2023 Voices For Justice Award Honorees

Founded in 2015 by Empire Justice Center, Pro Bono Net, the Center for Human Services Research at the University at Albany, and the NYS Office of Victim Services (OVS), the NY Crime Victims Legal Network (CVLN) is a partnership of organizations working to connect victims of crime with civil legal information and assistance. Their online resource, NY Crime Victims Legal Help was developed to enable and empower crime victims to learn about their rights and pursue the help that they need. In 2023 alone, 22,251 individuals visited the website.

The CVLN Team at Empire Justice Center, which leads and oversees this project, provides supportive services, legal research, and technical assistance to attorneys and advocates from approximately 240 OVS-funded programs across the state, including over 60 organizations that provide legal representation to victims of crime. Since 2020, they have provided 30 technical assistance webinars to 2,715 attendees, responded to 269 requests for assistance to advocates and attorneys, and provided information and referrals to 156 crime victims. They host monthly forums for OVS-funded attorneys and paralegals, manage a listserv for advocates and attorneys, and create and curate resources maintained on the Advocate Gateway, a member- only section of the website. They strive to create a community of practice for those working with victims of crime, where understanding of victimization is enhanced, skills are improved, and where victims’ rights can be advanced.

Susan Moen has worked in the field of sexual assault response and prevention since 1994, first as an advocate with the LA Commission on Assaults Against Women and then as founder in 2004 of the non-profit Jackson County SART in Jackson County, Oregon.  As JC SART’s Executive Director she oversees a SANE program, Survivor Resource Specialist program, sexual assault support groups, a violence prevention education program in local schools and community, and she does direct advocacy with survivors. In 2010 Susan was awarded the state SART award, and received the Jan Hindman Memorial Award for Outstanding Contributions to Victim Services in 2014. Susan is a Founding Board Member of the You Have Options Program and cherishes the chance to collaborate with folks at Certified FETI, Being Trauma Informed, Campus Choice, NCVLI, OCADSV, Women’s Foundation of Oregon and Oregon SATF while doing the work she loves.

The Crime Victims’ Rights Project (CVRP) began in 2018 as a joint collaboration between Judicare Legal Aid and Legal Action of Wisconsin, two of the largest providers of civil legal aid in Wisconsin. The primary purpose of the project is to protect victims’ constitutional and statutory rights as crime victims, including their privacy rights. CVRP represents victims of crime as they navigate the criminal legal system to help ensure that victims are heard. Oftentimes, the attorneys help victims protect sensitive information– from counseling to cell phone records– in order to reduce the trauma and invasion of privacy victims often face in the criminal legal process.  These efforts culminated in a significant decision from the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which overturned over 30 years of case law. The case, State v. Alan S. Johnson, 2023 WI 39, began when the circuit court denied a client legal standing to challenge defense counsel’s motion for disclosure of the client’s confidential mental health records. Based on the case law at that time, the victim faced the unthinkable decision to either turn over their private mental health records or forgo testifying at trial. Thanks to CVRP’s advocacy in this case, crime victims in Wisconsin can now seek to hold offenders accountable through the criminal legal system without the fear of having to turn over their private records. Though this victory was profound, the advocacy for victims’ rights in Wisconsin continues. As victims face new strategies by defense counsel to access records and ongoing difficulty asserting their rights in the criminal legal system, the need for victims’ attorneys endures. Unfortunately, VOCA cuts threaten the future of this project and may result in the decimation of victims’ rights attorneys in the state, leaving victims of domestic violence and sexual assault without options for legal representation to help preserve their rights in a process focused on the State and defendants.

The Legal Action team currently consists of 4 attorneys, including an Equal Justice Works fellow focusing on BIPOC victims within the Milwaukee area.  The Judicare team currently consists of 1 attorney. Since 2018, the Judicare team has helped 559 victims. Legal Action’s team has helped 775 victims.