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Extracted Text (OCR)
82 CASSELL ET AL. [Vol. 104
Manson case>.”!?”? Thus, Black’s Law Dictionary does not help resolve the
dispute as to which of the two meanings should be used, as there are clearly
differing meanings. While OLC’s reading may be a permissible one, so is a
pro-victim reading.
OLC also turns to the CVRA’s legislative history to bolster its
conclusion. But, here again, its analysis is misleading. OLC relies on a
passage from Senate floor colloquy between Senators Jon Kyl and Dianne
Feinstein regarding the CVRA’s scope. In OLC’s recounting of the
legislative history, the floor statements “emphasize that the night to confer
relates to the conduct of criminal proceedings after the filing of charges.”!78
For instance, OLC quotes Senator Kyl stating that “[u|nder this provision,
victims are able to confer with the Government’s attorney about
proceedings after charging.”'*°
This is a truncated and deceptive description of the legislative history,
so much so that Senator Kyl sent an angry letter to Attorney General Eric
Holder complaining about the distortion. On June 6, 2011, the Senator
wrote to “express [his] surprise that [OLC is] so clearly quoting [his]
remarks out of context.” Senator Kyl then went on to observe that the
colloquy began by noting that the nght to confer “is intended to be
expansive.”'*! The Senator further discussed various “examples” of when
the right to confer applied, including “any critical stage or disposition of the
case. The right, however, is not limited to these examples.”!*? It was
against that backdrop that Senator Kyl gave the example of conferring
about proceedings “after charging.”
In his letter to Attorney General Holder, Senator Kyl also noted that he
had:
made clear that crime victims had rights under the CVRA even before an indictment is
filed. For example, ... I made clear that crime victims had a right to consult about
both ‘the case’ and ‘case proceedings’—1.e., both about how the case was being
handled before being filed in court and then later how the case was being handled in
court ‘proceedings.’ !*3
Senator Kyl further commented that he had discussed the CVRA’s potential
application in grand jury proceedings, an application that required the Act
7 BLACK’s LAW DICTIONARY, supra note 59, at 244.
°8 OLC CVRA Rights Memo, supra note 2, at 9.
°° Td. (emphasis added) (quoting 150 Conc. REc. 7302 (2004) (statement of Sen. Jon
Kyl) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
3° Letter from Jon Kyl, supra note 3.
31 Td. (quoting 150 Conc. Rac. $4260, $4268 (daily ed. Apr. 22, 2004) (statement of
Sen. Dianne Feinstein)).
° Td.
33 Td.
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