Rape cases can be tough for a prosecutor to prove because they often occur between two people without other witnesses present for the rape. Additionally, they also often occur between people who knew one another prior to the rape, and might have had a relationship, because of that, there are typically two different versions of the events, and if there is no corroborating evidence for one of the versions of the story or the other, it can be a hard case for the prosecutor to prosecute.
With these things in mind, the following are the types of evidence most likely to be used in rape cases and how they aid the prosecution in building case. For assistance building your defense call and schedule a consultation with a Fairfax rape lawyer today.
Rape charges are very serious and as a result, the Commonwealth will use any and all evidence and that they have to help prove their case. Some of this evidence includes:
One of the ways they do that is to have the victim undergo a SANE examination and to admit the results of that examination into the trial. A SANE (sexual abuse nurse examiner) examination is an examination done by licensed nurse performed as close in time as possible to the alleged rape. It’s done at a hospital or medical facility and the nurse has been specifically trained to detect and recover evidence of a rape from an examination of a victim’s body.
That evidence can be very powerful evidence by the Commonwealth and they try to do a SANE examination in every single rape allegation. That evidence is so important because it corroborates a case that otherwise relies on two separate and distinct versions of a story by two biased individuals. The nurse is an independent witness, meaning unbiased, and when he or she comes into court and testifies that a rape had occurred based upon evidence of tearing in the vagina or other physical evidence that can be very powerful to the judge or jury.
The Commonwealth will also use any statements by the defendant to help prove their case. Even if the statement isn’t a full admission, if it corroborates any of the victim’s story, the prosecutor will use it to their advantage.
Additionally, the prosecutor will use any other witness who either observed the rape or can testify to what occurred either before or after the alleged rape occurred.
In rape cases, prosecutors take the allegations very seriously and they work hard to obtain a conviction. Common defense strategies vary from case to case, but one of the primary defenses in rape case is consent, or that the sex may have occurred but that it was consensual.
Consent can be a difficult defense because the victim obviously believes a rape occurred if they went to police, so they won’t readily agree they consented. For this reason, your attorney will have to show consent either through actions before or after the alleged rape (such as conversations, text messages or other communication) or will have to have the defendant testify—which is always dangerous.
Other common defenses involve showing bias on behalf of the witnesses, pointing out conflicting accounts of the allegation, and discrediting the physical evidence or showing that the Commonwealth lacks actual physical evidence of the crime. In general, though, defenses vary from case-to-case and are very fact specific.