Crime Victim Rights Initiative

        The crime victim rights initiative (issue 1) is a type of Marsy’s Law. Marsy’s Law was designed to provide crime victims with constitutional rights. Issue 1 provides victims with the right to be treated with fairness and respect for the victim’s safety, dignity, and privacy. It also allows victims to be notified about proceedings and to be heard at proceedings involving release, plea, sentencing, disposition, or parole of the accused. This new issue gives victims more rights than what was previously given, when Ohioans voted on Amendment 2 in 1994.

        Issue 1 was voted on November 7, 2017. The results was 82.59%(1,895,540) yes and no 17.41%(399,696). CEO of the Battered Women’s Shelter had this to say about Issue 1, “But if you think about 1994 and how things have changed in the whole victim movement, the laws… the protection, that also needs to change and it hasn’t evolved,”. Since Amendment 1 had a majority yes it replaced the 1994 Amendment 2.