Prosecutors’ Charging Decisions in Sexual Assault Cases

Sexual assault always has and always will be a serious problem in society. Despite the fact that, according to sources like the RAINN organization, the amount of reported sexual assault cases in the United States has dropped by more than half since 1993, sexual assault itself remains a problem in the United States. Just very recently, eight women have now come forward and accused longtime news anchor Charlie Rose of sexual misconduct in the workplace. This latest incident is one of many that have been reported within the recent months against those of a high socioeconomic standing in society, entertainers and politicians who abused their positions of power in order to harass and harm their female colleagues. These victims waited until now to report these incidents due to the fear that they will not be believed and that justice will not be delivered against those in such powerful positions. They only now come forward due to the unity they have found in each other against these abusers. To understand the uncertainty these women faced in their decision, this issue must be looked upon sociologically, using each of the three sociological perspectives of functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism to overview the various factors like race, gender, and social class that played a part in delaying their decision and explain why and how the justice system has failed in this way.

Many cases throughout time have not resulted in a conviction being made, for the sole reason that the charges exceeded the statute of limitations. The statue of limitations is defined as “the maximum amount of time allowed for a party to initiate legal proceedings”(Legal dictionary, 2016). Present day, every state is entitled to their own statute of limitations on rape and sexual assault. 34 States currently have a statutes of limitations on rape/sexual assault. Some of these states have a statute of limitations but there is a DNA exemption rule, ruling that if a DNA match is made later than the statute then that case will be exempt from the statute of limitations. Only 16 states have no statute of limitations for rape and sexual assault (Filipovic, 2016, p .A23).

After Jennifer Thompson-Cannino was raped in 1984, she identified a man in a police lineup and in court as her attacker. The detective conducting the lineup told Jennifer that she had done great, confirming that she had chosen the suspect. Eleven years later, DNA evidence proved that the suspect, Ronald Cotton, had been wrongfully convicted of the rape. A man named Bobby Poole, who Thompson testified she had never seen before, was the man who actually raped her. Ronald and Jennifer's book, picking cotton, portrays common factors that contribute to erroneous convictions. Although it addresses a variety of important issues, the most crucial is how subtle factors like eyewitness misidentification, confirmation bias and nature of a defendant can

A 17 year old girl went to a job interview in the back of the accused’s (Ewanchuk) van. After the interview concluded, Ewanchuk invited her into his trailer to see some of his work. The complainant complied, and purposely left the trailer door open-- though Ewanchuk closed the door soon after, in a way where the complainant had thought he had locked it. The accused began a string of sexual touches, each more intimate than the previous, which the complainant said “no” to, only to have Ewanchuk continue with another advance shortly thereafter. Any compliance the complainant offered was due to fear of the altercation turning violent. Ewanchuk paid her $100 before she left and told her not to tell anyone about it.

Prosecutors play a critical role in determining a defendant’s guilt. Despite this role, the powers ascribed to prosecutors have long been debated. In the 1960’s and 1970’s the United States Supreme Court sought to clarify the powers ascribed to prosecutors in three cases. These cases included: Brady v. Maryland 373 U.S. 83, Giglio v. United States 405 U.S. 150, and the United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97. Although the issue explored by the Supreme Court differed in each of these cases, the verdict in each case helped to clarify whether or not prosecutors in the United States had the right to suppress evidence.

Rule 412 which is the state of Tennessee’s version of the rape shield law, is designed to protect the victims of rapes and sexual assaults. The protection offered by laws of this nature was to prevent the victims of these heinous assaults from being re-traumatized on the witness stand during cross examination from the alleged perpetrators (Brody & Acker, 2010). Although I am an avid supporter of the right to a fair trial, I feel compelled to be the voice for those who are often subjected to constant criticism from fellow peers, courts, news and now social media. Rule 412, although sound in premise behind its development, lacks concession with the changing times. There are far too many loopholes in our own rape shield law which begs the question if other state’s rape shield laws truly offer the protection that they were designed to employ. Capers (2013, p. 827) reports that the ongoing issue with rape victims today is the fear of having their past history put on trial and not the event that took place. It was because of this, that many rapes go unreported. In the early 70’s, legislatures and courts began to rethink allowing an alleged victim’s past sexual history admissible in court. This prompted questions as to whether that prior information was actually useful in a current case. The second question that arose was to whether the courts were actually trying the victim during the trial rather than the alleged perpetrator. This is how rape shield laws came about. Then,

Sexual assault policy in the United States as it stands is clearly inadequate for protecting the physical wellbeing of men and women from sexual assault. Layering of policy serves a s a Band-Aid on a social wound much too large to be contained and the rise of sexual assault as a public problem reiterates the need for greater legislation and policy to protect everyone from becoming prey to the crime of sexual assault. While eyes focus on the (disproven) rise of violence in the United States, and turn to gun control, other violent crimes are forgotten. Sexual Assault has seen several cases of policy failure that actors have tried to salvage through the act of policy layering and have not significantly resolved the problem.

McCoy and Gray (2007) examined the impact of defendant gender and relationship to victim on

Rape is one of the most widespread and ubiquitous violent crimes facing America, making laws regarding rape and the judicial processing of rape increasingly important. The judicial process itself deters both rape reports and rape convictions. Not only does the judicial processing or rape cases itself deter reports and convictions, but it also has a negative impact on the moral and mental well being of the victims who decide to pursue their cases.

Melissa Calusinski, Sabrina Butler, Beverly Monroe, and Nicole Harris. Each a different example of the many cases of an alleged miscarriage of justice. Each a woman who claims she was wrongfully convicted of a crime she did not commit. Despite a court system’s greatest effort to protect the innocent and punish the guilty, mistakes are made; and innocent people go to prison. Some are even executed. The justice system is not perfect, as it is the product and under the control of human beings, who by nature are far from perfect. There are certain patterns in the wrongful convictions of certain individuals and their efforts to get exonerated from their false sentences. According to the data in the National Registry of Exonerations some researchers have concluded that there exists a discrepancy in the amount of women who are exonerated from their sentences, compared to those of men who were convicted. Proposed reasons for this discrepancy include the types of crimes that women statistically tend to be convicted of, the factors that lead to wrongful convictions--official misconduct, inadequate legal defense, types of evidence, and

America stands by traditional notions where rape culture is the norm and revolves around society. In particular, when a woman is raped, their actions prior to the incident are usually accounted for their fate of being sexually assaulted. Lately in America, there has been a controversy over women being victim blamed by legal authority in rape cases. These women are slut shammed for allegedly “asking for it” by being intoxicated and having the intention to “have fun”. Because of these accusations of allegedly seeking to engage sexually, rape victims are blamed for initiating the sexual act. An ongoing controversial rape case is the Stanford rape trial of Brock Turner, where the victim was sexually assaulted while unconscious near a dumpster. Turner was convicted for sexual assault, however was only incarcerated for three months. This has recently caused uproar due to justice and retribution not being equally served. The incident occurred near a university campus party; where alcohol was involved and memory loss was present. In addition, she was rushed to the hospital as a rape victim and was examined. Despite complying to use a rape kit and be evaluated, the victim’s accountability is undermined by the leniency of treatment in rape charges. When examining linguistic features of both parties’ written statements, several factors can be analyzed such as each participant’s stance and the credibility of their accounts. In addition, when dissecting a victim’s written account,

This paper is being submitted August 11, 2013 for Professor Sheryl Prichard’s Criminal Law and Procedure course at Devry University by Jonah Colombo.

This concluded that the victims has to be at least 18 years of age, the case was investigated by one of the five largest police departments in the country, a medical exam must have been completed by either the county hospital personnel's or the SANE program and the results of the exam were examined by the state crime lab. This resulted in a sample size of 137 cases, which is relatively small compared to the number of sexual assault victims. The research was conducted by collecting case outcome data, which was the dependent variable. The outcomes were placed into four different categories, which consisted of the following: referred by police for prosecution, referred to a prosecutor, but not warranted for prosecution, warranted by prosecutor, but dropped or trial acquit and guilt plea or trial conviction. This study also compared DNA analysis findings, medical records of the assault, demographic information of the victims and the offenders and the results of the court case in both of the groups. The results of the study revealed that there was a “significant increase in criminal justice system case progression pre-SANE to post-SANE” (Campbell et al., 2012, p.237) . More sexual assault cases were moving further through the system, resulted in an increase in the number of cases that were prosecuted. The results also found a seasonal effect, which addressed how cases that were processed in December were less likely to achieve a higher

A paper published on Hoftra Law’s website claims that only six percent of cases involved prosecutorial misconduct as a predominant factor resulting in wrongful convictions. This suggests the bulk of the problem may begin with police and investigators who are the first responders to arrive on-scene. The desire to close a case often trumps aggressive and coercive tactics that are widely endorsed in the law enforcement community. Sadly, this leads to false confessions. In a third of all exonerated cases, evidence has shown there was no crime ever committed. Furthermore, in 16 percent of exoneration cases, the defendants finally pleaded guilty after being worn down and illegally interrogated by law enforcement officials. Reporter Zusha Eilson states that “Thirty-eight percent of exonerations for crimes allegedly committed by youth under 18 in the last quarter century involved false confessions.” (www.journalistresource.org) Flawed forensic work and tampering of evidence, including inaccurate collection of evidence at crime scenes is another issue on the investigation front that contributes to false

“They are all innocent until proven guilty. But not me. I am a liar until I am proven honest.” Louise O’Neill. Rape has become a widely recognized issue in recent decades, however, an estimated 63 percent of assaults are never reported to the police. Differences in 1930’s issues compared to present day include: false rape accusations centered around racial prejudice, but now skirt the main issue of rape itself; victims still face many obstacles but now feel more supported; development of rape kits helped solve many suits but make survivors wearisome; and today’s trials are not based on accusations, but are based on evidence.