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Protecting Child Sex-Crime Victims: How Public Opinion And Political Expediency Threaten Civil Liberties, Michelle Johnson

Seattle University Law Review

This Article looks at the enactment and subsequent nullification of a 1992 Washington law that state legislators intended to protect the privacy of child sex-crime victims. The Article uses this statute to illustrate that through the enactment of such statutes, politicians may sacrifice constitutional rights, such as freedom of the press and access to government proceedings, in order to achieve short-term political gains. Therefore, because it is somewhat less affected by elections and the political process, the judiciary is often the only branch of government responsible for protecting civil liberties. In the case of Washington's law on access to child …