About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

21 UCLA Women's L.J. 89 (2014)
Sexual Abuse in California Prisons: How the California Rape Shield Fails the Most Vulnerable Populations

handle is hein.journals/uclawo21 and id is 109 raw text is: ARTICLES SEXUAL ABUSE IN CALIFORNIA PRISONS: How the California Rape Shield Fails the Most Vulnerable Populations Tasha Hill* INTRODUCTION Under federal and all state rules of evidence, evidence of a person's character or character trait is generally not admissible to prove that on a particular occasion the person acted in accordance with that character or trait.' However, in a sexual assault case, un- der the common law, this type of character evidence against a com- plaining witness2 is allowed, but against the defendant is not permit- ted. Prior to the enactment of rape shield statutes, it was common practice for defense counsel to bring up past sexual acts of a com- plaining witness in order to cast doubt on the assertion that the sex- ual act(s) with the defendant were non-consensual.3 Additionally, *J.D., 2014, University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. I would like to thank Professor Ingrid Eagly for providing the inspiration and guidance for this Comment. Additional thanks to Professor Joanna Schwartz for reading drafts and providing much needed organizational advice. My gratitude also goes to Professor Stuart Biegel and my ALW cohorts for feedback on this piece. And finally, my appreciation goes to Leslie Schafer for all her support, without which, none of this would be possible. FED. R. EVID. 404. 2 The terms complaining witness and alleged victim are typically used to describe the complainant in a matter being prosecuted. Id. I generally use the term complaining witness throughout, as this is the term most commonly used in legal publications on sexual assault. See, e.g., 32 N.J PRAC., CRIMINAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 22:15 (2013-2014 ed.); Necessity or Permissibility of Mental Examination to Determine Competency or Credibility of Complainant in Sexual Offense Prosecutions, 45 A.L.R.4th 310 (1986); GA. CRIMINAL TRIAL PRACTICE FORMS § 17:2750 (6th ed.). Ya'ara Barnoon and Elena Sytcheva, Thirteenth Annual Gender and Sexuality Law: Annual Review Article: Rape, Sexual Assault & Evidentiary Matters, 13 GEO. J. GENDER & L. 459, 460 n.7 (citing State v. Wood, 59 Ariz. 48, 52 (1942), overruled by State ex rel. Pope v. Superior Court, In & For Mohave © 2014 Tasha Hill. All rights reserved. 89

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most