With Justice for Some: Protecting Victims' Rights in Criminal Trials

This study is a worthy complement to Stephen Adler's The Jury (Forecasts, July 11) and Jeffrey Abramson's We, the Jury (Forecasts, Oct. 17). Fletcher, a professor of law at Columbia University Law School, supports the advances of the 1960s that protected the rights of the accused, but he argues convincingly that we must heighten sensitivity to the victim. He looks at several highly charged cases-``a novel form of political trial''-which frustrated the compatriots of the victims: the killing of gay politico Harvey Milk in San Francisco; the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers; the killing of Hasidic Jew Yankel Rosenbaum during the Crown Heights riots in New York City; the rape cases against Mike Tyson and William Kennedy Smith. Fletcher's suggestions are sensible and provocative: abolish changes of venue, which ignore the local, communal stake in a case; consult victims in plea bargaining; allow jurors to be more active participants in trials; restrict psychiatric testimony on moral responsibility; allow a two-stage verdict that first establishes a criminal act, then assesses whether the defendant was fully accountable. (Jan.)