The student who says she was raped at Mercer University has appealed the dismissal of her case to the Georgia Supreme Court. The trial court’s ruling was unacceptable on several scores and could have a negative effect on other civil lawsuits alleging sexual assault, and so I really hope the Georgia Supreme Court agrees to hear her case. For more information on this case, see here and here, but in brief the issues at stake include whether laws that prohibit a victim from being questioned about her prior sexual history apply to civil cases, whether the fact that the woman was not a virgin means the court does not have to treat her case as having the same seriousness as it would if she had been a virgin, whether her total lack of memory of the relevant parts of the evening means the accused’s story is the reliable one, and whether the accuser should have to pay all of the accused’s court costs. Talk about a ruling to discourage anyone from reporting their rape and pursuing justice!

It’s pretty outrageous that the Appeals Court was not even willing to hear her appeal. Here’s hoping for some better judgment on the part of the Georgia Supreme Court.

I wanted to provide a bit of an update and clarification on the Georgia case Valena blogged about a few days ago, a student who had filed a civil claim against a fellow student at Mercer University. We followed up with the plaintiff’s law firm because we wanted to confirm that the trial judge had really said that a woman’s civil suit for compensation for a sexual assault (civil battery, technically) was invalid in part because she was not a virgin. And, indeed, he did.

It’s absolutely unbelievable that the Appeals Court affirmed (without even issuing an opinion), since the questions at stake were huge: Do Georgia’s laws protecting rape victims from questions designed to humiliate them and to perpetuate the myth that a woman’s prior sexual history is relevant to her rape apply to civil cases? Can a judge use a statement the plaintiff denies ever making as grounds not to allow her case to go to trial? Does the fact that the university police did not pursue her case criminally mean that she cannot pursue civil remedy? (Particularly ridiculous, since civil remedies are usually only pursued if the victim feels that her attempts to get criminal justice were unfairly denied. And let’s not go into the fact that the defendant’s grandmother is a trustee of Mercer University and the campus is named for his grandfather. Really? They didn’t pursue charges? I’m so surprised.) Should the plaintiff have to pay all of the defendant’s attorney’s fees, without any evidence as to how those fees were calculated and even though even the judge says that her pursuit of the case through the discovery phase was reasonable (and therefore one would presume she cannot be responsible for those expenses)? Does the fact that he says it was consensual and she has absolutely no memories of the evening (drugged?) mean that of course it must have been consensual?

My heart goes out to this woman. I don’t know what her future options are, but I hope that she finds some justice somewhere. I am terrified for other women in the state of Georgia – this was not a good decision in any way and it sets a dangerous and discouraging precedent. Also, this is not the first sexual assault case Mercer University has been involved in – they successfully fought to keep their police files about reported sexual assaults private. Very scary. I’d ask some serious questions before I considered going there.

Yesterday a sad, though somewhat inflammatory news story was run by Channel 11 news in Georgia about a former University of Mercer student suing another student for sexual assault. The case got this bit of coverage because the district court required that the victim/survivor/claimant discuss her past sexual partners, and the accused comes from “a wealthy and prominent family.” A number of state trial court decisions are not published in legal search engines, so I haven’t found it.

I have, on the other hand, found another case where the same claimant recently sued University of Mercer itself, to disclose records the University of Mercer Police have on sexual assaults on campus. The court of appeals of Georgia has held that Mercer, as a private university, has no obligation to disclose these records. See Corp. of Mercer Univ. v. Barret & Farahany, LLP, 271 Ga.App. 501 (2005). To show you how people lined up on the case, the ACLU of Georgia, National Police Accountability Project of the National Lawyers Guild, and the Georgia First Amendment Foundation all filed briefs in support of disclosing the police records; Morehouse College, the Savannah College of Art and Design, and Wesleyan College all filed briefs supporting Mercer’s right to keep the records private. Yeah… colleges covering their butts yet again.