If he clearly attacked her for sexual purposes, then he should go to jail. That is a crime and sufficient evidence will put you away for it.
So again, if you are willing to hold that the evidence is sufficient then, by all means, disagree with Joe Manchin. But you need to be confident that the evidence doesn’t allow for any of these possibilities:
- Ford swapped in the wrong person in her memory, later.
- Kavanaugh stumbled, fell on her, was disoriented, and ended up pulling and pushing on things that he shouldn’t have, unintentionally. She misinterpreted.
- Kavanaugh was asked to keep her upstairs by his friend, so that he and his girlfriend could have some private time. Kavanaugh saw Ford trying to leave, grabbed her, she tried to get away, he tried to hold onto her clothing as a means of not touching her anywhere intimate, and she misinterpreted it as an attempt to pull her clothes off.
- Various other options of similar ilk.
Now, none of this says that Ford is anything but human. We read intention into things that aren’t correct every day. We mistake things for other things, regularly. There’s no shortage of evidence across the centuries of people blaming the wrong people with exactly zero ill intent.
Kavanaugh may well be guilty. Ford may have gotten everything correct. I have no evidence to say otherwise. But I am confident that she’s not a mind reader and I am confident that she’s human. I’m also confident that you weren’t in that room, that you aren’t a mind reader, and that you’re human. If you’re very confident then, by all means, go live outside Kavanaugh’s house with a sign that blames him for rape and “boo” him every time he comes out. Petition to get standards of evidence lowered and statutes of limitations laws dropped from the books.
Personally, I think we should just remove that whole law that 12 of 12 jurors have to agree to guilt. Surely, life would just be easier and better if you only needed 6 of 12 or whoever said it fastest.