Looking for Answers in the Bryant Case

It seems right to protect a traumatized rape victim from being retraumatized in court. But how do we know for sure that she is a traumatized rape victim, until the jury has ruled that a rape actually occurred?

What if Kobe Bryant’s accuser is not a traumatized rape victim, but instead another Susan Smith -- an angry depressed woman acting out to hurt herself by destroying the lives of others? Maybe we are the ones who need to be protected from her.

But we won’t know the answer to that question if the accuser cannot be fairly and openly confronted by the accused in court. And the prosecution seems to be doing every last thing it can to keep this from happening.

Patricia Schwarz

Pasadena