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Violence Against Women: Rape and Sexual Assault

WLP Filed Amicus Brief Urging Third Circuit to Reject District Court’s and Police Reliance on Myths About How a Sexual Assault Victim Should Behave

The Women’s Law Project filed an amicus brief on September 28, 2009, with the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Reedy v. Evanson, a civil rights case brought by a woman who was sexually assaulted during the course of a robbery.  Ms. Reedy promptly complained to the police but, instead of investigating her complaint, the police arrested her, charging her with falsely reporting a crime and other crimes.  The Women’s Law Project prepared this brief on behalf of 39 non-profit organizations dedicated to improving the criminal justice system’s response to violence against women, including women’s rights organizations, victim’s rights organizations, and rape crisis centers.  The brief urges the Third Circuit to reverse the decision of the lower court, which relied on the same myths about how a sexual assault victim should behave that the police relied on in arresting Ms. Reedy.

On July 14, 2004, while working as a clerk at a gas station in western Pennsylvania, nineteen-year-old Sara Reedy was sexually assaulted at gunpoint by an unknown assailant who also stole money from the cash register.  Detective Evanson treated Ms. Reedy from the start of the investigation as a perpetrator and, despite strong similarities between Ms. Reedy’s sexual assault and a subsequent sexual assault and robbery, Evanson charged Ms. Reedy with theft, stolen property, and making false reports to law enforcement authorities.    Ms. Reedy spent five days in jail and faced a criminal trial set for September 19, 2005.  The charges were dropped shortly before trial, when Wilbur Brown confessed to the attack and robbery of Ms. Reedy after his arrest for the similar sexual assault and robbery that occurred after Ms. Reedy’s sexual assault but that Detective Evanson had investigated prior to pressing charges against Ms. Reedy.

Ms. Reedy brought a civil rights action against the detectives investigating her case and the township’s public safety director for violations of her Fourth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment rights under the United States Constitution and violations of state law.  The District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania granted summary judgment for the defendants, concluding that the detectives properly viewed as inculpatory Ms. Reedy’s perceived noncooperation with police during a hostile investigation, her decision not to appear for a polygraph examination, her decision not to seek professional counseling for victims, and her decision not to press the panic alarm with a gun to her head.  In the appeal to the Third Circuit, amici argue that the inferences the district court drew from the purportedly “inculpatory” facts are based on long-discredited myths about sexual assault that distort the criminal justice system’s response to sex crimes against women and girls.  The district court’s reliance on these same  gender-biased beliefs about female sexual assault victims undermines decades of legal reform.