Opinion ID: 2630608
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Historical Treatment of Rape and Sexual Assault Victims

Text: ¶ 11 The revelation that women victims of rape have long been mistreated by the law is a relatively recent development. Courts have long held institution-wide distrust of rape victims in cases where they were acquainted with their assailants. See Susan Estrich, Real Rape 28-29 (1987) (discussing suspicion of women victims and legal presumptions against women in simple, as opposed to stranger rapes). As recently as the mid-twentieth century, articles in the nation's most prestigious legal journals openly suggested that the testimony of female rape victims was not to be trusted. Note the language of one such journal: a woman's need for sexual satisfaction may lead to the unconscious desire for forceful penetration, the coercion serving neatly to avoid the guilt feeling which might arise after willing participation. Note, Forcible and Statutory Rape: An Exploration of the Operation and Objectives of the Consent Standard, 62 Yale L.J. 55, 67 (1952). Yet another: a woman may note a man's brutal nature and be attracted to him rather than repulsed. Masochistic tendencies seem to lead many women to seek men who will ill-treat them sexually. Note, The Resistance Standard in Rape Legislation, 18 Stan. L.Rev. 680, 682 (1966). The tone of the literature had begun to change by the 1980s when Professor Susan Estrich of the University of Southern California authored an extensive law review article, entitled Rape, and her related book, Real Rape. These works present a thorough survey of the historical treatment of women rape victims and are useful for understanding the issue now before this court. ¶ 12 Estrich notes that the law has been accommodating of victims of rape where a stranger forcibly attacks the victim while it has been leery of victims raped by acquaintances. Real Rape, supra, at 28-29. The vehicles for institutionalized suspicion of rape complainants have typically been non-consent, corroboration, and other related requirements, where the focus is shifted to the victim's acts, rather than the defendant's. Id. at 29 (noting that rape victims are required to show non-consent by physical resistance). While the non-consent standard and its related requirements may initially seem benign and similar to requirements in other criminal matters, such as theft and trespassing, Professor Estrich suggests that they have been applied very differently in rape cases than in the others. See, e.g., Susan Estrich, Rape, 95 Yale L.J. 1087, 1094 (1986) (stating, The definition of rape stands in striking contrast to this tradition, because courts, in defining the crime, have focused almost incidentally on the defendantand almost entirely on the victim.). ¶ 13 Illustrative of the difference between rape and other crimes is the non-consent requirement. The non-consent requirement for a rape conviction has been expressed not as non-consent is in trespass but in terms of the victim's resistance. In the words of one court, [n]ot only must there be entire absence of mental consent or assent, but there must be the most vehement exercise of every physical means or faculty within the woman's power to resist the penetration of her person, and this must be shown to persist until the offense is consummated. Brown v. State, 127 Wis. 193, 106 N.W. 536, 538 (1906). This degree of non-consent is not paralleled by tests for non-consent in cases other than rape. Real Rape, supra, at 40-41 (noting that non-consent in trespass cases requires only verbal or posted warnings). ¶ 14 In addition to the resistance requirement, the law of many states has further failed victims by requiring evidentiary corroboration of a victim's testimony, allowing evidence of a victim's sexual past, and mandating jury instructions cautioning juries against giving too much weight to victims' testimony. Id. at 42 (corroboration), 47 (sexual past), 54-55 (cautionary instruction). By the 1980s these requirements had enshrined distrust of women in the law ... and ensured that rape trials would indeed be real nightmaresfor the women victims. Id. at 56. One unfortunate result of the law's mistreatment and distrust has been that women raped by acquaintances, as opposed to strangers, are much less likely to report those rapes to police. See id. at 10-12 (noting widely divergent reporting statistics in stranger and acquaintance rapes and citing various surveys to that effect); Wendy J. Murphy, Minimizing the Likelihood of Discovery of Victims' Counseling Records and Other Personal Information in Criminal Cases: Massachusetts Gives a Nod to a Constitutional Right to Confidentiality, 32 New Eng. L.Rev. 983, 1016-17 (1998) (noting judicial recognition of decline in reporting when records not protected). ¶ 15 In an effort to remedy many of the past failings of the law in relation to victims of rape and similar sexual crimes, many jurisdictions have reformed rape laws. E.g., Real Rape, supra, at 57 (noting that corroboration requirements have been discarded and rape shield statutes often protect information about victims' sexual pasts). Utah has enacted both statutes and rules of evidence designed specifically to protect the victims of sexual assaults. Utah Code Ann. §§ 78-3c-1 to -4 (1996) (invoking privilege in rape crisis counseling); Utah R. Evid. 412 (preventing most uses of evidence of victim's sexual behavior). While these provisions apply specifically to victims of sexual assaults, the more general movement toward recognizing the rights of all crime victims has given birth to other provisions in Utah law that extend to victims of sexual assault.