All Blog Posts from Couric & Co.

The details of the gang rape that took place outside a high school homecoming dance at Richmond High School in California are horrifying. A girl was repeatedly attacked for two and a half hours. And as many as 20 people either took part or stood by and watched.

In California, it is illegal to witness a crime against a child and not report it-- but only if the victim is 14 or younger. In this case, she was 15.

So, the witnesses at Richmond High technically didn't break the law. But didn't anyone there just feel the slightest bit of compassion or mercy for the victim?

Some experts chalk it up to "the bystander effect." The people watching the crime may have felt powerless to stop it-- or perhaps they thought someone else would.

But in the age of the cell phone, how hard could it have been to call police?

Just one anonymous call, one person doing the right thing, could have stopped two and a half hours of brutality and spared a young woman a lifetime of emotional and physical scars.

That's a page from my notebook.

I'm Katie Couric, CBS News.

The Attorney General in North Carolina called it a "rush to accuse," but there are still many questions to be answered about the Duke rape case. And a lot of damage has been done.

Click the monitor to watch.

Lawyer Andrew Cohen analyzes legal affairs for CBS News and CBSNews.com.

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In a remarkable display of both candor and scorn, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper this afternoon tore into Durham County District Attorney Michael Nifong for his scandalous work in the Duke Lacrosse sexual assault case. Refusing to extend any professional courtesy to his fellow member of the bar, refusing to talk like other public officials talk about one another, Cooper eviscerated Nifong and his strategies and tactics throughout this controversial case, stopping short only when he was asked whether he thought the prosecutor himself should now be brought up on obstruction of justice charges.

What was wrong with Nifong’s work? According to Cooper, the better question to ask is what was right about it. Cooper said his investigation revealed that the eyewitness evidence in the case was “faulty and unreliable.” He said that no “DNA evidence confirmed” the story offered by the alleged victim. He said that “no other witnesses confirmed” her story and that “other evidence” in the case “contradicted” her story. “She contradicts herself,” Cooper added in what surely could be an epitaph to this whole sordid affair. Aside from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?...

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Almost every day, we read another tragic story about another brutal sex offender. Just this week, a jury in Miami convicted one of the most evil rapists imaginable—a 48 year old repeat sex offender who snatched a nine-year-old girl from her bedroom, then raped and murdered her. Up until the early 1970’s, the media rarely covered sexual assaults, and the victim was often considered more guilty than the rapist. One of the pioneers who literally changed the way sex crimes are prosecuted—and discussed—in this country is Linda Fairstein, who led the Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office for twenty-five years. She’s the author of a new bestselling crime novel called Bad Blood, and we thought she could bring us up to date on this scary and very important subject.

1. How has the law changed regarding sexual assault? Are victims treated more fairly today?

Until the 1970’s, laws in most states – derived from 17th century British cases – required that a woman’s testimony by corroborated by other evidence. That is, in these crimes least likely to be witnessed by anyone else, there had to be independent proof of who the attacker was and what force he used to overcome his victim’s resistance. Since this evidence so rarely existed before the introduction of forensics to these investigations, most women were denied access to the courtroom, no matter how credible they were. After the elimination of the corroboration requirement, rape shield laws were passed to protect witnesses from being cross-examined about their prior sexual history, which is irrelevant in the overwhelming number of reported cases. These long-overdue legislative reforms helped begin to make the system more welcoming – and a lot more fair – to victims of sexual violence.

2. Does it matter whether a rape is a “stranger rape” or an “acquaintance rape” in the eyes of the law? Which is more common? ...

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