Wrongful Conviction in Sexual Assault: Stranger Rape, Acquaintance Rape, and Intra-Familial Child Sexual Assaults

2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (5) ◽  
pp. 708-712
Author(s):  
Marina Sorochinski
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Acquaintance Rape ◽  
Sexual Assaults ◽  
Unique Combination ◽  
Wrongful Conviction ◽  
Wrongful Convictions ◽  
Sexual Crimes ◽  
Sexual Crime ◽  
Crime Investigation

This article reviews the recently published book by M. B. Johnson— Wrongful conviction in sexual assault: Stranger rape, acquaintance rape, and intra-familial child sexual assaults. The focus of the book is on the unique combination of factors specifically within sexual crime investigation and legislation that lead to the overrepresentation of this type of crimes within wrongful convictions. The book presents a detailed analysis of social context, and historical backdrop specific to wrongful convictions in sexual crimes. It is a highly informative and well-written book.

Introduction and Overview

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Matthew Barry Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Acquaintance Rape ◽  
Sexual Assaults ◽  
Wrongful Conviction ◽  
Public Health Perspective ◽  
Wrongful Convictions ◽  
Child Sexual Assault ◽  
Criminal Offenses

The Introduction and Overview provides an overview of the chapters and the approach in examining wrongful conviction in sexual assault. It identifies both rape and wrongful conviction as damaging and traumatic outcomes. Drawing from a public health perspective, it presents a link between rape and wrongful conviction illustrated by disaggregating wrongful conviction in stranger rape, from acquaintance rape, and intrafamilial child sexual assault, thus highlighting the concentration of wrongful convictions among stranger rapes. The Introduction and Overview also discusses the frequency of wrongful conviction and points out the significance of classifying sexual assaults together rather than relying on the prosecution approach of classifying criminal offenses by the highest charge, which obscures the relation of sexual assault to wrongful conviction.

scholarly journals Sexual Assault: Social and Stranger Rape

1987 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Edward Renner ◽  
Carol Wackett
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Relative Frequency ◽  
Medical Attention ◽  
Physical Injury ◽  
Sexual Assaults ◽  
Assault Victims ◽  
To Receive

The Service for Sexual Assault Victims in Halifax reviewed 474 cases of sexual assault handled over a three-year period to determine the nature and relative frequency of social and stranger sexual assault. Women are most likely to be sexually assaulted by a man who is known to and often trusted by them. Women who are raped in a social context are less willing than those raped by a stranger to seek help at the time of the assault, to receive medical attention, or to report the rape to the police. They are also less likely to be threatened with physical harm or to receive physical injury. The cultural values which are responsible for the high frequency of sexual assaults by men who are known to their victims, and for the reluctance of the women to disclose the assault, are discussed.

Wrongful Conviction in Sexual Assault

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Barry Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Racial Bias ◽  
Sexual Offending ◽  
National Registry ◽  
Acquaintance Rape ◽  
Wrongful Conviction ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Dna Evidence ◽  
Sexual Offenses ◽  
Investigation Methods

Wrongful Conviction in Sexual Assault: Stranger Rape, Acquaintance Rape, and Intra-Familial Child Sexual Assaults examines the phenomenon of innocent defendants who are convicted of rape and related sexual offenses. It presents findings that indicate sexual offenses are highly overrepresented among confirmed wrongful convictions. Drawing from Innocence Project and National Registry of Exoneration data and supplemented by social science and historical sources, the investigation explores various processes that led to wrongful conviction, distinguishing the differential risk of wrongful conviction among stranger rape, acquaintance rape, and intra-familial child sexual assault. The book includes reference to established research on false confessions, eyewitness misidentification, erroneous expert and informant testimony, DNA evidence, racial bias, and “manufactured” evidence. The work also introduces new terms and concepts (such as “black box” investigation methods, the stranger rape thesis, the moral outrage–moral correction process, “spontaneous misidentification,” victim status paths, the differential investigation challenge related to capable vs. incapacitated rape victims, and the role of serial sexual offending in wrongful conviction) to clarify and illustrate unique aspects of wrongful conviction in sexual assault.

scholarly journals The gendered embodiment of shame: Intersections of acquaintance rape, trauma and self-blame in Pompidou posse by Sarah Lotz

Literator ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Murray
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Acquaintance Rape ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Sexual Assaults ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Self Blame ◽  
Sexually Assaulted ◽  
Social Messages

This article offers a feminist literary analysis of the gendered embodiment of shame in Pompidou posse by Sarah Lotz. In this novel, Lotz depicts female characters who are sexually assaulted by acquaintances and the resultant shame and trauma reside in their bodies. I will demonstrate that the embodied shame of these characters is distinctly gendered and that this shapes their attempts to cope with the aftermath of the sexual assaults. A close reading of the text reveals that the characters are exposed to overwhelming social messages of female culpability in a larger context that is rife with misogyny. As a result, they anticipate blame to such an extent that they blame themselves and internalise this blame as shame. By focusing on the bodies of the survivors, Lotz demonstrates the embodiment of shame, but she also suggests a corporeal challenge to silencing. The bodies of these characters speak loudly, albeit sometimes in the halting language of trauma, and they function to alert them to danger, to help them excavate memories that are made inaccessible and to testify to traumatic sexual assault.

Rape and Wrongful Conviction

2020 ◽  
pp. 19-56
Author(s):  
Matthew Barry Johnson
Keyword(s):  
National Registry ◽  
Black Box ◽  
Acquaintance Rape ◽  
Moral Outrage ◽  
Wrongful Conviction ◽  
Wrongful Convictions ◽  
Victim Status ◽  
Investigation Methods ◽  
Innocence Project

This chapter focuses on the concentration of rape cases among confirmed wrongful convictions. How stranger rape differs from date and acquaintance rape with regard to the risk of wrongful conviction is presented. Innocence Project and National Registry of Exonerations data are examined as well as case illustrations. The chapter examines the pressures on law enforcement authorities and the role of primary evidence, secondary evidence, black box investigation methods, the continuum of intentionality, and victim status in stranger rape. In addition, a stranger rape thesis is presented to distinguish the unique challenges faced in the investigation of “stranger rape. The moral outrage associated with stranger rape produces a great demand on police for arrests and convictions yet reliable identification of the perpetrator is compromised in stranger rape.

Serial Rapists and Wrongful Conviction

2020 ◽  
pp. 105-119
Author(s):  
Matthew Barry Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Crime Scene ◽  
Sexual Assaults ◽  
Wrongful Conviction ◽  
Common Pattern ◽  
Wrongful Convictions ◽  
Offender Profiling ◽  
Scene Investigation ◽  
The Law ◽  
Serial Rapists

This chapter describes a common pattern where innocent defendants are tried and convicted of crimes committed by serial rapists. These cases account for a significant portion not only of the wrongful convictions in sexual assaults, but also of all confirmed wrongful convictions. The chapter presents 67 defendants wrongfully convicted with this set of case facts. This chapter identifies the difficulty encountered by law enforcement in the investigation of “stranger rapes” despite the expanding literature on crime scene investigation and offender profiling. This chapter also highlights the law enforcement focus on ruling out false rape charges, while less attention is paid to the matter of unreliable identification.

Risk Estimations of the Conjunction of Victim and Crime Event Characteristics on the Lethal Outcome of Sexual Assaults

2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 470-486 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Beauregard ◽  
Tom Mieczkowski
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Sex Offenders ◽  
Fatal Outcome ◽  
Protective Effects ◽  
Sexual Assaults ◽  
Lethal Outcome ◽  
Sexual Crimes ◽  
Crime Event

This study examines what factors may distinguish injury from death in sexual crimes. We suggest that victim characteristics may work in conjunction with the crime context to enhance or reduce a fatal outcome once a sexual assault is underway. Based on a sample of 201 sex offenders who either physically injured or killed their victim, we calculate risk estimations of lethal and injurious outcomes for various conjunctions of victim characteristics and contextual aspects of the crime event. One of the most interesting findings is the apparent protective effects of a victim’s criminogenic environment, which consistently appears to decrease the probability of a fatal outcome.

Impact of poor evidence management on DNA profiling in sexual assault and homicide: A case report

2021 ◽  
pp. 002581722096648
Author(s):  
Naresh Kumar ◽  
Pooja Puri ◽  
SK Shukla ◽  
Deepa Verma
Keyword(s):  
Case Report ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Dna Profiling ◽  
Sexual Assaults ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Her Family ◽  
Female Victims ◽  
Vaginal Swabs ◽  
Biological Evidence

Increasing numbers of female victims of violent sexual assaults are being murdered with the aim of concealing the identity of the perpetrator. Proper handling and analysis of evidence is very important in gaining a conviction in many criminal cases. After evidence is collected, due precautions must be taken to ensure that the integrity of the sample is maintained, and chances of contamination are minimised. This paper presents a case study where improper handling of biological evidence led to loss of evidentiary value, and the semen could not be located on the vaginal swabs and victim’s garments due to improper preservation of samples. However, the DNA from the nail of a decomposed finger helped identify the victim, and the suspect was apprehended based on the clues given by her family.

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