NCJ Number
214749
Date Published
2006
Length
98 pages
Annotation
This study assessed the impact on the handling of sex-offense cases of section 41 of Great Britain's Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act, which mandates judicial and prosecutorial pretrial screening of the defense plan to use evidence of an alleged victim's previous sexual history.
Abstract
Findings suggest that the criminal justice professionals who make screening decisions under section 41 are influenced by personal views about appropriate female sexual behavior. This assessment notes other problems with the legislation and procedures and offers recommendations for ways in which the intent of the legislation might be better achieved and monitoring of its implementation improved. An examination of relevant appeal cases found that the Court of Appeal properly interpreted section 41 to be an instrument for excluding any evidence on the complainant's pervious sexual history unless it met specified criteria that made it relevant to the current case. The main reasons that evidence related to the complainant's previous sexual history was allowed under section 41 were to document the complainant's previous false allegations of being sexually victimized, a motive to lie, and to show relationships with unrelated third parties. Sexual history was an issue in two-thirds of the 23 trials observed by researchers; however, questioning tended to be brief and to the point. Judges and attorneys agreed that the intent of section 41 should be to restrict the use of sexual history evidence at trial, but allow its use when relevant to issues in the current case. Section 41 has had no significant effect on the outcome of rape trials, as the conviction rate for rape has continued to decline since its implementation. Complainants regarded any use of sexual history evidence in trials as unjust and an invasion of their privacy. 18 tables, 70 references, and appended legislation and supplementary data