Rape Shield Act
Regulation | Legal Reform
Lauding the trend among nations to enact protections for victims of sexual assault and abuse within their judicial procedures;
Concerned that not all nations have taken affirmative steps to protect those victims despite this progress;
Declaring that a victim's past sexual behavior is not a relevant or effective indicator of either their veracity or the likelihood of their consent to a specific sexual act;
Disgusted that the accused may justify the exposition of a victim’s sexual history on the vile suggestion that the victim “asked for it;”
Demanding an end to this degrading and humiliating parade of a victim’s sexual history before a jury;
Further asserting that perpetrators of sexual violence against minors nearly always reoffend;
Believing that the risk of repeated harm is so high that past convictions are inherently relevant;
The World Assembly hereby enacts the following:
- “Relevancy,” as it pertains to evidence, is the tendency of evidence to make an element of a crime more or less likely.
- Member state courts may not admit opinion or reputation evidence detailing a victim’s past sexual behavior or proclivity in a criminal proceeding.
- Member states may allow the admission of other evidence of the victim’s past sexual behavior or proclivity in a criminal proceeding only
- to prove specific instances of a victim’s sexual behavior with the person accused of the sexual misconduct, if offered by the defendant to prove consent, or lack thereof, to the criminal act, or
- to prove that the accused was not the source of injury, genetic material, or other physical evidence, provided that such evidence is relevant and particularized to discrete events.
Notwithstanding the above, member state courts must not admit relevant evidence of the victim’s past sexual behavior or proclivity that is substantially more prejudicial against the victim than it is probative to the satisfaction of the crime’s elements.- Member state courts must admit relevant evidence that the accused was convicted of prior sexual crimes against minors in any case involving criminal sexual misconduct. Such evidence is relevant if, in addition tending to make an element of a crime more likely than not, the past crimes were materially similar to the present accusation. When weighing materiality, courts must consider the victim’s age, sex, relation to the accused, the nature of the assault or molestation, and other factors that may show a preference or mode of operation.
- Member states must create a judicial procedure for ruling on the admission of evidence subject to these provisions that allows both parties the opportunity to make a legal argument and receive a determination of admissibility out of the jury’s perception, to avoid engendering unfair prejudice. The party seeking to admit the evidence bears the burden to show that the evidence complies with this resolution or any rules of evidence enacted to comply with this resolution.
- Member states must conceal the victim’s identity on all public documents unless the victim expressly waives that right. Member states may seal the record of proceedings involving testimony of a victim’s sexual behavior or proclivities upon the victim’s request, provided the record is available to all parties for subsequent appeals.
Ooc: I know the formatting is awful. I'm doing it via mobile, so ignore that for the next 6 hours? Then you can attack me for it.
