Stepping back from the investigation and testimony, prosecutors must ask a critical question. What does this all mean? Determining the core reality of the crime requires an awareness of the sensory, emotional, and salient peripheral detail that is communicated to the jury by witnesses at trial. When the victim articulates recollections of the feel of a coarse woolen blanket and the penetrating sharpness of pebbles cutting into the back during the sexual assault, jurors will review this sensory information in terms of their own experience. This confirmatory experience is an important resource for determining credibility. DNA evidence powerfully accentuates this experiential dimension with actuality: the jury sees the crime through the victim's eyes.

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