The rights of criminals and their victims will be debated tonight at a panel discussion sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union in the Lesar Law Building at 7:30 p.m.

Leonard Gross, Chairman of the Southern Illinois chapter of the ACLU, said tonight’s discussion will explore the conflict of rights between criminals and victims.

Gross said the panel will be Mark Rizzo, of the Illinois Chaplain’s Office, James Garofalo, chair of the SIU administration of justice department, and U.S. Attorney Charles Grace.

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Garofalo said each panel member will give a brief presentation and then the floor will be open for discussion. He said in his presentation, he will explain that it is not necessary to increase victim’s rights by decreasing offender and suspect rights.

Garofalo said there has been a big move in support of victim’s rights recently, but he said sometimes the interest of the victim is not served by decreasing suspect and offender rights.

Rizzo and Grace were unavailable for comment Wednesday, but Garofalo said he thought their opinions would probably be different from his views.