Summary: This was a compelling and fairly realistic episode about sexual assault on college campuses. Elliott goes to his daughter’s college Take Back the Night rally. A plain jane student runs in, screaming that a handsome player male student raped her (several months ago– I’m not sure why she was screaming just then). Later, Plain Jane explains that she got drunk, went back to Player’s room, lay on his couch, and next thing she knew, they were having sex. Player said Plain Jane made the first move and wanted to have sex. The detectives wanted to bring a case, but that ADA wouldn’t bring charges, saying that consent was unclear – this was a “gray” rape. But the Player was much more evil than that. His girlfriend was pregnant and wanted to keep the baby. Player put an abortion-inducing drug on his penis and had sex with her, causing a miscarriage. The girlfriend then died of complications from the impromptu abortion. The detectives arrested the Player for homicide.

Verdict: A

What They Got Right:

Rape on College Campuses. Sexual assaults on college campuses are shockingly widespread and under-reported. Studies show that one of every four girls in college will be sexually assaulted by the time they graduate. Despite this, 77% of college campuses report zero rapes per year. Why? Parents don’t want to send their kids to Rape U. Colleges have a business incentive to under-report the rapes on their campuses. Many colleges try to deal with sexual assault by using campus disciplinary committees instead of reporting them to the police. A case that recently went to the Supreme Court was a lot like this episode. In U.S. v. Morrison, a woman was sexually assaulted on Virginia Tech’s campus by two football players. She went to the campus police – and the college promptly lined up behind the football players, sending the matter to a disciplinary committee and giving the athletes a slap on the wrist. The woman then brought suit under the federal Violence Against Women Act, which the Supreme Court invalidated on commerce clause grounds (holding that violence against women doesn’t have an impact on the economic activities between states, so the feds can’t outlaw it).

“Gray Rape.” Ladies, you need to be more vigilant about the hot guy you cheerfully go home with at closing time than the scary guy you fear lurking in the bushes. The most common type of sexual assault on college campuses is acquaintance rape. Many sexual assault cases from campuses involve two people who get drunk, go home together and have sex. Afterwards, the woman believes she was assaulted; the man believes she was saying yes. The problem with these cases, from a law enforcement persepctive, is that consent is often hard to discern. The legal test is whether a reasonable man knew or should have known that the victim was too drunk to be able to consent. There are some obvious cases: say, the victim urinates on herself before having sex – a reasonable man should know she was in no shape to consent. But there are lots of gray areas, where reasonable people could disagree as to whether the man should have known to stop. These are the hard cases – like the one portrayed on tonight’s SVU episode.

You really can cause an abortion with an ulcer drug.  The drug this guy used to make his girlfriend miscarry is a real drug. Misoprostol is a prescription pharmaceutical used for both ulcers and erectile dysfunction. It has a side-effect of inducing abortions. There is a growing black market for the drug for this purpose, especially in South America, but the practice is becoming popular with poor communities in the U.S. (I wouldn’t suggest it – there is also a side effect of death when the drug is used this way.) I personally haven’t seen a case where a man put the drug on his penis to get his girlfriend to miscarry, but it wasn’t totally implausible. As a writer, I thought it was a clever twist.

Don’t let your daughter steal for you. Yes, it’s true that the police can use evidence that someone else stole – as long as the police didn’t direct the thief to steal it. But, here, Elliott’s daughter stole disciplinary records from the university. Good luck proving to a judge that you didn’t put your daughter up to that. That’s exactly what SVU’s ADA said.

What They Got Wrong:

Judges don’t recuse themselves just because they were once a crime victim. The defense attorney found out the judge had been gang-raped on a college campus 40 years ago, and got the judge to recuse herself. I’m skeptical that any defense attorney would do that. You ask a judge to recuse herself at your peril. Everyone brings their own personal baggage to the table – and everyone thinks they can be fair, whatever their background. Ask a judge to recuse herself in this situation, and she probably won’t – and you’ll be stuck with a judge who’s pissed that you questioned her judgment and went digging into her most humiliating personal moment. Not a good legal strategy.

Nice digs! That ADA’s office was way too pretty. Did you see those intricately carved mahogany cabinets and that great big grandfather clock? A real prosecutor’s office is more likely to have scuffed white walls, rusty mismatched filing cabinets, and a battered desk that’s been around since the Johnson administration.

*All the views expressed on this website are my personal views and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Justice.