Queen's Bench Foundation · San Francisco · Est. 1974
Beyond Resistance
How the Queen's Bench Foundation Changed the Law
In 1974, the Queen's Bench Foundation undertook the first research in California to examine rape from the victim's perspective. This library gathers the Foundation's original publications, the landmark California Supreme Court decision that relied on them, four decades of scholarship they continue to inform, and the arc of California law they helped shape — along with the ways members carry the work forward today.
Please note: the materials collected here concern sexual violence, and the historical documents speak in the language of their era.
80Survivors interviewed
75Convicted offenders studied
2U.S. Dept. of Justice grants
1986Cited by the Cal. Supreme Court
Browse the six collections below. Every record includes the full citation, key passages, and direct links to the original sources.
Collection I
The Publications, 1974–1976
Funded by two U.S. Department of Justice (Law Enforcement Assistance Administration) grants, the Foundation's research program produced two major studies and a body of practical materials for victims and the agencies that serve them. Both major reports survive as free, full-text PDFs in the Department of Justice's NCJRS Virtual Library.
The Foundation's first study — and the first research in California to focus on the impact of rape on victims, how victims are handled by the health and criminal justice systems, and why many women do not report rape to the police. Researchers interviewed 80 female victims (ages 8–55) and surveyed police, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, jurors, physicians, mental health professionals, and community agencies. Demand for the two-part 1975 report so exceeded the Foundation's budget that this summary was prepared for continued circulation; it is the version preserved by the Department of Justice.
89% of victims interviewed said the rape had “altered” their lives in a major way; 80% experienced fear for their lives or bodies during the attack.
Half of the victims interviewed never reported to police — most citing expected unsympathetic treatment, shame, or fear of reprisal.
Of 470 rapes reported in San Francisco in 1974, the study traced a conviction rate of just 3.9%.
The evaluation covered Central Emergency Hospital, the SFPD Sex Crimes Detail, and the District Attorney's Office — and produced concrete reforms at each (see Collection IV).
“As a result of the Queen's Bench Foundation study, San Francisco now has a reliable information base for improving hospital, police, and court procedures for handling rape cases.”— Rape Victimization Study, Summary (1975), p. 1
Queen's Bench Foundation, Rape Victimization Study (San Francisco: Queen's Bench Foundation, 1975) (published in two parts; summary at NCJ 46315).
Produced under the Foundation's second LEAA grant, this 125-page volume presents two companion studies — one of rape victims and one of 75 convicted offenders — examining the circumstances of assault and the consequences of victim resistance. Its findings became a standard citation in the resistance-research literature and were later relied upon by the California Supreme Court in People v. Barnes (Collection II). The report's carefully balanced conclusion:
“Overall, the research findings suggest that rape prevention is more possible through vigorous resistance[;] however, resistance incurs greater risk of injury. When confronted with attack, each woman must make a choice which is highly personal and may be affected by situational factors beyond her control.”— Rape: Prevention and Resistance (1976), p. 109, as quoted by the Supreme Court of California in People v. Barnes
A note on the title: this work occasionally appears elsewhere as “Rape Prevention and Treatment.” The correct catalog title, used by the Department of Justice and throughout the scholarly literature, is Rape: Prevention and Resistance.
From the Foundation's archives: In 2026, the Foundation's own file copy of the report was recovered — on original letterhead listing President Jettie Pierce Selvig, Vice President Mildred W. Levin, Secretary Lee Stubbs Penland, and Treasurer Candace Heisler. Its pagination matches the Supreme Court's pin-cites in Barnes exactly: page 84 reports that victims who resisted during coitus “suffered increased violence as the assailant forced compliance,” page 108 names “verbal stalling, struggling, and slapping,” and page 109 carries the conclusion quoted above — word for word, where the Court said they would be. Page 18 preserves the survivor's words at the root of it all: “When I saw the knife, I froze” — the lived experience behind the doctrine that runs from Barnes to Iniguez.
Queen's Bench Foundation, Rape: Prevention and Resistance (San Francisco: Queen's Bench Foundation, 1976) (NCJ 37689).
In November 1975 the Foundation received a second Law Enforcement Assistance Administration grant to continue its work. Project Rape Response concentrated on public education, development of community resources for victims, and continued improvement in health and criminal justice responses — with particular attention to minority neighborhoods, schools, and non-English-speaking residents. Its research component examined the circumstances of rape and prevention and resistance techniques, culminating in the 1976 report above. Two Project records are catalogued by the Department of Justice:
Alongside the formal studies, the Foundation produced materials that reached victims and front-line agencies directly. These are documented in the 1975 Summary and in People v. Barnes; no separate library records survive online.
“A Guide for Victims of Sexual Assault” (1975) — developed by Foundation staff and made available to all victims at Central Emergency Hospital and the San Francisco Police Department.
Victims of Sexual Assault Referral Directory (1975) — a directory of services distributed to the public and private agencies responding to victims.
Spanish-language videotape on rape among Latinas — a half-hour program the Foundation commissioned from Femedia III. In the Foundation's words: “It is not an English film translated into Spanish; rather, it was made with an awareness of the traditions, beliefs, values, taboos, and customs of the Latin culture; it is written, acted and directed by Latinas.”
“Rape” (undated public-education pamphlet) — advising that a woman confronted with attack must evaluate the threat and decide how to react; later cited by the California Supreme Court in People v. Barnes.
Collection II
In the Courts: People v. Barnes (1986)
The Foundation's research reached the highest court in California. In a unanimous opinion authored by Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird, the Supreme Court cited Rape: Prevention and Resistance repeatedly in the landmark decision confirming that rape convictions no longer require proof that the victim resisted. This collection pairs the decision with the line of cases that carried its reasoning forward.
The case. The facts are difficult, and we set them out here as the Court did — because the facts are the point: this is what the Court of Appeal dismissed as a case without “measurable resistance.” Late one night in May 1982, the complainant, Marsha M., went to the San Francisco home of Joaquin Barnes — a neighbor she had known for about four years — to buy a small amount of marijuana, telling him repeatedly that she wanted to make the purchase and go home. When she tried to leave, his demeanor changed. By her testimony, he berated her at a front gate she could not open herself, “reared back” with fists raised as if to strike her, flexed his muscles and grabbed her by the collar, boasted that he could make her do “anything he wanted,” pressed the door closed when she moved toward it, and warned that she was about to see “the bad side” of him. After nearly two hours, believing he would become violent if she refused, she began to “play along” and submitted to intercourse. She left around 4 a.m., immediately called Kaiser Hospital, was examined at a sexual trauma center, and — after being told she had three days in which to decide — reported to the police the next day.
A jury heard her account and Barnes's testimony that everything was consensual, and convicted him of rape and false imprisonment. The Court of Appeal reversed: because Marsha had “acceded to his demands without any explicit protestation or measurable resistance,” it held the evidence insufficient. The Attorney General asked the Supreme Court to review.
The holding. Interpreting the Legislature's 1980 amendment to Penal Code section 261, the Court held that the amendment eliminated resistance as an element of rape: a complainant's lack of “measurable resistance” can no longer defeat a conviction, and lack of resistance may not be used by a reviewing court to find the evidence insufficient. Applying the amended statute, the Court found Marsha's testimony substantial evidence that her fear of violence was “genuine and reasonable,” reversed the Court of Appeal, and directed it to affirm the convictions. Barnes remains a foundational decision in California rape law.
How the Court used the Foundation's research. The opinion cites Rape: Prevention and Resistance (“QBF”) at no fewer than six pinpoint pages (pp. 18, 84, 85, 105, 108, 109), together with the Foundation's undated pamphlet “Rape,” drawing on the study for both sides of the resistance question:
Over half of the sexual assault offenders studied reported becoming more violent in response to victim resistance (p. 85), and injury correlated with forms of resistance including verbal stalling, struggling, and slapping (pp. 84, 108).
At the same time, resistance had a direct correlation with deterring sexual assault (p. 105), and half of the 75 convicted rapists questioned believed active victim resistance could have deterred their assaults (p. 109).
This empirical ambiguity supported the Court's central reasoning: because resistance is neither a safe expectation nor a reliable index of nonconsent, the law was right to abandon it as a requirement.
“In a 1976 study of rape victims and offenders, the Queen's Bench Foundation found that over half of the sexual assault offenders studied reported becoming more violent in response to victim resistance.”— People v. Barnes (1986) 42 Cal.3d 284, citing QBF, supra, at p. 85
People v. Barnes (1986) 42 Cal.3d 284 [228 Cal.Rptr. 228, 721 P.2d 110].
Barnes is the definitive judicial recognition of the Foundation's research: our review located no other court opinion citing the Foundation's studies directly. (Many later cases cite Barnes for its separate sufficiency-of-the-evidence holding; the decisions that carried its resistance reasoning forward are traced in the record below.) The Court cited the Foundation's work alongside the leading scholarship of the era, including Menachem Amir's Patterns in Forcible Rape (1971) and Susan Brownmiller's Against Our Will (1975).
The left column below is the Supreme Court's official opinion; the right is transcribed from the Foundation's own recovered file copy of Rape: Prevention and Resistance (Collection I). Read across each row to see exactly what the Court took from each cited page — where it summarized, and where it quoted to the letter.
The Supreme Court, 1986“[S]ome studies have demonstrated that while some women respond to sexual assault with active resistance, others ‘freeze’ … some women ‘freeze’ and become helpless from panic and numbing fear.”42 Cal.3d at p. 299, citing QBF, pp. 18–20
The Foundation, 1976“Most said their primary feeling was terror. However, more rape victims (75%) than attempted rape victims (51%) reported being in a state of panic or numbing fear: ‘When I saw the knife, I froze….’”Rape: Prevention and Resistance, p. 18
The Supreme Court, 1986“Those victims who resisted during coitus suffered increased violence as the assailant forced compliance.”42 Cal.3d at p. 300, citing QBF, p. 84
The Foundation, 1976“The most extreme violence was apparently elicited by resistance during coitus: 40% of the victims resisted during coitus and suffered increased violence as the assailant forced compliance.”Rape: Prevention and Resistance, p. 84
The Supreme Court, 1986“[T]he Queen's Bench Foundation found that over half of the sexual assault offenders studied reported becoming more violent in response to victim resistance…. Victim resistance, whether passive or active, tended to precede an increase or intensification of the assailant's violence.”42 Cal.3d at p. 300, citing QBF, p. 85
The Foundation, 1976“The responses of assailants to victim resistance in this study showed some variation…. A large percentage (54.8%) reported getting more violent, sometimes losing control…. [S]ometimes victim passiveness tended to precede an increase and/or an intensification of assailants' violence, ranging from wielding a weapon to actual infliction of injury.”Rape: Prevention and Resistance, p. 85
The Supreme Court, 1986“On the other hand, other findings indicate that resistance has a direct correlation with deterring sexual assault.”42 Cal.3d at p. 300, citing QBF, p. 105
The Foundation, 1976“[P]erhaps the most important realization emphasized by this study is the fact that women can, and do, deter sexual assault…. Indeed, this study shows that victim resistance is highly correlated with deterrence of sexual assault.”Rape: Prevention and Resistance, p. 105
The Supreme Court, 1986“Injury as reported by victims correlated with some form of resistance, including verbal stalling, struggling and slapping.”42 Cal.3d at p. 300, citing QBF, p. 108
The Foundation, 1976“Injury as reported by victims correlated with some forms of resistance: verbal stalling, struggling, and slapping.”Rape: Prevention and Resistance, p. 108
The Supreme Court, 1986“Of the 75 convicted rapists the Queen's Bench Foundation questioned, half believed that their sexual assaults could have been deterred by active victim resistance.”42 Cal.3d at p. 300, citing QBF, p. 109
The Foundation, 1976“[H]alf felt the sexual assault itself could have been deterred. Most frequently the offenders believed they would have been deterred if the victim had resisted more vigorously both physically and verbally.”Rape: Prevention and Resistance, p. 109
The Supreme Court, 1986“Overall, the research findings suggest that rape prevention is more possible through vigorous resistance[;] however, resistance incurs greater risk of injury. When confronted with attack, each woman must make a choice which is highly personal and may be affected by situational factors beyond her control.”42 Cal.3d at pp. 300–301, quoting QBF, p. 109
The Foundation, 1976“Conclusions: Overall, the research findings suggest that rape prevention is more possible through vigorous resistance, however, resistance incurs greater risk of injury. When confronted with attack, each woman must make a choice which is highly personal and may be affected by situational factors beyond her control.”Rape: Prevention and Resistance, p. 109
A detail only the side-by-side reveals: in the final pairing, the Court's bracketed “[;]” is its one silent edit — the Foundation's original joins the clauses with a comma. And the opinion cites one more Foundation document the archive has yet to yield: the undated public-education pamphlet Rape, whose advice the Court summarizes at 42 Cal.3d 301.
Barnes did not end the conversation about resistance and consent; it reframed it. The decisions below carried the concepts at the heart of the Foundation's research — that victims respond to assault in profoundly individual ways, and that the law must judge the offender's conduct rather than the victim's — into the next generations of California law.
People v. Young (1987) 190 Cal.App.3d 248 — within a year, the Court of Appeal was quoting Barnes's summary of the Legislature's twin purposes: to relieve the state of proving resistance, and to release complainants from “the potentially dangerous burden of resisting an assailant.”
People v. Iniguez (1994) 7 Cal.4th 847 — the Supreme Court sustained a rape conviction where the victim froze in fear, quoting Barnes: some victims “freeze” and “become helpless from panic and numbing fear.” The opinion was authored by Justice Armand Arabian — the same judge whose refusal to give the old cautionary instruction the Foundation had documented in its 1975 report.
In re John Z. (2003) 29 Cal.4th 756 — consent withdrawn during intercourse must be honored; forcible continuation is rape. The question of victim behavior during coitus was one the Foundation's 1976 study had examined empirically (at p. 84).
People v. Griffin (2004) 33 Cal.4th 1015 — “force” in the rape statute carries its ordinary meaning; citing Barnes, the Court reaffirmed that resistance “is no longer the touchstone of the element of force.”
People v. Bledsoe (1984) 36 Cal.3d 236 — decided two years before Barnes, the essential companion on victim behavior: expert rape-trauma testimony is admissible to dispel jurors' misconceptions about how victims behave, though not to prove that a rape occurred.
For four decades, “Queen's Bench Foundation (1976)” has appeared in the reference lists of the rape-resistance research literature — typically as an early empirical demonstration that forceful resistance is associated with rape avoidance, weighed against the risk of injury. Selected verified citations appear below with direct links.
Criminology & Victimology
Levine-MacCombie, J., & Koss, M.P. (1986). “Acquaintance Rape: Effective Avoidance Strategies.” Psychology of Women Quarterly.
Cites the 1976 study in research on avoidance strategies in acquaintance rape.
Scully, D. (1988). “Convicted Rapists' Perceptions of Self and Victim.” Gender & Society, 2(2).
Lists the Foundation's 1976 offender study among the foundational research on convicted rapists.
Kleck, G., & Sayles, S. (1990). “Rape and Resistance.” Social Problems, 37(2), 149–162.
Situates the Foundation's findings within the resistance-and-outcomes literature.
Ullman, S.E., & Knight, R.A. (1995). “Women's Resistance Strategies to Different Rapist Types.” Criminal Justice and Behavior, 22(3).
Reference list includes “Queen's Bench Foundation. (1976). Rape prevention and resistance. San Francisco, CA: Author.”
Rozee, P.D., & Koss, M.P. (2001). “Rape: A Century of Resistance.” Psychology of Women Quarterly, 25.
Cites the 1976 report in its century-spanning review of resistance research.
Guerette, R.T., & Santana, S.A. (2010). “Explaining Victim Self-Protective Behavior Effects on Crime Incident Outcomes.” Crime & Delinquency.
Cites the Foundation among studies of victim self-protection and incident outcomes.
Brecklin, L.R., & Ullman, S.E. “Self-Defense or Assertiveness Training and Women's Responses to Sexual Attacks.” Journal of Interpersonal Violence.
Lists the 1976 study among research showing forceful verbal resistance is related to rape avoidance.
Hollander, J.A. “Women's Self-Defense and Sexual Assault Resistance.” Sociology Compass.
Cites the Foundation for the finding that women using multiple resistance strategies are more likely to avoid rape.
Frank, E., Turner, S.M., & Stewart, B.D. “Behavior Therapy in the Treatment of Rape Victims.” In Behavioral Medicine (Springer).
Cites the 1975 Rape Victimization Study as a well-documented descriptive report on the long-term impact of rape.
Amir, M. (1971). Patterns in Forcible Rape. University of Chicago Press.
Cited by the Supreme Court in Barnes immediately alongside the Foundation's findings on resistance.
Brownmiller, S. (1975). Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape. Simon & Schuster.
The era's defining work on rape; cited alongside the Foundation in Barnes.
Bart, P.B., & O'Brien, P.H. (1985). Stopping Rape: Successful Survival Strategies. Pergamon Press.
The foundational monograph of the rape-avoidance research tradition the Foundation's 1976 study helped launch.
Estrich, S. (1986). “Rape,” 95 Yale Law Journal 1087; and Estrich, S. (1987). Real Rape. Harvard University Press.
The landmark legal scholarship of the rape-law-reform movement that Barnes and the Foundation's research helped shape — included here as essential context for understanding the Foundation's place in that movement.
The research did not sit on a shelf. It changed how San Francisco's hospital, police department, and courts treated victims — and helped move California law itself.
Timeline
1921
The Queen's Bench Bar Association is founded in San Francisco by women lawyers — among the oldest continuously existing women's bar associations in the United States.
1974
Eight Queen's Bench members establish the Queen's Bench Foundation, a 501(c)(3) with an educational and research purpose regarding the defense of human and civil rights secured by law. The Foundation receives its first U.S. Department of Justice (LEAA) grant to study rape in San Francisco.
1974–75
Phase I research: interviews with 80 victims and with police, prosecutors, defense counsel, judges, jurors, and medical and mental health professionals. Phase II: staff work to implement the study's recommendations across city agencies.
1975
The two-part Rape Victimization Study is published, alongside “A Guide for Victims of Sexual Assault” and the referral directory. In November, a second LEAA grant launches Project Rape Response.
1976
Rape: Prevention and Resistance is published — companion studies of victims and of 75 convicted offenders on the circumstances of assault and the consequences of resistance.
1980
The California Legislature amends Penal Code section 261, removing the resistance requirement from the definition of rape — the reform direction the Foundation's research and advocacy had urged.
1986
In People v. Barnes, the California Supreme Court confirms that resistance is no longer required, citing the Foundation's 1976 study throughout its reasoning (see Collection II).
Today
The Foundation continues its charitable and educational mission alongside the Queen's Bench Bar Association of the San Francisco Bay Area.
What Changed in San Francisco
Reforms documented in the Foundation's 1975 Summary as direct outcomes of the research and the staff's implementation work:
Medical treatment at Central Emergency Hospital was decoupled from police reporting — before February 1975, victims could not be examined unless they first reported to police; afterward, victims received treatment whether or not they reported.
A volunteer counseling service, staffed by trained paraprofessionals, was established at Central Emergency Hospital, with a training course devised and conducted by Foundation staff and hospital personnel.
The sexual assault medical report and examination protocol were revised for thorough, sensitive, evidence-sound practice.
Foundation funds helped provide the SFPD Sex Crimes Detail with two unmarked police cars to protect victims' privacy.
With Foundation staff assistance, the Sex Crimes Detail sponsored a statewide conference on sex crimes (June 1975) to open information-sharing among departments.
At the instruction of the Board of Education, Foundation staff presented to 65 sophomore Family Life Education classes at 10 high schools, joined by the Police Department and Department of Public Health.
Foundation staff worked with a consulting attorney and community groups drafting a “Sexual Assault Bill” to redefine forcible sex crimes in terms of the offender's conduct rather than the victim's.
About the Association & the Foundation
The Queen's Bench Bar Association of the San Francisco Bay Area, a 501(c)(6) founded in 1921, and its sister 501(c)(3), the Queen's Bench Foundation, have worked for more than a century to advance women in the law and the rights the law secures.
The Law in Context: California's Reform Arc, 1872–2022
The Foundation's research did not appear in a vacuum — and it did not stay on the page. This collection sets the 1974–76 research program against the full sweep of California law on rape, sexual assault, and interpersonal violence: the doctrines the research informed, the statutory and case-law timeline, the Legislature's own words, and the parallel development of domestic-violence law.
These reforms had many champions — survivors, community organizations, legislators, prosecutors, and judges. The Foundation's distinct and provable contribution is its empirical research, its contemporaneous documentation and advocacy, and its citation by California's highest court. Each entry pairs what the Foundation found or recommended with the legal development that followed; every case and statute named here appears with links in the records that follow.
Abolition of the resistance requirement
From the researchThe 1976 study found resistance correlated with deterring assault (p. 105) but also with injury (pp. 84, 108) — over half of offenders studied became more violent when resisted (p. 85) — concluding that each woman's choice is “highly personal” (p. 109).
In the lawThe Legislature deleted resistance from Penal Code § 261 (Stats. 1980, ch. 587; Assem. Bill No. 2899), and the Supreme Court confirmed the change in People v. Barnes (1986) 42 Cal.3d 284, citing the Foundation's study throughout.
Retiring the “cautionary instruction”
From the researchThe 1975 study called the mandatory jury instruction — that rape is a charge easily made and difficult to defend against — “prejudicial and not based in fact,” and documented Judge Armand Arabian's refusal to give it.
In the lawPeople v. Rincon-Pineda (1975) 14 Cal.3d 864 — decided the same year — disapproved the instruction for all future criminal trials.
Rape-shield protections
From the researchThe 1975 study documented defense lawyers who “devoted a lot of time to uncovering the past sexual history of the victims,” and surveyed judges', jurors', and prosecutors' early experience under the new shield law.
In the lawThe Robbins Rape Evidence Law (Stats. 1974, ch. 569; Evid. Code §§ 782, 1103), effective January 1, 1975 — California's rape-shield statute and a model for other states.
Defining the crime by the offender's conduct
From the researchFoundation staff worked with a consulting attorney and community groups on a draft “Sexual Assault Bill” to redefine forcible sex crimes “in terms of the conduct of the offender rather than of the victim,” with graded degrees and definitions neutral as to sex and marital status (1975).
In the lawCalifornia's 1979–80 reforms moved the statute in that direction — gender-neutral language (1979), a spousal-rape crime (former Pen. Code § 262, Stats. 1979), and the force-or-fear framing confirmed in Barnes and People v. Iniguez (1994) 7 Cal.4th 847. AB 1171 (2021) finally erased the spousal distinction.
Treatment without a police report
From the researchBefore February 1975, victims could not be examined at Central Emergency Hospital unless they first reported to police; the Foundation supported the change, and victims thereafter received treatment whether or not they reported (1975 Summary).
In the lawVictim-centered medical-evidentiary standards were later codified statewide (Pen. Code §§ 13823.5 et seq.) — and Barnes itself involved a complainant who sought a hospital examination before deciding whether to report.
Hospital-based counseling becomes a legal privilege
From the researchFoundation staff and Central Emergency personnel devised and conducted the training course for the hospital's volunteer counselor program (1975).
In the lawIn 1980, California enacted the nation's first sexual assault victim–counselor privilege (Evid. Code §§ 1035–1036.2, signed September 17, 1980), alongside state funding structures for rape crisis centers (Pen. Code §§ 13835 et seq.).
Victim psychology in the courtroom
From the research“No ‘typical’ response could be generalized from the data” (1975): the Foundation documented fear for life (80% of victims), detachment, denial, and delayed reporting as ordinary responses to assault.
In the lawCourts admitted expert testimony to dispel rape myths (People v. Bledsoe (1984) 36 Cal.3d 236), recognized “frozen fright” (Barnes, 1986; Iniguez, 1994), and built the parallel doctrine for battered women (Evid. Code § 1107, 1991; People v. Humphrey (1996) 13 Cal.4th 1073).
Taking non-reporting seriously
From the researchHalf of the victims interviewed in 1975 never reported — most citing expected treatment by the system, shame, or fear of reprisal.
In the lawThe half-century of reform that followed — shield law, counselor privilege, victims' rights (Marsy's Law, Prop. 9 (2008)), and rape-kit testing mandates (SB 22, Stats. 2019, ch. 588) — is, at bottom, a sustained campaign to remove the barriers to reporting the Foundation first quantified.
1872
Penal Code § 261 is enacted, defining rape of “a female not the wife of the perpetrator” and requiring that her “resistance is overcome by force or violence” or that she be prevented from resisting by deadly threats. The resistance requirement will stand for 108 years.
1974
The Robbins Rape Evidence Law (Stats. 1974, ch. 569), authored by Senator Alan Robbins, enacts California's rape-shield protections (Evid. Code §§ 782, 1103), effective January 1, 1975 — a model for similar legislation in other states.
1974Foundation
The Queen's Bench Foundation is formed and receives its first U.S. Department of Justice (LEAA) grant to study rape in San Francisco.
1975
People v. Rincon-Pineda (1975) 14 Cal.3d 864 abolishes the mandatory cautionary instruction for all future trials — the appeal arising from Judge Armand Arabian's refusal to give it (read the opinion). The same term, People v. Mayberry (1975) 15 Cal.3d 143 recognizes a reasonable, good-faith mistake of fact as to consent as a defense (read).
1975Foundation
The Rape Victimization Study is published — documenting the new shield law, the cautionary-instruction fight, the marital exemption, and the Foundation's draft “Sexual Assault Bill.”
1976Foundation
Rape: Prevention and Resistance is published. A decade later it will be quoted in the California Reports.
1979
The Legislature criminalizes spousal rape (former Pen. Code § 262, Stats. 1979) and renders the rape statute gender-neutral — answering two gaps the Foundation's 1975 report had flagged: “Wives are not protected from rape by their husbands, and men are not afforded the same protection from sexual abuse as women.”
1980
Stats. 1980, ch. 587 (Assem. Bill No. 2899) deletes the resistance requirement from § 261. The same year: the nation's first sexual assault victim–counselor privilege (Evid. Code §§ 1035–1036.2), a bar on court-ordered psychiatric examinations of complainants (Pen. Code § 1112), and rape-crisis-center funding (Pen. Code §§ 13835 et seq.).
1982
A statutory definition of consent arrives — “positive cooperation in act or attitude pursuant to an exercise of free will” (Pen. Code § 261.6) — alongside the new crime of sexual battery (§ 243.4).
1984
People v. Bledsoe (1984) 36 Cal.3d 236: rape-trauma-syndrome testimony is admissible to dispel jurors' misconceptions about victim behavior, though not to prove a rape occurred (read the opinion).
1986Foundation
People v. Barnes (1986) 42 Cal.3d 284: the Supreme Court, citing the Foundation's 1976 study six times, confirms that resistance is no longer required (see Collection II).
1990
“Duress” and “menace” are added to § 261 (Stats. 1990, ch. 630), broadening the offender-conduct framing of the crime.
1994
People v. Iniguez (1994) 7 Cal.4th 847: a fear-based conviction stands where the victim froze; the opinion — by Justice Armand Arabian — quotes Barnes on victims who “freeze” (read the opinion).
2003
In re John Z. (2003) 29 Cal.4th 756: consent withdrawn during intercourse must be honored; forcible continuation is rape (read the opinion).
2004
People v. Griffin (2004) 33 Cal.4th 1015: “force” carries its ordinary meaning; resistance “is no longer the touchstone” (read the opinion).
2014
SB 967 writes affirmative consent into law for California's colleges (Ed. Code § 67386): “Lack of protest or resistance does not mean consent, nor does silence mean consent” (read the bill).
2016
In the wake of the Stanford sexual-assault case, AB 2888 and AB 701 bar probation for assaults on unconscious or intoxicated victims and broaden the statutory definition of rape; SB 813 eliminates the statute of limitations for rape.
2019
SB 22 (Stats. 2019, ch. 588) sets mandatory rape-kit timelines: submission to a crime lab within 20 days, testing within 120.
2021
AB 1171 repeals former § 262: spousal rape is prosecuted and punished as rape, completing the work begun in 1979 (effective January 1, 2022) (Pen. Code § 261 today).
When the Legislature removed resistance from the rape statute in 1980, its committee analysis spoke in the vocabulary of the era's research — deterrence, injury, and the burden the old law placed on victims. The Assembly Committee on Criminal Justice explained the bill this way, in language preserved in People v. Barnes:
“The main purpose of this bill is to eliminate the ‘resistance’ requirement in rape. Under current law, a woman must either resist or be prevented from resisting because of threats. According to the proponents, victims who resist are injured by the rapist twice as often as victims who don't resist.”— Assembly Committee on Criminal Justice, analysis of Assem. Bill No. 2899 (1980), as quoted in People v. Barnes (1986) 42 Cal.3d 284
The committee's injury rationale tracks the findings at the heart of the Foundation's 1976 study; the Legislative Counsel's Digest recorded simply that the bill deleted “the element of resistance.” The Supreme Court distilled the Legislature's purposes this way:
The Legislature's purposes “were (1) to relieve the state of the need to establish resistance as a prerequisite to a rape conviction, and (2) to release rape complainants from the potentially dangerous burden of resisting an assailant in order to substantiate allegations of forcible rape.”— People v. Barnes (1986) 42 Cal.3d 284, at p. 302
Thirty-four years later, the Legislature wrote the same principle into the affirmative-consent standard for California's colleges: “Lack of protest or resistance does not mean consent, nor does silence mean consent” (Ed. Code § 67386, added by SB 967 (2014)). And in 2021, AB 1171 completed the work the 1979 spousal-rape statute began, eliminating the spousal distinction the Foundation's 1975 report had criticized.
The same decades that remade rape law built California's domestic-violence architecture. The Foundation's rape research was not the engine of these statutes — but the through-line is the insight its 1975 interviews made empirical: the law protects victims only when it understands how victims actually behave.
1945
Penal Code § 273.5 makes willful infliction of “corporal injury” on a spouse a felony — later extended to former spouses, cohabitants, co-parents, and dating partners (the statute today).
1979
The Domestic Violence Prevention Act creates civil protective orders — recodified at Family Code §§ 6200 et seq. (Stats. 1993, ch. 219) (Fam. Code § 6200).
1984
The Law Enforcement Response to Domestic Violence Act (Pen. Code §§ 13700 et seq.) defines domestic violence, mandates officer training, and requires incident reporting.
1990
Penal Code § 646.9 — the nation's first criminal stalking statute — is enacted after the 1989 murder of actress Rebecca Schaeffer; strengthened in 1993–94 (the statute today).
1991
Evidence Code § 1107 makes expert testimony on battered women's syndrome — today, “intimate partner battering and its effects” — generally admissible: the domestic-violence analogue of Bledsoe (Evid. Code § 1107).
1994
Congress enacts the federal Violence Against Women Act, the national framework alongside California's reforms.
1996
People v. Humphrey (1996) 13 Cal.4th 1073: battering evidence bears on both the existence and the reasonableness of a self-defense belief — the courtroom echo of “frozen fright” (read the opinion).
2008
Marsy's Law (Proposition 9) writes victims' rights into the California Constitution (art. I, § 28).
2014
Gun-violence restraining orders arrive (Pen. Code §§ 18100 et seq.), allowing courts to remove firearms from those who pose a danger to others or themselves.
A note on citations: quotations from the opinions and statutes above are verbatim. A few pre-1999 enactments are cited by year only (e.g., “Stats. 1979”) while their chapter numbers are verified against the official session laws. Cases link to free, stable sources; statutes link to the Legislature's official code site.
Collection VI
The Work Continues: Advocacy Today, 2022–2026
Collection V's timeline closes with the repeal of the spousal-rape distinction, effective January 1, 2022. The five years since have been among the busiest in the field's history — in Washington, in Sacramento, and in the technologies that created entirely new forms of harm. This collection surveys what has happened, what is live right now, where to find trusted partners, and how Queen's Bench members can take up the work.
In Washington
2022 — A year of survivor-voice legislation. The Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act (signed March 3, 2022) lets survivors void pre-dispute arbitration clauses and take their claims to court; the Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization Act of 2022 (March 15, 2022) renewed and expanded the federal framework first enacted in 1994; and the Speak Out Act (December 7, 2022) made pre-dispute nondisclosure agreements unenforceable as to sexual assault and harassment claims.
2024 — United States v. Rahimi. The U.S. Supreme Court (8–1, June 21, 2024) upheld the federal law disarming persons subject to domestic-violence restraining orders — a direct descendant of the protective-order architecture traced in Collection V.
2025–26 — The TAKE IT DOWN Act. Signed May 19, 2025, the Act criminalizes publishing nonconsensual intimate images — including AI-generated “digital forgeries” — effective immediately, and required covered platforms to stand up a 48-hour notice-and-removal process by May 19, 2026. The FTC is now enforcing, with civil penalties of $53,088 per violation and a public complaint portal at TakeItDown.ftc.gov.
Title IX in flux. A federal court vacated the 2024 Title IX regulations nationwide on January 9, 2025; the 2020 regulations again govern campus sexual-misconduct process while a new rulemaking is anticipated. California's own affirmative-consent standard for campuses (Ed. Code § 67386, Collection V) remains state law throughout.
2022 — AB 2777, the Sexual Abuse and Cover-Up Accountability Act. Codified at Code of Civil Procedure § 340.16, it set the modern civil clock for adult survivors (ten years, or three from discovery) and opened a revival window — January 1, 2023 through December 31, 2026 — for previously time-barred claims arising from assaults on or after January 1, 2009.
2024 — SB 926 and SB 981. Signed September 19, 2024 and effective January 1, 2025, these companion laws criminalized creating and distributing sexually explicit AI deepfakes of real people and required social-media platforms to establish report-and-removal mechanisms for “sexually explicit digital identity theft” — California's answer, a season before Washington's, to the era's newest form of sexual abuse.
2025 — AB 250, the Justice for Survivors of Sexual Assault Act. Signed in October 2025, it opened a second revival window — January 1, 2026 through December 31, 2027 — for previously time-barred adult claims where a responsible entity is alleged to have engaged in a cover-up, reaching conduct AB 2777's window could not.
Funding the safety net. With federal Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) receipts falling, California's budget included $50 million for crime-victim services — a stopgap the state's coalitions are working to convert into a permanent funding solution.
Two windows, two deadlines. The AB 2777 revival window closes December 31, 2026 — this year — while the AB 250 cover-up window runs through December 31, 2027. Lawyers advising survivors (and the institutions that serve them) should have both dates calendared, and note that claims against public entities follow the separate, shorter Government Claims Act track.
Image-based abuse in the AI era. With the TAKE IT DOWN Act's platform obligations live as of May 19, 2026, victims of real or AI-fabricated intimate imagery now have a 48-hour federal removal right, California criminal and platform remedies under SB 926 and SB 981, hash-blocking through StopNCII.org, and a specialized helpline at the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative (844-878-2274).
Campus process in flux. With the 2020 Title IX regulations back in force and a new federal rule expected, campus practitioners face a moving target — while California's “lack of protest or resistance does not mean consent” standard (Ed. Code § 67386) holds steady as state law, half a century after the Foundation's research made the same point.
Firearms and protective orders.Rahimi settled that disarming restrained abusers is constitutional; the daily work — obtaining orders, securing relinquishment, enforcing violations — runs through courts and clinics like San Francisco's Cooperative Restraining Order Clinic.
Paying for victim services. The VOCA funding shortfall is the field's quiet emergency: rape crisis centers and DV programs statewide depend on year-to-year budget fixes while advocates press for a permanent revenue solution.
The backlog, still. Rape-kit testing deadlines (SB 22, Collection V) made California a leader, but tracking and accountability remain live work — End the Backlog maintains the current state-by-state picture.
RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline — 800-656-HOPE (4673), 24/7, free and confidential, with online chat at rainn.org.
National Domestic Violence Hotline — 800-799-7233 (SAFE), 24/7.
Cyber Civil Rights Initiative image-abuse helpline — 844-878-2274, for nonconsensual intimate imagery, real or AI-generated.
California & National Organizations
ValorUS (formerly CALCASA) — California's statewide sexual assault coalition since 1980, and home of PreventConnect, the national community of practice for prevention professionals.
Cooperative Restraining Order Clinic (CROC) — San Francisco's legal services agency for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking, representing clients in civil restraining-order proceedings and training volunteer attorneys and law students. Queen's Bench leadership serves here today (see the next record).
San Francisco Women Against Rape — the community organization the Foundation's 1975 study described as the city's only group devoted exclusively to rape, still answering the line half a century later.
This library exists because Queen's Bench members did the work — and the work continues. Our immediate past president, who now serves as president of the Queen's Bench Foundation, practices at the Cooperative Restraining Order Clinic in San Francisco and chairs the Association's Domestic and Sexual Violence Committee: the living thread from the Foundation's 1970s research to today's courtrooms.
Domestic and Sexual Violence Committee — for members interested in advocacy related to domestic and sexual violence prevention, from clinic volunteering to policy work.
History Committee — for those fascinated by the story told in these collections and eager to help preserve and extend the Association's century of history.
Membership Committee — for those interested in presenting materials like these in ways that engage our membership on the issues aligned with Queen's Bench's values and history.
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