Admitting Mental Health Evidence to Impeach the Credibility of a Sexual Assault Complainant

Abstract

The 1970 edition of Wigmore on Evidence offers the proposition that every female complainant in a rape prosecution should be subject to a psychiatric examination and echoes turn-of-the century psychoanalysts in its explanation: “The unchaste (let us call it) mentality finds incidental but direct expression in the narration of imaginary sex incidents of which the narrator is the heroine or victim.” In other words, some women falsely accuse men of rape because, either intentionally or inadvertently, they have confused a sexual fantasy with a violent crime. The focus of this Comment, and the focus of considerable controversy and difficulty in rape trials, is evidentiary procedure when the defendant claims that the complainant consented to the intercourse. Putting aside the philosophical problem of defining consent, in the absence of physical injuries the only relevant evidence of the crime will be testimony from the defendant and the prosecutrix. Recent reforms have attempted to address this situation. Federal Rule of Evidence 413, for example, permits prosecutors to introduce a defen-