In a first of its kind ruling in Oregon, a

has ordered that a young woman's Google searches must be turned over to the man accused of beating and raping her.

this week refused to rule on the constitutionality of the order, saying the alleged victim waited too long to appeal Circuit Judge A. Michael Adler's decision.

And so Adler's order stands -- though the district attorney says he can't comply with it.

The judge's broad ruling is "hugely disturbing" -- unprecedented in Oregon and extremely rare in the nation, said Meg Garvin, director of the

.

Victim advocates worry about the standard it could set. Such orders, they said, could discourage rape victims from pressing charges out of fear that their attackers will gain an invasive window into their thoughts via all the information they've queried on their personal computers.

"It's subjecting them to re-victimization by the system," said Garvin, whose institute is based at Lewis & Clark Law School. "It's the exact opposite of what we should be doing."

The case at issue involves a 23-year-old woman who met Thomas Harry Bray through the dating site Match.com in February 2011. Bray, then 37, was an anatomy instructor at Central Oregon Community College and a board-licensed anesthesiologist.

On their first date, they met for a drink, then headed to Bray's downtown Bend condo, where the woman says Bray choked her, beat her and raped her over the course of hours. She reported the incident to police and went to the hospital for medical treatment and a rape exam. Bray was arrested two days later and eventually charged with rape, strangulation and assault. He hired prominent Portland defense attorney Stephen Houze, and a trial is scheduled for July.

According to the Oregon Supreme Court synopsis of the case, Bray intends to defend himself by saying the sex was consensual. Houze contends that the woman was unsure of what had transpired, so she Googled the definition of rape before going to police.

Houze sought the hard drive to her personal computer, but a judge denied that. He then tried to use a subpoena to acquire a laundry list of information from Google: all of the woman's Google searches, the results, the websites she visited and her email in the five weeks before and after the alleged rape.

Google refused to comply, saying the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act prevented it from handing over the records unless the woman allowed it or a court ordered it. The woman was adamant that she didn't want to relinquish access to the information. The judge then ordered the prosecutor to get the woman's Internet search records from Google. The order doesn't require the prosecutor to retrieve the woman's emails.

Patrick Flaherty said he can't legally abide by the judge's order. He said he would need a search warrant to do so, and he can do that only if he believes it would further his office's criminal investigation into the case. He doesn't.

Flaherty also believes handing over the woman's Google records violates her rights. "We're talking about private electronic records -- records that are protected by both the Oregon Constitution and the federal act, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act."

Flaherty described the judge's order as "an extreme problem."

Judges are prohibited from speaking about pending cases. Houze also declined comment.

The Supreme Court said it didn't have the authority to rule on the judge's order because the woman and the district attorney's office had waited more than the maximum seven days allowed before appealing. They weren't aware that the deadline had passed.

The district attorney's office will continue to argue the issue at a hearing late this month -- just three weeks before trial is set to begin.

If convicted, Bray faces a minimum of about eight years in prison. He also faces rape charges in another case: His 21-year-old ex-girlfriend, a former student, accused him of attacking her two weeks before the 23-year-old's allegations.

Bray is now living in Portland. He has voluntarily agreed not to practice medicine pending the outcome of his trial.

The 23-year-old woman has hired a civil attorney, Jennifer Coughlin, and is suing Bray for nearly $2 million, which includes damages for psychological trauma of the alleged rape and her inability to work in its aftermath. The Oregonian generally doesn't name alleged victims in sex crime cases.

People all can relate to the woman's fear about the potential release of her Internet searches, Coughlin said. "We all do Google Internet searches that we expect will remain private," she said.

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