What Value a Victim?

You're warned people, this is an ugly post.  This smacks racism right between the eyes, and first drags racism out from the sewer so it will be exposed in the light of day.  You've been warned...

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Advocates of victim-impact statements argue that some victims have a greater inherent worth than others when measured in terms of social harm. As offensive as this seems on the surface, victim advocates and the surviving families of victims deserve that this gets focus.    I think the voice of the victim and victim advocacy is a great change in the courts, and we are all served by having victims with a voice in criminal justice. I think it can be too easy to forget those impacts when wrapped up in court proceedings, particular on a technical case.

Societal "worth", particularly variable worth, is certainly an emotionally charged issue.  We are offended as a society, and I find great personal offense, when we read that African Americans were once counted as 3/5 of a human being, and the abhorrent nature of the devaluation and dehumanization of ethnicities is a stain on the soul.  

However, the question was not about dehumanization or devaluing an individual, but the recognition that the impact to society of victimization is variable, even as the effect to the victim is, largely, all the same.  Before you react to the word "largely", there are obvious cases where suffering of a terminally ill person is eased by murder, so the impact to the victim is less than the impact to someone not suffering from a terminal illness.  This is not to justify euthanasia, which is murder, but to say that the impact to the terminal, suffering victim is less than typical.  However, we cannot readily and comfortably place a value on a human life, and it's abhorrent to consider that some people are "worth more" than others.  From the perspective of the victim, they are the center of their universe.  However, society does have a differing price it pays based on different victims.  Consider the following victims:

1. 90 year old Alzheimer's patient
2. 6 year old healthy child
3. 19 year old college student
4. 30 year old Nobel Laureate physicist
5. 22 year old widowed mother of three, 3 months pregnant
6. 22 year old Navy pilot
7. 22 year old homeless drug addict
8. 30 year old cardiovascular surgeon
9. 50 year old convict serving a life sentence
10. 50 year old U.S. Senator

We can recognize that society is harmed differently in each of these cases.  I think we can recognize that society realizes a great loss from a Navy pilot or cardiovascular surgeon, and a less significant loss from a convict or an Alzheimer's patient.  Leaving behind a family also causes great harm, and the loss of a Nobel Laureate physicist is tremendous.  However, if the Alzheimer's patient is your Grandma, or the convict is your brother, then you have a differing perspective.  

I think that juries are readily swayed by discussions about the societal worth of individuals, and (regrettably) if they are attractive.  

Name 4 white females killed in the last 20 years - Laci Peterson, Natalie Halloway, Chandra Levy and JonBenet Ramsey probably came to mind almost immediately, after their victimization was so thoroughly saturated by the press.  I know that the smile of Laci Peterson haunts me when I see it, such a beautiful person, struck down in the prime of life, while pregnant.  

Now name 4 black men killed in the last 20 years.  Was that harder?  Can you name 4 Indian women who were murdered?  4 Asian men?  The media seems to focus on beautiful white women who are murdered far more often than anyone else, and that's sad, sick and disturbing - but that is what I see when I hold a mirror up to society.  It's abhorrent, but seems true.  Juries watch the news, and are indoctrinated by it, and swayed by the mores of the 4th Estate.  I think that jurors will see the death of a 50 year old drifter much differently than a 30 year old surgeon.

I have a blond daughter who is beautiful, and would be the darling of the media in their coverage.  I also have an Asian daughter and son, and it's highly disturbing to see that they would apparently be valued less by the media in their coverage of crimes against them.  Of course, I pray I never find out, first-hand, what that would be like.  

The US is still suffering from the propaganda dished out to us in WWII, and, to a lesser extent, Korea & Vietnam -- propaganda that demonized the enemy.  It will likely be a few more generations until we don't see Japanese men as wearing thick glasses and machine-gunning children at play while laughing in their planes, as propagandists would have us believe 60 years ago.  This, by extension, is one cause of the devaluation of all Asians as a society, not just Japanese, and juries have a hard time shaking loose their prejudices.  Our march towards racial equality and justice continues, and has made great strides, but it's far from over... and this will extend to the valuation of victims in the mind of jurors.