The Denver Post
Bryant's defense team loses bid to suppress rape law
Friday, June 11, 2004 -
Colorado's law protecting rape victims is constitutionally valid and will be applied in deciding what evidence is admissible in the sexual-assault trial of Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant, the judge in the case ruled Thursday.
The decision was a setback to Bryant's defense lawyers, who argued the law violated their client's rights. Trial judges rarely throw out laws that have been through the mill of appeals court review, as Colorado's rape law has many times since its enactment in the mid- 1970s. The law is intended to protect rape victims from having their past used against them. The greater significance of the ruling, legal experts said, is the degree to which it sets up the next, even more crucial set of decisions by the judge in the days to come: How will the rape law work in this case? What evidence about the sexual past of Bryant's accuser, if any, will pass the hurdles posed by the law and be ruled admissible? Bryant, who has pleaded not guilty to the sexual-assault charge against him, said he and the woman, whom he met at a resort hotel last summer, had consensual sex. She told police flirtation turned to violence - that she went to his room, where they kissed, and that he then pushed her over a chair and sexually assaulted her.
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Bryant's lawyers have said the woman's past is important and should be allowed at trial under the rape law because past sexual encounters could explain the vaginal abrasions she had when examined by doctors. Also, a court document revealed the defense is trying to exclude testimony from Michael Baden, an expert witness for the prosecution who is expected to discuss injuries, including a small bruise found by a nurse on the alleged victim's jaw. |