Judging Sexual Assault Cases
From Cyberlaw
I worked for Legal Momentum (formerly the NOW Legal Defense Fund) last summer and I’ve done other extensive work on sexual assault and domestic violence. As you may know, Legal Momentum runs a judicial education program on sexual assaultI believe they’ve trained judges in about 30 states. Recently they produced a DVD that is typically used as an adjunct to other training materials they provide to judges. The DVD is narrated by a TX judge, which presents a very informative and balanced discussion of many issues surrounding rape trials. It uses interviews with experts and dramatized examples of how the issues arise in the courtroom. For instance, there is a segment on rape and reactions to trauma, providing guidance to judges about appropriate evidentiary uses of the alleged victim’s behavior (in and out of the courtroom). The entire DVD is 6 hours long (I haven’t watched all of it myself) but it is organized into a menu of segments by topic. In particular, I think the segment on the way symptoms of trauma often are manifested in the courtroom is very valuable, given the fact that law students/lawyers typically aren’t exposed to these considerations, though such an understanding would seem to lead to a richer analysis of the value of victims’ behavior/evidentiary material. In any event, in case you weren’t aware of this resource, I thought I would let you know about it. I’d be happy to make my copy available to the class. In case you’re interested, Legal Momentum’s web site is www.legalmomentum.org.
Here’s the blurb about the dvd/curriculum from the web site.
Understanding Sexual Violence: The Judicial Response to Stranger and Nonstranger Rape and Sexual Assault : This model curriculum focuses on learning to deal fairly with sexual assault cases, especially nonstranger rapes, without undermining defendants' constitutional rights. Information on sexual assault is presented in the context of its implications for conduct of the pre-trial and trial process, jury selection, assessment of force and consent, evidentiary decisions, plea bargaining and sentencing. It provides the most current social science research about how different victims react during and after the assault, rape-related posttraumatic stress disorder, sex offenders and sex offender sentencing and treatment, and jurors' attitudes towards rape.
--Lisa Cloutier
