Court rejects jeans defense

Italy’s top criminal court has upheld the sexual assault conviction of a man who argued that the victim’s jeans would have prevented an attack. The court had provoked outrage a decade ago by ruling that it was impossible to rape a woman wearing jeans.

The Court of Cassation rejected an appeal by a 37-year-old man convicted by a lower court of sexually assaulting a teenager. The man said the attack would have been impossible because the girl had been seated and wearing jeans.

In 1999, the court overturned a rape conviction, saying it was impossible to forcibly remove a woman’s jeans.