The Herald Times ran a peculiar article June 15. An IU student was dropped off at home after a night of drinking and partying and woke up to find her male acquaintance raping her. She insisted he stop, but he didn't. After he was gone, she called the Bloomington Police Department and he was arrested within a few hours. He admitted to the crime -- in a videotaped confession -- and a short time later, the Office of the Monroe County Prosecutor Carl Salzmann dismissed the case, citing a lack of evidence. \n This turn of events is not only puzzling but disturbing. What lack of evidence? He confessed. It was an odd confession, admittedly. The HT reported that he wrote, "When I woke up, I tried to remember if we had sex. I took it that we did, because while we were having sex she did ask to stop." He further insisted that he believes her story because "she is a good person" and would not lie. And even if his evidence might somehow contradict itself, he still admitted to rape. However, now the gentleman denies remembering having sex because of excessive marijuana and alcohol consumption.\n It seems that loss of memory due to substance abuse is the darling defense of rapists, because as a country we are still fighting -- and losing -- the war on drugs. Using this as a defense inspires understanding and sympathy in the jury. \nBut let's be reasonable here. If you are so under the influence that you lose your ability to remember, then you probably had no energy to move, let alone rape someone. \nThen what else could it be? BPD's failure to instruct the victim in getting a rape kit (she had plenty of time -- it can be valid up to 72 hours after the act)? A compromised chain of custody? What could cause a case as serious as sexual assault -- a B felony in this state -- to be dismissed so quickly? These decisions can take months, unless the young man refused to plea bargain.\nProsecutors hate rape cases in general and especially hate taking them to court. A rape case frequently has no witnesses and turns into an instance of "he said, she said." Juries are unpredictable and tend to harbor popular prejudices when it comes to rape victims. A skilled defense attorney can turn the defender into a nice young man who stands here falsely accused and the victim becomes one of Freud's studies in hysteria. Trials are risky. They can mar a DA's otherwise perfect record. And election always looms large in the back of an elected prosecutor's mind. \nBut a DA's duty is to society, not to his career. According to statistics, a woman is raped every two minutes. One out of every 36 college women is a rape victim. Acquaintance rape constitutes 80 to 85 percent of all incidents. And only one out of 10 victims go to the police after an assault. What Salzmann did is very disheartening to our campus. Not only do raped women live under the shadow of silence and social judgement, but when one gets the courage to come to our Criminal Justice System and beg for help, she is promptly shown the door.
-- Lize Goykhberg for the Editorial Board
