This 14 year old female was physically abused, attacked and then raped. She got pregnant from this rape in 2009. Melendez pled guilty to rape charges in 2011 and was sentenced to sixteen years of probation and was ordered to family court for a child support hearing. Court ordered him to pay $110 dollars every month in child support to the mother of his child. Everything was going unusually smooth until Melendez ordered visitation rights since. The victim’s attorney filed a complaint in federal court about her having to have an unwanted relationship with her rapist. Jane's complaint argued that the court-ordered child support "violates her federal rights by binding her to an unwanted sixteen-year legal relationship with her rapist." Even after Melendez was arrested, prosecuted, and convicted of rape, he continued to torment his victim using the legal tool of parental rights, rights that he gained solely and directly as a result of his violent acts against the victim. Nineteen states have no protections for rape victims who became pregnant because of an assault. This is then leaving rape victims vulnerable to a “second rape” by the legal system! The rest of the article is about the criminal justice treating the term of “second rape” and how victims should have laws set up to protect them by allowing them to terminate all parental rights regardless of …show more content…
This article covers how Americans live in culture that supports violence and sexualized aggression against women. The “rape culture” is legitimized in our culture by the everyday media and sexual objectification against women. A problem with this is that one may start objectifying women and or act in a way that is sexually violent against women. This is concerning because the people of society are those on the jury, making the decisions. This article then goes on to discuss the studies and trials they have done to see if the “rape culture” is truly influencing juror decision making. Women suffer every day from domestic violence and or sexual assault and only 5% of those sexual assaults result in a criminal conviction. This low conviction rate can be attributed to the “rape cultural” discussed earlier and how our society has socially accepted the norms of objectifying women and having sexual aggression towards them. This also affects the extent to which these female victims come forward to report their experiences and how their cases are handled in the criminal justice system. For example “rape culture” legitimizes beliefs on what actually constitutes as “real rape” and how women can avoid victimization. Sexual assault cases are particularly likely to go un reported because it someone they knew and think that no one will