Southern Exposure
Rape shield should do just that
Amanda Manatt
Issue date: 4/2/04 Section: Opinion
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A brief piece on CNN Headline News caught my attention and then angered me to the point of getting my heart rate going, which was good for my workout, but didn't do anything to strengthen my faith in the legal system. The infuriating little news nugget to which I refer was a story about the Kobe Bryant rape case, and what I fear may be a slap in the face to all women.
According to her parents, the alleged victim in the case has received hundreds of death threats and obscene messages, and has been forced to live in four different states in the past six months. Well, that sends a positive message to any rape victim out there who may be struggling to decide whether or not to come forward.
This is America in the year 2004 (for those of you who may have forgotten under the stress and duress of tests, papers, and graduation). As I watched a political debate program for Arab women - for a paper - they grappled with the same issue. In the Arab patriarchal society, where women's rights are decades behind our own, women hesitate to report abuse and rape because of the societal reaction that often assumes she's somehow to blame. It would seem we're not too far past that skepticism here in the good old U.S. of A.
Rape victim protection laws were passed 30 years ago, including ones designed to shield victims' identity from the scrutiny of the public eye by preventing publication of their names or pictures. Despite these laws, the woman in the Bryant case has become widely known, no doubt due to the celebrity status of her alleged attacker.
The fact that Kobe's seasoned defense attorney (a woman, no less) ignored those laws, letting the victim's name slip six times in open court didn't help things either. However, what may be worse than the revelation of her identity, is the widespread skepticism the defense has created about her claim.
Bryant's lawyers have argued that the woman's sexual history is important to the case, that her alleged previous promiscuity suggests the sex may have been consensual, and that the jury should know about it. However, Colorado's rape victim protection laws and most around the country say that kind of information is irrelevant in a rape case. The judge has yet to rule whether such evidence will be allowed.
