ABSTRACT
When people are crime victims, they generally know it. Criminal activity involves the breach of an intangible definitive line that has been crossed, and those on either side of that line generally understand that once the threshold is breached, there will be consequences. Criminal charges of murder, kidnapping, assault, fraud, sexual offenses, drug violations, federal criminal acts, and many others, which are all well defined statutorily, rest within this understanding. The same premise applies to the violation of a person’s civil rights and associated litigation to address those alleged violations.
