Graphic by Rachel Carp.
HBO’s new docuseries “Allen v. Farrow” has reignited interest in the 1992 allegations against Woody Allen by his then seven-year-old daughter, Dylan Farrow. Farrow has maintained throughout the years the accusation that her adoptive father, Allen, molested her when she was a child. In a 2017 Op-Ed in the LA Times, Farrow asked why the #MeToo movement spared her father. She repeated her claims and evidence to the allegations which mostly consist of eyewitness testimony. Beyond the cultural discussion, Farrow’s case highlights the difficulty in prosecuting sex crimes because of how little or fragile the evidence is. This is by no means a comprehensive account of the case against Allen, but instead a consideration of how Farrow’s case exemplifies the larger difficulties in sexual assault cases.
One of the biggest problems with proving a sex crime took place is how few witnesses there are. Often, it is only two people — the perpetrator and the victim. This makes it difficult for juries because they don’t know whose word to trust. In Farrow’s case, three eyewitnesses substantiated her account, suggesting a pattern of behavior. But the testimonies of Allen and his supporters held as much weight given his status as an acclaimed director with no prior convictions.
A victim’s testimony can also be undermined by intense scrutiny. Victims can struggle with retelling the story and facing the accused. Gaps in memory, inconsistent details, and restless body language can give the impression someone is lying or fabricating an event. There are, however, many reasons why someone’s testimony may be incomplete or inconsistent but not false.
During a traumatic event, the brain becomes impaired as it attempts to survive the ordeal. James Hopper and David Lisak, consultants on sexual assault cases, explain how the brain changes in response to an attack, “in states of high stress, fear or terror like combat and sexual assault, the prefrontal cortex is impaired — sometimes even effectively shut down — by a surge of stress chemicals.”
In other words, the brain becomes selective with what it remembers and what it focuses on. The only goal at that point is to survive and make quick decisions. It makes sense victims of robberies can’t remember what clothes the robber was wearing, but they can remember the gun pointed in their face. The gun is more lethal and thus more important than the clothes.
In Farrow’s case, workers at the Yale New Haven clinic interviewed her to see if she was telling the truth and if she had been assaulted. The conclusion they reached was she had not been abused and her statements were fabricated. They gave no answer as to why Dylan would make up such a story, but implied she may have done so for attention or under the influence of her mother.
The reliability of seven-year-old Dylan’s testimony is contested. In children’s cases, there is the concern that a child will only say what they think adults want to hear. If New Haven clinic asked her leading questions and she felt she was in trouble, Dylan may have contradicted herself in their meetings. New Haven clinic’s credibility has also been called into question after they destroyed their notes on Farrow with no explanation.
One of the most accepted forms of evidence, however, is DNA. In rape cases, for example, prosecutors are able to prove a defendant’s guilt by the presence of their DNA in or on the victim. The problem with this evidence, however, is that victims of rape often wash or destroy evidence after the crime. Any injuries caused by the assault will likely heal by the time the case reaches trial. A report in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine put it like this, “On average, a case of sexual assault takes two hours to complete and victims ideally should not wash, bathe, shower, eat, drink, brush their teeth or change their clothes before the examination commences.”
Can we really expect victims to think only of what evidence they can use in a courtroom? Could anyone expect seven-year-old Farrow to know what her father did was wrong and how to prove it in the American legal system? Of course Allen’s DNA would be found on her since he was her father and they lived together.
In a cultural court, many abusers have been put under pressure, but far fewer are facing legal consequences. Woody Allen has never been convicted of molesting Farrow but he did lose custody of her shortly after the accusations.
In researching this case, I have run into seemingly contradictory claims that make it harder to understand what exactly happened between Farrow and Allen and how the case played out in court. The New York Times has published extensively on Allen and the HBO documentary currently airing. Websites are dedicated to “fact checking” the details of the case. For example, in Farrow’s Op-Ed, she claimed Allen refused to take a polygraph test administered by the Connecticut state police. This is true. In Allen’s piece published by the New York Times in 2014, he wrote, “I very willingly took a lie-detector test and of course passed because I had nothing to hide.” This is also true. Allen took a polygraph that was not administered by the Connecticut state police.
Small nuances such as these can make it harder for people to really understand what happens in cases of sexual assault. In the past few years, several actors have announced their regret in working with Allen once they learned more about the accusations, but I fear Dylan Farrow will not see justice until the system itself is reformed. Alarms about the reliability of evidence have been sounding for years, but change is slow. And until the system is reformed, none of us who live in it will see justice either.
