photo by: Conrad Swanson

A sign at the entrance to Haskell Indian Nations University is shown Friday, Aug. 5, 2016.

For nearly two years, two men and the woman they are accused of raping have been caught up in a series of court hearings, motions, subpoenas and testimony.

Both criminal trials for the accused men, Galen Satoe and Jared Wheeler, ended with jurors unable to unanimously agree and mistrials being declared.

Satoe, 21, and Wheeler, 20, are accused of raping a 19-year-old freshman in their Haskell Indian Nations University dormitory room in November 2014. Both face a number of felony charges regarding the incident. Defense attorneys in both cases have argued that the sexual encounter was consensual, not criminal.

Emotions ran high at both Satoe’s and Wheeler’s trial, and Sarah Deer, a former rape crisis advocate in Lawrence and current law professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law, says the cases likely have a strong impact outside the courtroom and among those not immediately involved.

“I imagine this is really traumatizing a lot of people who are just trying to get through the day to day,” she said.

More than 56 percent of American Indian women have experienced sexual violence, according to a recently released study from the National Institute of Justice.

photo by: Conrad Swanson

Galen Satoe

With that statistic in mind, Deer said Satoe’s and Wheeler’s trials probably take a significant emotional toll on Haskell’s student population.

“I think people need to understand how common this crime is,” she said. “A lot of the students at Haskell, just by virtue of statistical likelihood, are victims. Have already been victims, maybe before they got to Haskell.”

And more often than not, the rape victims would not have reported the crime, Deer said.

photo by: Conrad Swanson

Jared Wheeler

“And when the students start hearing about it, it’s very triggering for survivors, especially maybe people who have gone through the criminal justice system and have had a bad experience,” she said. “It’s likely that it’s just re-traumatizing these women to hear about rape and to be concerned if their campus is safe or not.”

As a rape crisis advocate in Lawrence in the 1990s, Deer said she saw cases of rape on Haskell’s campus — the worst of which took place in 1996 and involved a woman who came to the school from rural Alaska.

“She came to Haskell from a very small, isolated community and was assaulted within the first couple weeks of class,” Deer said. “This was a two-year situation for that young woman. She had left Haskell because she just couldn’t continue there, and she still has never gotten a college degree.”

photo by: Conrad Swanson

Haskell Indian Nations University

Douglas County District Court records indicate the woman accusing Satoe and Wheeler of rape is no longer a student at Haskell.

Deer said in the previous case the victim was flown from Alaska back to Lawrence well after the fact to give a victim impact statement.

“And just being back in Lawrence, you could see, was incredibly traumatizing for her,” she said.

Drawing parallels between the past and present cases, Deer said the ongoing court proceedings — no matter the outcome — are “being drawn out to the point where it’s almost unbearable.”

A mistrial was declared in Wheeler’s case on June 20 and again in Satoe’s case on Tuesday.

Although some might see jurors’ indecision as disheartening, Deer said, in an admittedly controversial statement, perhaps the criminal trials themselves could provide some closure.

“Sometimes I think that just having the knowledge that the government officials involved believed you and took your story seriously can be some form of solace for the survivors,” she said. “Even if you don’t get the conviction, just knowing that somebody stood up for you at all is validating.”

In all, Haskell’s student population numbers around 850, said Stephen Prue, executive assistant in the office of the president. And each student is provided with resources and education regarding sexual assault.

Prue declined to comment on the pending criminal trials or their effect within the school.

As a new school year draws near, several students last week on Haskell’s campus said they were unaware of the reported rape and the criminal trials that followed. But one freshman said she was encouraged by her coach to constantly travel with friends to keep safe.

Satoe and Wheeler were arrested on Nov. 15, 2014, and later released from jail after each posted a $75,000 bond. Both men were expelled from the school.

Throughout the trials prosecutors said the evidence showed that the woman, Satoe, Wheeler and other friends had been partying the night of Nov. 14, 2014, and into the next morning.

At one point the woman was left alone with Satoe and Wheeler in the dormitory room the two men shared, prosecutors said. Satoe then forced himself on the woman, according to the woman’s testimony, and when she called for Wheeler’s help, he instead held her down and the two men raped her.

Defense attorneys, however, maintained throughout that the sexual encounter was consensual and questioned the investigative techniques used by law enforcement and hospital officials, saying not enough evidence was collected and that witness testimony was inconsistent.

Representatives from the Lawrence Police Department declined to comment on the ongoing cases.

Neither prosecutors nor defense attorneys in the cases responded to an inquiry seeking comment on the mistrials.

Wheeler faces two felony counts of rape and one count of aggravated criminal sodomy. His second trial is scheduled to begin Dec. 12.

Satoe faces two felony counts of rape, one felony count of aggravated criminal sodomy, one felony count of attempted rape and one felony count of attempted aggravated criminal sodomy. A hearing is scheduled on Sept. 1 for his case to determine how prosecutors wish to proceed.