July 01, 2013

Fighting for a Child-Victim’s Rights to Fairness, Privacy, and Protection

NCVLI recently provided legal technical assistance to protect the rights of a child-victim of sexual abuse whose abuse was captured in images and distributed.  The defendant, the victim’s mother, pled guilty to possession and distribution of the images and is awaiting sentencing.  At the same time, however, defendant moved the state custody court in a related proceeding to order a psychiatric evaluation of the child.  NCVLI fought to protect the child by opposing this invasive order.

In federal court in North Carolina, defendant, the mother of a minor victim, pled guilty to possessing and distributing images of her child’s sexual abuse and is awaiting sentencing. At the same time, defendant and the child-victim’s father are in state court custody proceedings regarding the child, where defendant moved to have the state custody court order a psychiatric evaluation of the child. NCVLI provided legal technical assistance to both the federal prosecutor and the child-victim’s attorney to oppose the psychiatric evaluation. Specifically, NCVLI provided research and arguments regarding the scope of the child-victim’s rights, including the rights to fairness, privacy, and protection, under the Crime Victims’ Rights Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3771 (CVRA), juxtaposed against defendant’s lack of an absolute right to have a court order a psychological examination. In brief, NCVLI worked to ensure that defendant could not circumvent the limitations of criminal discovery through an order issued in a related civil proceeding.

 

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