No. Each state can make constitutional law at the state level, so over 30 states have victims' rights in their constitution. I'll speak about eight states that certainly have had standing for victims.
When I say “standing”, again, I want to be clear. I'm not talking about party status. I'm talking about their very limited standing or ability to exercise their rights.
We've talked to victims' rights lawyers in the United States. In particular there is the National Crime Victim Law Institute out of Oregon, of which Meg Garvin is the executive director. I asked her about this, because Oregon has had limited standing for victims since 2008, and she is aware of one delay for a sentencing since 2008. Since then, she says, because that delay happened once, the participants in the criminal justice system now ensure that doesn't happen.
We also spoke to groups of victims' rights lawyers in Washington. They said that when victims have the right to that legal representation, whatever happens takes place ahead of the pre-trial and ahead of the trial. They can meet with the victims, ascertain what their safety and security issues are, ascertain the system with their victim impact statement, and state any other concerns they have around their rights. In actual fact both of them talk about the ability to actually expedite the process—