Title: Hillary Clinton's Handling of 1975 Rape Case Emerges Again - ABC News
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Content: According to a Newsday investigation, what should have been a five-year sentence, was reduced to four years of probation and a year in county jail, with two months taken off for time he had already served. What has Hillary Clinton said about the trial? Hillary Clinton wrote about the trial in her 2003 autobiography, "Living History." In the book, Clinton defended taking on the client, saying that while at first she "didn't feel comfortable," she realized that as an attorney she had "an ethical and legal obligation to defend him to the fullest extent of the law." She described how as his lawyer she was able to hire a New York-based forensics expert who "cast doubt on the evidentiary value of semen and blood samples collected by the sheriff's office." Clinton wrote that her experience from the trial is what led her to set up Arkansas' first rape hotline. Did Clinton take the case voluntarily or was she appointed by the court? In "Living History," Clinton wrote that the criminal court judge appointed her, and that she "couldn't very well refuse the judge's request." The 2008 Newsday story quotes then-Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson who refers to her as being "appointed by the Circuit Court of Washington County." However, in the newly-released audio tapes Clinton says a prosecutor for the case asked to take the case "as a favor to him."