GOOD QUESTION

Does a crime victim have the right to own the name and future money of the person who attacked them?

 

by Leonard Sipes 

 

Law Enforcement Today 

Jul 30, 2024 

 

 

Nikolas Cruz 

 

What are the rights of a crime victim as to owning the name and future income of the offender who victimized them?

The story below from the Associated Press gives a person shot multiple times by Nikolas Cruz during the school shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida protection from future publicity and enables the victim to collect future financial gains associated with the offender.

Does the court ruling have implications for other crime victims?

Court rulings of restitution rarely compensate crime victims. Criminal offenders seldom comply with parole and probation efforts to collect. But what if the offender inherits money? What happens if the media comes for an interview?

This was a major issue when I was the director of public information for the Maryland Department of Public Safety; the Maryland Crime Victims Resource Center (who I currently supply data to for legislative efforts) came to us complaining that publicity surrounding inmates participating in media interviews adds further distress to the people they victimized.  They wanted us to “clear” the option of interviews with crime victims, which we agreed to do.

Crime victims can and do lead lives of considerable emotional and financial distress. Their lives have been altered forever, something that most quickly dismiss, yet entire families live with the impact.

New York Post: “The woman who existed before November 3rd is gone,” said Phanor’s third victim, who was out for a morning run when she wanted a “few extra steps” and turned down Pier 45 before being raped Nov. 3, 2022.”

 

Carl Phanor

 

“This attack has stolen my sense of safety, my marriage and the close bond shared amongst my children,” she wrote in her statement read aloud in court, adding that her 20-year marriage “crumbled” after the attack and led to a divorce.”

Will courts be willing to consider additional requests for compensation by allowing victims to  “own” the name of the person who victimized them and give them access to future financial gains? Does that give victims a sense of peace? It’s more than likely that overloaded courts would rebel at the prospect unless the crime were heinous.   

Associated Press

Associated Press: “The most severely wounded survivor of the 2018 massacre at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School now owns shooter Nikolas Cruz’s name, and Cruz cannot give any interviews without his permission, under a settlement reached in a lawsuit.”

“Under his recent settlement with Anthony Borges, Cruz must also turn over any money he might receive as a beneficiary of a relative’s life insurance policy, participate in any scientific studies of mass shooters and donate his body to science after his death.”

“The agreement means that Cruz, 25, cannot benefit from or cooperate with any movies, TV shows, books or other media productions without Borges’ permission. Cruz is serving consecutive life sentences at an undisclosed prison for each of the 17 murders and 17 attempted murders he committed inside a three-story classroom building on Feb. 14, 2018.”

“We just wanted to shut him down so we never have to hear about him again,” Borges’ attorney, Alex Arreaza, said Thursday.

“Borges, now 21, was shot five times in the back and legs and collapsed in the middle of the third-floor hallway.”

Conclusions

The vast majority of what’s written about criminal offenders focuses on additional chances and leniency which makes a certain amount of sense because our prisons are overcrowded.

But a huge percentage of criminal cases are routinely dropped by prosecutors and well over 90 percent are plea-bargained resulting in charges being modified for a reduced sentence.  All of this depends on arrests and successful criminal investigations which seem to be dropping like a rock. Even when restitution is ordered by a judge, victims will rarely see a dime of the money.

But anything that stops the perception that the financial and emotional plights of crime victims are not important has merit. We correctly demand that the rights of our fellow citizens who are members of marginalized groups be protected and we’re willing to do just about anything to assist the vulnerable.

But that does not apply to crime victims. Few seem to care. Maybe it’s time for crime victims to appeal to the courts for redress and financial compensation to force their victimizers to pay a price commiserate with their crimes.