Reply to Are there any rules/laws to protect sex assault victims from character attacks during trial?

Forum Index » Metropolitan DC Local Politics

Reply to "Are there any rules/laws to protect sex assault victims from character attacks during trial?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here: I get that evidence is important and concede that the victim appears to have made some bad choices that may have contributed to her being a target.  (A somewhat separate issue is where were the adults that should have been guiding this 14 year old, monitoring her cell phone use, etc.)

That said, the linked piece seems (to me) to be saying Jezic sees it his responsibility to basically make her life even more miserable by talking to friends/former friends/classmates digging for other possibly damaging comments they might be willing to say she did.  Maybe there is a chance that at least some of the ugliness the defense will direct at the victim can be kept out of the media.

I'm really hoping this doesn't end up like the O.J. Simpson criminal trial where the expensive defense attorneys outshone the less effective prosecution.[/quote]

Unfortunately, in our society, this is how sexual assault cases work. We look for areas in which we can undermine the credibility of the accuser and boost the credibility of the accused. That is especially true if you are the attorney representing the accused. If the accused's story is that it was was consensual sex, it is the job of his lawyer to identify witnesses who will make statements that support that story - [b]whether those witnesses describe situations in the past where the accuser has had consensual sex and then changed her mind about it, whether the accuser has a history of lying about other things, etc. [/b]The job of the accuser's attorney is to convince the jury that[b] her sexual history and her history of lying about other things is not relevant[/b], that she was sexually assaulted by the accused, and that he should be punished accordingly.[/quote]

Uh, yeah, no.  I'm assuming you are not an attorney.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics