4.2.12 WC: 191694
The 99-pound rapist
The great violinist Itzhak Perlman called me one day and asked if I would look into a disturbing case involving a young violinist he knew who attended college in the Boston area. The young violinist—who was 5 feet tall and weighed 99 pounds, and whose only exercise was lifting a bow—had been accused by a 5 foot 4, 140-pound lacrosse player of raping her. Itzhak did not believe that the allegation could be true. The circumstances of the case certainly didn’t lend credence to the charge.
The young man and woman had been close platonic friends. She had a steady boyfriend back home, with whom she regularly had sex. One night she invited the violinist to her dorm room where they had sexual relations. Several weeks later, she invited him to spend the weekend with her family, where he said they again had sexual relations. But soon thereafter she began to experience psychological problems and someone at the college left an anonymous message with her parents that she may have been the victim of an unwelcome sexual encounter. After being confronted by her father, who was adamantly opposed to any premarital sex, she told him that the violinist had raped her in the her dorm room. She then filed a complaint with the police. The young man was immediately suspended from college and subsequently indicted for rape.
I referred the case to a small law firm in town that specialized in criminal matters, and the case was assigned by the senior partner to a well-known woman lawyer active in feminist causes. She found the story implausible — so much so that the lawyers decided to waive a jury trial and have the case decided by a judge, whom they believed would be less susceptible to political correctness. They were wrong and they were right. The judge found the young man guilty, but gave him a prison sentence of only 95 days thus suggesting that he didn’t find him shar guilty.
I followed the appeal closely, reviewing the briefs and offering suggestions. The argument was made by the feminist lawyer. The opposing lawyer was also a feminist. Although the court found that there was sufficient evidence to sustain the conviction, it considered the evidence quite weak. This is what it said:
“Tn this case the defense was consent. The evidence is many ways was contradictory, and, even looking only at the complainant’s testimony, in some respects was inconsistent with allegation of rape.”
The court then ruled that the defense should have had access to certain treatment records that the defendant generated when she was hospitalized following the alleged rape. Accordingly it reversed the conviction and remanded the case for a new trial. In the end the prosecution dropped the case and the defendant went free, but not before his college career was seriously disrupted.
The court’s decision was roundly criticized by many feminists, on the ground that allowing the defense to have access to the complainant’s psychiatric records would discourage complainants from coming forward. The court was sensitive to this concern and said the following:
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