Rape Shield Laws
Facing with much criticism from women’s group with the legal
definitions of rape and how rape cases are being processed in the
legal system, the government is forced to pass a Rape Law reform in
the 1970s. Rape law reform urging courts to treat rape case the same
as other crimes, rape law reforms modified traditional rape laws and
ratified evidentiary reforms in every state in the United States. The
most common and widespread changes occurred in three areas. First,
rape was redefined so that there was no longer a single crime of rape.
Second, the victim was no longer required to support her testimony.
The third and perhaps most important area of change, known as rape
shield laws, prevented defense attorney from introducing information
about a victim’s prior sexual behavior. These statutes were intended
to address the problem that jurors perceive a victim’s prior sexual
history to be probative of a victim’s credibility, moral character,
and consent. Proponents of the statutes argued that these perceptions
have a prejudicial impact on the jury decision-making process.
However, along with much strength of this statue, there are also many
weaknesses of the rape shield laws.
The strengths of the rape shield laws are that the statue tends to
exclude the defense counsel from introducing an alleged victim’s prior
sexual history into evidence. By limiting the defendant’s use of a
victim’s sexual past, the laws attempt to prevent this evidence from
being unfairly used to discredit the victim’s credibility. For
example, a man was accused of assault and battery during a sexual
encounter. However, the victim also has a hist...
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...r than Bryan in the 15 hours between the
alleged rape and the medical exam, and sperm and semen from a man
other than Bryant were found on the underwear she wore to the exam. If
it weren’t for the exception rule to the rape shield laws, those
evidences wouldn’t be introduced to the trial. As a result, that would
play on the advantages of the accuser and it wouldn’t be a fair trial
for Bryant.
Additionally, despite rape shield laws, evidence of a prior sexual
relationship between the victim and the defendant will most likely be
admitted, even when evidence concerns a single encounter months before
the rape. This is particularly discouraging for acquaintance rape
cases, where consent is typically a defense. As it shown, the rape
shield laws can play as a strengths and weaknesses both for the
victims and defendants.
Saunders states that Rape Shield laws are in place to protect victims of sexual assaults and rapes during a criminal trial. They prevent defendants to bring fourth evidence of the victim’s sexual history, orientation or past relationships (Saunders, 2014). Rape can be a very emotional and embarrassing ordeal; it’s very private and personal and can be hard to deal with for years to come. As with many victims of crime especially sexual offenses there are advantages and disadvantages to each new law that is implemented. This paper is designed to analyze the advantages and disadvantage of the Rape Shield Laws.
Rape is devastating to its victims. I feel as if this statement should stand alone, underlined and in bold typeface. It is crucial that we, as a society, come to a deep understanding and awareness of this message. For that reason, I will state it again:
It is very important that we are invulnerable to rape. Rape can happen to anyone at any time. Rape prevention strategies help to decrease the risk, but the risk never drops to zero percent. In our society of rape myths, gender ideology, and exposure of sex in the media, especially in advertising, and especially when it involves violence, rape will be in our culture for a long time. Our culture promotes this brand of sexuality and we turn our cheeks to rape and any negative form of sex.
issues such as if Rapex would be used for revenge by an angry wife or
“Rape is the only crime in which the victim becomes the accused” Freda Adler. Every 107 seconds a female above the age of 12 is sexually assaulted. Yet consequently only 68% of these heinous crimes are reported. This is becoming a rising problem. Society has trivialized rape so often to the point that it’s actively accepted as a joke. Only 3% of these perpetrators will be incarcerated (RAINN). The excuse, “Boys Will Be Boys” that people are using needs to be obliterated from the courtroom to ensure that more transgressors are imprisoned. If we teach this generation to keep their hands to themselves, communities where our families reside will be safer, the rape culture will decrease significantly and the patriarchy that elusively
Laws have been created to help with sexual assault victims for example, Title IX however laws like these are not good enough to keep students protected; schools need additional policies put in place to help keep their students safe. In 1972 Title IX was passed which was a law that “requires gender equity for boys and girls in every educational program that receives federal funding” (History). The law has ten areas in which it protects students and their access to higher education, career education, education for pregnant and parenting students, employment, learning environment, math and science, sexual harassment, standardized testing and technology (History). When dealing with sexual harassment Title IX requires that schools immediately take action to eliminate sexual assault threats as soon as an incident is reported (studentaffaris). The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, or for short Clery Act is another law that is put in place to protect sexually assaulted victims. ...
What do you think and feel when you hear the word rape? Do you feel uncomfortable? Maybe even angry? Your certain feelings and emotions towards this word is a result of rape culture. Rape culture, essentially, is how a society as a whole sees and reacts towards rape or instances of rape. In 2013 rape was defined by the FBI as, “Penetration… of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.” (Division’s Crime Statistics Management Unit 1). The definition was finally changed after the old definition deemed inappropriate by today’s standards, which beforehand, stated that physical force needed to be used for rape to be considered rape. This is good news for men and women who have been fighting for the definition to be changed, but unfortunately this does not mean that state laws are being changed the same way. Even though the FBI may acknowledge the older inappropriate definition, most states do not. Sexual assault is a commonly unreported crime, where only an average of 36% of sexual abuse is actually reported to the authorities (Planty 7). Some forms of rape can include physical harm, threats, and even death of the victim, and most victims do not want to tell others for fear of criticism, self-blame, or even the fear that their attackers will carry out on their threats. In many cases, victims do have a reason to be afraid. When someone is brave enough to come forward and say they were sexually assaulted, they are putting themselves in the position of being in not only a long legal process, but also having their motives questioned and misunderstood, which is the last thing they want after their experience. The legal system in the United States...
Almost 85,000 females reported to the police that they had been a victim of forcible rape or attempted rape in 2010 according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report (UCR). This is a significant number of women that are affected by this crime and are forced to deal with the consequences after. Rape according to the FBI is defined as: “Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person”. However there are slight variations in definition from state to state. This definition has changed overtime just as the issues and types of rape have become more apparent to criminal justice officials. In earlier years, rape laws were gender neutral, only applying to females,
Canada’s first cases of sexual abuse begins in the early 1990’s. Damian Lawrence Cooper, a Vancouver priest, was first accused of sexual abuse in 1994. After twenty years, Father Cooper is finally being sued in the B.C. Supreme Court along with the Archdiocese of Vancouver, with a court date of September 29, 2014 (Aihiokhai). The plaintiff went for counselling to the priest and was 16 years old when the sexual abuse began. Media coverage of the lawsuit unearthed the fact that despite initial claims of having removed Fr. Cooper permanently from the priestly ministry when the abuse was first admitted in 1994, the Archdiocese of Vancouver instead sent Fr. Cooper to work in an Archdiocese on Long Island NY, where he then committed "problems of
The question is unthinkable given the conditions: “Did you ever have a sexually transmitted disease?” This is one of the first questions to which a rape victim must respond. In what way does her sexual history play any role in her case against a defendant? We have “double jeopardy” to protect people from unfair prosecution, but rape victims are repeatedly put on trial over and over for crimes perpetrated against them. Prosecutors are allowed to judge rape victims in a critical light, aggressively emphasizing many factors related to her personal life, her appearance, or her action just prior to the rape that she endured. These factors are brought out to influence a jury’s perception of the victim creating doubt about whether the crime may not in fact have been the victim’s fault. Did she deserve it? Was she asking for it? There are cases in which rape victims are treated differently due to the lack of understanding and prejudice which can be brought to bear against victims. Prejudice is the act of forming an unreasonable judgment against another. These prejudgments can affect a victim’s emotional status, actually leading some victims to end up asking themselves if the transgression was their fault. Three cases will reveal the complexity of what is at stake.
Blaming the victim of rape is a well-documented phenomenon which may be subtle in its presence, such as when one makes unrealistic statements about what the victim could have done to protect themselves; alternatively, it may take the form of outright displacement of the blame for the entire crime, an example being one saying the victim was asking for it. As a result of this widespread and sometimes subtle presence in the cultural psyche, victim blaming not only finds itself in the minds of random citizens whose beliefs alone have little effect on the lives of others, but in the decisions made by those in the Criminal Justice System who find themselves involved in rape cases. As a result of the ubiquitous and fallacious attitudes towards rape that seep into the Criminal Justice System from larger society, victim blaming creates bias in a system which should be without anything of the sort.
Violence Against Women Act, VAWA, is a federal law signed in by Congress in 1994. It focused on, originally, domestic violence, sex crimes, and bringing awareness to such crimes towards women. It has been revised and reauthorized several times since present to add more oppressed diverse groups; such as, sex trafficking, Indian tribes, and same sex partners including males. Other additions have included modifying sex rape kits per state, stalking, and several grant programs. The act strives to hold offenders accountable for their physical and sexual criminal acts towards women. VAWA produced new programs within the Department of Justice, Health and Human Services and Centers for Disease Control grant programs. These programs provided services
Rape is a crime that is committed when someone is forced to have sexual intercourse through physical force or duress. “683,000 rapes occur every year” (CVS) and the national average for people accused of rape is eight years in a federal prison. Rape is a serious crime as well as other crimes but rape is considered to be a more serious and heinous crime along with murder etc. There are also different phases of rape that the victim may go through depending on how they handle it. Eight years in prison is not a good amount of time for someone to serve for what they did, all of the things that involve the process of rape should be incorporated into the sentence: force, against someone’s will, and most importantly the physical and emotional trauma that comes along with it that only the victim has to deal with. When someone is raped the person who raped them should receive the amount of years in jail as long as it takes the victim to get over the rape meaning that the court system should allow the victim to decide the criminal’s sentencing based off of if the victim feels safe or not when the attacker is let out of prison. Victims also go through five different stages and those stages can/will have a huge effect on a person’s mental health and they may be considered unstable after the attack. The national average for years served for rape should not be just 8; it should be raised higher on the victim’s behalf.
Actress Mariska Hargitay plays Detective/Sergeant/Lieutenant Olivia Margaret Benson on the hit television show Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, created by Dick Wolf. The Special Victims Unit is the name of a specialized department within the police force in which the detectives investigate mainly sex crimes, but in some instances victims of non-sex crimes who are in need of professional help. This may include the elderly, young children, and/or the disabled. The Special Victims Unit does not investigate any homicides, burglaries, or child pornography cases. The episodes of this show are often based on real life crimes that have been awarded big media attention. However, some are completely fictional.
Rape has become the most violent and common crime in America and even more so on college campuses (Acquaintance 1). But, what is rape and how does consent apply to it? Rape is not the issue however, it is the concept of consent. Most people who commit rape do not know they are committing the crime because they do not know what true consent is.