The document discusses the importance and role of rape shield laws. It makes three key assertions: 1) Rape shield laws are necessary to protect victims' identities from public scrutiny, which deters victims from reporting assaults. 2) The laws prevent harassment of victims during trials by limiting questions about their sexual history. 3) Failure to protect a victim's identity, such as by media leaks, amounts to re-traumatizing the victim similarly to another rape. The document argues that rape shield laws incentivize reporting, prevent harassment of victims, and protect their privacy and dignity during the legal process.

1. Rape Shield laws play an instrumental role in the American
society. Before the laws were instituted, victims of rape were
required to prove in a court of justice that they were indeed
victims and not willing participants to the occurrence. It was
thus easy for a defendant in a rape case to prove that his accuser
was a willing participant. All that a defense team had to do in
such a case to show the plaintiff's consent of the occurrence was
to produce evidence regarding the victim’s sexual
predisposition and sexual behavior before the incident took
place. The defendant would then embark on a strategy that
proves that the alleged victim asked for it or consented to it.
However, the defense tactic that was initially permissible by the
law to victimize victims for the second time. The defense tactic
added to the emotional torture that the victim has suffered
during the rape ordeal, by publicly presenting her in a
courtroom where members of the public would scrutinize her,
whereas, for obvious reasons, it would have been best for the
victim's identity to remain anonymous. Therefore, instead of
coming forward to report their aggressors and let justice be
served, they choose not to report the incidence in order to stay
out of the public eye. Given the detrimental experiences that
rape victims went through before the ratification of the laws,
this paper aims at proving that the Rape Shield laws play a
significant role in the criminal justice system.
The reason that prompts me to write on this topic is that I
had never heard of the rape shield laws until recently. I also
hold a position in the United States Army as a Sexual
Harassment Assault and Prevention Response Coordinator. In
the position, I work with rape and sexual assault victims. In
addition, my interest in the topic is prompted by the fact that

2. rape is prevalent in today's society and that most of the time we
as the society tend to blame the victim for being raped. I
strongly feel that nobody’s past should hold him or her
accountable for another person’s actions.
Rape Shield laws are policies meant to protect the victims of
sexual violence such as rape during court proceedings. They
have very limited exceptions in allowing a defendant to
introduce evidence of the victim's past sexual behavior, history,
and reputation as their defense strategy. The laws also prohibit
the publication of the alleged rape victim's identity. The
purpose of the laws is to protect the victim from emotional
distress that emanates from being cross-examined on their past
sexual behavior on the witness stand. Previously, courts have
ruled that a victim’s sexual history had little relevance to
defense teams and in fact, it amplifies the victim's
humiliation[footnoteRef:1]. In essence, rape shield laws prevent
the aggressor from discrediting the victim using the clothing
won, behavior, attitude of the victim before the incident as well
as the victim’s sexual past. [1: Anderson J. Michelle, From
Chastity Requirement To Sexuality License: Sexual Consent and
a New Rape Shield Law(2013)]
Rape shield laws are necessary for the protection of a
victim’s identity from public scrutiny. One of the biggest fears
that prevent victims from reporting sexual assault to relevant
authorities is that their identities would be publicly revealed
which will expose them to stigmatization, which contributes to
constant emotional torture. Rape shield laws require that the
victim’s identity should be protected before, during and after
court proceedings. The stigma inflicted upon rape victims after
the ordeal makes them feel as if they are re-experiencing the
incident. Rape stigma is so ingrained in the American culture
that people rarely notice it in their continuous humiliation of
rape victims in their conversations.
Victims of rape occasionally report that people are oblivious to
their actions towards them. For instance, when they engage with

3. the person and divulge information about their rape incident,
the audience's reactions often place the victims in utter
discomfort. After revealing the information to them, the
audience would stop making eye contact or almost immediately
start an entirely different conversation topic. Other victims
report that the comments they receive about their ordeal suggest
that they should share the blame for the rape[footnoteRef:2].
Some of the victims also say that people imply that their
previous sexual behaviors played a role in encouraging the
assault. Such responses and reactions are more than sufficient to
discourage public disclosure of a victim’s identity. Thus, the
rape shield laws play a vital role in shielding the victim from
public scrutiny. [2: Spohn C & Horney J, Rape law reform: A
grassroots revolution and its impact. (2013).]
The extent to which rape shield laws are necessary can be
manifested in the court case between a plaintiff William
Kennedy Smith and her aggressor Kobe Bryant. Kobe Bryant, a
famous basketball athlete, was accused of sexually assaulting
the plaintiff. It happened that during the initial stages of the
proceedings, court officials accidentally emailed the identity as
well as information on her sexual conduct to the media. All of
the alleged victim’s information was released on the internet
including her home address, contact information, and photos.
After the publication of the information, the victim dropped the
case, and the judge eventually dismissed the case against the
basketball star. Though the release of the victim’s identity was
not as a result of the defendant's actions, it nevertheless denied
the victim the chance to a fair trial and the possible prosecution
of her aggressor. Since the victim feared continuous
victimization, she opted to drop the case.
Rape shield Laws are instrumental for they avoid the
harassment of a victim through questioning her past sexual
experience on a witness stand. Before the ratification of rape
shield laws by states and the federal government, the court
admitted almost all evidence about the plaintiff’s past sexual

4. conduct. Courts allowed the use of such evidence that the
defense team would use to harass the victim. The occurrence
resulted in a widespread attitude and belief among the male
oriented legal community that evidence offered in a law court
suggested that the plaintiff was promiscuous and would make a
judge rule in the defendant's favor. Judges and magistrates
believed that women with an active sexual past were more likely
to agree to sexual advances of their alleged male aggressors.
Thus, women were harassed for merely having an active sexual
history.
However, today there has been a change in attitude. The
use of humiliating attacks during rape trials by quoting a
victim’s sexual past serves to infuriate the jury rather than
contribute to the overall defense of a suspect. It is only under
limited circumstances that a victim's sexual history can be
scrutinized in court. For a victim's sexual conduct to be
admissible as a defense in court, it has to pass through an
admissibility test[footnoteRef:3]. [3: L DaSilva, The Next
Generation of Sexual Conduct: Expanding the Protective Reach
of Rape Shield Laws to Include Evidence Found on
MySpace.,(2008)]
It is important to note that the failure to protect the identity of a
rape victim and to leak her information to the media or the
internet is similar to re-raping the victim. In such a case, a
victims experience can be equated to third rape. The first rape is
the first incidence that she encounters with her aggressor; the
second one is the harassment by the defense team on the witness
stand while testifying against her attacker and the third is
excessive scrutiny conducted by social media. In the desire of
media outlets to sell news by attracting viewership on their
television channels and readership to their print and online
platform, the media often subject victims to intense public
scrutiny. More than often, the inspection is aimed at revealing
damaging information about the victim since scandalous and
controversial information about the victim sells more than

5. information about her morality and ethics. In addition, when
such information is released, the public tends to judge the
victim subjectively and not objectively. The public may vent its
negative opinion through social media and news panels in a way
that emotionally hurts the victim. Mostly, media outlets force
victims to relive the rape ordeal by broadcasting the story. The
emotional torture that the victims face will remain longer even
after the physical markings of the sexual assault occur.
Furthermore, the victim’s right to privacy is violated at the
expense of financial gain by news outlets. The rape shield laws
thus play a significant role in the prevention of such an
occurrence.
Rape shield laws were particularly vital in high profile sexual
assault cases by providing a victim with a fair trial against a
celebrity defendant. The damaging coverage on a victim done
by the media coupled by the presumption that the aggressor was
innocent by virtue of being a celebrity, denies the victim a fair
trial. The reason is that due to opinionate and subjective
judgment by members of the public in favor of the celebrity,
victims are often left hopeless on whether justice will be served.
Victims often feel that the judgments in favor of the celebrity
by the public are a reflection of what judges will seek thus
prompting them to drop cases against their aggressors.
Rape shield laws are essential in protecting the rights of
victims who work in sexually suggestive set ups such as
strippers and prostitutes. It is wrong to admit in court evidence
about a victim’s sexual conduct with third parties in order to
prove reasonable but mistaken belief of consent. The statement
applies to strippers and prostitutes. Though they engage in
sexually suggestive acts as well as consensual sex with others,
it is wrong to infer consent and force them to have sex. If a man
raped a prostitute or a stripper and produced evidence of their
past sexual behavior in court and it was viewed as admissible, it
will communicate the message that it is okay to rape sex
workers. Furthermore, given that prostitution is illegal in the
United States, victims would never report and subsequently

6. never get justice for the crime committed against them. The
occurrence will have a detrimental effect especially on former
prostitutes who decided to reform and stop sex work. If raped
and an aggressor decides to use their past sexual history as a
defense, it is likely that she will not get justice even though she
is reformed. For instance, in a court case dubbed the New
Mexico State v. Johnson, the rape victim stated that the
defendant, Johnson had lured her into his car. He then drove to
a remote location and then raped her. In his defense, Johnson
stated that it was consensual sex and he intended on producing
evidence about the accuser’s acts of prostitution. Had the judge
treated the evidence as admissible, the victim would not have
gotten justice. The same applies to female porn actors since,
without the rape shield laws, it would be permissible to provide
evidence of their past sexual history in court thus making
rapists[footnoteRef:4]. [4: A Gruber,Rape, feminism, and the
war on crime., (2009).
]
Rape shield laws are important for they encourage victims
to report their ordeal to the authorities and in the process of
seeking justice for crimes committed against them. Most victims
of sexual assault do not report their aggressors to the criminal
justice system. As stated before, the reason is due to the fact
that the judiciary may make them re-live the experience. It is no
doubt that the collection of sexual violence statistics on
unreported cases is challenging. However, it is believed that
only, 15.8% to 35% of sexual assaults are reported to the
authorities in the United States. Some of the reasons that
victims quote for not reporting their aggressors is the fact that
their identity might be compromised, details of their past sexual
behavior might be revealed, and they may be excessively
scrutinized. Thus, rape shield laws serve to incentivize victims
to seek justice by reporting their aggressors.
When women report sexual assault to the authorities, the
sad truth is that they are not always believed. The statement can

7. easily be proved using high profile rape cases. For instance,
radio host Jain Ghomeshi was accused of sexual assault and
rape. Bill Cosby, a famous American based comedian, was
accused by 36 women of sexual assault. Even the current United
States President Donald Trump was accused of sexually
assaulting and groping a number of women. In all of the three
cases, the victims went public and bravely shared their stories.
They were however dismissed and faulted or accused of playing
a role that contributed to the sexual assault incident. The
dismissal and accusations occurred despite deciding to gather
immense courage and report events that they had decided to
bury for years. The account of events demonstrates how
important it is for sexual assault victims to have their ordeal
hidden away from public scrutiny. People do not engage in the
objective examination of details in such events and quickly pass
judgment without carefully considering evidence. Fortunately,
victims have the rape shield laws which can prevent such public
prosecution that deters victims from pursuing prosecution of the
assailants[footnoteRef:5]. [5: Caringella S, Addressing rape
reform in law and practice (2009).
]
Rape shield laws serve to guarantee women the protection
of the sexual freedoms. As noted earlier, prior to the ratification
of the rape shield laws, for a defendant to be acquitted of rape
charges, all he had to do was provide information on a woman's
promiscuous past. Thus a woman’s sexual history was used to
gauge her credibility as an alleged survivor of rape. If a woman
has a sexual history, which consisted of having multiple sexual
partners, her credibility would be compromised. During that era,
testimony from a chaste virgin was considered to be more
credible than that of a woman who had consensual sex with
multiple men[footnoteRef:6]. Thus the acquittal of rapists using
the reason that the alleged victim has a long history of
consensual sex with multiple people implied it was okay to rape
women who had multiple sexual partners. It, therefore, made

8. women feel that having multiple sexual partners was a crime
and it was fine to discourage them from it by raping them. The
occurrence significantly denied women freedoms of the sexually
while not placing restrictions on men. It was, therefore, a source
of inequality. [6: Hines P, Bracing the Armor: Extending Rape
Shield Protections to Civil Proceedings. (2010)
]
Rape shield laws play a significant role in today’s society. In
the 19th century, rapists were able to get away with the crime
by only presenting evidence of their victim's sexual history,
proving that she was promiscuous to the jury and he would be
acquitted. The occurrence was however unfair. The first
assertion that this paper makes in that rape shield laws are
necessary for the protection of a victim's identity. The law is
instrumental in preventing fears of reporting their aggressors to
the authorities among victims. The victims often fear that once
their identities are revealed to members of the public, they
would be subjected to the excessive scrutiny that is detrimental
to personal privacy. The second assertion is that rape shield
laws are instrumental in the prevention of harassment of a
victim during trail through aggressive cross examination and
questioning about her past. Prior to the formulation and
implementation of the laws by states and federal governments,
it was permissible to cross-examine a rape victim in court
harshly. The harassment was majorly based on a victim's sexual
past. Had it not been for the rape shield laws, rape victims were
continuously forced to relive the abuse experience in court.
The third assertion that proves the importance of rape laws is
that the failure to protect the identity of a rape victim and to
leak her information to the media or the internet is similar to re-
raping the victim. While aspiring to sell news stories, most
media outlets tend to attract viewership by broadcasting and
publishing controversial stories. These controversial stories are
often those that are emotional or detail a negative event or a
socially unacceptable scenario. Therefore transmitting the

9. identity of a rape victim is an avenue that attracts viewership
for the media outlets. The occurrence often works against the
victim's wishes as she is subjected to intense criticisms and
blame for exposing herself to rape. The paper also finds that
rape shield laws are important for they incentivize victims to
report their aggressors and seek justice. Without the laws,
victims would not be able to gather sufficient courage to report
the crimes as they fear their identities would be compromised.
The laws also prevent victims from easily dropping charges
against their aggressor’s high profile perpetrators by virtue of
public dismissal and discouragement. However, I would like to
question whether the men who are sexually assaulted encounter
the same doubt women go through while reporting the
violations.
References
A Gruber,Rape, feminism, and the war on crime., (2009).
C Spohn & J Horney, Rape law reform: A grassroots revolution
and its impact. (2013).
Joanne Belknap, Rape: Too Hard to Report and Too Easy to
Discredit Victims, 16 Violence Against Women1335–1344,
1335-1344 (2010).

10. L DaSilva, The Next Generation of Sexual Conduct: Expanding
the Protective Reach of Rape Shield Laws to Include Evidence
Found on MySpace., 13 uffolk J. Trial & App215–253, 215-253
(2008).
Michelle J. Anderson, From Chastity Requirement To Sexuality
License: Sexual Consent and a New Rape Shield Law, SSRN
Electronic Journal (2013)
P Hines,Bracing the Armor: Extending Rape Shield Protections
to Civil Proceedings. (2010)
S Caringella, Addressing rape reform in law and practice
(2009).
Week 2 - Discussion
If your assigned number is:
Your “and” compound inequality is:
Your “or” compound inequality is:
34
–1 ≤ 3 + 2x < 11
1 – x ≥ –3 or 5x – 1 > 19
· Solve the compound inequalities as demonstrated
in Elementary and Intermediate Algebra and the Instructor
Guidance in the left navigation toolbar, in your online course.
Be careful of how a negative x-term is handled in the solving
process. Show all math work arriving at the solutions.
· Show the solution sets written algebraically and as a union or
intersection of intervals. Describe in words what the solution
sets mean, and then display a simple line graph for each
solution set. This is demonstrated in the Instructor Guidance in

11. the left navigation toolbar, in your online course.
· Incorporate the following five math vocabulary words into
your discussion. Use bold font to emphasize the words in your
writing. Do not write definitions for the words; use them
appropriately in sentences describing your math work.
· Compound inequalities
· And
· Or
· Intersection
· Union
Week 3 - Discussion
If your assigned number is
On pages 575 – 577, do the following problem
On pages 584 – 585, do the following problem
34
· Simplify each expression using the rules of exponents and
examine the steps you are taking.
· Incorporate the following five math vocabulary words into
your discussion. Use bold font to emphasize the words in your
writing. Do not write definitions for the words; use them

12. appropriately in sentences describing the thought behind your
math work.
· Principal root
· Product rule
· Quotient rule
· Reciprocal
· nth root
Refer to Inserting Math Symbols for guidance with formatting.
Be aware with regards to the square root symbol, you will
notice that it only shows the front part of a radical and not the
top bar. Thus, it is impossible to tell how much of an expression
is included in the radical itself unless you use parenthesis. For
example, if we have √12 + 9 it is not enough for us to know if
the 9 is under the radical with the 12 or not. Therefore, we
must specify whether we mean it to say √(12) + 9 or √(12 + 9),
as there is a big difference between the two. This distinction is
important in your notation.
Another solution is to type the letters “sqrt” in place of the
radical and use parenthesis to indicate how much is included in
the radical as described in the second method above. The
example above would appear as either “sqrt(12) + 9” or
“sqrt(12 + 9)” depending on what we needed it to say.
Week 4 - Discussion
If your assigned number is
Use FACTORING to solve:
Use the QUADRATIC FORMULA to solve:
34
x2 – 4x – 12 = 0
x2 + 4x + 3 = 0
· For the factoring problem, be sure you show all steps to the
factoring and solving. Show a check of your solutions back into
the original equation.
· For the quadratic formula problem, be sure that you use
readable notation while you are working the computational

13. steps. Refer to the Inserting Math Symbols handout for guidance
with formatting.
· Present your final solutions as decimal approximations carried
out to the third decimal place. Due to the nature of these
solutions, no check is required.
· Incorporate the following four math vocabulary words into
your discussion. Use bold font to emphasize the words in your
writing. Do not write definitions for the words; use them
appropriately in sentences describing your math work.
· Quadratic formula
· Factoring
· Completing the square
· Discriminant
Week 5 - Discussion
If your assigned number is
Solve the following Problems
34
h(x) = | −2x |
y = 2 ( x + 4)2 - 3
There are many ways to go about solving math problems. To
solve this problem, you will be required to do some work that
will not be included in the discussion point.
· First, graph your functions so that you can clearly describe the

14. graphs in your post. Your graph itself is not required in your
post, although a discussion of the graph is required. Make sure
you have at least five points for each equation to graph. Show
all math work for finding the points.
· Mention any key points on the graphs, including intercepts,
vertex, or start/end points. Points with decimal values need not
be listed, as they might be found in a square root function. Stick
to integer value points.
· Discuss the general shape and location of each of your graphs.
· State the domain and range for each of your equations. Write
them in interval notation.
· State whether each of the equations is a function or not giving
your reasons for the answer.
· Select one of your graphs and assume it has been shifted three
units upward and four units to the left. Discuss how this
transformation affects the equation by rewriting the equation to
incorporate those numbers.
· Incorporate the following five math vocabulary words into
your discussion. Use bold font to emphasize the words in your
writing. Do not write definitions for the words; use them
appropriately in sentences describing the thought behind your
math work.
· Function
· Relation
· Vertical Line test
· Transformation