Wasn’t it vital to treat victims more decently, and didn’t that mean believing them? But how far was it right to extend that principle—and given the presumption of innocence, weren’t our laws designed not to? 


When I mentioned these concerns to Jennifer Long, the CEO of AEquitas, a national resource for prosecutors of gender-based violence, she agreed the quandary I was noticing shaped many cases that lacked corroborating evidence. But it was also the underlying dynamic of any case of sexual assault, she said. “All you’re doing is playing into what people believe already, to blame the victim. Challenging the veracity comes along with the court process.” 

After the initial allegations against Harvey Weinstein surfaced in October 2017, the #MeToo movement surged. It was part of the catalyst for creating the Work-Related Sexual Violence Team at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in January 2018, according to Chief Assistant District Attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo. The team of 15 sex crimes prosecutors and one social worker is led by Assistant District Attorney Vanessa Puzio.

 

As part of due process for related cases, the survivor is usually asked to testify in court which can, understandably, feel intimidating, invasive and emotionally draining. But there are protections in place to help survivors seek justice, according to Jennifer Gentile Long, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center and CEO of Aequitas, an organization that aims to improve the quality of justice in violent crimes including sexual violence.

“It is part of the system to be challenged and to allow the defendant a fair process, but skilled prosecutors have ways to step in and defend against harassment and undue embarrassment and prevent questioning about irrelevant things to create a bias against the victim for who he or she is versus what happened,” says Long.

Congress unanimously passed legislation in September creating a similar Survivors Bill of Rights in federal cases. “I am hopeful that we can garner the same kind of bipartisan support for this issue” in Maryland, Hettleman said. More than half of the states have laws mandating a minimum time period to retain evidence in sexual assault cases, according to research by AEquitas, an organization that offers support and training to prosecutors who handle cases of sexual and domestic violence.

Jennifer Gentile Long, the CEO of AEquitas, a group that advises prosecutors in sex crime cases, noted that research consistently shows that the overwhelming majority of sexual assaults are perpetrated by someone the victim has met. “Very few rapes are by strangers dragging people off the streets,” she said. “One of the best weapons a rapist has is to get a victim in a position where they may be trusting, feeling like they know this person.” She added that many serial rapists commit assaults against both strangers and acquaintances. Recent movements to test large backlogs of rape kits have found many serial rapists that were identified to police in the past but allowed to go free because the accuser was an acquaintance, and her report was dismissed or minimized. “If you’re missing those cases where people know each other, it’s problematic for capturing serial rapists” who frequently target strangers.

New Hampshire lawmakers are considering a sexual assault bill that police and prosecutors warn would protect pedophiles and sexual predators but proponents say would prevent wrongful convictions. Thirty-six states don’t require corroboration and most of the remaining states that do require it in limited circumstances, said Jennifer Long, chief executive officer of AEquitas, a group that provides resources for prosecutors on violence against women.

Sexual abuse investigations are rare in New Jersey’s prisons, and convictions are even less common, according to an NJ Advance Media review of state and federal data. But experts warn those statistics don’t paint a true picture of what’s happening behind bars. One of the biggest impediments to addressing the problem is that prison sex abuse investigations are among the toughest cases they handle, according to current and former prosecutors. “The reality is we have not done a great job in the criminal justice system in investigating and prosecuting these cases,” said Jennifer Gentile Long, the CEO of AEquitas: The Prosecutors’ Resource on Violence Against Women. Long said prison culture can make sexual assault investigations in those facilities even more difficult than such investigations on the outside. For one, sexual abuse is rarely reported at all, whether it happens in prison or in somebody’s home. What’s more, she said, prisoners often experience intimidation, either by prison staff or other inmates, and are used to not being believed because of their criminal histories. “When you’re literally in a space controlled by people close to your assailant and there have been other people who have complained and their reports were not taken seriously or they were retaliated against, victims can be silenced,” Long said.

Despite intense police and government scrutiny of the website — which last month led Backpage’s operators to shutter its notorious “adult” section while complaining about government censorship — the reality is that not much has changed. The world’s oldest profession continues to openly ply its trade in South Florida and elsewhere. [ . . . ] “It would be a mistake for investigators or prosecutors to assume that trafficking will decrease because of the shutdown of Backpage’s escort ads,” said Jane Anderson, a former Miami-Dade assistant state attorney who now works for AEquitas, an anti-human trafficking resource organization for prosecutors. “In fact, investigators and prosecutors must now be even more proactive and resourceful to uncover trafficking that is occurring on lesser known websites, including other areas of Backpage.”

State lawmakers are poised this week to pass legislation that will require police in Maryland to keep rape kits for 20 years. But what to do with the kits remains a topic of considerable debate. [ . . . ] Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger called the retention bill a “common sense” reform with “minimal impact.” Most rape kits are the size of an 8-by-10-inch envelope and do not require refrigeration. More than half the states have laws mandating a minimum time period to retain evidence in sexual assault cases, according to AEquitas. The Washington-based organization offers training to prosecutors who handle cases of sexual and domestic violence.

Attorney General Andy Beshear plans to host a three-day sexual assault cold case training for law enforcement, prosecutors, and victim advocates across the state related to Kentucky’s Sexual Assault Forensic Evidence kit, or SAFE kit backlog. The free training will run from April 11 through April 13 at the Embassy Suites in Lexington. It will feature local trainers and national experts from the National Sexual Assault Kit Initiative Training and Technical Assistance (SAKI TTA) and AEquitas: the Prosecutors’ Resource on Violence Against Women. Beshear is offering the training in response to a request by prosecutors for skills to effectively prosecute cases from the backlog. Beshear’s office has been partnering with lawmakers, law enforcement, and advocates to end the SAFE kit backlog since last spring when Senate Bill 63 was passed that directed the 3,000-plus untested kits to be tested.

While dozens of women have leveled sexual assault allegations at comedian Bill Cosby, destroying his reputation as “America’s dad,” the question of whether he will be imprisoned will hang on the words of a single woman when his trial starts this week. But Jennifer Long, a former Pennsylvania prosecutor whose non-profit AEquitas advises prosecutors on sexual violence, said she is optimistic that the sight of Constand testifying against a major celebrity could inspire more women to come forward. Experts in sexual assault say victims often behave in inconsistent ways for a variety of reasons. For instance, it is not uncommon for victims to remain in contact with their attackers, perhaps to regain a sense of control or normalcy or to try to understand what happened, Long said. “Although people would like to think that there’s one way that victims of a crime react, we know that how victims react to a trauma is varied,” she said.