NORTH HAVERHILL — Jury selection began Wednesday in the trial of a 26-year-old Dartmouth alumnus charged with raping and physically assaulting a female student at a college fraternity more than two years ago. Meanwhile, prosecutors and defense attorneys have been wrestling over the scope of witness statements and even whether the words “assault” and “victim” can be used in opening statements.

Kyle Clampitt, a 2020 graduate and former member of the men’s lacrosse team, faces 12 counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault and two counts of second-degree assault/strangulation after a then-18-year-old student alleged to police that Clampitt raped her on the roof of the Theta Delta Chi house on West Wheelock Street in April 2022.

The trial, expected to take a week, is scheduled to begin Jan. 24 in Grafton County Superior Court in North Haverhill.

Clampitt, who maintains his innocence, is represented by veteran New Hampshire criminal defense attorneys Robin Melone, of Manchester, and Richard Samoperil, of Exeter.

Rape trials present a high bar for prosecutors and defense lawyers alike in persuading juries in the merits of their respective side. In 2014, after a nine-day trial, a Dartmouth student was acquitted of sexually assaulting a fellow student.

Neither the Grafton County State Attorney’s office nor Clampitt’s defense attorney responded to requests for comment on Monday.

Court filings hint at the defense that Clampitt’s attorneys are likely to mount, including challenging the reliability of witness “hearsay” statements made to police investigators and the medical examination of the female student conducted following the alleged incident by providing their own expert witness to challenge the conclusions.

The defendant’s legal team indicated early on that it expected the case to go to trial, and in recent months prosecutors and defense lawyers have filed numerous motions with the court to set out what can be introduced into evidence and what can be excluded, according to court records.

Recent court filings have shed more details on what led prosecutors to charge Clampitt, including interviews with other students who interacted with the female student when she told them what had allegedly occurred on the roof of the fraternity a short time before in the early morning hours of April 24, 2022.

The Valley News generally does not identify people who allege they are victims of sex crimes.

Court documents filed by prosecutors said the female student sought out help from others at the fraternity, who provided her with a “safe refuge” in a room in order to prevent Clampitt from contacting her.

From the room, the female student called a friend and “recorded a short Snapchat video of herself in which she made excited utterances about being sexually assaulted,” according to a motion by the state in support of allowing testimony of the “excited utterances” the female student made in the Snapchat video and similarly to other witnesses.

In November, prosecutors asked the court — as procedurally required — for permission to refer to the “complaining witness” as “victim” and to use the word “assault” to characterize the alleged action against her during the opening statement and closing argument of the trial, according to court documents.

The defense is seeking to prevent the words “victim” and “assault” from being introduced in the opening statement of the trial, arguing that such words are prejudicial against the defendant because they “usurp the jury’s fact-finding role and is an improper comment on (the complaining witness’s) credibility,” defense motions show.

In response, prosecutors wrote that “the very statutes (under which Clampitt has been charged) contain the word ‘assault’ … Absurd results would occur if the State could not even tell the jurors that the defendant is charged with aggravated sexual assault or second-degree assault,” underlining the words in its objection.

(The defense said it does not object to those words being used during closing arguments because “closing arguments are by design argumentative.”)

Melone has forged a specialty in representing high-profile clients on both sides of sexual assault and sexual harassment matters.

She represented former Grafton County Department of Corrections employee Nicole Cremo in the cyberstalking harassment case against former Lebanon police officer Richard Smolenski. She also represented Owen Labrie, a St. Paul’s School student convicted of misdemeanor sexual assault and felony computer crime charges, in the appeals phase of his case.

Contact John Lippman at jlippman@vnews.com.