Prosecutorial Justifications for Sexual Assault Case

             

           Prosecutors hold a significant amount of power in the Criminal Justice System.  Prosecutors decide who gets charged, what charges are filed, who gets a plea bargain, and the type of plea bargain.  “The prosecutor has more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America” (Social Problems 2001).  The broad concept is what influences the prosecutor to charge or not to charge someone. 

          Research (1997) shows that more than half of the sexual assault cases were rejected and then later dismissed by prosecutors.  The prosecutor does control the courthouse, and the reasons for the prosecutor rejecting charges prove that the explanation for the high rate of charge rejection is complex.  The decision to bring charges were based on a combination of case and victim characteristics, but that the case involving the victim and the suspect, who was familiar with, connected or intimate partners more often than those involving the victim and suspect were strangers to be brought to justice.  The prosecution charging decisions are guided by a set of "focal problems", which focus on revolve around obtaining appropriate knowledge that helps make convictions, which include actual rape victims.

          There are a number of reasons why a prosecutor would reject a case in the initial screening process.  Rejection based on discrepant accounts is a common justification for rejection of a sexual assault case is the detection of inconsistencies, either in the victim’s recounting of events or between her statements and statements made by the suspect or witnesses.  Rejection based on typyfications of rape-relevant behavior is based on incongruities between the victim’s version of events and the prosecutor’s knowledge of typical behavior in rape cases.  In the routing handling of sexual assault cases, prosecutors develop a repertoire of knowledge about the features of these crimes.  If the victim’s account contradicts this “repertoire of knowledge,” the prosecutor may conclude that the victim is not credible, and the case, as a result, not convictable.

         Rejection based on typyfications of rape scenarios and inferences about the victim is the use of prosecutorial typyfications of rape scenarios by incorporating inferences based on the victim’s character and behavior at the time of the incident.  These inferences about the victim’s character and behavior at the time of the incident can couple with the fact that the victim cannot recall what happened and doesn’t know whether she or he has consented or not, providing the prosecutor sufficient justification to reject the case.

       Rejection based on typyfications of rape reporting is prosecutors use “repertoire of knowledge” about rape case scenarios are beliefs about rape reporting.  Prosecutors expect victims to report the incident to the police soon after it occurs.  If the victim does not report the crime promptly, this leads for the prosecutor to question the victim’s credibility and the veracity of her story unless she can provide a legitimate explanation.

       Rejection based on ulterior motives is that “Ulterior motives rest on the assumption that a woman/man consented to sexual activity and for some reason needed to deny it afterwards.”  Rejections based on lack of cooperation is the victim failed to appear for the pre-file interview or could not be located to arrange an interview, or the victim would not cooperate or asked that the case be dropped.  Rejection based on discordant locales is when jurors, victims, and defendants are from discordant locales, prosecutors anticipate that jurors will misunderstand the victim’s actions and misinterpret case facts and thus lower the probability of guilty verdicts at trial, leading to a dismissal of the case.


For more information go to: http://www.jstor.org.proxy.lib.ilstu.edu/stable/pdfplus/10.1525/sp.2001.48.2.206.pdf?acceptTC=true