Kansas City woman was beaten and raped — and her past was put on the stand in court

Why are victims in sexual assault cases denied the same protections that the accused is afforded? Is justice served when defense attorneys can bring a victim’s past into the courtroom to humiliate and discredit her while the accused’s personal history is commonly off-limits at trial? In our legal system, everyone is innocent until proven guilty, but that same system shouldn’t ignore the rights of the victims by endangering or re-traumatizing them.

Unfortunately, in heartland America, we’re currently seeing this kind of case play out. In fact, it has put women with previous run-ins with the law in jeopardy — women who have been brutally raped, sodomized and beaten nearly to death.

One example here in Kansas City involves a convicted felon who was on parole for a double homicide when he was charged with raping and beating five women in separate incidents. He was convicted of assaulting all of them, but the jury did not find sufficient evidence to convict on the accompanying rape charges. He was sentenced to just four years in prison for those five separate assaults. Then even that short sentence was overturned on appeal.

Through a motion by the felon’s lawyer, the case of one of his victims was separated from the others. That separation allowed the attorney to discredit and humiliate her on the witness stand for her drug history, since she had once been jailed for possession. So even though she was successfully undergoing rehab, her testimony that she had been raped was undermined by a past that was irrelevant to the case.

Now the felon has been arrested again on charges of raping, sodomizing and almost killing another woman.

This story raises deeply troubling questions. The first is the latitude defense attorneys have in questioning victims on the witness stand. Female victims are re-traumatized when they testify as it is, and they experience still further anguish and humiliation when their pasts are brought up under cross-examination, even when the details aren’t relevant to the charges against the defendant. And this is a situation that occurs all too frequently in U.S. courts.

Does our legal system respect female victims? Men like the felon in this case prey on vulnerable women — women with imperfect pasts, knowing that can be used to dismantle their credibility on the witness stand. The accused’s personal history is usually off-limits at trial. Why not the victims’?

The evidence in this case indicates that the felon deliberately and repeatedly preyed on women on the edges of society, especially those who worked as prostitutes. Has our legal system become so broken to allow a man convicted on a double murder charge and five brutal assaults on women to walk around free so he can do it to yet another victim?

A still more critical question: Why are these women so vulnerable in the first place? Studies have shown the strong correlation between child abuse and subsequent drug abuse. Women are more likely than men to have a history of trauma, with most of it occurring before age 18 and commonly related to repetitive childhood physical or sexual assault.

In the case in question, the victim was informed by the court when the felon was released on appeal. She was called again to testify when he was re-arrested on charges frighteningly similar to her case. Each call only added to her trauma. The abuse at the hands of this man still haunts her.

She is currently in a long-term residential counseling program at Veronica’s Voice, a nonprofit organization that works with victims of sexual abuse and commercial sexual exploitation. Sadly, the demand for this type of organization is vast.

According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, each year in America approximately 1 in 5 women reported completed or attempted rape at some point in their lifetime. The perpetrators of sexual violence often have other criminal histories. Suspects who are released before trial often commit new crimes.

There is a lot of talk nowadays about criminal justice reform, focused mainly on racial issues and the bail system. I don’t question that, but we must also listen to the quieter voices — the voices of the victims of sexual violence who don’t get fair treatment in our courts. The legal system shouldn’t be a part of the exploitation of women.