Paul Cassell, Professor of Law at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law, was quoted in The Wall Street Journal in a January 16 article, “Letters Detail Objections to BP Settlement.”
The story describes the victim-impact statements filed in Federal District Court in New Orleans in response to the $4.5 billion criminal settlement that BP PLC reached with the U.S. government in response to the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion in 2010.
Cassell explains that victim-impact statements have become increasingly common over the past 20 years: “”It always surprised me the collateral impacts a crime can have on victims,” he told the paper. “Victim-impact statements can tease those out better than just reading a dry description of the events.”