Three Rape Charges Eliminated at Four-Day Superior Court Trial: Two Not Guilty Verdicts, One Count Dismissed When Complainant Changed Her Story

Charges: Rape (3 counts)
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The Situation: Our client was a 22-year-old Hispanic man working as a laborer when he was indicted on three counts of rape following a complaint by a young woman he had met through social media. The complainant, who was 16 at the time, alleged that our client had brought her to his home and sexually assaulted her. From the moment he was arraigned, our client's life was effectively placed on hold.

The prosecutor moved to hold him without bail, and we fought for and obtained his release on GPS home confinement, a condition that remained in place for nearly three years while the case worked its way through the Superior Court. During that time, we obtained court permission for him to work outside the home, fighting to preserve at least that much of a normal life for a young man who had not been convicted of anything. He worked, he waited, and he trusted that the truth would come out at trial.

The stakes could not have been higher. A conviction on any one of the three counts would have carried a potential sentence of up to 20 years in state prison, along with mandatory sex offender registration and consequences that would have followed him for the rest of his life.

The Legal Challenge: This was a four-day Superior Court jury trial with no defense witnesses. Every element of our case was built through cross-examination. The defense had four witnesses to work with: the complainant herself, the friend she told first after the alleged incident, the detective who investigated the case, and a specially trained sexual assault nurse who examined the complainant and testified for the prosecution. Each presented a different challenge, and each required a different approach.

Cross-examination of the complainant exposed meaningful inconsistencies in her account. Her story had shifted in important ways between her initial disclosure to her friend, her statements to police, and her testimony at trial. We documented each of those shifts and put them before the jury. The first complaint witness, the friend, had heard a version of events that did not fully match what the complainant was now saying under oath. We used that testimony carefully.

The sexual assault nurse testified about physical findings from her examination. Cross-examination of a sexual assault nurse witness requires specific preparation, and we challenged her testimony on the significance and interpretation of the findings she presented. Physical findings that are consistent with assault are often also consistent with other explanations, and we made sure the jury understood that distinction.

One count was resolved before the verdict, when the complainant changed her story in a way that required the prosecution to dismiss that charge.

The remaining two counts went to the jury.

The Result: The jury returned verdicts of not guilty on both remaining counts. Our client was acquitted of all three rape charges.

He went home.

Rape of a Child with Force and Related Charges: Not Guilty on All Counts After Jury Trial Heading

Charges: Rape of aChild with Force (two counts); Indecent Assault and Battery on a Child Under14; Intimidation of a Witness

The Situation: Our client was a man in his forties with a blended family, children of his own, and a stepdaughter from his wife's prior relationship. Years after the family had separated, his stepdaughter made allegations of sexual abuse, claiming that incidents had occurred when she was approximately eleven to thirteen years old and the family lived together. The allegations were serious and detailed. They had been reported through a mandated reporter, investigated by two police departments, documented through a forensic interview at a children's advocacy center, and ultimately presented to a grand jury, which returned an indictment.

Our client was charged with two counts of rape of a child with force, indecent assault and battery on a child under fourteen, and intimidation of a witness. He faced the possibility of decades in state prison.

The Legal Challenge: Cases built on the testimony of a single complainant, recounting events alleged to have occurred years earlier, turn entirely on credibility. There are no crime scenes, no forensic evidence tying a defendant to the acts alleged. The Commonwealth's case rested on the complainant's account and the witnesses who heard her tell it over time.

Our work was to examine that account carefully and thoroughly. We cross-examined the complainant directly, working through her testimony in detail. We cross-examined her mother, who had heard the allegations both in the car on the way to the hospital and again afterward. We crossed the first complaint witness, a friend to whom the complainant had first disclosed. And we crossed the investigating detective. Across those four witnesses, we exposed inconsistencies in the account as it had developed from first disclosure through trial, and we put those inconsistencies squarely before the jury.

The Result: The jury returned a verdict of not guilty on all counts.

Our client was acquitted of every charge he faced.