Accusations of acquaintance rape against Kobe Bryant and William Kennedy Smith do more than grab headlines and start water-cooler discussions, advocates for sexual-assault victims say.
Such high-profile cases create the climate in which people understand–or misunderstand–the issues surrounding sexual assault.
High-profile cases are “the first thing that’s going to come to people’s minds when they think of how acquaintance rape is dealt with by the system,” said Sarah Graham Miller, a spokeswoman for the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, based in Washington, D.C. “But just as the O.J. Simpson case is not the prototypical murder case, the Kobe Bryant and William Kennedy Smith cases aren’t prototypical.”
Many are following the gyrations of the two cases. Prosecutors on Sept. 2 dropped criminal charges against Bryant that he sexually assaulted a hotel employee. The NBA star still faces a civil lawsuit by his accuser.
Meanwhile, a former co-worker of Smith’s alleged in a lawsuit in August that he sexually assaulted her in January 1999. Smith, who was acquitted of sexual battery and simple battery in a closely watched 1991 trial, has denied the latest accusation.
Factors that set off such high-profile cases from standard ones range from powerful defense lawyers to media scrutiny to the possibility of money as motivation, said Greg Matoesian, associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Illinois-Chicago.
Sometimes, equating the two kinds of cases could influence how society understands rape. Some victim advocates fear the dismissal of criminal charges against Bryant will cause assault victims to become even more reluctant to report such crimes.
So far, Bryant’s accuser reportedly has endured death threats, insinuations that she was promiscuous, and the release of her identity through court-system foul-ups.
The Bryant case “has in many ways illuminated and exacerbated the worst fears of rape victims about the downside to reporting,” said Polly Poskin, executive director of the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault, a Springfield-based umbrella organization that represents 33 crisis centers.
Such cases play a role in cementing long-standing myths about rape such as tendencies to assign blame to the accuser and the questioning of the accuser’s motives, said Chris Lippincott, a spokesman for the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault.
“I worry that the coverage and discussion of these cases as a whole will discourage other rape victims from coming forward because these discussions are dominated by the public’s misperceptions about sexual violence,” Lippincott said.
On the flip side, Poskin said, “victims can garner courage from the courage demonstrated by the victim in the Bryant case, who came forward, made a report, who cooperated with the prosecution and who steadfastly remained a part of the case until it became clear that the focus on the trial would be on her character … and not on the incident.”
