re: #8 sizzleRI

There’s two different issues here: how an individual criminal defendant responds (attack the credibility of the victim, obv) and how we as a society think of, talk about, and punish sexual assault. The first is the one you’re (probably correctly) pointing out is intractable. The other is not.

1000 times this!. And I have talked to criminal defense attorneys about attacking the credibility of the victim. It is a thin line, juries don’t love when attorneys cross the line. In makes me feel a little better about society.

It’s a while since I checked, but it used to be the case that female jurors were more likely to blame the victim than male (in a rape trial) — the going theory was that blaming the victim (for clothing, behaviour, where she was, etc) made the women feel “this couldn’t have happened to me, *I* would never do X”.

I think that does still happen somewhat.