The next story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Challenge in partnership with The Salt Lake Tribune.
Adyson LeeMaster remembers laughing and singing as she celebrated a good friend’s birthday at a celebration earlier this yr. Late that evening, feeling drained, drunk and desirous to be secure, she stated, she requested her good friend to assist put her to mattress.
A person texted her from the continuing occasion, providing to affix her if she felt “lonely.” LeeMaster struggled to answer, repeatedly misspelling the phrase “drunk.” “You’re drunk you imply?” the person wrote. She responded “ya.” “OK then you definitely’ll sleep effectively. Goodnight!!!!” he texted again.
She wakened the following morning, she stated, with hand-shaped bruises on her thighs and ache in her stomach.
The Salt Lake Tribune usually doesn’t determine sexual assault victims, however LeeMaster agreed to using her title.
In “bits and items” over the times that adopted, she stated, she recalled feeling the person on prime of her within the evening, and waking up on the ground, seeing him framed within the doorway as he went to sleep on a sofa early within the morning. She had a sexual assault examination, however hesitated about making an attempt to pursue fees.
When LeeMaster determined two weeks later to go to Provo police, she supplied images of her bruises; the texts between her and the person, displaying his acknowledgment that he knew she was drunk; the names of witnesses who may affirm her impairment — related for its affect on her means to consent; and instructed them about her rape package examination.
However prosecutors declined to pursue the case, she stated, citing an absence of proof. “Principally,” LeeMaster stated, a staffer on the Utah County legal professional’s workplace instructed her, “it might be my phrase in opposition to his.”
A evaluation of court docket information by The Utah Investigative Journalism Challenge reveals that LeeMaster’s case suits a basic sample: Prosecutors statewide seem reluctant to take rape and sexual assault circumstances to trial when they’re based mostly totally on the phrase of an alleged sufferer — with no confession, a defendant allegedly caught in a lie throughout interrogation, DNA as an identifier or when a defendant denies sexual contact, or witnesses who noticed the alleged assault or occasions round it.
Prosecutors additionally seem like extra prone to press towards trial when the accused particular person was able of belief — akin to members of the family, employers and others — slightly than an intimate companion, a date or an acquaintance.
To be clear, most prison fees filed in Utah and nationwide are resolved by way of plea bargains earlier than being set for trial. The Utah Investigative Journalism Challenge examined rape and sexual assault fees from the previous 5 years the place prosecutors didn’t conform to plea offers initially, and both scheduled a trial earlier than resolving the case or took all of it the way in which to a jury.
The entire of 165 such circumstances excluded allegations of kid sexual abuse, however included fees involving alleged victims who have been age 14 and older. It additionally excluded a small handful of circumstances the place there was no info filed within the grievance.
A divided path for intercourse assault circumstances
The 165 circumstances examined by The Utah Investigative Journalism Challenge could be divided into two basic classes:
• 53 concerned allegations of assaults by intimate companions and acquaintances.
• 112 concerned different connections; usually members of the family, employers or different individuals in positions of belief, usually accused of abusing victims between age 14 and 18. Utah regulation is obvious that minors can not consent to sexual exercise with an grownup, notably if that particular person holds a place of belief. Lower than 10 of the defendants have been strangers.
The info confirmed a novel divide between the 2 teams.
Among the many 112 circumstances not tied to a companion, a date or an acquaintance, greater than half — 58% — have been filed based mostly totally on the phrase of the sufferer.
However for the 53 circumstances of alleged intimate companion and acquaintance assaults, solely seven have been charged totally on the phrase of the sufferer. Nearly all of these circumstances pushed towards trial had extra proof, akin to these confessions and statements:
• In a February case filed in Field Elder County, a defendant instructed police it wasn’t unlawful for a husband to rape his spouse. In actual fact, Utah regulation particularly states the other.
• In a 2019 Provo case, a person apologized to a date for an assault in a textual content message, writing: “I truthfully didn’t imply to harm u like that, I loved our convos and vibes.”
• In a 2019 Salt Lake Metropolis case, a homeless lady staying with a person in his van was dropped off at a hospital with crude writing throughout her physique, injured to the purpose of slipping right into a coma. The defendant instructed police that “it was consensual till she lied to me.”
Protection legal professional Cara Tangaro, who usually represents these accused of sexual assault, factors out that prosecutors are ethically obliged to solely pursue circumstances with a probability of success. Believing an alleged sufferer and deciding whether or not the case is provable past an affordable doubt to a jury are two completely different requirements, she notes, in a system constructed on a presumption of innocence for the defendant.
“I’m unsure that it’s higher to place a girl by way of a trial and get a not-guilty verdict,” stated Tangaro, who labored within the Salt Lake County District Lawyer’s particular victims unit within the early 2000s and has been a litigator for over 20 years.
It’s not a view shared by Justin Boardman, a former intercourse crimes detective and now advisor who travels the nation coaching police and prosecutors on trauma-informed investigations.
When circumstances are declined with the intent of sparing a rape sufferer the ordeal of trial, prosecutors say, “‘we’re doing this of their greatest curiosity,’ which makes them really feel heat and fuzzy,” Boardman stated. “However in actuality, they usually haven’t requested the sufferer.”
He acknowledged trials can get intense and emotional, however stated in addition they can provide victims closure. And if victims are supported and interviewed in a trauma-informed method, he stated, their testimony could also be stronger they usually could recall extra corroborating particulars that may have been neglected in a cursory investigation when police doubt fees will likely be filed.
He identified that any officer who shoots at somebody is excused from instantly offering a full assertion. An officer is allowed to relaxation and course of the reminiscence, with the intention to guarantee a extra correct and full assertion.
Police interviewing rape victims, however, usually anticipate them to write down an announcement on the spot. When it’s quick, fragmented and lacking essential particulars, Boardman stated, it’s no surprise officers later really feel like they “lack proof” or the sufferer is “uncooperative.”
“What we haven’t finished,” Boardman stated, “is apply the science now we have been utilizing for ourselves, to the victims of crime.”
‘How most sexual assaults occur’
Whereas advocates like Boardman say there may be room for enchancment, it’s additionally true that these could be tough circumstances for juries to simply accept, even with sturdy proof.
In a 2018 case, which reached trial simply final fall, a person was charged with a number of felonies for allegedly sexually assaulting his spouse throughout an argument during which she was trying to maneuver out. When police responded to the home violence name, they pulled the person off her as she was screaming for assist — and whereas he was within the technique of making an attempt to place duct tape over her mouth. He was shirtless, her pants had been pulled down and her toddler was alone exterior within the automobile.
The officer’s physique digicam recorded the defendant explaining that “she was appearing like she was being raped and she or he wasn’t.” He admitted to pulling her pants down in order that he may “contact her crotch for like a cut up second.”
The lady instructed police she had endured a prolonged historical past of abuse. She had recorded an alleged assault earlier that yr on her cellphone, which was performed for the jury.
The case went to a jury in October and the defendant was acquitted on the three first-degree felony counts that alleged he sexually assaulted her. The jury discovered him responsible on a single second-degree felony cost of forcible sexual abuse for touching the sufferer’s genitals.
Ben Willoughby was one of many prosecuting attorneys on the case and declined to touch upon the end result, deferring to the jury’s determination.
However usually, he stated, intercourse assaults are difficult to prosecute because the group, jurors included, vastly overestimates the prevalence of “stranger rape” circumstances.
Of the circumstances reviewed by The Utah Investigative Journalism Challenge, there have been solely two clear circumstances of “stranger rape”: a person who hid in a locker room at a Salt Lake Neighborhood Faculty campus in 2017 and attacked a girl, and a 2021 case in Cedar Metropolis when a homeless man allegedly excessive on methamphetamine was accused of trying to rape a girl on a dog-walking path.
A number of different circumstances concerned strangers however in atypical settings. In two completely different circumstances, police alleged girls have been raped as acts of retaliation from rival gangs. In Willoughby’s 16 years of prosecuting sexual assault circumstances, he stated, he has dealt with solely three circumstances involving strangers.
“The overwhelming majority of ladies are sexually assaulted by individuals they knew and they also should run the gauntlet of being accused of being ‘conniving’ and ‘manipulative,’” Willoughby stated.
“If as a group we wish extra sexual assault victims to achieve success in getting justice,” he stated, “then we want as a group to higher perceive how most sexual assaults occur; victims often know their attackers.”
‘Working in circles’
Within the days after the occasion, LeeMaster stated, she communicated with the person who she suspected of assaulting her and he claimed the sexual contact was consensual.
LeeMaster stated she determined to go to police after a good friend described her personal expertise with the identical man; the good friend stated she needed to repeatedly inform him no as he tried to make undesirable bodily contact along with her.
Police didn’t interview him, however the police report notes that in textual content messages the person stated LeeMaster was a keen participant.
Months handed after she talked with a Provo detective for about an hour, she stated, and she or he realized police didn’t contact the good friend who had shared her expertise and talked to just one witness on the occasion.
She felt she needed to do her personal investigation into how police dealt with her case. She filed a request for a declination letter from the Utah County Lawyer’s Workplace, in regards to the determination to not file fees, however stated she was instructed it didn’t have one.
She requested a duplicate of the police file however was by no means given paperwork associated to her rape package, she stated, as a result of the division claimed medical privateness legal guidelines blocked her from accessing them.
”It shouldn’t be this tough to get my information, of my physique,” LeeMaster stated.
Officer Shad Lefevre of the Provo Police division wouldn’t touch upon LeeMaster’s issues in regards to the investigation or the information, besides to say that she may file a grievance if she felt the investigation was insufficient.
“I’m simply operating in circles and nobody is giving me any solutions,” LeeMaster stated.
Brigham Younger College nursing professor Julie Valentine, a longtime researcher into sexual assault prosecutions, stated LeeMaster has a proper to her personal rape package report.
Police ought to have referred LeeMaster to Wasatch Forensic Nurses, a nonprofit group of sexual assault nurse examiners that helps survivors entry and perceive their rape kits in supportive settings, stated Valentine, an affiliate dean within the Faculty of Nursing.
Her analysis has proven that in Utah County, the first cause regulation enforcement didn’t refer circumstances for prosecution — 39% of circumstances — was the idea the proof was “unfounded.” She stated in an interview: “Principally, they didn’t consider the sufferer.”
[Read more: Most sexual assault cases in Salt Lake, Utah counties stall in police departments. New research explains why.]
The Utah County legal professional’s workplace has lately taken on the duty of informing all victims about its declinations to file fees, after complaints that regulation enforcement weren’t preserving them knowledgeable, stated Chief Deputy Sandi Johnson.
Workers within the workplace are closely invested in trauma-informed coaching, she stated. “There’s plenty of distance to go making an attempt to alter a whole tradition — not simply regulation enforcement and prosecutors — however a whole tradition in our society, it takes a very long time,” Johnson stated. “However I can let you know we’re shifting in the best path.”
As a part of a graduate internship earlier than the evening of the occasion, LeeMaster was main remedy courses for intercourse offenders on the Utah State Jail. After the alleged assault, she discovered herself struggling to stay composed as she spoke with prisoners about sufferer trauma, till the tip of the day when she may get to her automobile and weep. However she was not quitting.
“I really like my job and he doesn’t get to take that away from me,” LeeMaster stated.
She needs her story to assist stop sexual assault. Youngsters must be taught about boundaries, she stated, and ladies and men must study consent — which could be extra nuanced than “sure” or “no,” extending to not feeling manipulated or coerced by a companion.
Intercourse must be brazenly mentioned, she added, so {that a} sense of stigma doesn’t result in extra victimization. “I’m so sick,” she stated, “of nobody speaking about it.”