Strategic Litigation of Victims' Rights

Strategic impact litigation is the thoughtful identification and litigation of key victims’ rights issues in order to secure court decisions that will advance victims’ rights nationally. Careful consideration of the how and when to assert a right, which appellate mechanism(s) to use and when, how to navigate relationships with other criminal justice participants, and how to narrow any potential loss, are each critical considerations for successful victims’ rights litigation. This session will guide participants through the techniques and strategies Professor Cassell uses in forming a litigation plan for key victims’ rights issues. Professor Cassell will ground the discussion in key victims’ rights issues and cases that have been litigated in the federal system over the past year. This session is geared toward attorneys with moderate knowledge of crime victims’ rights.

Paul G. Cassell is a Law Professor at the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah, where he teaches, writes on, and litigates issues related to crime victims’ rights and criminal justice reform.

Professor Cassell graduated with honors from Stanford University in 1981, and from Stanford Law School in 1984. While at Stanford, he served as President of the Stanford Law Review. After graduation, Professor Cassell served as a law clerk to then-Judge Antonin Scalia of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (1984-85) and Chief Justice Warren E. Burger of the United States Supreme Court (1985-86). Professor Cassell then moved to the United States Department of Justice, serving as Associate Deputy Attorney General (1986-88) and Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia (1988-91).

In 1992, Professor Cassell moved to Utah to teach criminal procedure and other subjects at the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah. Professor Cassell published widely on a variety subjects, including crime victims’ rights, in journals such as the Stanford Law Review, the Michigan Law Review, the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, the BYU Law Review, and the Utah Law Review. While a professor at the University of Utah, Professor Cassell also handled pro bono litigation on crime victims’ issues in courts around the country, including arguing for victims in the Oklahoma City bombing case and arguing for modifying the Miranda rules in an appearance before the United States Supreme Court.

After becoming a United States District Court Judge for the District of Utah in 2002, Professor Cassell published a number of widely-cited opinions. In 2004, he published the first decision in the country declaring the Federal Sentencing Guidelines unconstitutional. After the Supreme Court reached the same result in 2005, Judge Cassell published the first decision in the country explaining how the Guidelines continued to retain advisory force. In the summer of 2005, Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Judge Cassell to the be the Chair of the Judicial Conference Committee on Criminal Law. In November 2007, Judge Cassell resigned his judicial position and rejoined the faculty of the S.J. Quinney College of Law to teach, write, and litigate issues involving crime victims’ rights.

Professor Cassell's recent publications include: Cassell, In Defense of Victim Impact Statements, __ Ohio State J. of Criminal Law (forthcoming 2009); Beloof, Cassell & Twist, Victims in Criminal Procedure (2d ed. 2006); Beloof & Cassell, The Crime Victim's Right to Attend the Trial: The Reascendant National Consensus, 9 Lewis & Clark L. Rev. 481 (2005).

This conference is supported by Grant No. 2008-DD-BX-K001 awarded by the Office for Victims of Crime, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Points of view in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.