Q. What Should I Do If I Have Been Charged With Sexual Assault?
In sexual assault cases, know that the military will push as hard as possible for the case to go to court, even if the “victim” doesn’t want to go forward. Know that the military is training its people to convict defendants based on social policy instead of the law and regardless of how strong or weak the evidence is.
It’s an extremely unbalanced and unfair environment. Keep in mind that any conviction of a sex crime will cause you to be on a sex offender list, possibly for the rest of your life. Also keep in mind that the military can take you to court based solely on the victim’s allegation, what’s commonly called a “he said, she said” case. The notion that you can’t be convicted in a “he said, she said” case is a myth. If the judge or jury believes what “she said,” that can be enough for a conviction all by itself. To protect yourself in this unfair environment you need the best attorneys you can get, attorneys whose practice is significantly focused on defending sexual assault allegations.
If the case involves a minor (whether it’s a sex crime or child abuse), everyone on the government side will predictably side with the accuser and take everything the accuser says as true, no matter how young, impressionable, and manipulative the minor might be.
Consequently, it’s critically important to have attorneys who know how to deal with these issues, interview and cross-examine minors, and evaluate whether any government interview of the child was done in a forensically sound manner. All of these things can influence what is and isn’t allowed as evidence at trial.