Juror Expectations of Rape Victims
June 29, 2009 by Peggy Rowland
Filed under Women's Health
Jurors have a set of expectations about how rape victims should react, but these expectations aren’t realistic.
A new rape trial study by The University of Nottingham’s Professor Vanessa Munro and University of Leeds researcher Dr. Louise Ellison shows that jurors expect rape victims to fight back against their attackers and sustain physical injuries doing so.
Researchers also found that jurors expect rape victims to report the crime immediately and appear distressed and tearful in court.
In reality, the researchers say that most rape victims don’t offer physical resistance or suffer injury. Also, many victims delay reporting the offense for long periods. Juror expectations could work against rape victims and lead to a low conviction rate, say the researchers.
Researchers found that jurors who were given educational guidance on rape victims were more likely to accept that a rape victim could delay reporting the incident and appear calm in court. However, they still expected that rape victims should fight against their attackers to the point of sustaining injury.
Dr. Ellison said, “There is a clear need for educational guidance in rape cases. Defence lawyers often seize upon any delay or lack of resistance to undermine the credibility of a rape complainant in court. Jurors need to be fully informed about the wide range of reactions and emotional responses rape can inspire.”
Do you believe typical jurors are equipped to hear rape cases?
(Image via stock.xchng)
Interesting post about how jurors tend to pigeonhole rape victims into a certain set of emotional and physical responses to being raped. I don’t think a “typical juror” is fully equipped to hear a rape case. As someone who may fit the profile of a “typical” juror, I think that, if someone were raped, she (or, maybe even he..?) would report it immediately, despite viewing numerous Law and Order episodes in which the opposite is true. Evidently, this way of thinking is a misconception. I think that the rape educational program is a great idea. Increasing awareness and education about rape can only help victims, families, jurors, and everyone else understand what the potential (and, if any, probable) responses are to rape.
I work for icyou.com, a user-generated website that features health care videos on any and all topics. Rape is a focus area in which we have little offer. If you have or know of anyone who has videos for the purpose of increasing awareness about rape and women’s health in general, we’d love to see that work on icyou. Please feel free to contact me, or just check out our website.
Can’t wait to read your next post!
Hi Kevin. Thanks for commenting. Looks like you have lots of videos over there at icyou!