Take the following hypothetical: A 12 year old girl alleges that she is raped, both vaginally and anally by a family member, a grown adult male.
Three days later an examination is performed by a professional which shows nothing unusual in/around her anal cavity. No examination is performed on her vagina.
How likely is this finding? Assuming the allegations are true, how likely is it that no signs would remain of this trauma? Very likely? Very unlikely? 50/50?
The professional stated that a vaginal exam was unnecessary due to the 3 day length of time. Is that normal? Improper? Grievously improper?
Depends on the kit (not all rape kits are the same). and what the alleged victim has been doing for the three days. Also the nature of the assualt and the peculiarities of fhe victims physiology.
Basically its a question mark but not necessarily a fatal one.
Convictions have been recorded despite lack of medical or foresensic evidence.
Still lack of examination of the vagina is very surprising.
Source: Been a counsel in too many sex crimes cases.
I guess we could assume that the alleged victim was doing routine things that 12 year olds do. I’m not sure what you mean by what she “has been doing” for those days.
Assume the nature of the assault was not forcible (well, it certainly is forcible, but bear with me) but she complied out of fear. The vaginal sex was first so there would have been lubrication.
I realize that convictions can be had without medical evidence, but this seems to be medical evidence which tends to cast doubt on the victim’s story. Or does it? I guess that is my question. You say it is a “question mark.” How much of a question mark? Would you expect to see something in 90% of cases? 99%? 50%? 10%? Is it only moderately unusual or very, very unusual but simply not dispositive?
The expert who examined her claims that it is not unusual because children at that age heal faster than adults. I’m just wondering if there is consensus on this in the medical community. Would a different expert believe it highly unusual?
I am neither a doctor nor experienced in this sort of thing. But three days is a long time, and both the anus and the vagina tend to clean themselves. And if there wasn’t a lot of physical force, there needn’t be a lot of physical damage. And yes, kids heal fast. And did I mention that 3 days seems like a long time?
Unless she previously seemed like an unreliable witness, I’d believe her.
I’d think, extrapolating from my limited experience *, that vaginal intercourse wouldn’t lube a penis enough to make anal intercourse with a frightened child painless and injury-free and that detectable trauma would persist at least three days. But why does my inexpert opinion count for anything? There must be people whose business it actually is to know about this kind of thing, and it would be best to ask them.
which was with consenting adults. But I hoped you assumed that anyway.
Look. If this is an actual case then you are best served by a lawyer whom you have engaged. They will give you better and more appropriate advice. And please do.
As per your question, there is no right answer. Sometimes prompt examinations yield no results. Other times tests conducted several days later provide usable evidence. Many times the evidence is subject to interpretation. In short you need more information than can be provided on a message board.
The test results have to always be considered in light of what the victim has been doing. A 12 year old or anyone else who went swimming will probably have less evidence then someone who spent three days in a daze. Someone who goes horse riding can get bruises which make it impossible to acertain if they came from the assualt or riding or which is which.
In short the kit is not a magic wand for getting the truth.
72 hours is usually the outside limit of when they would even attempt a rape kit. Some trauma may be present but it is a long shot at getting any DNA or trace of evidence. After 72 hours a rape kit is generally not even attempted. Disclaimer: I am a SVU detective but I am not your SVU detective. The real experts are those nurses that are SANE trained (sexual abuse nurse examiner). We always defer to their expertise.
Then as a lawyer you would know that forensic evidence can usually only support a certain case theory, it cannot simply substitute real evidence.
And the weightage that a trier of fact may give a certain piece of evidence or lack of finding evidence depends on the peculiar case facts. If the circumstances are such that it was not reasonable to find any, then its irrelevant.
72 hours BTW, FME generally is a good rule of thumb, wherafter a rape kit cannot reliable find evidence.Its not a strict limit, certainly evidence can and is found after that time and be failed to be found before it.
12 years old is an age with a lot of variation, so I would start right there. Just look at a picture of a sixth-grade class - at that age, the kids can differ by a foot in height, some haven’t started puberty and others are well into it. At that age, one girl is wearing a C cup bra and the one next to her could still pass for a boy if she went topless. There are a few 12 year olds having consensual sex with the boys in their school at that age. (Oh, no, not your daughter. OK, fine. Someone else’s daughter. They are all orphans, probably.)
Then there’s the assumption that all rape is forceful and traumatic. Come on people, are we still stuck in the mindset that rapists are strangers who grab you from behind the bushes and then try to cause as much pain as possible? Most rape is by someone the victim knows. Plenty of rapists convince themselves the victim wanted it and would argue that they didn’t hurt anyone. The rapists are wrong, of course, but if we’re going to say “Not rape if she wasn’t torn up by it” then we’re still stuck in a mindset that explains only 20% of rapes.
So… anyway… assigning odds to the medical exam results would be silly. We don’t know the physical development of the girl. We don’t know the nature of the assault. If we were to look at all the girls and all the assaults, the odds are probably low - maybe 10% or less that there’s no visible damage. But the odds that a particular girl and a particular assault shows minimal damage after three days could be 90%.
It does seem odd that the medical staff wouldn’t do a vaginal exam at all, but I guess that goes back to everything we don’t know about the hypothetical.
Since the OP has all but said this is not a hypothetical, I am very uncomfortable discussing the alleged sexual assault of a minor. I don’t think there’s anything more to be gleaned on this subject, so I’m locking the thread.