Why can’t you just debate what he’s presented? I don’t get the fuss over the Hawaii thing. Reframing an issue to eliminate factors that shouldn’t have a bearing on arguments (yet do) is a good way to get people to examine their own innate prejudices and objectively view a situation without their burden.
How is that her fault?
Justification for what?
Get away with what?
She’s the one who falsely accused him of rape.
Accusing someone falsely of rape.
Falsely accusing someone of rape.
Simple, see?
I disagree - the difference between reckless and intentionally malicious is unimportant with respect to liability. The important difference is between honest mistake and reckless mistake (I think we all agree intentional malice is certainly deserving of a lawsuit).
Absurd thought experiment: 2 rape victims are (individually) shown a photo of someone the cops know were out of town at the time of the crime. Each victims eyes are still full of tears and thus cannot focus on the picture. One takes the time to wipe the tears away, take a breath and look at the picture - which to her mind bears a strong resemblance to the attacker. The second is seen not to wipe the tears away by three cops, barely looks at the photo, is clearly suppressing a hysteria, and blurts out, “Arrest that man!”
I would hope in the second case the cops would coach caution, “Are you sure… take your time” Maybe present the photo again under different circumstances. That aside (told you it was an absurd thought experiment), the victim still has a duty to the person in the picture to at least try to ascertain. If there is evidence she did not, in my opinion she is just as liable for damages as one with intent to harm the guy in the photo.
She didn’t falsely accuse anyone of anything. She mistakenly identified the person she thought raped her. Its the police/DA/Judge that are the ones that ultimately officially accuse someone of committing a crime. It is that accusation, not the victim’s, that damaged Mr. Matthew not the fingering by the victim. The police ought to know that a probably inebriated victim that was raped in the middle of the night is simply not a reliable witness. They sure as hell should have known better than to have her finger him as he is being arrested for the crime.
You are asking a person who was in an extremely stressful situation with poor lighting and being accousted to be 100% sure before identifying someone as their attacker. That is simply an impossible goal to attain.
Metacom has rightly answered - but there is merit to the question. It’s not a matter of “falsely accusing” but “recklessly accusing” If it can be shown that the victim ought to have known the possibility Matthew was not the guy, she should pay damages. That’s why I’m in favour of the lawsuit.
The counter argument, though, is not easily dismissed. What threshold of certainty must one cross before a lawsuit is allowed to go forward? If every acquitted accused automatically files suit - even if they got off on a technicality - then there is a real concern this will suppress future complainants - who wants to go through a highly emotional trial one - let alone twice?
But another element to this discussion is: In Ontario at least the protection is offered only to accusers of sex crimes. If, instead of getting her kid to claim fondling, she had said, “He broke into my place too” - then the slander suit is an option for the falsely accused. Add sex to the mix and it’s verboten. Is that fair?
Additional info from a Richmond Times-Dispatch article on Sept. 9th.
But what of her duty to at least say, “I can’t be sure right now”? Your response might be, “you’re expecting her to be reasonable when she was incapable.” Yes, that’s what makes this a complex case. Let’s step, for a moment, away from the inflammatory rape: If I was just fired from my job, in an upset state yelled falsely, “My boss is a theiving embezzler” - surely my emotional state is not license to slander.
Yes, yes, it’s different here. I do not mean to trivialize the poor victim - honest. But it’s reasonable to expect someone to have a degree of certainty, higher than the victim was able to muster here, before making a positive ID. The case should at the very least be tried (the lawsuit that is) to see what a jury would say as to whether the victim failed to do what “the reasonable person” would in the same situation.
Isn’t this why they usually do a lineup, either live or with photographs, rather than predisposing the victim of a crime to assume that someone is the perpetrator because the victim sees them in handcuffs inside a police car?
Wouldn’t seeing him handcuffed and in the police car tend to carry the implication that he wouldn’t be in the police car wearing the handcuffs if he wasn’t the guy who did it?
So she sees him, cuffed and in the cage, and says ‘Yes, it was him.’
Nope. The phrase “falsely accuse” implies intent. I think the idea that she intentionally fingered the wrong person is so absurd as to be unworthy of consderation.
I’m still looking for where you got your supposed information.
This can’t be shown and the very premise is ridiculous, IMO.
Well, “false” just means “not true” There is no doubt Matthew was falsely accused - he didn’t do it after all. I agree, though, there is no evidence here of intent to falsely accuse. Let’s take a look a the definition of reckless provided by Bricker:
*A conscious, wanton, or willful disregard for *
(unlikely in the extreme)
*or indifference to the truth, *
(absolutely not)
or care for thr truth that is a gross deviation from the standard a reasonable person would exercise in similar circumstances;
Ahhh there’s the rub. It is difficult nigh impossible for me to place myself in that situation. But if I’m staring through tears at a poorly lit person, etc., I would hope I would exercise caution and at least say, “Can I take a look at him tomorrow?” I can certainly be pursuaded in this thread that her actions may pass the reasonable person test - but we’re not going to get all the facts in this thread. That’s why a jury should be presented all the facts then asked to apply that test.
salls I’m sayin
This is way too high a threshold. Victims of crimes should be held liable in civil court if it can be shown that the victim “ought to have known the POSSIBILITY Matthew was not the guy”? In just about every criminal case where there’s a CONVICTION there’s a POSSIBILITY that the convicted wasn’t the guy. That’s an insane threshold.
I think if there was a way to show that the woman clearly should have known he wasn’t the guy, then maybe we should judge if her actions were reckless. For example if she was raped by a black man and told the police that then fingured an Asian man for the crime. Although just about any situation, in my mind, that I would consider the victim’s behavior “reckless” enough would involve the victim outright lying. Because for me to feel comfortable enough to judge the victim reckless, it’d have to be overwhelmingly clear there’s no way she could think the person she accused was the guy, and in that case it’d be outright lying anyways. And if the victim was outright lying then I wouldn’t call it reckless so much as I would call it malicious, and it would probably enter into the realm of giving a false statement to police and such.
Victims shouldn’t be expected to be legal scholars or to have the same responsibilities as law enforcement. It’s completely unacceptable to ask a victim to be self-moderating to that degree. I think if anything the police should be reprimanded for putting her in that situation.
This should never get in front of a jury for the simple reason that juries, are in general stupid, especially in civil cases.
Maybe she really was positive but she was honestly mistaken. It happens all the time with witnesses. People can be sure they’re right and still be off the mark. It can happen especially easily when you have a traumatized victim and some highly suggestable elements like the handcuffs and the cops encouraging the victim to say it was the guy.
Let’s also not forget that she really WAS raped. I can’t see why she would want to risk the real rapist getting away if she wasn’t completely certain.
I also think there may not be enough evidence in this case to give any realistic judgment.
For example, some are talking about a victim, trying to make an identification “through tears” with police headlights and the such in her field of vision. We have no idea if the headlights were in her field of vision, or if she was crying.
And from what I’ve queried on the net, we can’t even be sure she made a visual identification, I’ve heard she may have made the identification based on the man’s voice over a police radio. Which, again, is bad investigative work on the police’s part. And we can’t expect victims of crimes to be experts in aural identification.
In one of the cites given by Peter Wiggen, it says the woman only claimed that she was raped (and not just "assaulted) after she saw this guy, and in order to get him arrested. If it turns out that the woman was not raped, then I can see that there might be a case.
This is also why I think it’s critical that we’re all working off the same info. Too much speculation going on here.
Bricker: Once more, can you cite the articles that you’re working from? I think the info above is crucial to understanding the situation, but since it wasn’t part of your OP, I have no idea if you are aware of this piece of information.
You’re absolutely correct. Bad choice of words on my part. But don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. If it can be shown that her belief that Matthew was the guy was formed under circumstances a reasonable person would be unable to be positive - that’s what I was trying to get at.
There’s no evidence of this here, but what if the victim said the asshole that raped her was wearing a mask. Would that be enough to convince you that she was reckless in her accusation?
Now, it could also have gone down like this: “Boy that sure looks like the guy but I’m not sure” Cops say to Matthew: “We have reason to suspect you in this case. We’re not going to charge you, but can we have a sample of DNA - don’t leave town until the results come back” or something like that. But if the cops heard, “Yes! Yes! That’s him! I’m sure of it” the cops gotta arrest, right? If that certainty was unreasonably arrived at - it’s reckless and a tort.
I’m wondering if this civil case might have a future impact on criminal cases. Suppose the woman is able to successfully defend herself by arguing that under the traumatic situation she was in, she was not responsible for mistakenly identifying this man as her rapist.
Now suppose in a future rape case involving other people, a woman identifys a man as her rapist and there’s no corroborating evidence. Couldn’t the man in that case, innocent or guilty, argue that there is now a legal precedent that a woman in the immediate aftermath of being raped is not capable of giving credible evidence?