Not surprised, really, just disgusted.

Shakes Sis gave me the heads up on this truly disturbing story of a girl who, after reporting a gang rape, was prosecuted for filing a false police report. The details:

A 17-year-old girl went to police at the urging of her friends after she was allegedly gang-raped by three men, including her boyfriend. The men testified that the act was consensual. After reviewing all the information and statements, prosecutors decided they didn’t think they could prove a rape allegation, and so declined to prosecute the case.

Instead, they prosecuted the victim for filing a false police report. Yesterday[Friday], she was found guilty.

The victim has never recanted her story. Instead, the decision was based on the judge’s opinion that the three men were more credible, in part because a police detective and the victim’s friends testified she did not “act traumatized” in the days after the incident.

Even if this was all we knew, it would be a troubling story. There are all kinds of possible responses to being sexually molested, and the word of a third party that the girl didn't "act traumatized" is hardly sufficient evidence to assume that she's lying. But as it happens, we actually know a bit more about this particular case, and it's even worse than it at first appears. Shakes Sis again:

Let me give you some more information—something that is only a possibility because The American Street’s Kevin Hayden has known the victim nearly her whole life. He attended the trial. He noticed that the prosecutor repeatedly referred to the attackers as “boys,” even though they were grown men and the victim was 17. He noticed that the judge acknowledged he had found inconsistencies in all of their stories, but, inexplicably, decided that the same reasonable doubt that kept prosecutors from pursuing charges against the attackers wasn’t enough to keep him from finding the victim guilty.

He also noted what was, and was not, allowed to be introduced as evidence. Allowed: The 17-year-old victim’s sexual history. Not allowed: That one of the victim’s “friends,” her mother, has problems with alcohol and prescription drugs, provided her daughter with the alcohol she’d had that evening (which the mother had stolen from the store at which she cashiers), and was:

…awaiting her boyfriend’s return to her home within two months of the rape. That boyfriend was in prison for molesting his own daughter. That’s hardly a credible witness with any sympathy for victims of sexual assault…

Additionally, the two ‘friends’ were the ones who convinced the 17 year old that she should report it to the police. So if the young woman is guilty [of filing a false rape charge], the instigating accessories to her ‘crime’ are considered credible experts about how a rape victim should act.

Again: The judge decided that the victim was not credible because her friend and her mother said she did not “act traumatized” in the days after the incident. He then filed a charge against the victim which turned the two people he had deemed credible witnesses into criminal conspirators. That seems rather confusing, that two criminal conspirators could also be credible witnesses, and experts on post-rape trauma no less. Although, it is rather convenient for a judge and prosecutors who might want to make a point.

This whole thing is beyond disgusting, and it really makes me sick to my stomach to think of the way in which this girl is being re-traumatized by the courts system. Remember this story when you hear anything about reporting statistics for sexual crimes: this is why they're still so vastly underreported. Who the hell would want to put themselves through this? And what will it take before there's general public recognition that women almost never falsely report rape and molestation? Yes, there are a few isolated incidents where this has happened, but to use these incidents as a basis for suspecting all reports is both asinine and irrational. It's like assuming that all days will be cloudy because it rained once. My heart goes out to this girl. I hope she's able to find the support she needs to make it through this crap to a better life. See here for more responses to this story from rape survivors across the blogosphere.