Article: Paterfamilias. (William Kennedy Smith alleged rape trial) (Editorial)

REGARDLESS of the outcome of the Palm Beach trial--and the testimony of William Kennedy Smith's accuser was powerfully plausible--the verdict in itself will carry no great implications. Everyone is against rape, if it happened. But proving it is often difficult, especially when the putative victim has made herself vulnerable by going home with the defendant at an ungodly hour and when her own past can be thrown at her. To say she was asking for trouble is not to say she deserved it, but even if she is telling the truth her own indiscretion has given the rapist a chance to get off the hook. And the possibility remains that what happened was not precisely rape in the legal ...

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