Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – The surviving sister who drove Marsy’s Law to reality in Illinois is celebrating ten years of enforceable victims’ rights.

In 1990, a teenager shot and killed Nancy and Richard Langert and their unborn baby in Winnetka. “To have at the very end to be told that we don’t have time to hear from the victims as to what the impact of this crime was before sentencing,” said Jennifer Bishop-Jenkins, “that further re-traumatized us.”

Bishop-Jenkins said the victim’s voice is important, even though the killer got a life sentence. “Finally, we could talk about her, because the whole case had been about” the killer.

Enforceable victims’ rights are what Marsy’s Law, first passed in California and named for a murder victim there, is all about.

“Now it’s an infrastructure,” she explained. “You are going to get a victim advocate. You are going to be kept informed. You are going to get your rights explained. And you’re going to get a right to talk to the prosecutor. This is all built in now. It’s become automatic.”

Ten years ago Illinois became the second state to enact Marsy’s Law. Now there are a dozen.