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Your Rights

You have the right to...

• dress how you want
• change your mind about being intimate
• say "no" and be listened to
• live free from violence
• to make decisions for yourself
• to be informed of your options and rights
• to be believed if you disclose that you have been a victim
• to live without prejudice based upon race, ethinicity, sexual orientation, class, gender, age, ability, lifestyle, size, or experience.

Your Rights As a Victim of a Crime in Oregon State

(Oregon Constitutional Article 1 Section 42; Oregon Revised Statutes 147.417)

To preserve and protect the right of crime victims to justice, to ensure crime victims a meaningful role in the criminal and juvenile justice systems, to accord crime victims due dignity and respect and to ensure that criminal and juvenile court delinquency proceedings are conducted to seek the truth as to the defendant's innocence or guilt, and also to ensure that a fair balance is struck between the rights of crime victims and the rights of criminal defendants in the course and conduct of criminal and juvenile court delinquency proceedings, the following rights are hereby granted to victims in all prosecutions for crimes and in juvenile court delinquency proceedings:

• The right to be present at and, upon specific request, to be informed in advance of any critical stage of the proceedings held in open court when the defendant will be present, and to be heard at the pretrial release hearing and the sentencing or juvenile court delinquency disposition;
• The right, upon request, to obtain information about the conviction, sentence, imprisonment, criminal history and future release from physical custody of the criminal defendant or convicted criminal and equivalent information regarding the alleged youth offender or youth offender;
• The right to refuse an interview, deposition or other discovery request by the criminal defendant or other person acting on behalf of the criminal defendant provided, however, that nothing in this paragraph shall restrict any other constitutional right of the defendant to discovery against the state;
• The right to receive prompt restitution from the convicted criminal who caused the victim's loss or injury;
• The right to have a copy of a transcript of any court proceeding in open court, if one is otherwise prepared;
• The right to be consulted, upon request, regarding plea negotiations involving any violent felony;
• The right to be informed of these rights as soon as practicable.

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