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No Bad Men!: a Feminist Analysis of Character Evidence in Rape Trials Aviva Orenstein

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No Bad Men!: a Feminist Analysis of Character Evidence in Rape Trials Aviva Orenstein Hastings Law Journal Volume 49 | Issue 3 Article 8 1-1998 No Bad Men!: A Feminist Analysis of Character Evidence in Rape Trials Aviva Orenstein Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/hastings_law_journal Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Aviva Orenstein, No Bad Men!: A Feminist Analysis of Character Evidence in Rape Trials, 49 Hastings L.J. 663 (1998). Available at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/hastings_law_journal/vol49/iss3/8 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Hastings Law Journal by an authorized editor of UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. No Bad Men!: A Feminist Analysis of Character Evidence in Rape Trials by AvIvA ORENSTEIN* Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................... 664 I. The Current State of Character Evidence ........................ 668 A . D octrine ......................................................................... 668 B. Reasons Behind the Rules ........................................... 669 II. The Challenge of Rape Trials: A Feminist View ............. 672 A. Denial of Rape .............................................................. 672 B. The Cultural Paradigm ................................................. 677 1) Cultural Profile of the Rapist ................................. 678 2) Cultural Profile of the Survivor ............................. 679 C. The Paradigm in Action ............................................... 682 III. Evaluating the Potential Character-Based Solutions ...... 683 A. The Good: Rape Shield ................................................ 684 B. The Bad: Rule 413 ........................................................ 686 1}The Best Case for Rule 413 .............. 686 A Feminist Critique of Rule 413 ............................ 690 3)Some Second Thoughts Raised and Resolved ..... 698 C. The Ugly: Patriarchal Stories ...................................... 700 D. The Hopeful: Expert Evidence on Dynamics and Demographics of Rape ................................................. 701 (1)Using RTS More Creatively and Expansively ..... 705 * Associate Professor of Law, Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington. J.D. Cornell 1981. I am grateful for summer research support from the Indiana University School of Law. I also wish to thank my dear friends and colleagues, Professors Kathryn Abrams, Katharine Baker, Fred H. Cate, Lynne Henderson, Seth Lahn, Lauren Robel, Harry Pratter, Andrew Taslitz, Emily Van Tassel, and Susan Williams for their encour- agement and helpful comments. Thanks to Dawn Polaski, Brad Zehr, and Terry Kaczmarek for their patience and tact in expertly typing multiple drafts and to Erika Schneller for her fine research assistance, and to Erika Barnes and Kathryn Davis of the Hastings Law Journal for shepherding the piece through the production process. Finally, I would like to thank my children, David, Michael, and Benjamin, who make life meaning- ful and fun, and without whom this work would have been completed much earlier. To quote Al Franken, "I believe the best thing a parent can give his kid is time. And not just quality time, but big stinking, lazy, non-productive quantity time. In fact that's why this [article] is so badly written. Believe me, you'd be enjoying the experience of reading this [article] a lot more if I weren't so dedicated to my children." AL FRANKEN, RUSH LIMBAUGH Is A BIG FAT IDIOT AND OTHER OBSERVATIONS 71 (1996). [6631 HASTINGS LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 49 (2)Adding Background Evidence About the Na- ture of Rape and Rapists ........................................ 706 (3)Practical Issues Raised By Expanding Expert Testimony on Character ......................................... 710 C onclusion ...................................................................................... 715 Introduction Women who "cry rape" are not believed. Even women who es- chew the cry and calmly report sexual violence are not believed (be- cause they don't behave like real victims). Women are disbelieved because they delay reporting rape. Those who report promptly are suspected of malice or delusion. Attempts to address problems of rape through changes in evidence law and substantive criminal law have met with questionable success.1 Many have bemoaned the inef- fectiveness of legal measures, arguing that social attitudes must change before any significant improvement in the treatment of rape victims occurs.2 I reject the notion that disbelief of women is entirely a problem of social attitude which is intractable to legal reform. Although social attitudes influence the decision to report, investigate, prosecute and believe rape, even the procedural law of evidence, affects how rape influences the general tenor of social belief. The relationship be- tween law and social beliefs is dynamic; courtrooms shape, as well as mirror, cultural truths. In this article I analyze how various uses of character evidence in rape trials can help address this problem. My proposals, informed by feminist principles, strive to counteract jurors' stereotypes and to 1. The affirmatively misogynist requirements of substantive rape law-that the vic- tim must resist her attacker and that her testimony must be corroborated by other evi- dence-is no longer required. Additionally, evidence law has eliminated the cautionary instruction warning the jury about the danger of false rape accusations which are, accord- ing to the instruction, easily made and difficult to disprove. 2. See, e.g., David P. Bryden & Sonja Lengnick, Rape in the CriminalJustice System. 87 J. CRIM. LAW & CRIMINOLOGY 1194, 1228 (1997). 3. Obviously no consensus exists on the definition of feminism and my brief discus- sion is necessarily tendentious and incomplete. I identify three major goals of feminism: (1) Tangibly improving the lives of women including, most importantly, eliminating sub- ordination of women, (2) Deriving knowledge and power from the experiences of women; (3) Providing empathy and support for all oppressed people. These aims transcend the limited goals of strict, formal parity and include the subtle ways in which law, as well as informal social and cultural arrangements, may discriminate against women. For a more detailed explanation of my feminist philosophy, see Aviva Orenstein, "MY GOD!": A Feminist Critique of the Excited Utterance Exception to the Hearsay Rule, 85 CAL. L. REV. 159 (1997) (using a feminist method to criticize and propose reforms of the excited utter- ance doctrine, a codified exception to the hearsay rule); Aviva Orenstein, Get off the Blue Bus: Incorporatinga Feminist Analysis into Evidence Policy Where You'd Least Expect It, Mar. 1998] NO BAD MEN! educate jurors and society at large, about rape.4 It is undeniable that trials, particularly notorious ones, serve a pedagogical function in modem America. Trials serve as cultural fa- bles, sparking debate and relaying their own object lessons. These stories have exploded into popular culture, and their audience is any- one who watches television. Part melodrama, part morality play, and, for the layperson, part inscrutable lawyer talk, recent rape trials have introduced serious questions into public discourse about the legal process, rape law, and perhaps most importantly for our focus here, how and when we know things to be true. In this article, I examine current approaches to evidence law in rape trials, and I speculate about how rape trials can perform their educational function in ways that are fair to the accused and the vic- tim.6 I briefly present the current rules of character evidence in Sec- And Advocating an Exception for Apologies, SW. U. L. REV. - (forthcoming 1998). 4. It should come as no surprise that feminism, which is deeply concerned with how women are heard, should have much to say about evidence law, particularly in the area of rape. Evidence law is an ideal candidate for feminist analysis because both evidence and feminism are concerned with questions of relevance, communication, and credibility. Re- cently, feminist scholarship has begun to examine evidence. See, e.g., Kit Kinports, Evi- dence Engendered, 1991 U. ILL. L. REV. 413, 430-452 (offering insights into how the evi- dence rules may ignore the experiences of women and instead reflect male values and norms); Kathy Mack, Continuing Barriers to Women's Credibility: A Feminist Perspective on the ProofProcess, 4 CRIM. L.F. 327 (1993) (drawing on psychological research that the gender task force reports to discuss women's problems in gaining respect and credibility in the courtroom); Rosemary Hunter, Gender in Evidence: Masculine Norms vs. FeministRe- form, 19 HARV. WOMEN'S L.J. 127, 127, 155-62, 166 (1996) (exploring questions of credi- bility and relevance and arguing that women's stories must first be allowed into court, and "then they must be taken seriously"); Kim Lane Scheppele, Just The Facts Ma'am: Sexu- alized Violence, EvidentiaryHabits, and the Revision of Truth, 37 N.Y.L. SCH. L. REv. 123, 123 (1992) (examining why the "stories women tell in court, particularly in cases of sexu- alized violence like rape, are vulnerable to attack as unbelievable."). 5. Thus, in determining the "truth" of a rape case, we must recognize it not only in a narrow case-specific adjudicatory sense, but also as it influences the larger cultural debate. In searching
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