emotional response you want with the right imagery, narration & music. Just as the defendants have the right to confront their accusers, they should be given the same courtesy at sentencing hearings.

Survivor testimony should be allowed in my opinion, since murder impacts many more lives that just that of the victim. People are changed forever once a loved one is lost to a heinous crime such as murder. The defendant should suffer the consequences not only for the crime, but for the negative impact the actions have on those still living.

It is hard to believe that any member of the Supreme Court would not agree with the dissent. The obvious intent of the prosecution was to appeal to the emotions of the jurors causing them to render a verdict based on sentiment and anger rather than on reason. Then again, the prosecutor was successful in  having emotion rule reason in the Supreme Court.

Thank you, justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. If hundreds of innocent people are kept in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without any evidence to bring them to trial for life [equal to life in prison without parole without any proven guilt], it will be a joke if the judicial system allows any proven criminal to save their skin on any technicality imaginable.

If someone did a horrendous crime, they should pay the ultimate price, so others will be deterred  from copy-cutting it with a sense that they can beat the system. Thank you.  Nikos Retsos, retired professor

It is hard to believe that any member of the Supreme Court would not agree with the dissent. The obvious intent of the prosecution was to appeal to the emotions of the jurors causing them to render a verdict based on sentiment and anger rather than on reason. Then again, the prosecutor was successful in  having emotion rule reason in the Supreme Court.

prosecutors have always relied on "scare tatics" to try to win cases. if the case is weak they will try to pyump it up any way they can, it is sad that our justice system has reached a point where it is no longer a presentation of the facts as it is personal feelings on the crime. If they believe you are guilty they will try everything to covict you even if there is evidence that you are not the guilty party.

As a retired trial lawyer I can tell you that attorneys and judges criticize both state and federal high court decisions with regularity. Are you unaware of the terms, "Liberal Court" and "Conservative Court"? "Freedom of speech?" Are you actually preventing me from commenting on the state of mind of Supreme Court Justices? PLEASE REPLY!

Where is the justice if a family or victim's loss isn't taken into consideration at the time of sentencing?   How else is the jury to see that the crime committed involved far more than the harm inflicted upon the deceased?  The grieving loved ones will never escape the prison of loss they must endure for the rest of their lives.  Why should the courts try to shield the convicted from drowning in the tears they've brought to others?

It's unusual for justices to issue an opinion dissenting from the denial of certiorari. They must feel very strongly about it. Prosecutors should take heed. (Or perhaps defendants should prepare their own videos to make their sympathy case? I hope that's not the direction things move in.)

If those judges want to further limit the testimony of the victim's family, they should be casting decisions to limit the testimony of the murder's family and friends.

All emotions should not be allowed for vengence.  No matter what is said or done will not bring the one dead back.  So They should let it go.  

if a murder victim was a good person or something less has nothing to do with the quilt of the accused and the use of such videos as described in this article by the prosecutors is a cheap trick. is the murder of a good person less grievous than the murder of a low life? should there be different penalties? what kind of cheap showmanship can we next expect from prosecutors in their pursuit of their careers? never doubt that prosecutors are career minded and many will do anything to put themselves before the public in a way that advances their own interests. http:www.saintpeterii.com

Incidentally,Pete Williams' title to this article is incorrect. The Court DID NOT crack down on emotional testimony. The Court refused to consider two California cases where emotional testimony was allowed. The dissents by my good friend, Justice John Paul Stevens and Justices Souter and Breyer wanted the Court to consider the cases, the results of which, they obviously disagreed. While you are "moderating" you may want to consider "proofreading".  

Anything that will help send these animals to HELL should be fair game.

I guessed who "the three" were before I read their names. Three of the four bleeding heart liberals on the court. Unfortunately, it is the likes of these three winey asses who will be replaced when they start retiring in the Obmanation administration. This is why we people with any brains voted McCain-Palin, in order to avoid leftist bench legislators who want to rewrite the constitution. No, allow the murserers' families to get up and beg and plead for their wasteful lives but, no don't allow the victim's families to play any part. Give me a break.  

This headline and commentary appear to grossly misrepresent what is clearly the upholding of the use of videotaped evidence regarding victim impact.  If the court's refusal to review is not the focus, the dissents you so obviously prefer are even more diminimus.
Come on.  Let's just report what they did.

Having been in court a number of times due to my career in law enforcement I have determined that a lot of the process is theater. If the prosecutor can submit videos of victim's families as "evidence" it makes sense that the defense can do the same. Case solved. Next?

Stupid courts.. They have no compassion then how can they give justice to the Victims?

As much as a family is hurting, what good does it do anyone to a video of this type?  Does it help the family?  Does it really help the jury to decide between 20 years, life, or death?  Limits must be set.  

I disagree completely with any kind of restrictions on victim impact statements, videos, etc.  Our courts care more about the rights of criminals, murderers,  rapists, etc. than they do law-abiding innocent victims.  This is wrong! The stories of the victims need to be told and they do indeed deserve an articulate place in the criminal proceedings.

The foundation of our legal system is based on a fair trial. If this is denied then we will be headed for a police state. Since the preamble of the constitution stated its purpose is to establish justice, I cannnot see the logic in not hearing this case.

For me this is a major issue. I did not vote for Mr. McCain because of Sarah Palins comments at the Republican convention when she said Mr Obama and Mr. Biden would read terrorist their rights. How would we know they are terrorists unless we gave them a fair trial? and how could they receive a fair trial without reading them their rights?

Defense attorneys routinely play the abused childhood, drug addiction, mental health and other "emotion" cards to evoke sympathy or leniency in the defense of their clients.  What harm is there in allowing the victim(s) to have a final voice in evaluating the impact on family and society of their absence when weighing the already convicted felon's sentence.

All for fair trials and presumption of innocence during the prosecution phase, but one you have decided they are guilty, I think it's fair to weigh the extent of the impact of the crime along with the circumstances in which it was committed.

That's one of the problems with our system of justice.  It should not be "blind", it should not be about winning at all costs (on technicalities, etc), it should be about achieving a just outcome.  

Criminals have more rights than victims throughout the process.  Particularly in the case where the victim cannot speak for themselves, family and prosecutors must be able to to the fullest extent possible.

Interesting. The headline and statement by the author are clearly intended to give the impression that the court is somehow fed up with these victim impact statements. But the truth  appears only in the next-to-last paragraph where they acknowledge that the full Supreme Court refused the case, meaning there is no "crackdown"-only statements of concern by 3 of the most liberal members of the court. Hardly a surprise, but also hardly the story they tried to convey.

Predjudicial over probative.
Slickly packaged doesn't make it any better.
The offenders are usually heinous enough without stacking the deck.

A sentence of life in prision is unimagionable. Most people do not realise how horrable prision life is or they would probably prefer it to the death penealty. If only one innocent person is executed the whole process is invalidated. It is high time the high court abolished the death penetaly

I agree with the judges in this case because so often the victim is forgotten in such cases, the prosecutors have to show that murder is not a " victimless crime"!!!

I am not so against the emotional appeal in the penalty phase of trial, I am against the emotional appeal in the trial to determine guilt.  In the Scott Peterson trial there was no reason to show photos of the remains of Lacy Peterson during the penalty phase.  We are all human and we want someone to pay for what was done.  But it had no relavance to his guilt or innocence.  Bring that out when guilt has been detemined.

Mr. Williams: are you reporting, or editorializing?  The judges who didn't like the "emotional testimony" were the DISSENT.  The MAJORITY declined to take up the cases.  How is that a "crack-down"? Talk about a misleading byline!

It is a Gramscian end. To support criminals in their enterprise and women and minorities too, at the expense of the majority and common good, to multiculturalize this country. Shame on you.

I find the court's reasoning disconcerting because they do not apply the same reasoning when it comes to considering the defendant's background. How often do we listen to defense attorneys describing their clients as "abused" or excusing the defendant's behavior because their childhood was less than perfect.
It seems to me that defense attorneys are using the same tactic, that the court now rails against, for the sole purpose of gaining sympathy from the jury on behalf of their client. In this nation's rush to ensure that we do not trample on the rights of defendants, we have discarded the rights of the victims. At which point do we speak for the victims, once they are deceased?  

The headline for this article is wrong. The court didn't crack down, 3 of the justices released their minority opinion. Since the court refused to take the cases, not only did they not crack down, they passed on the opportunity to crack down. Its helpful if the headline has some correlation to the article( I heard that in Journalism 101 30 years ago).

What this does is strip away the rights of the victims that can not speak for themselves. The defendants lawyers use their clients personal lives to potray their personalities in defending their case, Why then are victims families then not allowed to voice their loss of their loved one and the impact it has had on their family? This gives the offenders more rights once again and the victims nothing more than a stactic number without a voice or name.
-Robin-  LaSalle,IL

So it's ok for the criminal, yes, at sentencing, they're already proven a criminal,to bring in the mamma of their baby and evoke sympathy for death penalty leniency, but not for the living to represent the dead victim that already received the death penalty from the criminal?
Yes, the video was lame, but if the dead victims have no voice, then there can be no justice.

The high courts are at it again. After a while after watching TV with all the violence, that people become numb to acts of violence.Testimony from the relatives of a crime reminds the jurors that they are not disconnected because they are also victims.

  The High Court does not crack down on emotional testimony in the penalty phase of murder trials.  I had to read the complete article to find out the title to the article states an opposite conclusion in the article.
This is really a strange piece.

Imagine seperate, unrelated murders where two people are killed under similar circumstance (just for the heck of it, let's say both are killed by a single shot to the chest in two botched robbery attempts).  In one case the victim is an unattractive, unremarkable 60-year old male loner, with a family that quietly grives their loss, then moves on.  In the other the victim is an attractive, talented and gregarious 20-year old woman with dozens of devoted friends and a loving family that's crushed by their loss, and is overtly emotional and public about it.  Is there any question that in trials that shine a spotlight on the experience of the victim's friends and family, the second murderer is likely to receive much harsher treatment?  Vengence and appeasement of the families of victims is not the same as justice, and should not play such a large role in sentence preceedings.  Two similar murders should result in similar sentences, and should not depend on how well-liked the victims were, or on the level of feelings or the demonstrativeness of the bereaved.

Yo, Pete Williams:

When has the vote of three Supreme Court justices become a "crack down" on anything?  Your convoluted reporting finally mentioned the fact of the matter in the next to the last paragraph.  Pete Williams epitimizes the phrase, "a journalistic wolf in sheep's clothing."  Let his readers beware...

Clay, Los Alamos, NM

It's amazing that so many of you think that defendants have all the rights and victims have none. That may have been the case 30 years ago but it is no longer true. Victims' rights are very well protected in California and throughout the country.

In the penalty phase of a capital case, the jury gets to hear from both sides. The defense presents information about the defendant. Some of it is emotional evidence, say, from the defendant's mother or family members, and much of it is from professionals such as mental health experts about what effects certain conditions in the defendant's life may have led to the defendant's crime.

From my own 15 years as a trial lawyer, however, I cannot imagine a judge allowing a video presentation of the emotional nature that is discussed in this article, but that courts regularly allow prosecutors to present on behalf of victims. If the defense wants to present evidence about the emotional effect of the crime on the defendant, the defendant would have to take the stand and be subject to cross-examination, a task which any prosecutor would relish for the opportunity to tear the defendant apart in front of the jury.

The prosecution, on the other hand, is allowed to present these very emotional video presentations that may be highly produced and, as another comment noted, with the right imagery, narration and music, you can produce any emotional response you want.

The fact is that victims' friends and family members are allowed to present impact information at sentencing hearings. They can read prepared statements, testify, rail against the defendant for what he has done to them and the damage he has caused to their lives. And all of that is very emotional stuff. The defense has a right to cross-examine them when they make such statements but almost never does - it would be stupid to do so, don't you think?

So, it's not as if barring emotional victim-impact video presentations from the penalty phase of a capital case would prohibit the fact-finder from hearing about the effects of the defendant's crime on the lives of those left behind. Allowing such videos does, however, as Justice Stevens said, put "a heavy thumb on the prosecutor's side of the scale in death cases." And in our society, which always seems to want revenge and retribution, rather than forgiveness, the scale already tips heavily on the prosecutor's side in death cases.

Death penalty cases are already incredibly difficult, emotional ordeals for all civilians involved, as well as many of the legal professionals dealing with the case. What the law is supposed to do is clear away some of that emotion and decide guilt and punishment based on facts and reasoned judgment, an impossible task if the parties are allowed to produce and show presentations designed purely to evoke emotional responses, like the victim impact videos referred to here.

Some return to equanimity in this whole process would be a welcome change.