 Welcome to In The Studio at Davis Media Access. My name is David Lima and today in this episode we'll be discussing the topic of non-stranger rape. Joining me today are Amanda Zambor, Deputy District Attorney, and Julie Hernandez, victim advocate. Amanda, let's start with you. What is non-stranger rape? Okay, well when most people think of rape, they think of the stranger in the bushes or hopping out of the van. Those cases are exceedingly rare to come across our desk at the District Attorney's Office. What's more common is what we're talking about today, non-stranger sexual assault or rape. And those cases are cases, your typical date rape cases, rape of an intoxicated person or an unconscious person. People that our survivors know, family, friends, friends of friends or even acquaintances. Typically what we see or usually what we see are either dating relationships where sexual advances went a little bit too far or way too far actually when somebody says no and the other side doesn't take no for an answer or in these alcohol fueled environments where parties, either high school or college, everybody's been drinking and the survivor is so intoxicated that they cannot legally give consent or they might have gone to the point of passing out. So what we're really focusing on on these cases is where is that consent? Is this person so out of it or so incapacitated that they don't know what's going on around them that they can't make those conscious decisions to engage in sexual behavior? Thank you. Julia, what are some of the common misconceptions about non-stranger rape? There are a lot. So there's, if you look on any website there's gonna be like pages of myths or misconceptions. But some of them that I can talk about here are false reporting. One of the things I think that society is unfortunately given because of maybe the media and TV shows is that everybody's lying about rape or women will go running to go report a false rape to get someone in trouble. Which nationally, the statistics are something like 2% to 4%, maybe all the way up to 10%, but really usually staying around that 4% mark where it has happened. And the other thing that gets mixed in with that false reporting rate is oftentimes a, just because something isn't proven, meaning sorry, something isn't charged or something doesn't go all the way to a jury trial, it doesn't mean that it didn't happen. It just means that unfortunately there wasn't enough evidence for a prosecutor's office to go forward with that case. So if that's taken into account with those numbers then that's not showing true numbers because again not saying that it didn't happen it's just saying it can't be proven and that's totally different. Second thing would be when Amanda talked about intoxication, if a person is intoxicated at a get together, a party, whatever it might be, if the victim is so intoxicated they can't give consent and people think, well that person was drinking or that person was drinking, got so drunk and then made out with this person, you know what I mean? And maybe that was consensual, maybe the beginning, maybe even they weren't drinking up to a point where they get unconscious, but maybe they're drinking, having a good time and then having consensual making out with someone just because at that point then they can say no. At that point they could say no, but if someone takes that too far, if they believe, oh, well because she's allowing me to do X, Y, Z, now I can continue to actually have sex with her, that's not okay. So again that falls into the victim blaming part of things. Also a myth or a misconception is that it can't happen to males, so sometimes people think that rape can't happen to a male and that's not true. We have any type, I've been at the DA's office for 18 years and I've seen any and all types of sexual assault cases come through, sexual assault reporting, and then one of the, another important ones to mention is late reporting. So often times people might think that a survivor is going to have a sexual assault occur and then run to their local law enforcement agency and talk about it. I think people think that's what they would do. Oh my gosh, something really horrible happens to me and I'm gonna run right down and tell the police or call the police. That doesn't often happen. Often what we see is late reporting and that's because they're trying to figure out what happened, like I was having a good time, I was doing this, I trusted this person who I either wanted to go out on a date with or had an acquaintance relationship with and then all of a sudden I was raped or I was taken advantage of. So they're trying to figure out what happened to them. That may take a day, that may take hours, that may take a week. So we can't blame a survivor once they're trying to figure out what happened and how they're feeling about what happened to them, how long it's gonna take them to report. Thank you. Amanda, what would you like for the community to know about non-strangery? Certainly. I think the main thing is that these cases are prevalent and they often go unreported for a variety of reasons. Often the criminal justice system is a scary place to go. Victims are sometimes hesitant because they don't wanna have to relive these events over and over again. So what I would like the community to know that these cases should be taken seriously, it's very easy as Julia said to say, oh, well they shouldn't have put themselves in that situation or they shouldn't have drank that much. But these cases have long lasting effects on these survivors. So the community should take them seriously, jury should take them seriously. I often analogize it to a robbery victim. We don't tell a robbery victim, oh, well you shouldn't have been in that place or it wouldn't have happened to you. We treat those robbery victims as true victims. I would like the community to also treat our sexual assault victims in the same way. It doesn't matter that they went to this party or that they had a couple of drinks. When you say no, no means no. When you're that intoxicated, somebody shouldn't be taking advantage of you. If you go up to a room to lie down or to sleep it off, you shouldn't then wake up to somebody on top of you having sex with you, that's not okay. So fortunately with some more high profile cases going through the national level, the Brock Turner cases, the Dr. Nassar, the Bill Cosby case, the community is being more informed about some of these issues and just how prevalent it could be. But I think there's still a lot of work to be done, a lot of education for our community. One thing that I would like survivors to know is that our office is taking these cases seriously. We do look at them with a fine tooth comb. We do thorough review. We're not just making snap decisions. Oh, we can't prove this and shuffling it off to a bin of rejected cases for filing. On the other hand, we wanna make sure that we're filing the right cases because they do have very high ramifications for those accused of these cases. But we do take very seriously taking victims input, giving the victims a voice, actually speaking to the victims before we're making those charging decisions so that they feel a part of the process so that they're not re-victimized in coming forward. And hopefully that will enable us to get more of these survivors to report even if it doesn't go to a criminal trial. Definitely. Thank you. Julia, what are some of the type of ways that a victim can report these types of crime? They can report by calling a crisis line, by calling, here in Yolo County, we have the local domestic violence sexual assault shelter which is, or center, is in power Yolo. And they are very, they're confidential. So any information that's given to them by a survivor they keep to themselves. They, on the crisis line actually, you don't even have to say your name. So you can just talk and call and be anonymous and be like, hey, this is something that happened to me and then figure out later on, do you wanna make a report? Then, obviously you can call our office, the Yolo County District Attorney's Office, Victim Services, we have. And then you have local law enforcement so that they wanna report there. And lastly, on any of the campuses like UCD, Woodland Community College, you can report. And at UCD they have also the care advocates that you can report to. And again, they're confidential, just there for survivors. Thank you. Amanda, how is the District Attorney's Office handling these types of cases? As I mentioned before, we're really trying to give survivors a voice in the process. A lot of times victims won't come forward because they think that they won't be heard they say I don't wanna go forward, we'll go forward anyways. A lot of times it's difficult to report to officers. So we're doing a lot of training with our officers on how to do appropriate interviews with survivors. A trauma informed interview where they're gonna get the most valuable information, the most truthful information that can be used should the survivor decide to go to criminal trial. We've also been doing a lot of training within our office to make sure that our attorneys that do take these cases are well equipped, that they are getting the further investigation that needs to be done, that they are also treating the survivors in a trauma informed way to get the most information. Julia was talking earlier about some misconceptions and one of the things is that these survivors are gonna remember things chronologically and be able to regurgitate it back and forth and sideways and not hesitate. But they just live through a trauma so they're recording information in their brain differently. So approaching them with these trauma informed techniques, talking to them about their senses, what they were hearing, seeing, feeling about the incident will often give you more information than just asking what happened next, what happened next and this cold interaction with the survivors. So we're really trying to concentrate on that within our office. And then really, again, just giving them a voice, letting them have some control over the situation and some input from charging all the way up to what they wanna see happen with the case should the person be convicted or plead to the offense. And we work very closely with our partners and agencies within the community. Our office has actually formed what's called the Greater Davis Non-Stranger Sexual Assault Committee. And that is comprised of our office DAs, our advocates from our office, as well as UC Davis Police Department, the care program and their advocates, Davis Police Department and any advocates from their office, as well as the attorney general's office. And then also the Title IX office within UC Davis campus. And what we do is we collaborate, talk about strengths in cases, some weaknesses or struggles that we're having in putting together cases. Oftentimes we can't share all the information because of confidentiality purposes, but we have a lot of overlap. So trying to avoid those gaps and educating our surviving community that they have different options on where to go. They don't necessarily have to go to the criminal justice route. They can go through UC Davis if they're a student through the Title IX office and go that route so that they feel safe. Thank you, Amanda. And Julia, what are the types of services that you guys provide to victims? So when a case gets filed by the district attorney's office, so specifically from the Yolo County DA's office, we are there when a case does get filed through the district attorney's office. So it gets referred, we get the case assigned to us, I'm calling that victim, I'm saying this is me, this is who I am and this is what your rights are under Marcy's law, which is Prop 9 here in the state of California. And there are 17 rights that are afforded to that person. So I'm letting them know that. I'm letting them know that what we would like to happen at the DA's office is that they know everything that's going on with the case. I'm giving them case status, I'm telling them the next court dates, I'm going with them to court if they have to testify or even if they just wanna go because they want to know what's happening on that date. I can call them and tell them, okay, this is what happened, but they have every right to be present and hear it for themselves. And if they want to go, then we're gonna be there with them. And if they do have to testify, they have a right to have one of us sit next to them on the stand. So we're telling them all that information and some of these cases can be lengthy in prosecution time, so we're there the whole step of the way. Thank you both very much. And for those watching at home, what are some of the agencies that they can contact in case these types of situations will occur? Some of the agencies that we talked about was Empower Yolo here in Yolo County. The UC Davis Care Advocates, UC Davis Police Department, Davis Police Department, any of the law enforcement agencies, obviously. And then of course the Yolo County District Attorney's Office and Victim Services is within that. And all those agencies are also listed on the DA website, which is YoloDA.org. So if anybody was looking for any other contacts or services, they could always contact our office or look at that website, YoloDA.org, to get that information. Thank you both very much. And thank you for watching today's episode of In the Studio.