With the "#MeToo" movement constantly on the front pages lately, awareness about sexual harassment and rape is at perhaps an all-time high. So T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong's book A False Report: A True Story of Rape in America comes at a timely moment to add to the conversation. Miller and Armstrong tell the story of a young lady who was raped, but who ended up being charged with falsely reporting a crime. They also tell the story of a serial rapist who, despite his careful and meticulous planning, eventually gets caught. The zinger is that these two stories collide.
In a readable and detailed narrative, the two stories develop: a rape in Washington, a serial rapist in Colorado, and, eventually, a dedicated team of investigators who put the puzzle together. The biggest tragedy is that this poor young lady, living on her own for the first time, suffers rape and the indignity and trauma that comes along with that. She immediately reports the crime and tells friends and her support network about it. As the investigation proceeded, the police think they see holes in her story. Under stress, she eventually recants, admitting that she made it up. But she quickly reverses herself and insists that she was in fact raped. The police latch on to her confession that she made it up, and turn the investigation on her. They find reasons not to believe her and charge her with a false report.
Meanwhile in Colorado a number of women are raped, crimes spread across several jurisdictions. Investigators put the crimes together, noting the similarities. A few lucky tips point them to the rapist, and once they gather evidence at his house, including computer files that contained pictures of his victims and his acts, they file charges. (I was troubled by the revelation that this serial rapist traced his compulsion to rape back to when he saw Princess Leia in her bikini, a slave to Jabba the Hutt. This led to him fantasizing about dominating women.) Among the Colorado victims, investigators discover pictures of an unknown victim, who turns out to be the victim in Washington. Puzzle solved, and the Washington victim is vindicated.
This is a memorable true-crime story, but the authors' agenda is larger than simply telling this story. Placing these crimes and investigations in historical context, they recount how the law has been inclined to disbelieve women who accuse men of rape. "The criminal justice system has long embraced the 'cherished male assumption that female persons tend to lie,' . . . In courtrooms throughout America, the historical default setting has been doubt." What a travesty. This is the great strength of #MeToo and related awareness campaigns.
On the other hand, Miller and Armstrong neglect to address men who are in fact falsely accused. They choose a case study in which a woman was not believed, and in which the rapist fits the profile of a small portion of rapists. He stalks women, breaks into their homes, and rapes them. Very few rapes fit this profile, yet it's the rape scenario which garners the most sympathy. The majority of rapes, committed by someone close to the victim, tend to be much grayer. Given the grayness, they are also more likely to bring the veracity of the victim and the aggressor into question. I certainly don't want a rapist to go unpunished, but plenty of compelling case studies can be written about men who have been unjustly accused of rape and, whether convicted or not, see their careers, reputation, and livelihoods crumble.
As they say, hard cases make bad law. The case of A False Report wants to reader to believe the woman, every time. The abuses of the past are real and unjust. But let us not proceed without believing that every person deserves to have his or her story told. Let us proceed with a conviction that every man and every woman deserves a fair trial, and that reputations and jobs and livelihoods should not be destroyed without reliable evidence. As much as I felt compassion for the victims in A False Report, especially the one who wasn't believed, I came away having heard only a part of the national story.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!
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