(no subject)

[theweaselking]

Judge bars witnesses and lawyers from using the words "rape", "sexual assault", and "victim", among others, from a rape trial.

The legal reasoning is that labelling the accuser a "victim" presumes that a crime has occured, and that calling the acts under discussion "rape" is a legal conclusion that the jury needs to make, not the witness - and, in both cases, this presumption is prejudicial to the defendant.

Comments

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

Then why not just use "alleged rape" or "alleged sexual assault"?

[thette.livejournal.com]

"He held me down, pushed the knife against my throat and allegedly raped me"?

Good Point

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

Then I guess, under this judge's ruling, the language would have to be something along the lines of, "He held me down, pushed the knife against my throat and forced his penis into my vagina"?

"forced his penis into my vagina"

[opaqueplanet.livejournal.com]

THATS not going to be triggering for a rape victim, going into that much detail... christ.

Re: Good Point

[post-ecdysis.livejournal.com]

Except that defense attorneys in Nebraska can then point out that the accuser is, you know, the kind of woman who describes the pee-pee and woo-woo in public using those sorts of words. :/ I think she'd have to go with "I woke up and found that he was doing the thing that a man and a woman do when they like each other very much, except that I didn't like him very much at all."