Conviction rates for rape should be low, efforts to raise them are inherently unjust

Great Debates
1

As the saying goes, it’s better for a hundred guilty men to go free than for a single innocent man to be punished. After all, we can’t stop violent crime, but we can refrain from victimising people ourselves, though society’s judicial arm.

Rape is a very difficult crime to prove. There are rarely third party witnesses and the physical evidence might prove sex happened but that’s not the same as proving rape. So it’s inevitable that some rapes will be impossible to prove. After all, rape is all about consent which is a very difficult issue to have objective proof on. There’s going to be reasonable doubt more often than not.

Not long ago I read about a girl who was a good student and generally thought to be conservative and well behaved and claimed to have been gang raped and was widely believed. In fact the sex had been consensual and she was trying to protect her reputation by claiming to have been raped. Luckily one of the “gang” had filmed it all on his phone. And that’s a problem, that people tend to believe those who claim to be rape victims. Good in private life, bad for a member of a jury.

So it’s only just that a large, even disproportionately large, percentage of accused rapists go free.

Also, there have been numerous efforts to increase the number of rape convictions, and all have been unjust. Nice for rape victims, maybe, but still unjust. Rape shield laws, for example, which remove the right of the accused to face his accuser. The only other group in the UK that get a similar protection are spies testifying under Public Interest Immunity. Not witnesses to gangland murders by Yardies, or government corruption, or anything else. Police have been forced to investigate all rape cases, and prosecutors pressured to prosecute more, when cases aren’t pursued for generally good reasons, like the lack of any prospect of being able to obtain a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt.

Then there’s [URL=“http://falserapesociety.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/burden-of-proving-consent-under-rape.html”]this:

A jury instruction given in rape cases in Washington state and upheld by the State supreme court, which tells the jury that anyone accused of rape ought to be assumed guilty unless they can prove otherwise.

So, in short, all reasonable efforts to increase rape convictions were taken long ago, as were a lot of unjust measures like the above. At this point any further move in that direction is unjust and we should, rather, attempt to make it harder to convict accused rapists, but politicians won’t contenance it because it would be mischaracterised as pro-rapist or anti-rape-victim.

2

There shouldn’t be any effort to raise conviction rates for the sake of winning a case. Anyone arrested for any crime is supposed to be presumed innocent.
That means that a verdict of Not Guilty is supposed to be the default verdict. That is, a jury should go in with their minds set on returning a Not Guilty verdict unless the prosecution clearly convinces them that the defendant is, in fact, guilty.

In my mind, it roughly translates to “the prosecution is a lying sack of **** unless he can offer significant proof to the contrary.”

3

When a person is convicted of a crime, they are presumed guilty until proven innocent. I agree that anyone arrested for any crime is supposed to be presumed innocent. Defendants are presumed guilty until proven innocent because the jury believes that anyone who is a defendant in a court case is automatically guilty just for being charged with a crime.

This isn’t a likely scenario. Most people that serve on a jury don’t know anything about the law. This is why fighting ignorance is extremely important.

4

That’s not at all what the case says.

If you read the case itself, you’ll see that the jury must first conclude, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the rape was a matter of force: “The jury in a first degree rape case must be convinced that none of the evidence presented raises a reasonable doubt that sexual intercourse occurred as the result of forcible compulsion.” State v. Gregory, 147 P. 3d 1201 at 1225 (Wash. 2006).

Only then does the defense of consent come into play – the accused can defend his use of force by saying, in effect, yes, I used force, but she wanted me to. She consented to the use of force. Like any other affirmative defense, he must prove it by preponderance of the evidence.

5

Bricker - thanks for looking that up. I couldn’t imagine a court saying what the OP posted. I am a retired detective and my g/f is a sexual assault nurse examiner (she collects evidence from sexual assault victims) and has been for more than 10 years. What has surprised me (I never worked sex crimes) was the low percentage of “legitimate” rapes. A stranger jumps out of the bushes or breaks into the house at night. They happen, to be sure, but are nowhere near as common as the drug/alcohol facilitated and date rapes. The only defenses to any of these are a) “It wasn’t me” or b) It was consensual. DNA, witnesses, video and other investigative tools can knock “a” right out of the widow. “b” is much tougher to overcome. Absent significant injury or drugs found during toxicological testing, its a case of he said/she said. Starting with a presumption of innocence, its an uphill battle.

6

This is so far from the truth as to be laughable.

7

Not sure why the OP has decided rape so is unique in terms of burden of proof that amy attempt to secure more conviction is necessarily unjust. I don;t see anything in your argument other than an anecdote about a false accusation, a misleading set of jury instructions, and an assertion that rape is hard to prove. Many crimes occur in the absence of eyewitnesses (other than teh victim). That is why physical and circumstantial evidence are considered. In fact, if we required an eyewitness for “just conviction” of every crime I suspect it would go a long way to solving teh over-crowding issues in teh penal system.

Hard to say much in response to teh OP, other than perhaps you have failed to establish your point - case dismissed

8

As a former defense attorney, let me point out one other defense: it never happened.

“Yes, I was with her that night at the bar, and took her home, but we didn’t have sex. She’s making that up.”

9

Um, drug/alchohol and date rapes ARE legitimate!
Yes, classic stranger sex predator rape is low but still…

10

I’m sorry if this is threadshitting but I just can’t seem to muster up even a single fucking ounce of sympathy for all these poor hypothetical men being wrongly convicted of rape.

11

So you have no problem with ruining the lives of innocent men? Is this some collective punishment thing with you? They are men so they deserve to be punished for the collective evils of mankind just for the “crime” of being born male?

12

I think maybe part of the problem is that, well… there doesn’t seem to be very much evidence behind the idea that false rape convictions are anything like an epidemic. It’s pretty much a statistical certainty that they’re vastly outnumbered by unpunished and unreported assaults.

To the extent that false convictions occur, sure, they’re awful… but when they’re the primary rape-related issue that someone harps on, it kind of seems as if a sincere passion for general social justice isn’t really what is motivating that someone.

13

Rape is different. It’s primary physical element; sex, is something almost all persons are involved in at some point in their life. Most people do not kill, take property without consent, commit fraud or wound, though all might in appropriate circumstances be praiseworthy.

Unlike most crimes, rape turns to a great on the mental element, belief or knowledge of absence of consent which is difficult to prove. All crimes have both elements. If I break in and steal stuff from a house without any eyewitness testimony, and later DNA and other evidence links me, I am convicted. If I have sex with a person in private, evidence might still link me to the crime, but they will have to show that I knew or suspected that the other party was not consenting. A much more difficult task.

14

I see no evidence that anyone knows how many there are (or that most people care about the actual numbers instead of their ideological agenda). Nor is the problem restricted to false rape convictions; a false claim doesn’t even need to go to trial to ruin a man’s life.

15

A lot of efforts focus on making it easier on women to report rape and sex crimes, because it is a really hard thing to do.

I didn’t report it when I was raped, mainly because I knew there would be no point.

I reported it once when I was assaulted. I also realised that there were many other times I was assaulted in some way or another, that I hadn’t reported because I didn’t think it was important enough.

This is how it went:
I called the police. They dragged off the guy while he threatened me, telling me he would and his buddies would find me and rape me and kill me. Then I had to go the police station. It was night. I had to wait while they called the people who deal with these kinds of crimes. I waited for hours and hours. It was cold. They arrived in the morning. We went through what happened. The guy was an idiot. He couldn’t type, so it was excruciatingly slow while he typed with only his index fingers and had to look for each letter. We had to go over every detail: how far did his fingers manage to get into my vagina, despite that he was going through a dress, tights and knickers? Yes, but how many centimeters did I think? And of course, as always the old “what was I wearing (what I’m wearing now, you moron), what was I doing, had I had ‘contact’ with him before, was I drunk” etc. The policeman wasn’t particularly nice or anything. Just did his job. I was done early Sunday morning. I was at a police station I didn’t know, my bike was still at the bar in town. I walked the 45 minutes home, wondering if his friends actually would find me.

It sucked, and that was without people not believing me. That was with lots of rules and regulations to make this easier for me. Later, of course, I had to show up in court and repeat the whole thing again. At least it wasn’t cold there. Of course it’s important I do it. But it sucked a lot more than anything else I’ve ever reported.

You might also consider this: I know many women who have been raped. The majority did not report it. The UK government estimates 95% of all rapes are not reported. I think every single woman I know has been groped in some way, or assaulted. Nobody ever reports that. Women just think of it as a fact of life, we just push the guy away and carry on. I did the same at first with the guy I ended up reporting. It was when he did it to my sister that I asked the bouncer to throw him out. It was when the bouncer wouldn’t throw him out I called the police. That’s what it takes for women to report these things.

You think the problem is innocent men getting locked up? There is a small number of false accusations, as with anything else. It’s hard to know the numbers, because it’s often counted as a false accusation if a woman decides not to file after all, which is often actually because, as I said above, it sucks.

Of course it’s terrible if someone is falsely accused. But the conviction rate for rape is low as it is. The statement in the OP that “people tend to believe those who claim to be rape victims” is ridiculous. Only 6.5% of reported rapes result in convictions, and the majority happen because the defendant admits to the rape.

It’s not like we’re locking up droves of innocent men. This thread is discussing a non-problem, while nicely contributing to rape culture.

There is plenty we can legitimately do to encourage women to report rape. We should continue to make it easier for women to report rape and assault, as it is still vastly underreported. The small rate of false accusations, as with any other crime, will likely remain the same. We should trust in our justice system to sort that out.

16

Small according to who? I’ve heard estimates ranging from 65%-70% of accusations being false to “women never lie about rape”, depending on who is asked. I see no reason to think anyone really knows and again; most people don’t seem to care about the real numbers.

17

Well, the reliable statistics used by the UK government and such indicate 2-8%. The top end tends to include cases where the victim ends up dropping the case, which could be because they just decide to stay married or because reporting rape sucks. The high rates you mention are from really old studies, AFAIK.

18

I am sorry about your experiences gracer. But, I must disagree that the legal and law enforcement professions are somehow insensitive to rape and sex crimes. Indeed, my experience in multiple jurisdictions is otherwise. i have seen jurisdictions with vastly different political and social climates act the same wrt to rape case. With rape cases people usually go all out, which they often do not do for other crimes. You have prosecutions departments which normally never take forward cases where they are not super certain about getting a conviction, trying to take forward every rape case.

I am sorry that you had such a bad time with the interview, but complainant interviews with police are rarely pleasant. You think that the dice is loaded against you. Well, that certainly is the case. it’s is supposed to be in favor of the accused.

19

I have read your link. I find the statistics therein not credible. They “estimate” based upon what? Plus the conviction rate. X % of what? Complaints filed? Arrests? Indictments? Trials? Verdicts? You are going to get varied answers depending on where you begin and end.

Does x% convictions include only those where the jury issued a guilty verdict in a charge of rape. Does it include or not include where a person pleads guilty? Where an alternate charge sticks but rape does not. Rape in England and Wales has a pretty specific definition, it means penis in a vagina, mouth or anus. Groping, sticking fingers etc is not rape, but it is sexual assault and that has a very lengthy sentence. So once again, these statistics are useful for politicians. They have little meaning otherwise.

20

Theft is like that too. Most people are given gifts from time to time, or loaned things, and receive gifts from time to time or borrow. Rape is the theft of sex. Most people do not rape, but most people do not steal either. You can borrow someone’s car and if they call the cops you say “he loaned it to me” and he says “no I didn’t.” This is why you don’t borrow cars from people you don’t trust not to call the cops and say you stole it. And why you don’t have sex with a woman you don’t trust not to cry rape if it wasn’t.