Rape Kit Charges: Fact- Checking Palin's Record
PHILLIPS: Three days before they face off in their first debate, John McCain and Barack Obama are taking different paths today. McCain is in Ohio, where he's touring a factory and talking jobs. Later, it's on to another battleground: Michigan. Obama is in Tampa, Florida, getting ready for Friday's debate at the University of Mississippi. As Americans wrestle with tough economic times, they're blames Republicans by a two to one margin, and Obama is gaining ground on that issue. In our new CNN/Opinion Research poll, the Democratic candidate leads his Republican rival by a four-point margin among likely voters. John McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, is at the United Nations today for the opening of the U.N.'s General Assembly. On Palin's schedule: meetings with the presidents of Iraq, Afghanistan and Colombia. She's also sitting down with former secretary of state, Henry Kissinger. Just over a week from now, the Alaska governor debates Barack Obama's running mate, Senator Joe Biden, in St. Louis. Biden is known for his foreign policy experience. The stories that we bring, they don't just happen by chance. All of us are involved: producers, writers editors. Every morning we hash out what we think are the stories that you need to know. And it all starts in our editorial meeting. The question that created a lot of buzz for us today: when Sarah Palin was mayor in Alaska, did she know that rape victims in her city had to foot the bill for their own rape exams? We debated whether or not when he all the facts and if we should even air the story. Here's how the morning meeting went down.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Could you pull up the Jessica Yellin script? Jessica Yellin has filed a piece on the rape case controversy, looking into it, investigating into it, how much did Sarah Palin really know?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The documents that are signed are not pieces that say, "I, Sarah Palin, am approving this budget that says..."</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "... that rape..."</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Women pay for their rape kits.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know, it's -- it's question that we couldn't prove it one way or the other, but it's like that story's been out there. It's been out there almost ever since she's been the nominee. So we went to look at it, and here's what we found. We could find no conclusive evidence that she did it.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yellin's script even says we found no record...</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... Palin was aware her city was charging rape victims.</s>PHILLIPS: Right. There's no absolute proof. It's still kind of assuming.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well...</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The fact that it's out there, it's triggering debate.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is the didn't...</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've never not focused on issues like that. I mean -- time after time after time we've aired pieces that -- CNN sticks in there we can't confirm.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What did she actually found? Well, it's the city budget. I mean, it was an item in the city budget.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, the budget line.</s>PHILLIPS: You know, they sign things, and they don't always look at all the details, as well.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is another issue that raises the question, do we really know who this person? Is she really the person that the campaign...</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't think...</s>PHILLIPS: What do you think, Gus?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think -- I think we say what we know and we say what we don't know. I mean, I would totally run the piece. For me, the -- and let people draw their own conclusion.</s>PHILLIPS: There you go. Here you go. Draw your own conclusions. CNN's Jessica Yellin reports for us.</s>JESSICA YELLIN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Multiple sources tell CNN when Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, her police department charged some rape victims the cost of the forensic exam they get after an attack. The police chief said it was not a cost the town should bear. Eric Croft, then a Democrat in the state legislature, sponsored a bill to force Wasilla to pay.</s>ERIC CROFT (D), FORMER ALASKA STATE REPRESENTATIVE: I mean, it was just one of those things that everybody could agree on, except Wasilla. We couldn't convince the chief of police there to stop charging them, until I introduced a bill in January in the legislature to prohibit them.</s>YELLIN: Experts testified that charging rape victims was incomprehensible, comparing the exam to dusting for fingerprints, only the victim's body is the crime scene.</s>TARA HENRY, FORENSIC NURSE, ALASKA RAPE RESPONDER: In having a victim, have to pay, then, for their exam is just -- you know, re- traumatizes them.</s>YELLIN: At the time, some other small Alaska cities also charged rape victims. This woman says she was billed by a city hundreds of miles from Wasilla. But Mayor Palin's city stood out.</s>HENRY: What I recall is that the chief of police in Wasilla, Wasilla P.D., seemed to be the most vocal about how it was going to affect their budget.</s>YELLIN: After the bill passed unanimously, Wasilla's police chief, Charlie Fannon, said it would cost the city $5,000 to 14,000 a year, and he objected, saying, "I just don't want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer." Judy Patrick was Palin's deputy and a friend.</s>JUDY PATRICK, DEPUTY MAYOR, WASILLA CITY COUNCIL: The bigger picture of what was going on at that time was that the state was trying to cut their own budget. And one of the things that they doing was passing on costs to cities. And that was one of the many things that they were passing on to the cost of the city.</s>YELLIN: She doesn't recall the issue coming before city council, and we found no record that Palin was aware her city was charging rape victims. The McCain campaign says Palin has "never believed rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test" and to imply she did "is as utter distortion of reality." Those who fought the policy are unconvinced.</s>CROFT: I find it hard to believe that, for six months in a small town, a police chief would lead a fight against a state-wide piece of legislation, receiving unanimous support, and the mayor not know about it.</s>YELLIN: Though Croft admits he can't recall discussing the issue with Palin. The rape kit charges have become an issue among Palin's critics, because some say as governor she has done little to battle Alaska's epidemic problem of violence against women. For years Alaska had the worst record of any state in the rape and murder of women by men. For the record, as governor, Sarah Palin approved a funding increase for domestic violence shelters and reauthorized a council on domestic violence and sexual assault. But this year that council found some of Alaska's programs responding to violence against women remain underfunded. (on camera) Other cities around the nation also once billed victims the cost of their rape exams. But now that practice is rare. To qualify for funding under the Violence against Women Act, law enforcement agencies now must pick up that cost. Jessica Yellin, CNN, Anchorage, Alaska.</s>PHILLIPS: And let us add this: for about two decades, Alaska has had more rapes per capita than any other state. It's rate is 2.5 times the national average. Amnesty International says that one in three Alaska native and American Indian women in that state will be raped in their lifetime. The group also says more than 200 villages in Alaska don't have sexual assault response teams to collect evidence and interview victims after an assault. Well, life after Ike. More Texas evacuees are about to find out what it's like.