Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, December 30, 1993 TAG: 9312300141
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Baltimore Sun
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Those "rape shield" laws, now in effect in most states, are designed to encourage rape victims to report being attacked by shielding their own sexual backgrounds during the trial. Many of those laws emerged in the 1970s as part of a nationwide effort to reform sex crimes statutes.
Before those laws existed, defense lawyers in rape cases routinely offered evidence of prior sexual activity to bolster the argument that the woman had consented this time, too.
The laws were enacted in a fast-moving campaign led by an unusual alliance of feminists and law enforcement forces.
Increasingly, however, "rape shield" laws are being challenged in state and federal court, and the challenges are sometimes succeeding. The Indiana law - the one at stake in Tyson's case - was ruled unconstitutional in August by a federal appeals court for the particular way it was used by prosecutors in a child sexual assault case. That outcome, though, does not apply to Tyson's case.
"To me, this is one of the cutting-edge issues of the `90s," says famed criminal defense lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who is handling Tyson's appeal and who prepared the broadside attack on rape victim privacy laws.
The justices are expected to take their first look at Tyson's appeal within the next few weeks and determine whether to even hear the case. An Indiana appeals court upheld his conviction in August, and Tyson then took his case to the Supreme Court.
The specific issue before the court is whether a "rape shield" law denies an individual accused of sexual assault of a chance to challenge his accuser and prepare a full legal defense - rights protected by the Sixth Amendment.
"We think this is a very good case" to put that issue directly before the highest court, Dershowitz said.
The court has never ruled directly on the constitutionality of those laws, but has several times passed up the issue.
Most states have laws providing protection for rape victims' privacy. Congress in 1978 passed a federal law assuring sexual privacy for victims in federal cases, and there is such a law for military courts, too.
Tyson was sentenced to six years in prison after being convicted of raping Desiree Washington, 18, a contestant in a Miss Black America contest, in his hotel room in Indianapolis in July 1991. He made a guest appearance at the beauty contest, and bluntly told her then he wanted to have sex with her. The rape occurred on a date that night.
Washington testified that she was "not like" other women who dated Tyson, and did not consent to sex with Tyson. Prosecution lawyers portrayed her as a strongly religious person who was sexually innocent.
To counter that, Tyson's trial lawyers sought to show that Washington had engaged in sex before and that her father had reacted violently to her earlier romances - which would give her a reason to lie about having sex with Tyson.
The trial judge - a former prosecutor of sex crimes cases - barred that evidence, relying on Indiana's shield law. Tyson's appeal to the Supreme Court argues: "The state, knowing that Tyson's hands were tied [by the judge's ruling], went so far as to imply that Washington was a virgin when she arrived in Indianapolis, and, but for Tyson, would have returned home `the same girl.' "
by CNB