Obscenity and Pornography - Essay Example

The court can discredit the victim’s rape allegation by “finding discrepancies in the victim’s story and assuming ulterior motives for reporting the assault”; for this the court can take into account such resources as the “official reports and records, typifications of rape-relevant behavior, and knowledge of the victim’s personal life and criminal connections” (Frohmann, 1991, p. 213). Thus, the prosecutor-victim complaint filling interview acts as an integral part of the sexual case processing.

Similarly, another major method employed by the legal system to discredit sexual assault cases is by analyzing the accuser's mental health records and by offering the defendant an opportunity to prove his innocence. Cases are rejected once the court gets convinced that the victim does not have a good previous mental health record. This rape shield legislation plays a dominant role in sexual assault cases. Another widespread and common method employed by the legal systems to reject sexual assault cases is by identifying congruencies in the charges filed by police at arrest with the charge filed by the prosecutor.

When there are such evident congruencies, the court can either reject sexual assault cases or discredit victims’ allegations of sexual assault. Therefore, one should bear in mind that mere allegations can easily be rejected by the courts in the case of sexual assaults.