Give the PW gave some corroborating details that checked out - the condom, being bit on the breast, etc. - I tend to find her credible. Since there is nothing to refute her testimony (as we cannot evaluate her credibility over the Internet), I would convict on the statutory rape.
Don’t know if you can consent retroactively. If she woke up to find him on top of her, then that is rape. Unless the fact that she went away with him voluntarily means that she consented to the sex. Same for the breast bite. If he did that before she consented, that’s sexual battery - unless going away with him means that she decided otherwise after the fact.
Come to think of it, she can’t consent at all. So it wouldn’t matter.
So, I guess guilty on the statutory rape, and the sexual battery. I would acquit on the rape, since that is included in the statutory rape.
I am trying to estimate the mentality of a girl who considers the guy who jumps her in the middle of the night as Prince Charming, with whom you can live happily ever after.
Dumb ain’t against the law, but it might as well be.
Been on a jury or three.
Unless you have been on one that you were deciding something as major as this, as it seems many of the posters have not, then your idea of what you would do and what all 11 of the other jurors will agree to is seriously in error.
Even if you do as you say, the idea that that will be what happens is not really what happens. Been there done that.
Making any absolute statement about this with just the information given is just jacking your jaw. Actually sitting in the court room makes a world of difference.
This set up of the OP is so lacking in real world content of what should be given to get to the facts as presented that it can’t actually happen in this much of a vacuum.
If I was on the jury it would be ‘not guilty’ or there would be a hung jury.
Or an these types of criminal cases be decided by 7 out of 12 jurors agreeing?
For a minute there, i thought i was in an actual courtroom, deciding an actual case involving real people. I could swear that i saw the 12-year-old girl’s face as she gave testimony, and the sullen visage of the defendant as he sat by his lawyer.
I was completely unaware, until you dragged me back from the edge, that this was merely a hypothetical, with no direct relevance to serving on a real jury in an actual case. Thanks for setting me straight, oh revered dispenser of homespun wisdom.
At this point I need to correct myself because I saw the “under 16” line in the OP and glossed over the fact that the PW in this case is 12, not 16. That would make me significantly more likely to convict because it reduces the possibility that there was a relationship that fell apart. I’d still like to know about the information we’re missing here, though.
My guess is that most of those 400,000 kits would be from cases where there is no suspect in custody, rather than cases going to trial.
It would be risky for a prosecutor to assume that she otherwise has enough evidence to convict, since that evidence could fall apart or be challenged. The PW’s testimony could be damaged on the stand (suppose it came out that she had previously made a rape report and then withdrawn it), or the defendant could decide to testify and deny that there was any sexual contact at all between them.
I’m not on a jury, and I’m not looking for feedback for presentation of a case. It is a hypothetical. I’m just curious to see the thought processes of people who, admittedly, are probably a lot smarter than my average jury when presented with some facts that could go either way without any real physical evidence. So, I suppose in that regard, I am asking for feedback, but not for the presentation of a particular case.
The evidence in the OP is not sufficient for me to convict on anything. The responsibility for the bite and the condom could have belonged to someone else besides D. PW is not averse to telling a big fat stinking lie so I need more than just her word and the physical evidence is lacking.
Curiously, my experience in this sort of case (a family member) has been that the state is perfectly happy to deprive a person of liberty without any evidence whatsoever. Not to convict – the Federal and (to a lesser extent) State authorities were very careful in what charges they brought, making no attempt to present any of the questionable evidence, dropping all the scary-sounding charges, and settling for a guilty plea on one relatively minor charge. The charge pled to involved possession of photographs – not making/taking them, not abuse, not rape.
THEN, after getting the guilty plea, the judge considered sentencing “recommendations” by a probation officer – recommendations not challengeable by the defense and not subject to cross-examination in court, containing interviews with witnesses so weak that the prosecution had declined to present them and had dropped the charges based on their interviews. THEN, relatives of the victims (people whose stories had been rejected as unlikely to withstand cross-examination in court, and note that the defendant had not been charged with doing anything to these “victims”) families were allowed to make emotionally-charged “victim impact statements.” These statements are after the plea but before sentencing, and are NOT subject to cross-examination or rebuttal. The speakers had been advised of the implications of this, and hammed it up, regaling the judge with horror stories of rape and abuse – charges the prosecution had dropped, the FBI had declined to testify to, and a psychologist had opined under oath were probably not true.
The judge sentenced immediately after, thundering with righteous (and emotional) fury at the injustice of these (untried, un-examined, unsworn, discarded-by-the-state, cannot-be-defended-against) stories, and delivered much additional time on the lone count pled to.
So the state did have to provide evidence before depriving of liberty; but the little evidence it did provided didn’t have much relation to the sentence handed down.
Conviction is only the start of the process. The state can at least extend the amount of liberty deprived, during the sentencing step, and without normal (or defensible) evidentiary processes, apparently.
The only photographs I know are illegal to possess are child pornography. Given that, and the fact he pled guilty to the charge, I’m not going to spend too much time getting upset over his feeling that the rules for sentencing hearings aren’t to his liking.
Around here DNA testing doesn’t cost local law enforcement anything. DNA is tested by the Texas Department of Public Safety Crime Laboratory on the taxpayer’s dime. There’s a pretty big backlog and DNA testing will add months onto a case, but there’s no financial reason for the local DA not to get DNA evidence tested.
I’m still trying to figure out how he wore the condom to the tracks.
Yea, there’s *no excuse *not to have the DNA test. You don’t have enought to spring for the test? But you got enough to incarcerate him for a mandatory 25 years?
It’s a slam dunk if we have it. We would know, either way.
Given that the DNA test hasn’t been performed and the results of the rape kit aren’t available, I think I’d have to vote “not guilty”. Far from the CSI effect, this is a monumentally stupid way to run a prosecution- this evidence is right there, waiting to be tested. The only conclusion I can come to is that the State is hiding something, paranoid as that sounds. I’d also expect to see the defense attorney either demanding a DNA test or the exclusion of the rape kit and condom, which would actually give a pretty good clue to guilt.
Being a twelve year old child might cut her a little slack don’t you think? Maybe she was frightened, confused, in pain, only half awake. Maybe she thought **she’d **done something unforgivable and her best option was to run.
Taking pictures of your 16-year-old girlfriend counts as child pornography. Even though the state’s age of consent is 16.
Your attitude, of course, is the whole problem he’s having – once the magic word WITCH…err, I mean CHILD PORNOGRAPHY, is mentioned, everyone not only stops listening but is filled with righteous rectitude.
What percentage of teenagers are sexually curious? How many people in the country own digital cameras? Did you KNOW that you can go to jail for naked pictures of someone you are legally allowed to sleep with? Even if they’re only hidden in your bedroom?
Man, you didn’t even know for sure the charge involved child porn, but you’ve already written him off, smugly.
Why in heavens name are there all these people claiming to be victims when all the guy had was a picture of his 16 year old girlfriend? It makes little to no sense to me. Now, I’m sure your guy was railroaded and the victim of a conspiracy of the highest caliber, but I don’t see how he ended up with a trail of lying victims at sentencing for pictures of his girlfriend. Smells fishy.
But the OP only gave very little evidence. On the facts given I would not know what to think. One person accusation I think is a very weak case. I would have my doubts. Realise if their was a trial with this evidence, it would only take what maybe 1 hour or less.
If an ADA presented a case like this he/she should be fired. If a defence lawyer did not ask any questions is a case like this, he should not be allowed to be a lawyer.
Oh thank goodness. Glad to know that you are just jacking your jaw and would not do those things you are saying you would. since it is just a hypothetical, I can say I would get a rifle and shoot the smarmy guy before the trial as I know he is guilty and you would be okay with that because it is just hypothetical and we can lie and be stupid and silly and that is fine. Is that what you are doing, saying stuff that you would not really do? What is the word for saying things like that again?
Oh, you were saying that what you said was your actual thought process if it was a real case? Then my post was indeed needed.
Well we are at trial so it is safe to assume he did plead Not Guilty. We do not know what he said. And where does the 5th come into play. If the state can not produce a case why is it a problem if he says nothing. I also think you maybe going to far in voting guilty of anything.
I would vote not guilty to rape (I am not 100% convinced on the use of force)
I would vote guilty to statutory rape and sexual battery. Given the testimony of the PW, I have no doubt that the man had sex with her and that he bit her breast.
No and no: 25 years is an appropriate sentence for the forcible violent rape of a child, and sex offender registration for life is an appropriate sentence for an adult who has sex with a 12-year-old, or bites the breast of a 12-year-old. I have no problem with either of these sentences.