Well, I don’t think anyone who doesn’t want to go through with it=lying. But if it can be proved someone did lie, they should face consequences. A lot of people have been saying they don’t really think this is necessarily an example of that just because she lied about what was on the tape. I don’t know. It’s so hard to know.
This.
I have never in my life gotten myself shitfaced to the point that I would consent to sex that I would otherwise not consent. In fact I don’t drink all that much, but even if I did, I find it insulting that people would feel the need to protect me from my own decisions.
Still, regrettable sex is not rape.
I would also want to know how many innocent people got convicted of non-sex crimes, and how it compares to the first number.
According to The Innocense Project, which works to free people wrongly convicted by doing DNA testing not available (or not used) during the prosecution, about one third of the people who ask for their help turn out to be innocent. While it can’t be proven, they say there is no reason to believe the rate of false convictions is different for any other crimes.
Of course there is every reason to think it’s very different for other crimes (than for rape - you didn’t make clear whether the IP people were referring to rape specifically). Other crimes tend to have more witnesses and evidence. Rape tends to be based on the word of the accuser. And if society in general tends to lend more credence to the words of women accusing people of rape than they should, then you have the basis for a lot of false convictions which is not present for other crimes.
That said, I should note that “one third of the people who ask for their help” is not the same as “one third of the people who are convicted of rape” (or whatever crimes they were referring to), because someone who knows they are innocent is a lot more likely to turn to the IP people than a guilty person who knows the evidence will likely show his guilt.
The crime is more often murder than rape, but it could be any crime with blood evidence, which might now be re-tested with more advanced techniques.
And since we’re all guessing, I’d say this suggests that the false conviction rate is even higher for other crimes. After all, this kind of evidence is supposed to be “scientific” and the most unimpeachable. Other crimes, without such evidence, should leave more room for reasonable doubt.
But you are correct that all this is unquantifiable, because the prisoner group is self-selecting. These are people who are so certain of their innocence, OR so certain that they can sucker in some help, that they go looking for outside assistance.
OTOH, becaue 1/3 turn out to be innocent doesn’t mean all the other 2/3s are guilty either. There are significant number fo cases where the results are indeterminate – contaminated samples that can’t be tested, for instance.
You seem to be assuming that the basis for the convictions in these cases was (flawed) “scientific” evidence, which is not typically the case. Generally it’s a whole lot of circumstantial evidence and eyewitness testimony.
That’s true. I would quibble a bit, in that not all the people exonerated are actually “innocent” and in some cases the DNA only refutes (or casts serious doubt on) the prosecution theory of the crime but does not prove actual non-involvement. But I imagine there are a lot more innocent people who are not proved innocent than guilty people who are.
I don’t assume that “scientific” evidence is the sole basis of convictions, but I do assume it is given greater weight by juries than circumstantial evidence, and perhaps even greater weight than eyewitness testimony. It’s possible I am wrong about this, but like I say, I was (and am) guessing.
Your last sentence lost me entirely.
But as you’ve noted, scientific evidence isn’t always available. And this is especially true of the older convictions that tend to get challenged by the IP. IOW, the typical IP scenario doesn’t involve them overturning convictions that were based on flawed scientific evidence, but overturning convictions in which scientific evidence wasn’t much of a factor altogether, generally because the science wasn’t available at the time.
Sorry if I was unclear.
You observed that there are probably a lot of innocent people who are not proved innocent. I observed that there are probably also some guilty people who are “proved innocent”, in that they have their convictions overturned through DNA testing, although they were in fact involved in the crime. But I agree that the number of the former is likely a lot higher than the latter.
Yeah, there were two or three posts that, based on no evidence or even allegations, decided that well, um, maybe she agreed to one guy boning her, but uh, yeah, the other five must have piled on without her consent, yeah, that’s the ticket. Or that we needed maybe to pay attention to the “climate of racism and oppression” at Hofstra (what?) to determine why she might have falsely recanted (Occam much?). There’s that desperate urge to want to salvage the rape. Some female impulse toward victimhood, cf. Lifetime not-without-my-incest-victim-daughter porn.
Oh, racism is funny here – the guys who got locked up were mostly brothers, right? Does anyone know if the “victim” was also a minority? If so, race doesn’t even come into it, but that wouldn’t ever deter the maroons at feministing or the like, 'cause race goes with “gender” like chocolate with peanut butter, right?
Finally – that’s some fine police work there, Lou. Fortunately the prosecutors here had more intelligence and integrity and skepticism than dumbfuck Nifong. But how did it even get as far as these poor guys spending three days in jail? Her story (like most of these) apparently held little to no water. Aren’t policemen supposed to investigate before locking people up? These kids are all local, they weren’t going anywhere. I hope the PD ends up paying a healthy settlement, though I doubt it.
She is also black. I think she’s from Ghana originally.
*GARDEN CITY, N.Y. — A Hofstra University freshman who falsely claimed she was gang-raped in a dormitory bathroom must undergo mental health counseling and perform 250 hours of community service in an agreement that saves her from criminal charges, a prosecutor said Friday.
Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice said the agreement is far more than prosecutors could have expected if the woman, Danmel Ndonye, 18, of New York City, had been prosecuted.*
:dubious::mad::smack:
To be fair, the inequality is partiallly understandable when we consider that 1) there are typically more football players than cheerleaders, so there’s a difference in the promiscuity level, and 2) the “criteria” on which cheerleaders are selected heavily involve looks, while football players can look weird, smell bad and communicate mostly by grunting as long as they’re good at hitting people. Which is partly where the “blurgh” factor comes in as regards having carnal knowledge of the entire football team.
I think that’s a pretty intense dissection that statement. I don’t think that plays at all into the perception that the girl is a slut and the guy is a stud. Just out of curiosity, do you really think this scenario is playing in people’s heads when they hear the cheerleaders/football team thing? Because I don’t. You may be able to rationalize it with the scrutiny and level of detail you’ve provided, but I’d say the stereotypical concept of “football player”, “football team”, “cheerleader” and “cheerleading squad” don’t really match up.
And behold the reason why some women don’t hesitate to make false rape claims.
The physical evidence from group sex with five guys could look the same as rape by five guys. If there’s semen and any bruising, that’s enough evidence right there to bring a charge. The PD could be in serious trouble if they didn’t take the allegation seriously.
The sad truth is that for any young man, any casual sexual encounter, especially one involving group sex, has to be reconsidered in light of the fact that many chicks are crazy, and/or evil. We only know about the false charges that have been brought to light. There are probably many more.
The male date rapists who used to routinely get away with heinous acts now have their counterpart in women who make false accusations.
Seriously, if I were a college kid, I’d have a stack of consent forms on hand at all times, and videotape the woman signing before we did anything beyond shaking hands.
I doubt most, if any women are aware that the criminal penalties for making false rape claims are so light.
Why? It’s hardly some obscure fact.
In other words, men (of average cautiousness) are now going to have to be as careful about their casual sexual encounters as women (of average cautiousness) have always had to. I mean, many guys who are looking to hook up are also crazy and/or evil.
Yes, I’m sure that there are some men who have been falsely accused AND CONVICTED of rape. I’m also sure that there are many, many more men who have raped, and either not even been accused, or not been convicted. Back when I was younger, and my friends were younger, I knew more than one woman who confided in me that she’d been raped. Many of them didn’t even go to the police, because of the attitudes at the time. Who wanted to go through another violation, this time at the hands of the officials? Many people thought that women who got raped deserved it, somehow. The pendulum is swinging back a little now, that’s all.
Until we have a foolproof lie detector, until we have some way of viewing the past, then justice will be only an approximation, for some people, and others won’t get any justice at all. But most sane women don’t press false rape charges.
I wonder if anyone can dig up a link to that thread?