The Denver Posteditorial
Rape shield law survives challenge
Tuesday, June 15, 2004 -
Advocates for crime victims were relieved when a state district court upheld Colorado's rape victim shield law. While last week's ruling followed 25 years of legal precedent, it was important because a challenge to the law's constitutionality emerged in the highly visible case involving basketball star Kobe Bryant.
Bryant's defense lawyers asked the Eagle County judge hearing his sexual assault case to declare the rape shield law unconstitutional, but Chief District Judge W. Terry Ruckriegle rejected the challenge to a long-settled legal issue. For a quarter of a century, the statute has protected rape victims from having their sexual history unnecessarily dragged through open court. Before the law was passed, it was common for defense lawyers to pressure victims to not pursue charges by threatening to publicly expose their personal histories - even if the information was irrelevant to the case. The tactic put the victim, not the suspect, on trial. The law still gives suspects plenty of opportunity to confront their accusers, but defense lawyers must pass a two-fold test. First, they must convince a judge there's a relevant purpose to question an alleged victim's personal history. The judge then can hold closed hearings to listen to the information. At such hearings, defense lawyers must pass a second but tough test: to convince the judge the information should be heard by a jury in open court. Over the past several months, Ruckriegle has been holding such hearings after which he will determine if any of the alleged victim's sexual history is relevant to the charges against Bryant. The hearings are slated to resume June 21. Such hearings are difficult for an alleged victim, but they're less onerous than having to go through the process in open court. They are an important safeguard because they allow suspects to confront their accusers and build an effective defense. In the Bryant case, victims' advocates complain some aspects of the proceedings have violated the spirit of the rape shield law. But it's still possible that many claims about the alleged victim will never be heard by the jury. The defense must convince Ruckriegle that the information bears directly on whether Bryant raped the woman or, as he says, they had consensual sex. Judge Ruckriegle acted properly in his role as a district judge by following decades of unambiguous higher court decisions. Colorado's law has survived repeated challenges because it balances a suspect's right to confront accusers with a victim's privacy rights. For society as a whole, that balance is crucial because it may encourage sexual assault victims to report crimes but also creates safeguards against false reports. |