Intimate Partner Sexual Abuse: Adjudicating this hidden Dimension of Domestic Violence Cases
Annotated Table of Contents
The materials listed below are provided in-full.
Each citation is hyperlinked to the full text of the resource.
Part I: Resources Specific to Marital Rape and Intimate Partner Sexual Abuse
1. Flyers for the National Judicial Education Program’s Web Course/Resource: Intimate Partner Sexual Abuse: Adjudicating this Hidden Dimension of Domestic Violence Cases, www.njep-ipsacourse.org. Registration is free and open to all.
In thirteen modules this Web course provides an overview of intimate partner sexual abuse, as well as in-depth treatment of issues from immigrant victims to jury selection. Four civil and four criminal case scenarios, self-tests and reflection questions provide opportunity for application of the curriculum and assessment of comprehension. The Web course contains links to much of the source material, including case law and articles on the topics discussed, providing a comprehensive resource for judges who seek guidance and information on the subject.
Dr. Berman examines the separation and specialization of domestic violence and sexual assault victim services and offender treatment programs and argues that this separation has rendered domestic sexual abuse invisible and overlooked in the courts. She then provides suggestions for improving court response to this crime.
Reporting on a study of 115 women in a Michigan domestic violence shelter, the authors, both nurses, report on the sexual violence to which these women were subjected by their husbands and the physical and psychological injuries they sustained.
Recent research documents that intimate partner sexual abuse is a largely ignored sign of increasing risk and potential lethality in domestic violence cases. This article describes the hidden nature and prevalence of this crime, six types of heightened risk and potential lethality associated with intimate partner sexual abuse, the implications of intimate partner sexual abuse for custody/visitation decisions, and recommendations to improve risk assessment in these cases.
5. Dr. Jacquelyn C. Campbell, Danger Assessment (2003), available at www.dangerassessment.com.
Because the variable of forced sex is missing from most risk assessment instruments, Dr. Jacquelyn Campbell, the country’s leading researcher on intimate partner violence risk assessment, developed the Danger Assessment instrument. Question 9 reads “Has he ever forced you to have sex when you did not wish to do so?”
6. Jury Selection Module adopted from the National Judicial Education Program’s Web Course/Resource: Intimate Partner Sexual Abuse: Adjudicating this Hidden Dimension of Domestic Violence Cases. Available at www.njep-ipsacourse.org. Registration is free and open to all.
Selecting a jury for an intimate partner sexual assault or marital rape trial presents many challenges. This module explores strategies for seating an impartial jury, including the use of jury questionnaires and complex voir dire questions.
This article examines the impact on children of exposure to parental intimate partner sexual assault, the serious impact of witnessing this trauma, and best practices for custody and visitations decisions in these cases.
8. Lynn Hecht Schafran, Evaluating the Evaluators: Problems with ‘Outside Neutrals’,
The Judges’ Journal, Winter 2003 at 10.
This article explores the bias among supposedly-neutral custody evaluators in all types of custody disputes and the need for detailed, comprehensive, and standardized evaluation instruments to counter many evaluators’ indifference to domestic violence and marital rape.
Part II: Resources Respecting Adult Victim Stranger and Nonstranger Sexual Assault
1. Hon. Richard T. Andrias, Rape Myths: A Persistent Problem in Defining and Prosecuting
Rape, Criminal Justice, Summer 1992 at 3.
Judge Andrias explores rape myths and stereotypes and the statutory changes enacted in response to public misconceptions concerning sexual assault. Though this article was published in 1992, the myths it describes are still distorting rape cases today.
2. Lynn Hecht Schafran, Writing and Reading about Rape: A Primer, 66 St. John’s Law Review 979 (1993).
This article provides detailed information about rape victims, offenders, and how judges can conduct the pretrial and trial process to enhance fairness and minimize retraumatization of victims without undermining defendants’ rights.
Dr. Lisak describes the impact of trauma on the human brain, the fragmented nature of traumatic memory, and the implications for victims’ ability to recount the crimes against them in the perfect narrative that is mistakenly expected.
4. Dr. David Lisak, Understanding the Predatory Nature of Sexual Violence (2008).
This article examines the public’s dangerous underestimation of so-called “date rapists,” offenders commonly though to be decent young men who made a one-time sexual mistake because of “too much alcohol and too little communication.” Dr. Lisak explains that in fact these offenders often display the same motivational factors and characteristics as incarcerated rapists – they, too, are serial, violent predators.
5. Lynn Hecht Schafran, Importance of Voir Dire in Rape Trials, Trial, Aug. 1992 at 26.
Research demonstrates that rape case jurors often base their verdicts on extra-legal factors related to myths and stereotypes about victims, offenders, and the crime itself. This article explains why widely-held myths and misconceptions about rape make thorough voir dire essential in these cases.
6. Jury Questionnaires for Sexual Assault Cases
Judges need to identify individuals in the jury pool whose personal history of sexual victimization or perpetration likely disqualifies them from serving as jurors in sexual assault cases. To elicit this critical information with maximum sensitivity and privacy, it is best practice to use a jury questionnaire rather than eliciting this information in open court. Here are two models.
7. Dr. Kurt Bumby, Center for Sex Offender Management, Understanding Treatment for Adults and Juveniles who have Committed Sex Offenses (2006), available at http://csom.org/pubs/treatment_brief.pdf.
This is an overview of current research and practice trends respecting sex offender treatment. Dr. Bumby highlights cognitive-behavioral programs that can lead to lower recidivism rates for motivated participants.
8. Dr. David Lisak, A Judge’s Guide to Sex Offender Evaluations (2005).
This guide explains the sex offender assessment instruments currently in use. Dr. Lisak details the accuracy of actuarial as opposed to clinical assessments and provides tools for assessing the credibility of sex offender evaluations submitted to the court.
Dr. David Lisak, False Allegations of Rape: Fact Sheet (2010).
It is widely and erroneously believed that many if not most allegations of sexual assault are later unfounded or determined to be false. In this article Dr. Lisak and his colleagues review the six most methodologically sound studies of false allegations and detail the results of their new study of sexual assaults reported over ten years at a major northeastern university. The findings of these six studies ranged from 10.9% to 2.1% false allegations. The new study found that only 5.9% of the cases were false allegations. These findings are summarized in the Fact Sheet following the article.
DVD Resources Created by and Available from the National Judicial Education Program (Detailed descriptions of these DVDs and ordering information are available at http://www.legalmomentum.org/our-work/njep/njep-sexual-assault.html)
This four and a half hour DVD presents experts on sexual assault, victims and offenders interviewed by a criminal court of appeals judge, as well as judges from five states discussing how they utilize this information in their own courts.
· Presenting Medical Evidence in An Adult Rape Trial
This two-hour DVD covers issues ranging from how a rape kit exam is conducted to why sexual assault victims rarely sustain the kind of genital injuries many jurors expect.
This 7-minute DVD is a re-enactment of part of an interview conducted by Dr. David Lisak. He and other researchers across the United States and now in Europe conduct research to answer this conundrum: The number of women who have been victims of rape vastly outnumber the number of men indicted, much less convicted of rape. Who are these undetected rapists?
· A Response to the Undetected Rapist
This 23-minute DVD includes the responses of men and women of different ages and backgrounds to the interview with a college-student rapist featured in the DVD “The Undetected Rapist.”