The origin of victim impact statements has its roots in the Charles Manson case
Because of Sharon Tate’s mother, they are the law in California
By Meagan Day
Almost 14 million people have read the letter that an anonymous survivor of sexual assault at Stanford addressed to her assailant, 20-year-old Brock Turner. The powerful document, published by BuzzFeed with the author’s permission, was read aloud in the courtroom at Turner’s sentencing. It is what’s called a victim impact statement, a chance for victims of violent crime to express the extent of harm done in their own words.
The opportunity to give such a statement actually has its origins in one of last century’s most shocking and notorious crimes: the Manson family murders.
Charles Manson’s followers went on a killing spree in the summer of 1969, murdering seven people over two nights, including actress Sharon Tate, who was eight months pregnant. Sharon Tate’s mother, Doris Tate, had been depressed and withdrawn for over a decade when, in 1982, she heard the news that one Manson family member — Leslie Van Houten — was up for parole. Incensed, Doris Tate became an activist, founding a group called the Coalition for Victims’ Equal Rights.
Doris Tate’s group pushed through the Victims’ Bill of Rights in 1982. One of its key stipulations is that victims would be allowed to read a statement in court. Prior to this, victims were typically only allowed to answer attorney questions, hindering their free expression, confining them to yes and no answers and tedious play-by-plays of painful incidents. In the event that a victim is dead, the right to read a victim impact statement is afforded to family members.
Doris Tate read her own every time a Manson Family member came up for parole. “What mercy, sir, did you show my daughter when she was begging for her life?” she beseeched Tex Watson at a parole hearing. “What mercy did you show my daughter when she said, ‘Give me two weeks to have my baby, then you can kill me?” In part due to her words, none of the Manson Family members convicted of her daughter’s murder has been released on parole.
At The New Yorker yesterday, Rebecca Makkai explored the ways in which her own victim impact statement helped her heal from trauma. “I had the chance to speak, and — because in this case I had a judge who listened, because I felt heard — I moved on,” she wrote. Makkai, the anonymous Stanford survivor, and other victims have Sharon Tate’s mother to thank for the right to express themselves in courtrooms, in their own words, without interruption. Nothing in the court’s power can fully ease the pain of being a victim of violent crime, but at least we now have a legal system that gives those most harmed the opportunity to speak on their own behalf.