Man cleared in rape sues his accuser

[Rysdad]

@Left Hand of Dorkness

Two major errors here. First off, in tort law, the standard isn’t beyond a reasonable doubt: it’s “preponderance of evidence,” I believe. So, by definition, the standard is much lower than the one you suggested.

I know. That’s how OJ ended up, rightfully, owing however many millions it was to Nicole’s family. I should’ve been more accurate in saying “preponderence of the evidence” or, basically, 51%.

Second, if she knowingly made a false accusation, then she behaved maliciously. That’s bigger than “recklessly.” If she made the accusation without really knowing whether it was accurate, then it might be reckless.

Ok. Change “reckless” to “malicious” and you’ll know exactly what I mean.
Hmm.
Then again, to make such a charge even ‘recklessly’ puts the accused in jeopardy.

The chances of a rape victim recklessly accusing someone but not maliciously accusing someone remain vanishingly rare, as near as I can tell. The chances that a rape victim will hold off from reporting a rape out of fear that she’ll be sued for reporting it seem much larger to me: the rapist, if he knows his victim, has got a positive motive for threatening her with a lawsuit if she reports the rape, and if, as Bricker suggested before, her attacker is not a creep (or she’s not a good victim), she may have cause to believe that he can carry through on the lawsuit threat.

I’m not addressing actual rape victims. I’m referring to those people who knowingly accuse someone of rape falsely.

Actual rape victims will have the resources of the justice system to rely on to secure and process evidence as well as provide her with an idea as to the possible outcome of a trial. If her accusation was made in good faith", and the evidence supports the accusation, then the accuser isn’t in any danger.

A point was raised earlier, that the benefit of allowing the lawsuit is that the falsely-accused can be compensated for their hellish experience. Let’s assume for a moment that John was falsely accused by someone acting recklessly; Frank was falsely accused by someone who really thought he was the attacker.

Does John deserve compensation for his hellish experience? Does Frank?

I don’t see a relevant difference between the experience that the two of them had. If one of them deserves compensation, then they both do. If we want to set up a taxpayer fund to remunerate people who are falsely accused of a crime, that’s something we can discuss. But this blaming the victim thing is for the birds.

Daniel

Making another victim isn’t the answer either. In the instance that I’m referring to, there is no victim until the false accusation is made. Then the accused becomes the victim.

State of mind is adjudicated all the time. That should be left up to a jury if, indeed, the accuser either did know, or should have known, that the accusation being made was false.

If it is determined that, in the OP, the woman was disturbed to the degree that she inadvertently made an improper identification, then, no, I don’t believe the accused is due recompense.

I do, however, believe that the legal system, all the way from the arresting officers up to and including the DA’s that charged the case, owe the ‘accused’ a huuuuge and public apology as well as a statement of complete exoneration.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Rysdad

I know. That’s how OJ ended up, rightfully, owing however many millions it was to Nicole’s family. I should’ve been more accurate in saying “preponderence of the evidence” or, basically, 51%.

Ok. Change “reckless” to “malicious” and you’ll know exactly what I mean.
Hmm.

With that change, we’re almost in agreement. Certainly if someone knowingly makes a false accusation, they oughtta be in trouble. I’m still uncomfortable with letting it be a matter of civil rather than criminal law: the potential for abuse seems too high, and the bar is too low. But I’ve got no problem at all with bringing criminal charges against someone who makes a false accusation of rape.

I do, however, believe that the legal system, all the way from the arresting officers up to and including the DA’s that charged the case, owe the ‘accused’ a huuuuge and public apology as well as a statement of complete exoneration.

Absolutely. I’d be fine with a nice payment to the wrongly accused as well, as long as there was no indication that the accuser and the accused were in cahoots. Treat it like an insurance payment.

Daniel

[Translucent_Daydream]

@Diogenes the Cynic

I just want to add that I don’t believe for a second that women make false accusations of rape with any frequency at all.

I would say that you are correct, but it has happened to my (much) older brother as an attempted rape in the late 1980’s and it happened to me as an attmepted rape in my freshman year in college.

He was working late and was a manager of a Pizza Inn in Dallas. He picked someone at random to close with him because it was against policy for him to close the money out of the registers and stuff by himself, and the randomly picked person was this moderately decent looking younger woman. Well she had better things to do and protested, it didn’t go over well, she got mad and left early. He put in for her to be fired, she turned around and said that he tried to rape her, in the back, by the dough machine…

After several hours at the police station he was finally cleared, but after a long time of my father getting on the phone with lawyers and Gustapo crap from the police.

When I was accused of attempted rape, I was a social chairman for my fraternity at the time and someone who I thought was the social chair for a sorority came by my place to plan out some stuff on the greek life calendar. She was acting very wierd and I eventally left her at my place and went about my day. She ran back to her sorority house and told everyone there that I had hit her and tried to rape her, but she was able to fight me off and I ran away. NOW this put me in quite a place.

SHE WAS CONVINCED this is what had happened. Now I know the truth, plus I had some people at my apartment that were there the whole time, but it took a while down at the police station to determine that she in fact was mentally ill and she was later commited into Green Oaks Mental Hospital.

There is a difference between a woman fingering out who she assumes is her rapist and someone who goes to the police as punishment to an unsuspecting man.

But I would think that it would be a bit of a stretch to say that it doesn’t happen in any great frequency. It seems to happen to people every year in my little home town, at my old university…

My girlfriend turned in one of her semi-close friends on a charge of rape that she falsely made to her ex boyfriend. They had a romantic encounter after they broke off their engagement, it was just a blast to the past to him, she thought they were getting back together… She told my girlfriend of her plan to get back at him. My girlfriend thought she was blowing off steam, but it turned out she wasn’t whenever he was taken in. My girlfriend went to the police because she is afraid that all of these false reports are going to make police not take women seriously when it really DOES happen. Boy who cried wolf stuff… My girlfriend was an actual victim of rape when she was younger and there is no other person who will rip the face off of a woman faster than my girfriend finding out someone made a bogus charge of this nature.

I believe that my girlfriends friend only got a filing a false police report and probation or a fine. A slap on the wrist. :mad:

[Nature_s_Call]

@Left Hand of Dorkness

If she made the accusation without really knowing whether it was accurate, then it might be reckless.

It was thinking along these lines that convinced me to change my mind. Let’s say someone is raped by a total stranger in circumstances that prevented her from getting a good look at the perp. When presented with either a line up or a headlight illuminated suspect, how can she reasonably expect to arrive at a certain accusation? She cannot be certain, but she can provide evidence that needs to be investigated. The fact that an innocent bystander is investigated (which is all that happened here, remember. Matthew wasn’t charged) is part of the overall damage the actual rapist inflicted, i.e. the rape victim isn’t the only victim here.

Cases of malicious accusation are clear: the victim is at fault and must be brought to task. The incidence of truly wanton reckless accusation - while impossible to measure - one can reasonably infer are vanishingly rare - an infinitessimal subset of whatever statistic represents all “unfounded” cases. Where they do occur, it’s too difficult to to distinguish wantonness and cooperation despite uncertainty.

Going further, in cases where a stranger is the perp the accused should be able to trust the cops to properly investigate, shielded from being sued if her statement leads the cops astray.

If the only factor was “we cannot grant to rapists the ability to threaten lawsuits” I would not be pursuaded. Not that that’s not an important point, it’s dangerous to base policy on just that - a slippery slope that could end in “rapists can threaten with scissors, so let’s ban them too.” But, taken along with the above (better expressed by Left Hand of Dorkness) I agree the victim should be protected from being sued.

Now I go away to ponder if this protection should be applied only to cases of rape. Hmmmm…

[Nature_s_Call]

sorry… “Matthew wasn’t charged” should read “Matthew wasn’t tried”

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@Translucent Daydream

I would say that you are correct, but it has happened to my (much) older brother as an attempted rape in the late 1980’s and it happened to me as an attmepted rape in my freshman year in college.

He was working late and was a manager of a Pizza Inn in Dallas. He picked someone at random to close with him because it was against policy for him to close the money out of the registers and stuff by himself, and the randomly picked person was this moderately decent looking younger woman. Well she had better things to do and protested, it didn’t go over well, she got mad and left early. He put in for her to be fired, she turned around and said that he tried to rape her, in the back, by the dough machine…

After several hours at the police station he was finally cleared, but after a long time of my father getting on the phone with lawyers and Gustapo crap from the police.

When I was accused of attempted rape, I was a social chairman for my fraternity at the time and someone who I thought was the social chair for a sorority came by my place to plan out some stuff on the greek life calendar. She was acting very wierd and I eventally left her at my place and went about my day. She ran back to her sorority house and told everyone there that I had hit her and tried to rape her, but she was able to fight me off and I ran away. NOW this put me in quite a place.

SHE WAS CONVINCED this is what had happened. Now I know the truth, plus I had some people at my apartment that were there the whole time, but it took a while down at the police station to determine that she in fact was mentally ill and she was later commited into Green Oaks Mental Hospital.

There is a difference between a woman fingering out who she assumes is her rapist and someone who goes to the police as punishment to an unsuspecting man.

But I would think that it would be a bit of a stretch to say that it doesn’t happen in any great frequency. It seems to happen to people every year in my little home town, at my old university…

My girlfriend turned in one of her semi-close friends on a charge of rape that she falsely made to her ex boyfriend. They had a romantic encounter after they broke off their engagement, it was just a blast to the past to him, she thought they were getting back together… She told my girlfriend of her plan to get back at him. My girlfriend thought she was blowing off steam, but it turned out she wasn’t whenever he was taken in. My girlfriend went to the police because she is afraid that all of these false reports are going to make police not take women seriously when it really DOES happen. Boy who cried wolf stuff… My girlfriend was an actual victim of rape when she was younger and there is no other person who will rip the face off of a woman faster than my girfriend finding out someone made a bogus charge of this nature.

I believe that my girlfriends friend only got a filing a false police report and probation or a fine. A slap on the wrist. :mad:

Sorry for what happened to you. The punishment for malicious and false accusations should be more than a slap on the wrist.

I wonder what percentage of false accusers have mental health issues. I bet it’s significant.

I also want to point out that all of your examples (while an incredible hassle for the accused) also led to police figuring out they were bogus fairly quickly. Like I’ve said before, it’s not very easy to actually prosecute a false rape charge. Anyone can file a lawsuit.

[Translucent_Daydream]

@Diogenes the Cynic

Sorry for what happened to you. The punishment for malicious and false accusations should be more than a slap on the wrist.

I wonder what percentage of false accusers have mental health issues. I bet it’s significant.

I also want to point out that all of your examples (while an incredible hassle for the accused) also led to police figuring out they were bogus fairly quickly. Like I’ve said before, it’s not very easy to actually prosecute a false rape charge. Anyone can file a lawsuit.

I would agree that people filing false reports would largely have mental issues, but from my isolated experiences, only one did. The other two were just being bitches trying to get back at someone.

I agree with the other people on this post, you should be able to get back any legal fees, lost wages, and some pain in the rear compensation for the hassle and grief that a false accusation brings with it.
IMHO, the Matthew guy needs to sue the police department for shoddy shakedown work. The drummer I play music with is a police officer and I let him read this thread and he was not thrilled with the police work in this case.

[Translucent_Daydream]

I apologize for cursing in a Great Debates thread, I should have chosen my words a little better.

[Zeriel]

@Diogenes the Cynic

I just want to add that I don’t believe for a second that women make false accusations of rape with any frequency at all.

All I can say is that it happens often enough to scare me, as a victim of a false accusation that did significant damage to my college career even after it was dropped. (briefly, fortunately for me she didn’t realize that my roommate was in fact curled up in his loft and awake when she abruptly jumped on me, then just as abruptly started crying and bolted out of the room.) Granted, in my case it was an embittered ex-girlfriend who certainly appeared to be trying to consent to get the required physical evidence, then feign non-consent to the cops later that day.

I don’t know how common it is, but based on an anecdotal survey of my friends, it’s fairly common to hear of non-prosecuted false rape accusations–after all, it doesn’t take a burden of proof to simply ruin someone’s life in a specific community through gossip.

[Translucent_Daydream]

@Zeriel

I don’t know how common it is, but based on an anecdotal survey of my friends, it’s fairly common to hear of non-prosecuted false rape accusations–after all, it doesn’t take a burden of proof to simply ruin someone’s life in a specific community through gossip.

AND through an public knowledge online police activity report which I had to explain at a scholarship hearing.

AND the commitee for the scholarship that I was applying for renewal was ALL women.

It didn’t get renewed.

Coincedince? :dubious: