Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Student Seduction

I happened to watch the 2003 movie Student Seduction on the Lifetime TV channel. It was about a high school chemistry teacher who tries to help a student, but is then falsely accused of a sexual assault. The teacher was going to accept a plea bargain to a felony sex offense, but is ultimated vindicated when another student is persuaded to testify about a previous incident in the accuser's past.

While it seems as if the testimony would be persuasive, I don't think that it would be admissible in an American court. The rules of evidence forbid inquiries into a sex-crime accuser's past, even if the accuser has committed previous sex crimes.

Lifetime TV shows programs for women, such as predictable movies about some suffering women. I am not in the target audience. I am just wondering how many people in the target audience realize how unfair sex crime trials really are.

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