I work in the legal field and I have heard many times that it’s difficult to prosecute these cases, but it’s a different story when it comes with defense attorneys. Defense attorneys always say that it’s nearly impossible to win these kinds of cases. Why is it like that?
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Adult sexual assault is so hard to prove because the overwhelming majority of sex is consensual. With other crimes, be it child sexual assault, theft, murder, etc. the action itself is illegal, so a prosecutor has to prove that the action occurred, and that the suspect did it. With adult sexual assault, it is insufficient to prove that sex happened, because sex is assumed to be consensual unless we know otherwise. The prosecutor has to prove intent. This is much harder, especially because sexual encounters do not generally happen in the presence of security cameras or witnesses. And this is the purely mechanical aspect of it. Sexual assault also carries significant stigma and shame along with it, so perpetrators are not necessarily willing to bring cases to law enforcement or to talk about it in general. There can also be significant power dynamics at play. For example, Harvey Weinstein had the power to make and break careers, and since the difference between the haves and have nots in acting is so large, some women looked at it as the cost of admission, and others went along because they knew the alternative was living five to a room and waiting tables to make rent.
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