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Rape Shield Laws

13 October, 2015 - 10:55

Rape prosecutions can be extremely stressful for the victim, especially when the defendant pursues a consent defense. Before the comprehensive rape reforms of the 1970s, rape defendants would proffer any evidence they could find to indicate that the victim was sexually promiscuous and prone to consenting to sexual intercourse. Fearing humiliation, many rape victims kept their rape a secret, not reporting it to law enforcement. This allowed serial rapists to escape punishment and did not serve our criminal justice goal of deterrence.

In modern times, most states protect rape victims with rape shield laws. Rape shield laws prohibit the admission of evidence of the victim’s past sexual conduct to prove consent in a rape trial, unless the judge allows it in a pretrial in camera hearing, outside the presence of the jury. Rape shield laws could include the additional protections of the exclusion of evidence relating to the victim’s style of dress to prove consent, the exclusion of evidence that the victim requested the defendant to wear a condom to prove consent, and the affirmation that a victim’s testimony in a rape trial need not be corroborated by other evidence. 1Most courts permit the admission of evidence proving the victim’s previous consensual sex with the defendant because this evidence is particularly relevant to any consent defense. 2