Women’s Advocates Decry Doubt About Rape Reports : Crime: Legal experts say that the verdict in the Smith case will not necessarily deter victims from telling authorities.

Women’s rights advocates voiced fears Wednesday that the outcome in the Palm Beach rape case and the recent Senate confirmation of Clarence Thomas, despite Anita Faye Hill’s accusations of sexual harassment, might send a message to women that their stories of date rape or sexual abuse will not be believed.

“That’s my obvious fear--that the message will be that women are liars and that acquaintance rape is not a crime,” USC law professor Susan Estrich said.

She and other women’s advocates expressed frustration with the fact that, in both instances, the man’s story seemed to win credence, whereas the woman’s story was derided as a fantasy or a lie.

“The general disbelief of women is not news, at least not to women,” said Patricia Ireland, president of the National Organization for Women. “That’s why an estimated nine out of 10 rapes are not reported.”

But Ireland and others said the Palm Beach case has had the positive effect of putting a national spotlight on the problem of date rape.

The prosecution of William Kennedy Smith “opened up a dialogue about date rape,” said Gail Abarbanel, director of the Rape Treatment Center at the Santa Monica Hospital Medical Center. “Acquaintance rape is more prevalent than rape by strangers, but it is underreported because (victims) feel their cases will not be believed.”

Police in Palm Beach took seriously the complaint filed by the now 30-year-old woman against the nephew of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), and the case was fully prosecuted, Abarbanel noted. Though Smith was acquitted, she said, she doubts that the jury’s verdict will have long-term impact in dissuading women from pursuing such complaints.

“This was highly unusual, a case about the rich and famous. I don’t think it will be a real deterrent to rape reporting,” Abarbanel said. “A year from now, if a woman is deciding whether to bring a rape charge, she will be thinking about how she will be treated by the police, how her family and friends will react, not this.”

Estrich agreed that the not guilty verdict in the Smith case should not be seen as a general verdict on charges of date rape. “It is important not to read too much into this. In a criminal case, Smith deserved the benefit of the doubt, and that’s what he got,” she said.

Criminal-defense attorneys and legal experts agreed that the outcome of the Smith case will not necessarily deter rape victims from complaining to authorities.

“Most prosecutors’ offices have counseling services that tell rape complainants what they can expect if their case goes to court,” said Plato Cacheris, a Washington criminal-defense lawyer who successfully defended an accused rapist two years ago.

“I think the system is fair the way it is,” Cacheris said, speaking of rulings that prevented the defense from introducing evidence of the complainant’s abortion, out-of-wedlock childbirth and cocaine use and of rulings that stopped the prosecutor from citing other women’s claims that Smith had attacked them.

During the trial, prosecutor Moira K. Lasch said Smith had tried to destroy the woman who claimed he had raped her by painting her as a liar before she even took the witness stand.

“He not only raped her, he tried to destroy her on the witness stand,” Lasch told the jury. “He tried to destroy her credibility by telling people she was a damnable liar. He tried to make sure no one would believe her.”

Cacheris, however, said: “A woman who makes this charge is going to subject herself to a lot of scrutiny.”

Theodore B. Olson, an assistant attorney general during the Ronald Reagan Administration and now the head of the Washington office of a major Los Angeles law firm, said he does not think that the jury’s verdict will discourage raped women from filing complaints.

Based on the portions of the televised trial that he watched and his discussion with colleagues who saw more of the proceedings, Olson said that well before the case went to the jury it had become “pretty obvious” that Smith would be acquitted.

“At the very least, there was reasonable doubt,” Olson said, referring to the requirement that a jury convict a defendant only if it finds the evidence to show guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Rather than discouraging rape complaints, he said: “I think it shows the system works.”