An Oregon rape victim was jailed until she testified against her rapist, lawyer says

An Oregon lady whose rapist was convicted final week was jailed till she testified towards him in a uncommon case of prosecutors compelling a sufferer to look in courtroom, her lawyer stated Friday.

Her lawyer, Donald Scales, acknowledged there have been “official considerations” about whether or not his shopper would present as much as testify.

The 20-year-old lady was held for 9 days starting Sept. 6 with a bail set at $500,000 — an quantity Scales described as “unattainable.” 

A jury convicted the assailant, Christian Sanchez, 30, of a number of crimes on Sept. 16, sooner or later after the girl supplied testimony in a Jackson County courtroom, Scales stated.

Sanchez was discovered responsible of rape, sodomy, kidnapping, assault, coercion, illegal use of a weapon and different crimes that occurred over a 7-month interval in 2020, when the girl was 18, the Jackson County District Legal professional’s Workplace stated in an announcement.

Sanchez will likely be sentenced Oct. 6. A decide ordered him to stay in jail with out bail till sentencing.

The sufferer was reportedly held towards her will whereas Sanchez used weapons that included a hammer, a lighter and a screwdriver, the Related Press reported, citing courtroom filings.

“It was a horrific state of affairs,” prosecutor Nick Geil instructed the Medford Mail Tribune.

Scales stated that prosecutors requested a decide that she be jailed as a “materials witness” below a state regulation permitting authorities or defendants to compel testimony from people who find themselves unlikely to look in courtroom.

Geil and a second prosecutor who dealt with the case, Zori Cook dinner, didn’t reply to requests for remark. Based on the Mail Tribune, Cook dinner described the maintain as uncommon however obligatory.

Scales stated his shopper hadn’t been checking in with sufferer’s providers officers and her family instructed the courtroom they have been involved that she wouldn’t make it.

“They weren’t affirmatively recommending jail,” he stated. “They primarily have been saying to the decide that they didn’t have any confidence in her making it to courtroom and it might nonetheless be a wrestle” for them to oversee her.

Scales acknowledged that prosecutors had “official considerations” and stated he believed they put vital time and thought into how they dealt with the case.

“This was actually a final resort balancing the wants of the sufferer and the wants of the neighborhood to have this case resolved,” he stated.

Scales stated he requested for much less restrictive measures, together with an ankle monitor and a dedication from her mom and older sister that they’d maintain “line of sight” on her, he stated.

“The courtroom felt it would not be enough,” Scales stated, noting that the decide sided with the district lawyer’s workplace.

Scales stated his shopper, in the meantime, noticed jail as “draconian and overly intrusive.”

Scales stated that in his 25 years of practising regulation, he might solely consider a handful of instances by which witnesses have been compelled to testify. And in solely a type of instances was the witness a sufferer, he stated.

“It is a type of powerful calls — the rights of the sufferer to be left alone versus the appropriate of the state to prosecute crimes,” he stated.

The Related Press contributed.