The Politics ofnRapenby Betsy ClarkenWhen an acquitted William KennedynSmith emerged from thenFlorida courtroom last December declaringnhis faith in the system, a viewerncould only query, “Why?” There stoodna young man who was indicted for rapenand forced to spend over one millionndollars defending himself on the basis ofnthe word of one person, the word beingnuncorroborated by either physical orndirect evidence and in fact contradictednby both. An ordinary investigation ofnthese accusations should have resultednin findings that the trial disclosed. Notnonly was there reasonable doubt thatnSmith committed a crime, there was notneven probable cause that a crime hadnbeen committed.nAt first, disappointed feminists interviewednafter the trial blamed the reasonablendoubt standard as the barrier to ancriminal conviction. Then omitted evidencenof Smith’s earlier sexual activitynbecame the scapegoat. But when ABCnnewsman Morton Dean asked a correspondent,n”Do you think WilliamnSmith will file civil charges against thenwoman for making false accusations?”nwe knew the game was over.nVITAL SIGNSnOf special interest were the gravenreactions to the verdict by counselors innrape crisis centers. Some network correspondentsnintoned of “dark days” fornwomen and “rape victims” in particularnas a result of the jury’s failure to believenthe accuser. None of them mentionednconstitutional rights of the accused, thenrules of evidence, or the state’s burdennof proof Incredibly, even the prosecutornin her closing arguments indicatednto the jury that Smith’s attempt tondiscredit his accuser was somehow dirtynpool. Clearly, politics and gender havendestroyed the integrity of our judicialnsystem in cases involving charges ofnrape.nLast year was the bicentennial of thenSixth Amendment, which identifiesnrights of criminal defendants. The SixthnAmendment entitles a defendant,namong other things, “to be informed ofnthe nature and cause of the accusation;nto be confronted with the witnessesnagainst him; to have compulsory processnfor obtaining witnesses in his favor.”nThe Fourteenth Amendment, whichncame along in 1868, guarantees thatnany person, including a criminal defendant,nshall not be “deprived of life,nliberty, or property, without due processnof law.” A criminal defendant, in short,ngets to defend himselfnOver the past several decades, thendominant liberal elites have lectured usnad nauseam about the rights of criminalndefendants. An October 1991 article innthe Indianapolis Star, ominously entitledn”Some fear court will changenrights of women, minorities,” reportednthat in the 1990-91 term, the SupremenCourt “killed or damaged nine legalnprecedents [and] eight of those rulingsnwere victims of the court’s continuingntrend of reducing the rights of criminalndefendants while expanding the powernof police and prosecutors.” And so wenare relentlessly lectured about thenrights of the accused: how importantnthey are in protecting the innocent asnwell as the culpable, how ’tis better thatnguilty men go free than that oneninfiocent man be imprisoned unjustiy,nand how in any event crime is causednby socioeconomic factors for whichnsociety bears primary blame. Crime isnnnthe price we must pay for creating annunjust society.nThen the liberal elites discoverednrape, which led inexorably to rapists,nwhich led in turn to arrests in ghettonneighborhoods and trailer courts,nwhich automatically invoked all sorts ofnreal and imagined presumptions as tonthe individual’s innocence — whichnthen headed down a collision coursenwith modern feminism. Suddenly,nfeminists developed both an appetitenfor law and order and an increasednpenchant for hypocrisy. Here is thenproblem. If the power of the state overnthe individual sends chills down yournspine, if you explain the causes ofncrime in terms of sociology rather thannfree will, and if you find crime not onlynan inevitable product of an unjustnsociety but an understandable andneven justified response, as a sensitivenand sensitized individual, how are younto approach the sorry fact of victimized,nviolated women?nThe tension between competingnsensitivities in our liberal elites hasnresulted in contorted reasoning, corruptednlanguage, and violation of principlenon the subject of rape. ‘Theirnchallenge, of course, is to switch theirnsympathies from the quixotic strugglenof the accused to that of the powerhousenstate and all its agencies — thenpolice, the prosecutor (the accusingnwitness now known as the prosecutrix),nthe attorney general, and ultimatelynthe governor — without seeming tonabandon their high-minded allegiancento the railroaded underdog.nFaced with all sorts of uncomfortablencontradictions about their view ofnrape and rapists, feminists and theirnuneasy comrades began by establishingna hierarchy of victimization, makingnsure to place women at the very bottom,nlower than any group whosenunfortunate characteristics mightnbe compatible with being male.nConsequently, in any contest aboutnwho is most aggrieved, women mustnappear to be the sorriest of all specimens.nFeminists,efl^ected this plan by innpart dismantling and redesigning thendefinition of rape so as to universalizenthis violation of the female. A membernMARCH 1992/45n