The jury members are there to determine the guilt or innocence of the accused. They are aware of this. The jury is referred to as the finder of fact. Each side in a trial gives their version of the event as they perceive it. To require one side to purge their vocabulary of the term that most accurately defines their perception of the event is to unfairly cripple that side in presenting their evidence.

The jury is cautioned at the begining of the trial to listen to all of the evidence before making a decision. Furthermore, in criminal trials, the defendant must be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. This is a high standard, as it should be. Additionally, when a jury is first picked for a case, the attorneys have the opportunity to strike any juror that is unable to listen to the case fairly and impartially. They are also given the ability to strike a certain number of other jurors for any reason. Every effort is made to give the defendant the benefit of the doubt. But banning certain words from the courtroom is ludicrous.

The victim has to be given the opportunity to present her or his understanding of what happened just as the defendant is given this opportunity. Expecting the victim to perform liguistic acrobatics as they describe the most horrific and shameful sexual experience that they have had to a room full of strangers and the person they believe did this to them is ridiculous. At least let the victim own the words that describe what she or he believes happened. The jury can determine if the events described meet the legal definition and whether the defendant is guilty. Do not go in with the assumption that jurors are incapable of realizing that there are two sides to the story with two different vocabularys decribing the incident and that they need to listen to both, and then decide.

I, and I'm sure most, wouldn't argue with the accuracy of your overview of jury duties, but the fact remains, nothing is perfect--especially the behavior and "objective nature" of jurors and their desire to seek the facts and conclusion of the case. Jurors can and often do get swayed by emotion.

What I'm really confused about here is why the defendant can't use other adjectives to describe the "sex" that they allege was not willful. I read nothing in the article that says the defendant can't decribe the "sex" as being nonconsensual; that said, why not state the sex was forced upon her, or was an unwilling act that was aggressively acted out. These two forms are accurate yet don't carry the stigma of the word "rape." The dynamics of a courtroom case preclude us from knowing the legitimacy of the situation, and still, the possiblity of sexism remains.

My point is I feel there could be a sound reason for the omission, but whether it is justified in this case is another point that can't in the context of this article be truthfully found.

She's the accuser

Having the witness describe "her understanding of what happened" isn't relevant. Her description of what did happen is.

That doesn't mean that she isn't required to conform to the rules of evidence.

Having the witness describe her experience IS relevant.

The witness describes his/her understanding of what happened, which is often not the same as what happened. Trials generally are about witnesses supplying shades of the truth. Determining what the witnesses "understand" can be quite useful in determining the truth, including while weighing the evidence submitted.

-j

PS Don't seem to be able to write (eom) replies w/o using the text box.

Can you think of an example?

If I want to judge what someone is saying, I often find it useful to understand how said person views things ... how they understand things and think things thru. If the person says 'x' w/o me knowing much about how they think, how they understand [and open use of language is relevant here], it can be quite misleading.

"I'm pro-life" What does this mean w/o context? "I carefully drove my car." What does this mean? How does s/he understand "carefully?" At some pt, a witness is subjective, it is human nature. "Just the facts ma'am" seems a bit impossible in a literal sense. And, we are told as jurors to look at body cues and so forth to help to 'understand' and judge people as well.

Maybe this answers the question.

-j

Understood in a general sense. I don't think that means, however, that a complaining witness should be allowed to argue the case. There is a time for that and it is after the just the facts testimony has been produced. It's somewhat analogous to the nearly universal court practice of adjourning hearing when a witness breaks down emotionally during testimony to allow the witness to compose him/herself before continuing. I'm sure there are jurors who may want to observe continuous weeping but that's not a good reason to allow it.

Yes, and I guess the general 'let them have their say' sentiments of some here might arguably logically lead to that, but it's a bit of a leap from saying "sexual assault' and giving the witness somewhat broad discretion to testify.

I do think "rape" is a closer call than "sexual assault" and "sex assault kit," and can imagine some extended testimony that amounts to argument is different than a brief response that has some no no word.

-j

I read an interview with the victim and she said the judge also wouldn't let her use the word "forced," so she was even more constrained.

To me the major problem here is that the jury was not informed that she was not allowed to say she had been raped or any of the other words. If I were a jury I might be thinking, "Well, she never said she was raped, so maybe she wasn't."

Also, as I said on another thread, the defense attorney asked her, "Did you have sex with my client?" The answer of "yes" just isn't right. She is only allowed to answer "yes" or "no" here. If she had started to say, "Non-consens--" he would have interrupted with, "Yes or no?"