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Any time a person is accused of a sexual assault the evidence often comes down in the form of the words of the accuser alone. There might be physical evidence in the case, but often that doesn’t necessarily prove a sexual assault. Rather it may prove a consensual encounter, but it doesn’t necessarily prove an assault. Some people believe that if it’s just the word of the accuser that’s not enough to sustain a conviction, but that’s not necessarily true. Many times there are no witnesses to a sexual assault other than the person who claims that they were assaulted.
So what happens is it really comes down to the credibility of the person making the accusation. When we talk about credibility, we talk about it in two ways. One would be general credibility. Is the person who’s making the accusation generally a credible person, someone that you could believe, or do they have a history of making false allegations or false statements or other conduct that would demonstrate dishonesty?
The other type of credibility we talk about is situational credibility. someone who might normally otherwise be a credible person but they might have a motive to make up an allegation of a sexual assault. Maybe there’s hurt feelings over a breakup. Maybe they’re jealous of another person that they desire, they’re seeing someone else. Maybe there’s a money motive. They figure if they make an allegation the person will pay them to go away.
What you need in these types of situations is an extremely thorough and comprehensive investigation of the background of the person making the accusation. Do they have convictions in their past that would demonstrate dishonesty or a pattern of false allegations? Did they make a statement that’s contrary to what they told the police about the sexual assault either to another person or through social media or other means? Or did the person perhaps act in a way that we wouldn’t expect shortly after the time of the sexual assault? Maybe they were acting in a way that didn’t appear that they were in fact assaulted.
All of these things need to be thoroughly investigated in these types of cases and you’ll need an attorney who’s experienced enough to do that.
