When a person is murdered, or dies by another means of violence death, they leave behind friends, family and other loved ones. These loved ones, also known as co-victims, play an important role in the criminal justice system. However, their roles don’t come with rainbows and sunshine - their loved one is dead, after all.
Financial Role
As co-victims, the immediate family can be entitled to victim’s compensation through state programs. Financially, co-victims typically have to deal with funeral and burial expenses, anything that’s leftover from an estate or replacing items destroyed or lost as a result of the crime. Victim services can assist in filing for compensation as well as providing referrals to local burial services.
Counseling + Mental Health Treatment
Losing a loved one is tough. Losing a loved one to violent death is an entirely different level of difficulty. There are many more aspects to losing a loved one to violent death, especially murder. Because of this, it’s important for co-victims to receive mental health treatment. Whether that’s in the form of homicide support groups, individual grief counseling or receiving crisis treatment, everyone who is affected by violent death should look to receive mental health treatment.
However, it’s important to note (since we just discussed financial compensation), not all witnesses are classified as co-victims, therefore making them ineligible for victim’s compensation. As a rule of thumb, if the individual is listed as a ‘Witness’ on the police report and not as an additional ‘Victim,’ they will most likely be ineligible (but advocates will always confirm with the compensation fund in each case). Unfortunately, the fund, since it’s funded through government money, has to be very strict in what it allows and what it doesn’t. This means that witnesses or individuals close to the victim that aren’t considered immediate co-victims might have to carry the burden of supporting their own treatment financially. However, this doesn’t mean that witnesses should avoid treatment - many support groups are free, so accessing those prior to committing to individual treatment is a great way for witnesses close to the victim to receive care and support.
The Impact Statement
Co-victims can use the impact statement to show the full effects of the crime. The victim isn’t there to explain how the crime affected them individually - but the co-victims are. The co-victims can either complete the impact statement brochure form, or they can type something up that doesn’t necessarily follow the form but still details the impacts of the death.
In order for this to be completely effective, co-victims need to remember that they’re addressing the judge, not the defendant. Often, co-victims include messages to the defendant about what they did, but the impact statement actually goes to the judge. Victims can say ‘I want you to know that I feel the defendant has no remorse and didn’t care about taking my child away,’ but starting a paragraph ‘You have taken my child away,’ isn’t necessarily as effective because the audience of the impact statement is the judge.
Here are some things co-victims can include in their impact statements that show the judge the full impacts of the murder:
Personality: Describe your loved one. Were they joyful, humorous, outgoing or stubborn? All of those characteristics are important when describing your loved one. It shows who they were, and how their personality affected others.
Goals: What did your loved one aspire to? Were they interested in a particular career or school? Did they want to own a business or visit certain places? It’s important to be as truthful as possible - acknowledge that your loved one might have struggled to achieve these goals. Whether it was drug addiction, committing crime or excessive anger, those all work to show that your loved one was a human being who, just like everyone else, struggled but didn’t deserve their death.
Life without them: Don’t be afraid to explain how difficult it has been without your loved one. Tell the judge whether it’s been hard to sleep at night, if you now suffer from panic attacks or you can’t look at a certain mug in your cupboard because you know your loved one isn’t there to drink from it again. These details show how you have been affected. You’re a co-victim!
Outcome: While you shouldn’t address the defendant, you can tell the judge what you would like to see happen. If it’s a plea agreement, explain whether you like the plea agreement or whether you want something different. Know that your request might not happen, but also know that the judge looks at your opinion highly and considers it. Explain why you want that outcome - and that’s the key. Whether it’s because of the behavior during trial, or simply because they murdered your loved one, detailing why you want the outcome you do is one of the most important parts of the impact statement.
Victim services can help with filling out the impact statement. They can’t write the impact statement for victims, but they can provide guidance to co-victims through the stages of the writing process to ensure that the co-victims present as effective of an impact statement as possible. Co-victims should also be aware that there are some other professionals will read the impact statement: the advocates, the prosecutors, the defense attorneys and the probation officer preparing the pre-sentence report. The staff members read the impact statement to use in the sentencing hearing.
Open Minds
One of the biggest roles a co-victim can have when working with victim services is keeping an open mind. This can be especially difficult, since a loved one has been killed. But the process is much more difficult without keeping an open mind - there will be times that things don’t make sense, that things will take much longer than anticipated or that the outcome might not be what the co-victims wanted. That’s also the importance of seeking mental health treatment - the court case shouldn’t be where any co-victims seek their healing from. By keeping an open mind, co-victims can work closely with victim services to ensure their loved one receives as much justice as they can.