Transcripts shed light on Bryant case battles
Prosecution calls details 'one-sided'
DENVER -- Transcripts released from a closed two-day hearing in the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case provide rare detail of the fierce battles over evidence, including a candid assessment by the prosecution about its chances should the judge rule on a number of issues.
District Judge Terry Ruckriegle withheld 68 lines out of some 200 pages of June 21-22 testimony dealing in part with Colorado's rape shield law. Most of the transcripts were released Monday.
''If in fact you were to rule that all of the rape-shield evidence were going to come in in this case, I'm thinking the prosecution is going to sit down and reevaluate . . . its chances of a successful prosecution," prosecutor Ingrid Bakke told the judge.
A prosecution spokeswoman cautioned yesterday, however, that the transcripts provide only limited details. ''It is one-sided information," spokeswoman Krista Flannigan said.
Bakke's comments were included in transcripts mistakenly e-mailed by a court reporter to seven news organizations, which battled Ruckriegle to the US Supreme Court to publish the contents.
''It is with great reluctance that this court releases these transcripts," Ruckriegle wrote. There was no immediate comment from the woman's lawyers.
The defense has contended that the woman had multiple sexual partners in the three days surrounding the alleged assault and suggested her injuries could have been caused by someone other than him. Her lawyer denied she had sex after the alleged assault.
It has long been known that another man's semen was found on the woman and her underwear during a hospital exam. Prosecutors have theorized that the woman might have put on underwear that hadn't been washed before going to the hospital, thereby transferring semen from the man identified as ''Mr. X" to her body.
During the June hearing, however, defense witness Elizabeth Johnson said she didn't think that was likely because none of that semen was found on Bryant, suggesting the woman's encounter with the other man followed her encounter with the NBA star.
