05-06-2016, 11:02 AM
While I am tearing into anyone who claims the way a woman dresses should be an issue in a rape case I have to admit that one of my biggest victories ever involved thid very issue.
The case was in Grainger County which is about 99% white. I was representing an immigrant worker from south America who was charged with raping a 16-year-old mentally-challenged white girl. The facts of the case mad no sense to me. My client had a girlfriend, and he was actually living with the family of the victim who was not physiaclly attractive in any way. He had no motive to do the crime, and there was no way he could have thought he could get away with it. He was lucky that this family called the police instead of just shooting him.
when I dug into the evidence it became clear that the girl had had sex with another boy that day and was afraid she might be pregnant, so she just blamed my client. In Tennessee there are specific rules that forbid a defendant to mention what type of clothing the victim was wearing. In my case the victim was wearing thong underwear, and I wanted to show that the reason she was wearing this type of garment was that she had planned to have sex with someone.
The prosecution made a mistake in Charging my client with an "aggravated rape" based on the aggravating factor of "bodily injury". A rape with bodily injury is much more serious than simple rape, and I have no problem with that. But in this case the only "bodily injury" was an abrasion on the labia. In my opinion that is not the type of bodily injury that would justify a charge of aggravated rape. But once they introduced the evidence of bodily injury I was able to argue that the abrasion was a "thong scrub" caused by the type of underwear she was wearing. And I really beat the point to death to make sure the jury understood what she was wearing.
I am not saying that the thong underwear was what tipped the scales in my favor. There was a lot of other evidence pointing to the fact that she had had sex with someone else. But in conservative Grainger County thong underwear is a bit suggestive.
The case was in Grainger County which is about 99% white. I was representing an immigrant worker from south America who was charged with raping a 16-year-old mentally-challenged white girl. The facts of the case mad no sense to me. My client had a girlfriend, and he was actually living with the family of the victim who was not physiaclly attractive in any way. He had no motive to do the crime, and there was no way he could have thought he could get away with it. He was lucky that this family called the police instead of just shooting him.
when I dug into the evidence it became clear that the girl had had sex with another boy that day and was afraid she might be pregnant, so she just blamed my client. In Tennessee there are specific rules that forbid a defendant to mention what type of clothing the victim was wearing. In my case the victim was wearing thong underwear, and I wanted to show that the reason she was wearing this type of garment was that she had planned to have sex with someone.
The prosecution made a mistake in Charging my client with an "aggravated rape" based on the aggravating factor of "bodily injury". A rape with bodily injury is much more serious than simple rape, and I have no problem with that. But in this case the only "bodily injury" was an abrasion on the labia. In my opinion that is not the type of bodily injury that would justify a charge of aggravated rape. But once they introduced the evidence of bodily injury I was able to argue that the abrasion was a "thong scrub" caused by the type of underwear she was wearing. And I really beat the point to death to make sure the jury understood what she was wearing.
I am not saying that the thong underwear was what tipped the scales in my favor. There was a lot of other evidence pointing to the fact that she had had sex with someone else. But in conservative Grainger County thong underwear is a bit suggestive.
