In short, a junior officer accused a senior officer of trying to rape her. There’s a video that shows she told him 90 (that’s NINE ZERO!!!) times to stop trying to have sex with her, and to leave, only finally leaving after her screams alerted a neighbor to call the police and he tried to flee.
And the jury deadlocked, with 2 jurors holding out on the attempted rape charge (ten thought he was guilty).
IMO this is a prime example of rape culture – that the onus is far more on the potential victim to avoid rape than the aggressor. She didn’t just say no, she SCREAMED it, dozens of times, and it was captured on video, and that still wasn’t enough for 2 of the jurors.
Hard to legislate problems like this. This is just deeply ingrained misogyny within our culture.
Some nonsense about “innocent until proven guilty”. So, fuck yeah it’s on the potential victim to prove her case. Do you have a better legal standard to share with the group? And, yes, being proactive about one’s safety is a good thing. Now, that said:
I wasn’t at the trial, etc. but a jury split 10/2 does reek of skullduggery of some sort.
Requiring the prosecution to prove guilty beyond a reasonable doubt to 12 of out 12 jurors is a high burden. By design.
I’m sorry if the alleged victim doesn’t feel like she got “justice” in this case, but that happens, and it certainly better than convicting a person of a crime they might not have committed.
Just to be clear, I don’t believe that the OP is criticizing the institutional rules of the justice system that require guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, a unanimous jury, etc.
I see it as his criticizing us as people and the society we live in that such evidence isn’t enough to persuade 12 jurors.
I don’t know what all the evidence is, so perhaps there’s something the jury saw that justifies such doubt.
But if it really is just “why didn’t she fight him harder/louder/earlier/more successfully so she must have kind of consented” then that is very good evidence that we as a people are fucked up.
It’s hard to second guess a jury without sitting in the courtroom and hearing everything they heard. A lot goes on in a There’s a fine line between “not objecting enough” and “I reasonably thought she consented.” Maybe not a “fine line,” but a blurry one.
On reading the second article, (quoted below) I think I’d probably vote to convict the guy. But, again, the trial probably lasted a week or more and there was a lot of evidence we don’t know about.
THAT’S educational, and something I think a lot of people miss. “Hey, let’s shag” is neutralized by some variant of “Know what, let’s NOT shag.” Cry foul or tease or whatever, and that’s certainly a conversation to have at another time. Meantime, there’s to be no shagging. The time to turn the voice recorder on, if you’re that willing to do it despite being paranoid, is immediately before and throughout the carnal activities.
Neither article really describes the encounter very well. Did the defendant have the woman pinned down to the couch, or was he sitting across the room saying “let’s do it”? I don’t question her denial (or withdrawal) of consent, but how pushy and aggressive does he have to be to meet the standard of attempted rape? It’s odd that it was his cell phone that recorded things. And one article says that jurors heard only the audio, so it doesn’t establish what actions were taken.
And the two articles linked by the OP blatantly disagree on whether the defendant testified at the second trial. Sloppy reporting from one of them.