Lawyers learned much in date-rape drug trial

Kim Smith

Monday, Oct. 30, 2000 | 11:15 a.m.

With their first date-rape drug trial behind them, Clark County prosecutors believe the experience will be invaluable when they face the issue again.

One of the first things prosecutors Bill Kephart and Teresa Lowry learned during the Raymond Flores case is that technology has not caught up with the criminal mind in the area of drug-facilitated sexual assaults.

Hospitals all over the country either don't have the expensive medical technology needed to test for such drugs as GHB or the machines are calibrated so high they can't detect the often minute traces of the drug, Kephart said.

Flores was convicted Thursday in the county's first date-rape drug trial, but it wasn't because the drug was found in the alleged victim's system.

Flores, 22, was convicted because several small pieces of evidence came together to portray him as a rapist, Lowry said.

The victim told police and a jury that aside from two fuzzy memories, the last clear memory she has of the night of her attack is accepting a shot of tequila from Flores.

When she awoke nine hours later in a motel room, the victim said she dressed and fled without her shoes or bank card.

One of the fuzzy memories she has is of vomiting on the side of a bed.

Luckily for prosecutors, a friend was able to testify that she not only saw the vomit, but she saw the shoes and bank card when she and the victim went back to the motel room later that day to confront Flores, Lowry said.

Lowry and Kephart also had DNA and physical trauma on their side.

The trauma was inconsistent with consensual sex, Lowry said.

Unfortunately, many cases are rejected because pieces of the puzzle are missing.

The fact that the victim is unconscious and the drugs are often placed in alcohol are huge hurdles to overcome, Lowry said.

"A lot of the symptoms are so similar to alcohol that it gets very difficult to distinguish between drug-facilitated sexual assaults and hangovers, and generally, the defense is going to be it was consensual sex," Lowry said. "We have to have collaboration for the victim or else the case will probably get denied (for prosecution)," Lowry said.

While the jurors in the Flores case couldn't determine whether the woman was incapacitated by a date rape drug or alcohol, Lowry said she still considers the case an important breakthrough.

"Whether the jury decided she was incapacitated because of GHB or alcohol, 14 people in our community became educated and because the media did cover this case the public became educated, too," Lowry said. "If we have one parent who tells their child 'Don't you dare accept a drink from a stranger,' I'll be happy."

Kephart agreed.

"We let people know that this is real, and it is a scary thing," Kephart said.

In preparing for trial, Lowry said she and Kephart also spent many hours with date-rape drug experts and studying related materials from the American Prosecutors Research Institute.

One thing she learned, Lowry said, is that while the date-rape drugs dissipate quickly in blood and urine, the same is not true of vomit.

Had she known that earlier, she could have gotten a search warrant in the Flores case, Lowry said.

"I think everyone, from law enforcement officers to the medical community to prosecutors are catching up and educating ourselves so we can start prosecuting more of these people," Lowry said.