reasonable efforts to notify identified victims of, and consider victims’

96 CASSELL ET AL. [Vol. 104 reasonable efforts to notify identified victims of, and consider victims’ views about, prospective plea negotiations, even prior to the filing of a charging instrument with the court.”?°° The Department also noted that it provided extensive pre-charging notifications to victims under the VRRA: Pursuant to the Victims’ Rights and Restitution Act of 1990 (VRRA), the Department identifies victims and provides to them service referrals, reasonable protection, notice concerning the status of the investigation, and information about the criminal justice process prior to the filing of any charges. The Department’s investigative agencies provide such services to thousands of victims every year, whether or not the investigation results in a federal prosecution.?!° Quantifying the scope of this undertaking with regard to one federal investigative agency, the Department explained: [T]he [FBI] alone reports that it provided more than 190,000 services to victims during the past fiscal year [FY 2011], including case status updates, assistance with compensation applications and referrals, and counseling referrals. From sexual assaults mi Indian Country to child pornography and human trafficking to mass violence and overseas terrorism, FBI victim specialists provide much-needed immediate and ongoing support and information to victims. The FBI addresses victim safety issues when needed, providing on-scene response and crisis intervention services in thousands of investigations. With regard to sexual assault victims, FBI personnel arrange for and often accompany victims to forensic sexual assault medical examinations and provide assistance with HIV/STD testing.?!! In view of the Department’s existing notifications and provision of services before charges are filed under the VRRA, it is hard to conceive how any viable claim could be made that it would be difficult to provide similar nghts under the CVRA. The four rights that would be potentially in play before charging would be the night to reasonable protection, the nght to fair treatment, and the nght to confer with prosecutors, along with the predicate right to notice of these rights.”!”_ The VRRA already requires the Department to provide reasonable protection, so this would not be an expanded obligation.?'> Similarly, the Guidelines already require prosecutors to confer with victims about plea agreements (the most common situation where victims want to confer), so it is hard to imagine how extending this right would create any undue burden.*'* Additionally, the night to “fair treatment” could only be a problem if the Department 209 Td. 710 Td. at 2-3. 211 Td. at 3. 712 18 U.S.C. § 3771 (a)(1), (5), (8), (c)(1) (2012). 713 See 42 U.S.C. § 10607(c\(2) (2006). 214 See ATTORNEY GENERAL GUIDELINES, supra note 52, at 41-42. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_014075