Plot
The story is about a working-class woman, Sarah Tobias (Foster), who has a reputation for promiscuity. One night in a bar, she is gang raped by several drunk bar patrons, while drunken onlookers cheer them on. A district attorney, Kathryn Murphy (McGillis), is assigned to the rape case, and wants to drop the case. After a heated argument, she is admonished by her superior to enter a plea bargain with the rapists requiring some jail time. Sarah is enraged by the deal, mostly because she did not get to tell her story in court.
When Sarah is hospitalized after ramming her car into a pickup truck, whose driver (one of the witnesses who had encouraged the rapists) crudely propositions her, Kathryn decides to prosecute the men who cheered the rape for criminal solicitation. Sarah's friend Sally Ann Hearn, a waitress at the bar where the rape took place, picks three men out of a line-up, and they get three different attorneys for the ensuing trial. Sarah testifies that she was raped, while college student Kenneth Joyce (Bernie Coulson), a friend of one of the rapists, testifies to watching the rape prior to making a 911 call. After Kathryn's closing statement and a single summation from the three defense lawyers, the jury deliberates for a long time, asking several times for Ken's testimony to be reread to them. In the end, they find the three men guilty. As the trial provides testimony that they raped Sarah, the three men serving prison time for reckless endangerment are now unlikely to be granted early parole.
Read more about this topic: The Accused (1988 film)
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