Seeing ‘consent videos’ for the first time
Cunningham says she wants to ask E.M. about questions from Savard.
In that cross-examination, we learned that during an interview on Aug. 31, 2018, E.M. told police she wasn’t OK, but “it’s hard when you have a whole group of them, you want to be, like, ‘OK, I’m cool with this.’”
E.M. wanted to explain her answer, but Savard told her to do it in cross-examination.
In that same interview, E.M. was shown the videos of herself that were taken at the end of the night. In the videos, she appears to give blanket consent for the group sexual acts.
“It was unsettling,” E.M. says. “I didn’t know it was taken, so it was hard to wrap my head around what I was seeing.”
There’s then an objection from Savard, who wants to address the “hook” for this line of re-examination ‒ that E.M. wasn’t given a chance to explain her answer later during cross-examination.
The jury and E.M. have both been sent out of the respective rooms. (A reminder that E.M. is testifying via closed-circuit TV that is broadcast on a screen in the main courtroom).
