Professor Feeney Comments on Human Trafficking Initiative for Sacramento Bee
Professor Floyd Feeney commented for the Sacramento Bee on Proposition 35, the California initiative that would increase penalties for convicted human traffickers and generate money for organizations that assist victims of the crime.
Professor Feeney said that, while well-intentioned, the measure is not carefully crafted. "You need to do these things not with a meat ax, but with a scalpel," he said. "People want to show how 'pro-victims' they are, so they throw stuff together, they don't really craft it in a careful way, and it winds up being totally ineffective or doing more harm than good."
Some defense attorneys are concerned that the initiative's restrictions on courtroom cross-examinations could impede a defendant's right to a fair trial. "Sometimes there's a need to call the victim for their testimony in these cases," said Feeney. "There are legitimate areas of cross-examination that need to be explored."
Floyd Feeney is the Homer G. and Ann Berryhill Angelo Professor of Law at the UC Davis School of Law and the winner of the Law School's Distinguished Teaching Award in 1986 and 2008. The author of seven books and numerous articles, Feeney has received awards from the National Institute of Justice and the California Probation, Parole, and Correctional Association, and is a nationally recognized criminal law scholar.