Wendy McElroy
writes in USA Today on the Kobe Bryant case:
"Decades ago, rape victims were brutalized by an insensitive and unbelieving legal system. Today, women seem to be granted automatic credibility even before a trial is held to establish whether they are, in fact, victims...Until a verdict is reached, accusers should not get special protections, whether money or anonymity. Neither or both parties should be named as cases unfold. My preference is neither. As a rape victim, I believe the identity and personal life of the accused should receive the same protection as the accuser's. Neither should be presumed innocent or guilty in the media. And false accusations should be prosecuted, not ignored by the courts."While the positions of accuser and accused are not symmetric, the current situation does seem rather biased.
sleepy
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patrissimo
Comments
So we have these rules. They're imperfect, but they usually work. I'd say that the whole system ALWAYS breaks down when a famous person is involved. Can you think of any celebrity who has had a relatively low-key and balanced trial?
Even if "1 in 3 women have been victims of rape" statistic is not reflective of reality, "1 in 10" is still far too high, and the only arguments I have seen about the 1 in 3 statistic said that it might be as low as 1 in 10, as if that was an okay place for it to be.
Yeah. I totally agree that naming and shaming prior to conviction is completely wrong. Don't talk about ongoing criminal cases seems like a damn good rule. Call it a brain fart from too much coding and not enough real intereaction with people.
Research is going okay, but there's a long hard slog through Java RMI and XML that needs to get done before tomorrow.
First off, the oft quoted statistic is "1 in 3 American women will be sexually assulted in her life time" which encompasses more than just rape. Secondly, rape (like any sort of violence) is not something that victims regularly discuss in public or with friends; I suspect you have no idea what percentage of your female friends have or have not been raped. Among the few close female friends I know (including myself) that statistic is right on. This recently made an impact on me, if you are doubting how few women are affected: http://www.livejournal.com/users/mi
I disagree and think it is completely reasonable to name the defendant in rape trial cases. Our legal system functions without anonymity for defendants and, while that is unfortunate for the few innocent accused of rape, it would be hypocritical to deny anonymity for those accused of other crimes as well. (Anonymity and witness protection may also be granted for accusers in other crimes, to my knowledge). Also the distinction of where to draw the line - what about pedophilia? cases consisting of physical assult and rape? Since we're quoting statistics, roughly 50% of those accused of rape are acquitted, which I think is all the more reason to make public knowledge accused rapists. Personally, I sure want to know if someone I am dating or associating with has been accused of rape.
I found this link citing statistics (which seems a bit dated to the early 1990s) in case you want to verify the sources of what you claimed to be not reflective of reality: http://www.dcrcc.org/assault-facts.htm
Very true. I know some, but I certainly don't know all. I also know that not a single one of the ones that I do know ever reported it to the authorities or pressed charges, which is why I mentioned that it was very important that the victim not get their name publicly dragged through the mud, because that would make accusing a rapist in court even less likely. That's why anonymity for the accuser is a very good thing. And I certainly did not mean to doubt the effects on the person or on those close to them or even sound like I was.
I mentioned that 1 in 3 versus 1 in 10 thing mostly because I've read various publications where people quibble about those numbers and try to decide which ones are more accurate, as if there was somehow a ratio that was okay. I wanted to make sure that I didn't get into a fight with someone about statistics. I totally believe the statistics in the page you sent me, but I have met and read many others that do not. And whether it's 1 in 3 or 1 in 5 or 1 in 10, it is still mindblowingly too many.
I have to disagree about the whole "naming the defendant" thing, though. It's such a potent charge to lay on someone, that it should definitely be true. If one of my friends were accused, I know that I would never really be able to trust them again.* Which means that our friendship would end after they were accused. I'd like it if my reaction were more one of "let's keep them at arm's length while the justice system weighs the evidence and wait for a verdict", but that's realistically not going to happen.
If just the act of being accused for a particular crime can forever destroy a person's friendships with everyone they know and completely isolate them, I'd like to make sure that news of the accusation was spread as little as possible. If the defendant is felt to be a danger to others, then we have various methods of restricting their movement and actions, from restraining orders (probably this is not enough) to house arrest to being put in jail for the duration of the trial. But it seems like publicizing an accusal is just asking for trouble. Publicize the convictions to the ends of the earth. (Please!) But it feels a lot like destroying a person before they are convicted otherwise, and our justice system is founded on the principle that it is better to let the guilty go free than to punish the innocent.
On the other hand, I am a lot less likely to be a victim because I am male, and I am sure that skews my perception a lot. Perhaps this is one of those things where those who are not at risk simply cannot know the burden being at risk places on others. I don't know. Gargh. It is too late at night and this is far too depressing a subject to be talking with someone about. I mostly just wanted to make sure you didn't think I was some sort of apologist or something.
* I feel like if they were accused of theft or some kind of drug crime or perhaps drunk driving or hit and run I could wait until the final verdict. But not with something like this. Things where the mere accusation would destroy someone should be conducted in relative obscurity. I've got defendant's rights on the brain because my only interaction with the court system was watching a friend go through trial twice (the first time was a hung jury) for a crime she did not commit (but the cops had shot her, so they felt they had to accuse her of something). That was hard enough on her without all her friends disappearing on her. If we had all abandoned her she probably would have plead guilty just to make it go away. She almost did so anyway.
The question of whether acquittals of a crime should in general be public knowledge is a much more difficult one. On the one hand, it would be nice to know that someone was accused. On the other hand, if you are innocent, and you are falsely accused of a crime, and acquitted, shouldn't you be able to continue your life in peace?
I very much like the idea that it should be symmetric. Someone is going to be declared right and someone wrong by the court. So either no ones reputation should be tainted, or someone's should. If you only make one identity public, now the other person gets a free shot. If they win, hooray! If not, there are no legal consequences. I think allowing free shots is a bad idea when it comes to criminal justice.
I don't think the accuser to be prosecuted if there merely wasn't enough evidence to convict. But if there is evidence that it was an invented charge, that should be a criminal offense (and it may well be, I don't know).
http://www.mrsdutoit.com/ee/index.p
Which uses a strict definition of rape, and US Census statistics, finding the number is between 1/38 and 1/164.
I find it very suspicious that this number is cited constantly, yet very rarely is a study cited. Those few studies that find numbers anywhere near this are small. I think that sympathetic people like to spread statistics without knowing or caring if they are true or not, because it helps their cause. You know that your group of friends is not a very scientific data set. (As they say, "The plural of anecdote is not data").
I'm not denying that lots of women get assaulted (I know many who have), or that it's horrible, but...1 in 3 is bogus, and debunking bogus stats is a good thing.
You seem to be looking at this from a very one-sided view. How would you like it if your boyfriend's coworker, who is emotionally immature and furious at him for turning down her advances, accused him of rape? It is made public, and even though he is acquitted, he is fired from his job, and his brother (who is a little religious) cuts off contact with him completely. There's another side to this...
Doing some quick math with her numbers, with a 1 in 10 report rate her numbers and the 1 in 3 thing match up nicely.
I think it would be useful to have "innocent due to lack of evidence" and "innocent with prejudice against the accuser" as distinct verdicts. (Like the military has honorable and prejudicial discharges). Only in the latter case would it be possible to prosecute the accuser.
It may well be possible right now to bring charges against someone for a provably false accusation, I wouldn't be surprised.
The problem with suing false accusers for slander is that it isn't efficient. Suppose I convince a prosecutor to take you to court by saying you intentionally gave me AIDS. You get to sue me for slander. However, the press reports it nationwide. You don't get to sue them for libel, because they didn't show negligent disregard for the truth. Even if you get to sue me for their damage to your reputation, the damage can be a lot more than I can pay, and you end up on the short end of the stick.
There is no verdict of "innocent." There is "not guilty," which is not the same thing. The way the American legal system is supposed to work is the prosecution either proves a case, or does not. Since you can't prove a negative, you can't prove innocence. The reason alibis are so important is that it proves (in theory) that the accused was doing something else (a positive) and therefore was most likely not doing the crime.
Juries don't say, "He didn't do it!" they say, "there wasn't enough evidence to prove that he DID do it."
Do you want to know Kobe Bryant's accusers name? Go conduct a good Google search, surf the 'net, and I'm given to understand that you'll find out more about her than you ever wanted to know.
I realize that we're trying to keep this on the subject of rape trials, where I tend to agree that the damage to the reputation of the accused is disastrous, but the legal system is all about precedent.