the moment the courtroom stops being about the law and starts being about the loss.
means a statement, spoken or written by a victim or their family, describing the harm a crime caused, considered by the court before sentencing.
from born from the 1970s victims-rights movement, which argued that criminal trials treated crime as an offense against the state while forgetting the actual person who bled for it; the first formal statutes appeared in the US around 1976, and the supreme court fully blessed their use in payne v. tennessee, 1991.
payne v tennessee — 1991 case that made them constitutionally permissible in US capital cases
boston marathon bombing trial — 2015, dozens of survivors addressed dzhokhar tsarnaev directly
larry nassar sentencing — 2018, over 150 women gave statements over seven days, went viral
brock turner case — 2016, the anonymous victim's letter was read by millions online