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The 'Unnamed Conspirator' In Sexual Assault Cases

Police car.
(PD)

In every crime, there’s a victim and an offender. But sexual assault cases are different, at least according to former federal prosecutor Anne Munch. She says rape cases have a third party involved, and it’s that third party that makes it very hard to get a conviction.

“Now, the third party wasn't listed in the police reports, didn't show up on the charging documents, didn't actually come in raise their hands take an oath and testify in or did they actually physically appear back in the jury room," says Munch. "But the third party was absolutely involved in each and every one of these cases to the point where they were having more of an influence than the victim and the offender.”

Munch is now a consultant who spent two years working with the Missoula Police Department, handling rape prosecutions after the U.S. Department of Justice in 2012 began investigating how law enforcement and the university handled or mishandled sexual assault cases.

This week she addressed state lawmakers who are studying ways to improve Montana’s response to sexual assault cases. She started out by playing part of a 911 call recorded in San Diego. 

“Okay, how I can help you ma’am? I was raped earlier or at least I feel like I was," the call begins.

The caller says she met a man at a bar, and they ended up in her apartment, and began getting physical. Despite telling him she didn’t want to have sex, and then telling him to leave, the caller says she was raped. Mid-way through the call, though, Anne Munch says you can hear the influence of that third party, whom she calls “The Unnamed Conspirator.”

“Caller:I think it’s my fault ... I was drinking. Dispatcher: It doesn’t matter … Caller: He wouldn’t leave … Dispatcher: It doesn’t matter. It’s not your fault. You told him no. So it’s not your fault, okay?”

In case you haven’t figured it out, Anne Munch’s Unnamed Conspirator, who frustrates prosecutors and helps rapists go free, is society’s attitude toward rape, which means it’s all of us.

“It's you and me. It's basically the fountain that we all consume from. It’s the gumbo that we all share, and it's a Petri dish we have in essence created collectively without even knowing it, because this is absolutely the lowest-risk highest-reward crime that we have in our culture.”

Statistics support that claim. The National Violence Against Women Survey in 2006 found that, because most rapes aren’t reported, and most rape reports don’t lead to prosecution, only about three percent of all rapes result in a conviction. Munch says the Unnamed Conspirator gets involved in all kinds of sexual assault cases, whether they involve ordinary people or the rich and famous.

When basketball star Kobe Bryant was accused of raping a Colorado hotel employee in 2003, Munch says The Unnamed Conspirator was behind the 19-year-old woman’s decision not to testify against Bryant.

“She had hundreds of death threats, hundreds of them. She couldn't drive home to her parents in Eagle unless she had like a blanket over her or was somehow disguised, because it turned into such a media circus," says Munch. "The details of her life were posted on the internet and in the international media, and she said I can't really take this anymore and the case was dismissed.”

Kobe Bryant was never tried on the rape charge and remains legally innocent. He did agree to an undisclosed settlement in a lawsuit filed by the woman.

Munch says if a sexual assault case does go to trial, studies find that jurors often judge the victim, even though they’re not supposed to.

“What they found out was that they basically admitted to disregarding the evidence and basing their decisions on their perceptions of the victim's character and lifestyle - the victim's character and lifestyle - not the offender's," says Munch. "Which is kind of interesting, because if we’re talking about crime and we’re talking about looking at a person who commits a crime, you would think we would want to focus on that person and yet there is this history that we all share, where that does not really happen.”

It’s something for lawmakers to keep mind, as they measure whether Montana is doing enough to help the victims, and bring justice to the offenders, in sexual assault cases. The Law and Justice Interim committee will report on its findings, with possible recommendations for changes to the law, in time for the next legislature in 2017.

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