Investigator Testifies at Bryant Hearing

EAGLE - The woman who accused Kobe Bryant of rape told police a flirtatious encounter quickly turned ugly when he grabbed her by the neck, bent her over a chair and attacked her, repeatedly asking, "You're not going to tell anybody about this, right?"

The 19-year-old woman was raped after agreeing to go to Bryant's suite at the resort where she worked, Eagle County Sheriff's Detective Doug Winters testified Thursday at a preliminary hearing to determine whether Bryant will stand trial.

She said she told Bryant "no" at least twice and he ignored her, pulling her dress up and her underwear down and raping her from behind.

At one point, the woman told police, Bryant forced her to face him and say "no" when he asked if she was going to tell anyone. After the attack, Bryant made her kiss his penis, Winters said the woman told investigators.

Bryant, 25, has insisted the sex was consensual. He sat at the defense table staring straight at Winters for much of the hearing, hands folded in front of him. Bryant occasionally clenched his jaw, but showed little other reaction.

Though the testimony was graphic, the most explosive statement came from Bryant's own defense attorney when she suggested under cross examination that the woman's injuries would also be "consistent with a person who has had sex with three different men in three days."

That led an angry Judge Frederick Gannett to empty the courtroom and summon the lawyers to his chambers. Gannett was also upset earlier when defense attorney Pamela Mackey said the woman's name four times when asking questions.

The hearing - expected to last only an afternoon - was finally adjourned after more than six hours, an indication the trial could be long and laborious for both sides. Gannett said it would continue next Wednesday, and the district attorney's office said Bryant had to appear.

Winters, the only witness of the afternoon, recounted what the woman told him in an hourlong interview the day after she met Bryant at the resort. It all began with a tour of the hotel on June 30 that led to some flirting. She went back to Bryant's room and showed him a tattoo on her ankle, then turned down his request to join him in the hot tub, Winters said.

Her shift at the front desk was ending and she wanted to go home, he said, and "she was starting to feel a bit uncomfortable."

Winters said she stood up to leave and Bryant gave her a hug that led to some consensual kissing, Winters said.

But when she turned to go, Bryant grabbed her by the neck, pulled up her black dress and raped her against a chair, Winters said. She told investigators she said "no" at least twice, before bursting into tears as the five-minute attack went on.

Bryant wasn't holding her neck so tight she couldn't breathe, Winters said, but enough to control her movement.

Afterward, Bryant told the woman to clean up, Winters said. She fixed her hair, wiped her face and left after again promising to remain silent.

She went back to the front desk to finish up her work and finally left the resort with an unidentified bellman, Winters said. She told him what happened and he urged her to report it, later following her home.

Winters testified that the woman's blood was found on the inside of Bryant's T-shirt, based on DNA tests. The woman told him she had bleeding from the attack, he said.

The prosecution also presented photographs showing vaginal injuries and one of a bruise on the woman's jaw, and a rape nurse's statement that her injuries were not consistent with consensual sex.

Mackey, though, suggested Winters had no idea when the bruise occurred, and got him to acknowledge that the woman needed no treatment for injuries when she was examined. She also questioned him on whether he saw marks on her neck when he interviewed her the next day.

"She talks on how Mr. Kobe Bryant grabbed her neck and choked her," Mackey told Winters. "You looked at her neck to see?"

Winters said the woman seemed serious when he first interviewed her with her parents at their Eagle home.

Bryant faces up to life in prison if convicted of a felony charge of sexual assault.

Legal experts had expected the defense to waive the hearing and head straight to trial rather than allow prosecutors to lay out their case for the first time _ evidence that will be discussed in public for months.

Gannett had rejected defense requests to have the woman testify and to see her medical records.

The hearing began as hundreds of reporters and a handful of spectators gathered outside the courthouse to catch a glimpse of Bryant as he arrived with his lawyers in a caravan of three SUVs. He said nothing to the crowd.

Bryant had to take off a necklace and was checked with metal detectors before walking into the courtroom.

Bryant, free on $25,000 bond, had been ordered to appear in court for a bond hearing even if the preliminary hearing was waived. He left the Hawaii training camp of the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday.

Bryant has the right to go to trial within six months of entering a plea, but he could agree to push that back until later, perhaps after the NBA season ends early next summer.

One of my favorite writers, indeed perhaps my favorite writer, Greg Easterbrook, has branced out, and has this modest proposal (which includes a quote from Andrew Marvel (who is Andrew Marvel? - I really don't know) that has not crossed my radar screen before):

""NO" DOES NOT ALWAYS MEAN NO; TIME TO AGREE ON A PHRASE THAT DOES:

Right now there are only two people in the world who know if Kobe Bryant is guilty; will there always be only two people who know?

Because rapes happen in private, it is hard for the victimized woman to prove her accusation, and hard for the falsely accused man to prove his innocence. Unless a police officer observes the woman running from a room yelling "help!" there will be ambiguity. Physical evidence of intercourse may not prove anything, as sex might have been consensual. Bruises or other harm don't necessarily prove rape, unless the officer observes the woman running from the room. Injuries might be acquired in the hours after a sexual encounter; that's unlikely but cannot logically be ruled out. All it takes is one "reasonable" doubt in one juror's mind, and in he-said, she-said cases without third-party witnesses, there is often a reasonable doubt.

These factors surely mean some raped women don't press charges, because you don't have to be a Yale law professor to see that the accusation will be hard to prove. But the same factors also make it hard for a man to establish he is not a rapist. Maybe the woman really did give consent, or was even the aggressor. How can a man prove that? Because of what a woman must put herself through by alleging rape, it's widely believed among lawyers who practice sexual assault law that most who claim rape are telling the truth. But some claims of rape are false and land innocent men behind bars. It's all but impossible for an innocent man to prove there was consent.

So unless there is some spectacular piece of evidence that settles things one way or the other, if Bryant is convicted we'll never be sure he really did it--maybe a small-town jury assumed a big-city celebrity must be a bad guy. And if Bryant is acquitted, we'll never be sure he really didn't do it--maybe he got off on a technicality, or by having more expensive attorneys. Absent some spectacular piece of evidence that settles things one way or the other, even after the verdict is read, there will be uncertainty.

Beyond the chance of an ambiguous verdict is the ambiguous nature of some rape accusations. When force is used, or a woman taken somewhere against her will, it's open and shut. Cases in which force is only implied bedevil the rape issue; thousands of pages of law-review articles have been written on this point. And what about when the woman initiates the encounter of her own free will? That appears, at least, to be what happened in Colorado. A woman must be able to enter a man's hotel room, or dorm room, or car, or embrace, and later say, "I'm leaving now." Going into a man's hotel room late at night, or voluntarily initiating any social ritual that often leads to sex, is not the same as consenting to sex--even if the woman has sex on the mind, too. Women who enter possible-sex situations must always be free to decide to exit them. (Men must as well, but this comes up so rarely it's not a big issue; rape is almost always a women's concern.)

In contemporary society, the problem may turn on the language women use if they decide they want to leave. "No" doesn't cut it, unless it's a top-of-the-lungs "NO!" However often theorists assert that the single word "no" is all that's required--"what part of 'no' don't you understand," etc.--the reality of human interaction is that "no" does not always mean no. Maybe half the sex in world history has followed an initial "no," or more than one "no." (Whether such sex is regretted later, or simply not much fun, is irrelevant to the rape debate.) What ends up as consensual sex, however unsatisfying, often begins with the woman saying "no."

Because men know this--because in the real world "no" does not always mean no--speaking the word "no" is not the ideal way to communicate to a man that what is happening has changed from persuasion, or pressure, to compulsion. Men not only want sex, the male mindset holds that overcoming the woman's "no" is part of manliness. Few men will rape if that's what they think they are doing. Many try to push past "no" and tell themselves that what they are doing is manly persuasion of the naturally hesitant female. "Had we but world enough, and time/this coyness, lady, were no crime:" Andrew Marvel, circa 1650.

There has to be a better way than the word "no" to communicate to the man that he has crossed the line, and that better way must be widely agreed upon. Here's my proposal: If the line is crossed, women should say, "This is rape!"

The statement is clear, unambiguous, and can't possibly mean "not now, but maybe after more wine," which is what men often think the first "no" means. Saying, "This is rape!" won't stop the hardened criminal rapist, who already has decided to commit a crime. This phrase should work on the majority of men who are not criminals. Just hearing the word "rape" in this context would give chills to the majority of men who are not criminals. If this phrase were promoted and widely understood to mean that the woman was changing the situation from age-old male-female play into a legal event, there could be no confusing it with the "no" that might become a "yes."

Howlin -

We're all confused about when she went to the hospital. It might have been the next day; we have all seen different reporting.

Although the detective didn't see anything on her neck, the nurse did and took photographs.

I have said that I believe her confidential medical records should remain closed UNLESS there is evidence in there that suggests she's made unsubstantiated charges before. If she has, the defense will bring those men forward. That is permitted and appropriate.

You surely don't want me to list the questions that would be acceptable. It's a job I couldn't do anyway.

What is NOT acceptable is to say her name over and over in court (it's against the law) and to make charges without substantiating them. They said she had sex with 3 men in 3 days. The judge closed the court immediately and will reopen next Wednesday. We will see if they can substantiate that charge. If they cannot, that is a smear job and unacceptable as surely any reasonable person would agree. Lying and making stuff up is smearing the victim.

We've seen it over and over. Not every woman who is raped is trashy, unstable, etc. Inject the negative adjective. You've heard them all. But to listen to the defense attorneys in these cases, every woman who is raped is all those negative thing. That is not fair play.

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