The Forensic Nurse

Sexual assualt knows no boundries. No matter what race, what nationality, what socio-economic status you hail from can spare you from the potential turmoil. 

 So is the case of Lawrence Taylor, the former NFL linebacker great for the New York Giants. Thursday morning the Hall of Fame linebacker was arrested in his hotel in Rockland County for soliciting sex from a 16 year old girl.

 Taylor was arrested when police were told that the minor had been delivered to his hotel room by another man, Rasheed Davis. Taylor stated at a news conference that he had paid $300 to the man for delivering her. He claims not to have engaged in sex with the minor girl. His Attorney Arthur Aidala state that Taylor is “a loving and family man” and that “My Client did not have sex with anybody. ”

The girl, who has not been identified because she is a minor, was reported missing back in march as a suspected runaway. ESPN.com reported “Early Thursday morning, Davis punched and kicked her, drove her to the hotel against her will and told her she had to have sex with Taylor, police said. When she refused, Davis handed her over to Taylor, who sexually assaulted her, they said. Taylor paid her $300, which she gave to Davis”.

After the alleged incident, she was somehow able to use a cell phone to get a message out. Her uncle received a text message from her with an address and contacted New York Police department to investigate. Officers found the girl along with Rasheed Davis at an address in the Bronx. Davis was charged with unlawful imprisonment, assault and endangering the welfare of a child. It was then when police were directed to Lawrence Taylors whereabouts. The hotel is located  about a half mile from the Spook Rock Golf Course, where Taylor frequently plays.

Mr. Taylor was released after posting a $75,000 bond and subsequently driven away from the courthouse by Mark Lepselter, a friend and business associate.

Ramapo Chief of Police Peter Brower said Taylor was cooperative when police took him into custody at around 4:00AM. Brower would not comment on if Lawrence Taylor knew the age of the girl, but did state that “Ignorance is not an excuse to an individual’s age”. In New York, third-degree rape is a charge levied when the victim is under the age of consent, which is 17 years of age.

Many victims of sexual crimes live the remainder of their lives, or a good portion of it, in fear that they will be victimized again. They often want to see their attacker locked up forever as punishment for the torment they experienced.

 Some states actually do have laws on their books to do just that. Most people dont even know such laws exist. They are called civil commitment laws and basically say that when a person becomes and has repeatly shown to be an emminent threat to the community as a whole, the govenment has the ability to incarcerate that individual indefinately.   

“The primary goal is incapacitation, that is, protecting society from people who are predicted to be dangerous in the future,” said Eric Janus, author of “Failure to Protect” and dean at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota. “The second goal is to provide treatment to these individuals.”

In 1990, Washington state became the first state to pass a civil commitment law specifically for violent sex offenders. Twenty states now have civil commitment laws.

Indefinate confinement of individuals to mental hospitals or treatment centers for those with severe mental illness has been acceptable in the United States since its close to its birth as a nation. Around turn of the 20th century many laws dealing with sexual psychopaths were passed as women gained more and more rights. But as the century progressed the laws were either repealed or rarely applied.

This week the United States Supreme Court is re-evaluating its position on civil commitment based on an appeal. They have upheld the use of such laws in the past when the goal has been rehabilitation and not further punishment. These laws can mandate indefinate treatment even after their criminal time behind bars has ended. Some argue that these treatments could happen while the person is incarcerated rather than after their sentancing.

The case being heard by the Supreme Court this week centers around a lay that has been used in as many as 77 cases where inmates were held in a federal prison in North Carolina under indefinate commitment.  “The justices will decide whether the program enacted under the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 is constitutional by infringing on a traditional state function”.

Alan DuBois, attorney for the federal prisoners, said it was wrong for the United States to claim a public safety argument when justifying continued incarceration.

“This statute is not written constitutionally,” he added. “It effectively does require no connection between the underlying criminal charge and the subsequent commitment. You can be in custody for any crime whatsoever. ”

Lawyer David Hargett convinced the Virginia Supreme Court that his client had a constitutional right to contest his civil commitment.

“I have found talking with people they are shocked to hear somebody can be sentenced by a judge, serve out that entire sentence and then say, ‘Wait a minute, we’re not going to let you go,’ ” Hargett said, calling it a legal “black hole.”

The full story can be viewed on cnn.com

For well over two hours outside a school gymnasium in Richmond, a 15 year old california girl was allegedly beaten and gang raped while a a crowd of approximately 20 people stood by and watched. The crowd managed to stand by and watch, snicker, and even “tweet” about the incident on twitter, the popular social networking site. Not one of them intervened or called the authorities to report the crime.

The reasoning behind why no one got involved gets a little more complex. Some say there was fear of repercussions from the gang conducting the rape and beating. Others say the crowd was overcome with what is known as the bystander effect. The bystander effect is when individuals in a crowd see that everyone else in the crowd is doing or not doing something, and that behavior becomes the accepted social norm. In essense, because no one else was doing anything, it must be ok for me to do nothing.

Some of you may remember the story of Kitty Genovese who was brutally raped, beaten, robbed, and eventually stabbed to death in Queens New York back in 1964. The story gained national attention when it was later revealed that several witnesses heard her scream during the attack during the night, and no one notified the police. One man shouted from his window to leave the girl alone, and the attacker fled, only to return a few minutes later when the police never arrived, and dragged her into a stairwell and stabbed her again leaving her to bleed out in a stairwell.

California has a law that makes it illegal to witness a crime against a child and not report it to police. But in this case technically the crowd did not violate the law which specifies that age of the minor child is 14 or less. The victim in the California gang-rape case was 15 years old.

  “This just gets worse and worse the more you dig into it,” Lt. Mark Gagan of the Richmond Police Department. “It was like a horror movie. I can’t believe not one person felt compelled to help her.”

To date the AP is reporting that five people have been arrested so far in connection with the crime. Three juveniles and two adults.  Richmond police spokesman, Lt. Mark Gagan said that  the three juveniles will be charged as adults. While the complete list of charges is not final yet, the suspects will be facing felony charges like “rape in concert” which can carry a life sentance.

The police were eventually notified when a person called in who had overheard others who were at the scene of the assault talking about the incident. The girl was found unconscious and “brutally assaulted” under a bench shortly before midnight Saturday 

Police have posted a $20,000 reward for anyone who comes to them with information that helps arrest and convict those involved in the attack.

Trying to

Many people know that the color of your skin can have an effect on almost every aspect of your life. But what about being raped?

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing have released a new study that shows dramatic results when it comes to identifying injuries that may have occurred during a sexual assault depending on the color of the victims skin.

The Researchers conducted a study of 120 volunteers who were predominatly white or african-american and conducted examinations after they had engaged in consentual sex. They found that 68% of the white women had incurred at least one external injury (tearing, abrasions, or swelling), but only 43% of the darker skinned women showed the same levels of injury.

Because physical injury as a result of sexual assualt is usually the exception rather than the norm, being able to clearly show an injury often has a positive effect on people “believing” the victims story.

Being a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner or SANE, I have heard countless times from law enforcement officers, social workers, other nurses, and even the victims own family members that they dont believe the victims story.

Sexual Assualts usually happen one on one, in a private setting with no other witnesses, cameras, or other ways to try and help determine if the sex was consentual or not.

Because most of these cases come down to a he said / she said scenario the ability to produce accurate forensic evidence is critical. There may or may not be DNA evidence and if injuries are harder to detect on darker skinned victims that puts them at a distinct disadvantage both clinically and in the criminal justice system.

Drug Faciliated sexual assaults are unfortunately a common happening in america and around the world. This video tells the story of a young woman’s experierence on a date with a friend which she had known for a while.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqF9ciGaEpI

Ways you can try to protect yourself from being slipped a drug:

• Never Accept Drinks from a stranger
• Never accept an open drink
• Never lose sight of your drink
• If you leave the table or area where your drink is, take it with you.
• if you forget to take your drink with you, get a new one
• Have trusted friends with you to help keep an eye out
• If your drink has a strange odor or color, throw it away.
• Know your limits.

President Bush has approved the U.S. Army’s request to execute a soldier convicted of rape and murder. If this sentenance is carried out, it will mark the first execution of a military member since 1961.

Private  Ronald Gray has been on the military’s death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, since 1988. The crimes occured nearly two decades ago.  Gray was convicted of raping and killing a female Army private and a civilian near his post at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Another conviction stems from the rape and attempted murder of another fellow soldier in her barracks at Fort Bragg.

Currently, there is no execution date set, and it is expected that there will be several appeals. President Bush was govenor of Texas for 152 executions.

10 year old Nujood Ali claims her ex-husband repeatedly beat and raped her during their brief marriage. The ten year old was part of an arranged marriage in the country of Yemen. 

Nujood’s parents married her off in February to a man in his 30s whom the child described as “old and ugly”.  Her parents were apparently promised that “he wouldn’t go near her until she was 20″.  A promise that did not prove to be true. In the few months that they two were married, the 10 year old girl was repeatedly abused sexually, phyisically, and emotionally.

Arranged marriages are very common in Yemen. It is not uncommon at all for girls to be forced into a marriage to an older man who may even already have one or more wives already. The country’s legal minimum age for marriage was 15 till a decade ago, when the law was changed to allow for children even younger to be wed.

Nujood got her divorce, but based on the principles of Islamic Sharia law, her husband was compensated, not prosecuted. Nujood was ordered to pay him more than $200. The human rights lawyer who represented her donated the money.

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The US Supreme court has ruled today that child rapists cannot be put to death. In essense stating that capital punishment is reserved only for murders.

The case is based on Lousiana man Patrick Kennedy, who was sentanced to death for the rape of his 8 year old step-daughter.  The case drew national attention due to the unusual sentancing. Kennedy if put to death would have been the first time in 44 years for a criminal to be put to death in a case when the victim was not also killed.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion that “evolving standards of decency” in the United States forbid capital punishment for any crime other than murder. Execution of Patrick Kennedy, the justices ruled, would be unconstitutional.

Ex-convict Robert Williams was found guilty Tuesday in the rape, torture, and attempted murder of a Columbia University graduate student who survived 19 hours of physical cruelty in which he scalded her with boiling water and attempted to blind her before trying to burn her to death.

“The woman told teary jurors that Williams repeatedly raped and sodomized her, scalded her with boiling water, threw bleach at her eyes in an attempt to blind her and slit her eyelids during the excruciating torture ”

“The verdict followed a gruesome trial that included dramatic testimony from the victim, who said Williams, 31, made her swallow fistfuls of painkillers, ordered her to gouge out her eyes with scissors, sealed her lips with super glue and gagged her with duct tape before torching her apartment.”