The Abandonment and Evolving Legacies of the English Common Law in the United States

Abstract This chapter discusses the evolution of the role of victims as agents of state accountability in the United States and highlights that their approach has parted quite rapidly and nearly completely from many of the English common law public conceptions of victim interests and practices relating to prosecutions. While some vestiges of the English common law remain in some states, including direct access to the grand jury and rare instances of judicial review, they have also been permeated by an increasingly privatizing approach that conceptualizes victims as holders of private interests. This, in turn, translates in them having less legitimacy in holding the prosecutorial state substantively accountable in decisions about prosecutions. Nevertheless, some of these mechanisms have created space for raising issues regarding state accountability in relation to systemic inequalities and injustices, including racial and gender inequalities—particularly in the context of movements such as Black Lives Matter and #MeToo.