"In the past 10 years, Douglas County juries convicted three rapists, the Lawrence Journal-World reported.

In the cases, the rapists overpowered their victims, threatened them with weapons or broke into their homes.

But in the few rape trials involving a drunken victim who had been socializing with her alleged attacker, juries acquitted the accused rapist each time. More cases of this sort never went to trial, and defendants either pleaded to lesser crimes or saw their charges dismissed altogether.

...

"Attorneys belong to a profession that requires many to look squarely at the world's horrors ... They must keep their heads while witnessing awful injustices, appearing before hostile judges, or enduring profane outbursts from other attorneys or clients, all while exhausted by a long week of headaches and heartburn. Hence the alarm a growing number of law school professors feel at the trend of students objecting to parts of the curriculum that they find too upsetting. 

. . . 

Nancy Redd hosts a panel discussion featuring Amanda Tonkovich, Coordinator, New Orleans Sexual Assault Response Team; Carol Tracy, Executive Director, Women’s Law Project; 
Kim Lonsway, Research Director, End Violence Against Women International, and Corey Rayburn Yung, Professor, University of Kansas School of Law. 

"Barbara Bowman first publicly accused Bill Cosby of rape in 2004. But people didn't start believing her until now, when a male comedian called Cosby a rapist last month.

Bowman's story puts a personal face on the myriad reasons women are often hesitant to come forward with rape allegations. They often face disbelief, harrassment, or accusations of wrongdoing themselves. And a woman's chances of winning a conviction in a rape case are extremely low compared to other crimes.

. . . 

Ian Urbina wrote:

"States across the country are trying to figure out how to address the problem of sexual assault more effectively, and more often than not, they are looking to redefine the scope of sexual misconduct.

. . . 

With an effort also underway by the American Law Institute to reconsider when an assault becomes rape, some legal experts predict that changes to criminal laws in many states may not be far off.

. . .