Tania Tetlow speaks about jury gender discrimination

Tulane law professor Tania Tetlow spoke 7 p.m. Tuesday in Rogers Chapel about jury discrimination against female victims of crime. After her talk, Tetlow took questions from the audience.

Tetlow runs the Tulane Domestic Violence Clinic in the Tulane University Law School. Before coming to Tulane in 2005, Tetlow was an assistant U.S. attorney in New Orleans specializing in violent crime prosecution.

“When dealing with such a difficult topic it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I left with the feeling that improvements are possible,” senior Allison Horowitz said.

Tetlow’s talk was based on her experiences as a U.S. attorney and her research from the past several years. She said the major problem is that juries often blaming women for being sexually assaulted and thus do not objectively judge the defendants.

“Some juries are more interested about whether a rape victim has obeyed gender rules, whether she is a proper woman and well-behaved, than they are in whether the defendant actually committed rape,” Tetlow said.

Much of Tetlow’s speech focused on what she calls “discriminatory acquittal,” which is when a jury will acquit a defendant based on its judgment of the victim. Tetlow pointed out that when she was a U.S. attorney, she knew of many sexual assault cases that were never even brought to trial because the prosecution assumed that the jury would judge the victim instead of the defendant.

To reduce jury discrimination against female victims, Tetlow said juries should disregard the behavior of the victim.

“Just like you couldn’t ask a jury to convict somebody because of their race or gender, we also shouldn’t let defense lawyers argue that a woman deserved to be raped,” Tetlow said.

Tetlow said that allowing female victims to essentially be put on trial violates the Equal Protection clause in the United States Constitution, which requires that every state apply the law equally to all citizens within its jurisdiction.

“For juries to base their verdict on race or gender discrimination is unconstitutional,” Tetlow said. “For a lawyer asking the jury to do that is inviting an unconstitutional act.”

Almost all jurisdictions in the U.S. have “rape shield” laws prohibiting the defense from cross-examining rape complainants about their past sexual behavior. Tetlow thinks these laws should be expanded.

“The majority of the population doesn’t want to take responsibility for gender-based violence,” senior Maeve McClellan said. “The easiest thing to do is blame it on the women themselves and make it their problem.”

Newcomb Student Programs, Newcomb College Center for Research on Women, Newcomb College Institute, Newcomb Sexuality and Gender Alliance and Newcomb Student Programs sponsored the event.