New notification system could help enforce Georgia crime victims' rights
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The Criminal Justice Coordinating Council and Georgia Bureau of Investigation are reviewing proposals from contractors to build a statewide automated victim notification system.
An AVN would notify victims of upcoming hearings and updates in their case. It is intended to improve the rights of crime victims by eliminating human error. Georgia is one of only a few states without one.
Marsy’s Law for Georgia Advisory Board Member Melvin Hewitt says it’s typically what a court-appointed victim advocate would do.
“They know what’s going to happen, when it’s going to happen and how it’s going to happen,” Hewitt said. “They can take them through that system.”
The Georgia Crime Victims Bill of Rights, known as Marsy’s Law, was passed in 2018 to ensure victims of crime had constitutional rights and protections.
But Hewitt said court backlogs and staff shortages can make their work a challenge.
Earlier this year, Jacqueline Miller said her rights were violated in DeKalb County when her victim advocate allegedly failed to give her proper notice of the sentencing hearing for a co-defendant in her son’s murder. She said she was at the school where she teaches when she received a call about it one hour before it was set to start.
“We did not have time to gather the family, of course, and we did not have time to even think about what we were going to say,” Miller said.
According to court records, the co-defendant accepted a plea deal at that March 15 hearing for two counts of robbery by sudden snatching. The incident occurred during the fatal shooting of Jacqueline Miller’s son, 19-year-old Andrew Miller, in 2020. The co-defendant was sentenced to 15 years in jail, though he’s eligible for probation after serving only eight.
Miller said that while she feels like justice was served, she’s still upset about what she went through with her victim advocate. She has also been unable to confirm whether the letters her family wrote in her son’s case are even in the files that will follow the defendants throughout their prison and probation period.
“They just don’t seem to care,” Jacqueline Miller said.
In response to an Open Records Act Request, the Prosecuting Attorney’s Council of Georgia said it’s only received one complaint against the DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office regarding violations of the Victims Rights Act in the last three years. It did not mention how the complaint was addressed.
The organization Marsy’s Law for Georgia states an AVN could ensure violations, slip-ups and misunderstandings don’t happen again.
“The creation of a statewide AVN is a momentous step in serving victims following a crime and would alleviate the burden on court-appointed victim advocates,” it stated.” A huge stepping stone in its creation was the passing of the Criminal Record Responsibility Act last year. The new bill empowers a committee to oversee and enforce the accurate and timely entry of all judicial data to be entered into a central database at the Georgia Criminal Information Center.”
The request for proposals closed Thursday, June 15. The review process is set to take place over the next two weeks.
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