Word: raping
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...case. But just how far should the judicial system go to control them? That's the question central to one case in Lincoln, Nebraska, where a sexual assault trial has morphed into a federal case over the First Amendment rights of witnesses and, more broadly, the language surrounding rape...
Because the issue at stake was one of consent, not assault, the words that Bowen and Safi chose in court to describe the incident were particularly fraught. And according to Clarence Mock, Safi's defense attorney, the term rape seethes with enough emotion to prejudice a jury and is itself a legal conclusion. Once that word is uttered, Mock says, "the skunk is in the jury box and it's hard to get the smell...
...rape a prejudicial term? A Nebraska judge ruled last year that rape, victim and assailant were among the words that could not be uttered in a rape trial, after the defense argued they were "unfairly inflammatory." More neutral terms like sex were allowed. The first trial ended in a hung jury, and on July 12 the second attempt was declared a mistrial because of the case's newfound publicity, driven in part by the outraged plaintiff, Tory Bowen, who says, "What happened to me was rape...
LOOKING AHEAD The power of word choice (an issue in Kobe Bryant's rape trial as well) could eventually end up before the Supreme Court...
Massachusetts is home to some of the strictest privacy laws in the country. Even if the bill were to become law, details from police reports involving incidents of rape and family disputes are kept private under current state regulations...