Since the 1991 Supreme Court case Payne v. Tennessee, the right of victims to deliver impact statements in front of the court has been widely recognized. But rarely does the public get to see those statements delivered.

 

“Victims testify every day in every courtroom about the harms they have suffered at the hands of perpetrators,” said Jennifer Gentile Long, CEO of AEquitas: The Prosecutors’ Resource on Violence Against Women. “In many ways the proceedings [over the past week] gave a voice to all of those victims.”