Shatia Lansdowne-Ware says she was raped. I can tell you that because she said it in court. Specifically, according to a recording of her trial testimony, that a man broke into her Baltimore home as she slept in the small hours of Nov. 10, 2011, tied her up, threatened to kill her and raped her — her two young daughters asleep in the next bedroom.
When he finally left, she said she grabbed her girls — clamping a hand over their mouths, afraid the man was still in the building — and crawled up the hall stairs to a neighbor’s apartment, where she first called her father, and then, on his advice, the police. She sobbed on the stand as she recounted this.
And yet, I can’t call the man she accused a rapist — at least not in relation to her. But make no mistake, he is a rapist. In 1997, Nelson Bernard Clifford was sentenced to 10 years in prison for breaking into a woman’s home and sexually assaulting her at knifepoint. In 2015, he was sentenced to 31 years in prison for sexually assaulting another woman after climbing through her window, naked but for a pair of sneakers, according to prosecutors.
In between, he was taken to trial four more times by four other women, including Shatia. But uncertain juries, unaware of his past, acquitted him again and again, after he claimed that the sex, verified by DNA evidence, was consensual and the women were prostitutes.
So today, in the eyes of the law, those women weren’t victims, and Nelson Clifford did not attack them — even though their incident descriptions were similar, even though he was a convicted sex offender, even though he left his DNA on their bodies. And I can’t publish any of Shatia’s story that’s not part of an official proceeding.
For Shatia, the irony is rich. Telling her story, she says, is the only way to ensure that serial rapists no longer avoid conviction by claiming consensual sex.
She wasn’t allowed to tell her story to the juries of the women whose sexual assault trials followed hers because of evidentiary rules, and those whose trials came before were not allowed to tell their stories at Shatia’s — not even the story of Nelson Clifford’s 1997 conviction. If they had, the trial outcomes might have been different, she believes; indeed, there might never have been a reason for later trials.
Shatia has joined with the Baltimore state’s attorney’s office to advocate for legislation that would make it easier for prosecutors to introduce evidence of a defendant’s prior sexual misconduct in order to establish a pattern. Such a move would bring state rules in line with federal rule 413, which reads: "In a criminal case in which a defendant is accused of a sexual assault, the court may admit evidence that the defendant committed any other sexual assault."
Roughly a dozen other states have passed similar laws. It’s a common sense alignment, but thus far, it has been a losing battle in Maryland, with last year’s bill on the issue passing the Senate but dying in the House. Detractors claim that such disclosure violates a defendant’s rights by unfairly influencing jury members and that past bad acts are not necessarily an indication of future ones.
That’s a valid concern in most criminal cases, but sexual assault is different. Those convicted of it must register as sex offenders even after serving their time — a direct acknowledgment that this kind of criminal may be likely to repeat his offense. Most offenders are never even brought to trial because their victims are too ashamed or frightened or broken to come forward.
Shatia said it felt like she was the one on trial. In the recording of her testimony, her voice grows small as she answers sexual questions in uncomfortable detail in the open courtroom. Her character was questioned, her vulnerabilities exposed — while his flaws were concealed. Yet she won’t be cowed.
She testifed before the Maryland legislature last year, and is considering doing it again this year, despite the personal costs of putting herself in the public eye. (A rally supporting the 2017 bills on this issue — SB316 and HB369 — is scheduled for Monday night at 7 p.m. on Lawyers Mall in Annapolis; information: msaunders@stattorney.org).
"I feel compelled to fight for this law," Shatia says, "because if I do not, I am contributing to the brutal attack of another woman or child."
If lawmakers don’t advance the bills this year, the same could be said of them.
Tricia Bishop is The Sun’s deputy editorial page editor. Her column runs every other Friday. Her email is tricia.bishop@baltsun.com; Twitter: @triciabishop.
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
