San Diego criminal lawyer David P. Shapiro spends this video outlining why the age of the accuser in a sexual assault case can affect the case's outcome, and sentencing exposure if convicted, in more ways than you may think.

Law Office of David P. Shapiro
3500 5th Avenue #304 San Diego, CA 92103
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- Hi, my name is David P. Shapiro. I'm the owner managing partner of the Law Offices of David P. Shapiro located in San Diego, California where my firm helps good people regain control of their future when charged with a crime. In this video, I wanna talk to you about the significance of the age of the alleged victim, of the accuser, particularly in a sexual assault case. It is very, very important for a number of reasons both from an emotional standpoint, if the case were to get before a prosecutor, before a judge, before a jury. And then also from a legal standpoint as it relates to different types of punishments in general you could be facing based on your age, based on your accuser's age, when being investigated for or being charged with a sexual assault crime or a sexual assault allegation. Well, the first thing is right, just by common nature, by common sense, the younger the alleged victim the more emotional reaction you're going to get from potential jurors in a case. The more of an emotional reaction, even on the front end, you're probably gonna see from law enforcement investigating the case the more risk, arguably that law enforcement could be biased, and not really do a fair and thorough investigation when you're dealing with a younger alleged victim. Because of the fact that there's this instinct that's human nature to protect our young, to protect our youth. And there's a lot of value in that from a society standpoint. But the concern that we have as criminal defense attorneys is the law is the law whether the accuser's eight years old, whether the accuser's 80 years old, whether the suspect is 19 years old, or whether the suspect's 90 years old. It should not matter as far as what the burden of proof is, legally, it cannot matter the age of the accuser, the age of the suspect. But it is something that needs to be taken into account and it's something you need to think about especially if you're taking your case all the way to trial, which is your constitutional right to do so. How is the jury gonna see this case? What type of jurors are we gonna want on this case? What are some things that we may want to get out right away before a jury to get them talking during the jury selection process? A lot of times, you know, people will say stuff during jury selection about why they're not a good juror for the case, and the defendant or their attorney is like, "Oh my God, that was awful." Hearing them say, "Oh, I believe your client's guilty and I hate you because you represent him or her." Our approaches that's beautiful in the sense that we're getting an inside look at what type of juror that person could possibly be, and now we know to get rid of them before they wind up on that jury and are saying that stuff behind closed doors during deliberations, right? So it's important to address it and not to run from it especially when addressing a jury, when picking a jury in a case involving sexual assault of a minor is to get that stuff out there, watch people's emotional reaction, and you'll get a better idea of what type of jury they may or may not be. Now, from a legal perspective, it is extremely important whether the accuser is under 10, whether the accuser is under 14 at the time, whether the accuser is under 16 and certainly 18 as a legal age of consent in California. But sometimes some things that get overlooked in sexual assault cases are the age and not everyone's focused on what's being accused, but not really focused on when they're saying it happened. A lot of times these kids or these minors will say, "Oh, I think it happened between this grade and that grade, or it was one of these two or three summers." Well, a lot of times that's really important. That ambiguity is really important. Not to say that nothing happened not to even say that nothing, or that that something won't be able to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. But your best defense may verbal, yeah, well, something definitely did happen. You know, my client admitted to it to anyone who would talk to him about it, to the cops on a controlled call with the accuser, so on and so forth. And no one's condoning this type of behavior. But there's still an element of these offenses that require the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, same standard as any other element of a crime that the accuser was the age that that's necessary as the case is charged.
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