How to improve prosecutions of college campus sexual assaults.

• Author: Veidlinger, Rebecca Leitman

PROSECUTING SEX CRIMES is hard work. This is especially true for sex crimes that occur within a university community. As a former sex crimes prosecutor in a college town, I know the particular challenges inherent in prosecuting college campus sexual assaults. Indeed, when faced with a typical college campus sexual assault, namely an alcohol-facilitated sexual assault between individuals who have some familiarity with each other, it was especially critical that our town's law enforcement and I employed the best practices in our field. Among these practices: minimize number of interviews of the victim, maximize opportunities for admissible confessions by perpetrators, and gather corroborating evidence of all other aspects of the encounter to confirm exactly what happened in the pejorative "he said-she said" case. Beyond these best practices, however, I came to learn of an additional component that had the potential to greatly enhance the strength of my sexual assault prosecutions. This added component focused on the college itself, and specifically, the college staff that was investigating and making determinations regarding the very same sexual assaults that were presented to me for the filing of charges.

No longer a sex crimes prosecutor, I now work for a university as one of its staff who investigates and makes determinations regarding allegations of sexual assault on campus. Many prosecutors are probably unaware of the work that I now undertake, unaware that colleges and universities--by virtue of a federal mandate entitled Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 ("Title IX")--have their own in-house investigative and quasi-judicial processes to address sexual assault on their campuses. Often unbeknownst to police and prosecutors who are working the very same cases, schools are interviewing victims, witnesses and perpetrators; obtaining evidence such as texts and emails; and examining the entire incident with their own critical eyes and ultimately rendering judgment on whether the evidence supports the allegation of sexual assault. This parallel work has the potential to significantly impact the criminal case, in both positive and negative ways.

Whether I view the issue through my former prosecutor lens or my current Title IX investigator lens, I know that communication between university investigators and law enforcement can maximize the positive impacts and minimize the negative impacts of the parallel work on the criminal case. But lacking familiarity with the college process, prosecutors may not even know what to communicate about, or when to communicate, or even with whom to talk.

Prosecutors working in college towns must know the following Title IX basics:

1. Become familiar with the Title IX Coordinator and the investigative staff. All schools that receive federal financial assistance are required to identify a Title IX coordinator who is the employee ultimately responsible for creating the campus's sexual misconduct policy, publicizing the policy among students and faculty, investigating allegations of sexual assault, and enforcing the sexual misconduct policy. The Title IX coordinator may be housed in the diversity office, or the office of student life, or in a freestanding Title IX office on campus. Getting to know your schools Title IX coordinator is...