Take a look at the Duke rape accusation for example. Perhaps the accuser felt “threatened,” but she didn’t report any rape until well after she reached a place of safety.
In general, if somebody waits to report an alleged crime, it raises the possibility that some event besides the alleged crime triggered the report. In the case of the Duke rape accuser, it appears that what triggered her decision to make a rape accusation was the imminent threat of being involuntarily committed. i.e. she had a strong motive to lie.
It’s also possible, of course, that there is a legitimate explanation for a delay in reporting.
The Columbia Journalism Review says it comes from an old source. In the end, they suggest that the numbers on false rape reports vary wildly. They also deal with some of the higher numbers you’ve mentioned.
This is a really ridiculous objection. Why wouldn’t she wait until she’d reached a place where she was no longer in danger? Isn’t that what anybody would do when threatened?
In point of fact, I think the woman in the Duke case is lying, and yes, that possibility exists with any delay. But you also have to keep in mind that there can be good reasons to delay reporting a crime, and I don’t think it should be a prejudicial factor one way or another.
The thread, one of our more notable trainwrecks extending to just over 28 pages, can be found in the BBQ Pit under Lying whore.
Beyond the thread, no. (I presume I have the correct thread, but I have no idea who may have been advancing the argument under consideration and no clue where to look in the thread.)
I don’t remember anyone in that thread saying: Why would she lie. In fact, it was the quite the opposite. It was **Huerta **claiming that she must be lying, and that the DA should have assumed that she was.
So, I still have seen absolute ZERO evidence that anyone on this board has ever advanced the notion that women don’t lie about rape. There has been disagreement about just how common it is for women to do so, but that’s an entirely different thing.
Purely in regards to the discussion about bail and lawyers and such: fascinating! So what are you proposing? Should criminal defendants not be required to pay bail or be allowed to hire expensive lawyers? Should taxpayers pay for their private counsel if the state loses its case? Should the standards for grand jury indictments be raised? And should all this innovative new pro-defendant policy only be the case for rape, since bitches crazy?
I suggest you suggest this to your Republican pals in Virginia. I’m sure this strong law and order stance will go over like hotcakes in a state that eliminated parole. Maybe Kilgore can run again on this: finally, he’s found an issue with traction!
If one number comes from a study that can be looked up and verified, and another number comes from an “old source,” obviously the first number is more credible.
In any event, my original point was, in substance, that there are a lot of false rape reports made. The studies I cited support this claim adequately.
I don’t think you read what I wrote. Here it is again, with emphasis added:
In my earlier post, I specifically said the following:
Did you miss that? Anyway, I disagree that delay in reporting should not “be a prejudicial factor.”
An extreme example: A man and woman get divorced. 4 years later, the man discovers that the woman has become a drug abuser and sues to get custody of the children. The next day, the woman files charges alleging that 5 years previous, while they were still living together, he raped her. Wouldn’t a reasonable person ask why the woman waited 5 years to file charges? Wouldn’t a reasonable person wonder if the charges were simply made as a tactical ploy in a custody battle? And doesn’t the delay make the charges less credible?
There was a story in today’s local newspaper (in Spanish, so even if they have put it in their webpage the link wouldn’t be good for much here) about two women being charged with “false testimony”.
They accused the local priest of abusing the elder one when she’d gone to ask for help buying medication for her mother, the younger when she’d gone to arrange for her baby’s baptism.
Cops found that the elder’s mom has been dead for years; that the priest had given her over 700€ to help pay to medication for this dead woman; that the youngest one doesn’t have a baby of that age!
How can you be so dumb? Hell, I don’t know, but some people seem to work hard at it.
And what of the six men accused? Their names and faces splashed across the television and the newspaper, appearing alongside the word ‘rapist’, their careers potentially ended by the accusation, home lives and reputation in the neighborhood wrecked, bankrupted by being unable to work sitting in jail cells or fronting bond money, struggling to hire a lawyer capable of giving them an adequate defense, the mental anguish of repeated interrogations, and the pressure to just plead guilty to make it all stop.
That’s what happens with rape accusations. Look at the Duke case. Without corroboration or in fact any evidence at all, the entire country knows who Collin Finnerty, Reade Seligmann, and David Evans are, and not because they’re good lacrosse players. The fallout, of course, doesn’t end with destroying their lives. The coach of the lacrosse team is out of a job, the entire lacrosse team was disbanded for a season, and those players who weren’t accused of the rape couldn’t even get accepted as transfer students to other schools.
So you say the media will report it if the charges are dropped? Whoop-dee-fuckin-doo. It’ll be a two inch blurb inside the fold that almost nobody sees, and I doubt it’ll say that she lied. More like it’ll just say the charges were dropped. And until these guys die, their names are going to be linked to the word ‘rapist’. Do you honestly think a ‘We’re sorry, the accuser lied and we were wrong.’ makes up for any of that?
I think you have a problem with the media and not anything I described in my posts. Feel free to rant and rave about the unfairness of the publication of accusations, but, unless you have an objection to the police investigating reported crimes, I don’t understand your problem.
Yes, the Duke case is a travesty.
And your proposal is? The police refuse to investigate rape cases? They don’t interview witnesses? They assume that anyone reporting a rape are lying? If you simply needed a post to quote before your wild-eyed rant, that’s fine I guess, but I have no clue why you picked my post for that.
I agree. The mere prospect of putting one’s self under the scrutinizing eye of the court or the media would (and does) cause women to delay reporting the crime. Maturity and weighing the pros and cons can kick in years after the fact. Who looks forward to being called a whore, a slut, a crazy person, or a liar in front of the whole world? Husbands and boyfriends bail. Jobs are lost. Your relationship with mutual friends can be destroyed. The downside of reporting it *at all * can outweigh the benefits. I can certainly understand a person waiting for a very long time to say anything.
The point is, what do we do about the people who are falsely accused? Do we keep the accused’s name and photograph out of the media until we know the accusation has merit, and if that’s not possible (which it seems it isn’t), how do you go about fixing the problem? An apology and a handshake just doesn’t seem to cut it.
The accused have rights, and lately it seems that’s been ignored entirely, by police and prosecutors (how many press conferences did Nifong attend?) It gets worse when you have this information, made public by the DA’s office or the police, and then talking heads on TV (Nancy Grace) screeching ‘Why would she lie?’
The only way I see to reduce false allegations is to punish those who make them very, very harshly, in balance to the damage they have caused in the lives of those they lie about.
Once again, what do you want the police and DA to do about it? In the OP case, they didn’t arrest or charge the men, instead they charged the woman with false reports and fraud and she’s facing up to a year in jail. I understand you’re upset, but, seriously, what do you want from the police and DA’s and why are you blaming them?
Oh, please. I’ve granted you that the Duke case is a travesty, and I’ll grant you that Nifong shouldn’t be a prosecutor. But you’ve taken one example and pretended it’s rampant in the system. That’s silly.
Might I suggest you do another Duke thread, because you apparently haven’t gotten everything out of your system.
Which is why the police and DA never arrested or charged the men, and are now prosecuting the woman. What more do you want from them? A pound of flesh?
Any reason you didn’t comment on the fact that that article also called “your” statistics into question?
I did, and both of your self-quotes are unnecessary. I felt you were paying lipservice to both issues and not actually dealing with them. The problem is that you are using well as a weasel word. In the Duke case, the woman reported the rape a few hours after it is alleged to have happened. How troubling is that, really? You’re not suggesting that a delay of a few hours is as questionable as a delay of five years, are you? Perhaps a delay of five years ought to be questionable, but that’s not the norm as far as I know, and it definitely doesn’t apply to the Duke case.
It depends on the circumstances. In the right circumstances, a 5-year delay would not trouble me at all.
What’s problematic about the delay in the Duke case is that the accuser apparently did not report any alleged rape until after she learned she was to be involuntarily committed.
If she had simply gone home and gone to bed and then filed a report the next morning, the delay would bother me much less. But in the Duke case, it appears that what triggered the rape accusation was the prospect of being involuntarily committed. It looks like she didn’t say she was raped until the moment she perceived it was in her interests to do so.
Honest people tell the truth whether or not it’s in their interests to do so. Liars say whatever is in their interests at the moment. So if somebody’s statements conveniently change with their interests, it’s an indication that they are lying.
And that’s why the delay in the Duke case is so troubling.
Look at it this way: If it came out that the accuser called 911 and reported a rape 5 minutes before her encounter with the police, do you think that would help the prosecution’s case?
Since the damages were largely to the reputation of the falesly accused I would guess a counter-suit for false accusations, if covered in the media at anywhere near the coverage level of the original accusations, would make the accused whole regardless of cash recovery or not. Of course the legal fees of said counter-suit would be like salt in the wound, and media coverage is hardly guaranteed, but cash is not the only remedy available to the wrongfully accused.
