Government payments to crime victims are becoming more common, at least if the crime made national headlines. For example, Virginia is reported to be offering up to $100,000 to families of those shot at Virginia Tech a year ago.
Such payments are troublesome. The loss affected families have experienced is enormous. But so is the pain experienced by the loved ones of the other 17,000 people murdered in our country in an average year. One can make an argument that families of the 32 people killed in Blacksburg deserve some compensation. However, one then must explain why survivors of the thousands killed in less publicized incidents should not get similar payments.
Of course, one of the reasons for the payment offer is to forestall legal damage awards. Many of the survivor families have retained attorneys and are preparing to sue Virginia Tech and the commonwealth of Virginia. To get the offered payment, they must drop these suits. But that leaves the question of why survivors of other murder victims cannot get similar awards.
Of course, the large payments made to families of those who died in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks set a precedent. There were no government payments for deaths in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Nor have there been payments to U.S. citizens harmed in airplane hijackings or explosions, embassy bombings or other terrorist incidents. Ditto for those harmed by Charles Whitman, the sniper who killed 14 and wounded 31 at the University of Texas in 1966.
Why payments to some and not others? There are a variety of reasons.
First, however irrational or prejudiced, many of us implicitly do rank degrees of victimhood. The middle-class college student randomly killed in class is deemed more innocent than the single mom killed by a meth-stoked ex-boyfriend, or even the guy who imprudently went out for milk at midnight in a bad neighborhood.
Second, there have been many public arguments that Virginia Tech officials erred in not notifying students of the first on-campus killing and not locking down campus buildings.
Whether an administrative decision that, in retrospect, was an error should establish legal liability is an interesting legal and philosophical question.
If a sheriff’s department lags in responding to reports of some low-life violating a protection order, should that make the government financially liable for a murder? What about a burned-out streetlight that facilitated a violent mugging or a squad car away from a vital location because its driver stopped for unscheduled coffee and a doughnut?
In practical terms, these issues mean little. A much-discussed “failing” by university officials gives trial lawyers representing families an important lever to force a settlement.
Third, there are economies of scale in lawsuits.
Assembling a lawsuit for the Virginia Tech shootings is not 32 times as expensive as one for an everyday shooting in a bar parking lot. Moreover, a highly publicized, unusual crime is much more likely to win over a jury than banal ones buried on the inside pages of the local news section.
The Virginia Tech payments may be legally and politically expedient. It is hard to see how they make our society more just.
© 2008 Edward Lotterman
Chanarambie Consulting, Inc.