Letter: Victims’ rights too often go ignored

Sunday, June 11, 2006 | 7:32 a.m.

The criminal justice system ensures the rights of offenders, considering their concerns with little regard for the true victims. Make no mistake, there are no victimless crimes. Someone pays each time a crime is committed.

In violent crimes, the offenders' voices echo through our courts through the decisions of juries and subsequent appeals processes. Each time an offender is sentenced, the survivors of crime, the families and the victims themselves, receive life sentences. Appeals, reversed decisions and other attempts to stall justice are part of their life sentence.

When Tyrell Williams received a lighter sentence after a retrial, the jury noted that his antics in the courtroom amounted to a desperate fight for his life! I wonder who heard the desperate cries of his victims as they were murdered.

In the case of Marcus Dixon, whose sentence in essence was reduced by the state Pardons Board, how do we explain to the grieving family of the victim that he was only 15 and shouldn't remain in prison until he is 54? After all, he was only an impulsive, gun-carrying teenager who didn't mean to kill. The victim can't celebrate life's special moments.

These are two examples of many cases where the pleading of the offenders is heard, while victims are rendered voiceless. Victims have rights according to a Nevada constitutional amendment passed in November 1996.

It is time that victims have the right to be read their rights so they can enter the justice system with the same education that criminals receive.

Elynne Greene, Las Vegas