A judge on Thursday rejected a bid by basketball star Kobe Bryant's lawyers to overturn Colorado's rape shield law, which bars them from introducing evidence of his accuser's sexual history at trial.
Attorneys for Bryant, who is accused of raping a 19-year-old woman at the resort hotel where she worked in June of 2003, had argued that the law was unconstitutional because it violates his right to confront his accuser.
Eagle County District Judge Terry Ruckriegle disagreed, saying the law was supported by a "long line" of Colorado cases which found the sexual behavior of rape victims irrelevant.
But the judge, who has held several days of closed hearings into the woman's sexual history, may still let Bryant's defense bring some of the evidence into trial if they can prove it directly relevant to the case and an exception to the law.
"It would have been shocking if the court ruled otherwise. This was a long shot attempt by the defense that they could not have reasonably expected to win," Craig Silverman, a former Denver prosecutor, said.
"The big ruling yet to come is whether team Kobe has established exceptions to Colorado's rape shield law," Silverman said. "The law is not an absolute -- it's more like a gate which the judge can swing open if the proper exceptions are supplied."
A spokeswoman for Eagle County District Attorney Mark Hurlbert, who fought the defense efforts to overturn the rape shield law, said prosecutors were "pleased but not at all surprised" by Ruckriegle's ruling.
Ruckriegle has previously denied Bryant's defense access to the young woman's medical records.
Bryant, 25, has pleaded innocent and said that he had consensual sex with the young woman, a part-time college student who worked at the hotel where he was staying while having knee surgery,
Trial is not expected to begin before August.
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