Attorney: Judge biased rape case

When a judge ruled that a jury would not be able to argue that Greg Haidl thought a sexual assault victim consented because she had done so under similar circumstances weeks earlier, the judge biased the case against him, Haidl’s lawyer argued to a panel of judges Wednesday.

Before state Court of Appeals Associate Justices Richard Aronson, Raymond Ikola and Presiding Justice David Sills, Haidl’s attorney, Dennis Fischer, argued that Haidl did not get a fair shot to discredit his accuser’s testimony because they could not argue that she had willingly engaged in a similar sex act weeks before the attack.

The woman’s sexual history was protected under California’s Rape Shield law, attorneys said Wednesday.

Haidl, along with co-defendants Keith Spann and Kyle Nachreiner, was convicted of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl in 2002 inside Haidl’s father’s house.

While the girl was drunk and passed out in the Corona del Mar home, the boys inserted various objects into her and videotaped it.

The group was convicted during their second trial in 2005 after the first jury failed to reach a verdict.

They were all released earlier this year after serving their sentences.

Wednesday, Fischer argued that the woman’s statement during the trial that she would “never” agree to something like that could have been challenged.

He maintains that Haidl and the two other boys believed she was consenting because in the past, she had allowed foreign objects to be inserted into her while sober and had multiple partners in one night.

“Rape shield statutes shouldn’t be a barrier to submitting evidence about what the defendants thought. That’s for a jury to decide,” Fischer argued.

“You can’t assume consent just because it’s been done before,” Aronson reminded him.

Fischer is seeking to overturn Haidl’s conviction or if nothing else, ensure that Haidl doesn’t have to register as a sex offender.

“They would look at her as a sexual deviant. They’d think ‘She can’t be a victim,’” U.S. Atty. Lise Jacobson told the panel.

And that kind of knee-jerk, prejudicial attitude would ensure that the woman would not have gotten a fair shot at justice, she said.

“We ask that the judge affirm the judgment in its entirety,” she concluded.

The panel will rule on the appeal in the next 90 days.