This is much like the reasoning that says that, because the 14th amendment was passed, black Americans get special privileges.
In other words, it’s a special type of bullshit that is exactly wrong.
What are you basing this on? Take another look at the part you quoted:
So, you believe that it was already difficult for the defense and congress intended to make even more difficult?
Or, that it was too difficult to prosecute cases where there were multiple accusations showing a pattern and a propensity but only testimony by individual accusers? Let’s use Bill Cosby as an example. Multiple accusations, with similar stories under similar conditions. Do you not think this showed a pattern and a propensity? Do you not think these multiple accusations were relevant in determining guilt in an individual case? If you recall, some of the women said they didn’t come forward because they thought they wouldn’t be believed simply on their word over his.
Can the law be misapplied? Yes. But that is true for all laws. So what is the solution? Roosh V’s idea to make rape legal so there is no chance of false accusations?
I clicked on some that were not. But, in the ones I looked at, prior accusations were not a factor in the conviction, which is the point of FRE 413.
There’s no reason to go over things again and again.
You’d initially said prior convictions weren’t admissible in a rape case. (I assume you meant in the guilt/innocence phase, since priors are admissible in the punishment phase). That was wrong.
In sexual assault cases, some jurisdictions (including the Congress) have carved out special provisions that allow - not just convictions, but allegations - of prior acts by the defendant during the guilt/innocence phase.
You responded by pointing to a case where the judge didn’t allow evidence of prior allegations in the guilt/innocence phase of a particular case.
And you’re right. A judge doesn’t have to allow Rule 413 evidence. According to the opinion of the judge in the case you cited, the trial court is supposed to perform a balancing test.
Nevertheless, 413 is a law that allows evidence that would otherwise inadmissible in - and only in - sexual assault cases.
As long as we agree on the facts, there’s no reason to go over it again and again.
The facts, however, point to the conclusion that we live in an anti-rape culture. Not a rape culture.
A lot of people disagree. Guess that’s why we don’t let you play judge, jury, and executioner.
That a lot of people think female promiscuity has something to do with character and honesty is part of patriarchal culture and related to rape culture.
The only relevant behavior is whether she has a history of false accusations or deceptive behavior. Past sexual behavior is absolutely irrelevant.
Except the purpose of the trial is to determine whether the defendant committed a crime. Juries are given very specific instructions to this end. As mentioned above, character concerns are relevant only inasmuch as they pertain to the specific criminal charges.
Ahh, okay. But I did say barring certain circumstances, and I was replying to Stringbean’s post about accusations, not convictions. But you’re right, I should have said they would not* automatically* be admissible for accusations of sexual assault, so apologies for that. Basically, it shifts the burden of arguing admissibility from the prosecution to the defense, but it is pretty standard to argue about admissibility in most cases.
In the case of prior accusations that do not lead to prosecution or conviction, the court must first consider if there was enough evidence and credibility in the prior accusation to be admissible,* before* weighing the other balancing criteria already mentioned such as relevance, prejudice, etc. Go back and read Guardia again. It’s not as simple as you’re implying.
You didn’t answer my questions about the Bill Cosby example. Do you think it would be an injustice to admit those prior multiple accusations? Do you understand the reasoning behind FRE 413, or do you still think it is some kind of feminist conspiracy to imprison innocent men?
If you’re suggesting I lied, I’d appreciate it you linked to it. As far as the stats are concerned, if you look, you’ll see they’re exactly what I said they were.
Now I’m not vouching for the study, mind you. It’s possible the study was done poorly.
Yes, exactly. To understand why, you need to understand some things about how the criminal justice system works. ’
1.) The accusation by a single person, with no corroboration at all, is sufficient to obtain not only a guilty verdict, but also to make an arrest. The arrest part is important, because bail for serious cases, like rape, can be very high. It can easily go to $100,000 or more. That’s not a problem for the very rich. But for other people, it can be a substantial problem. For people who are poor - who make up the vast majority of our jail and prison populations - it’s an insurmountable problem. What that means is that they spend their time waiting for trial in jail. You’ve probably never been to jail, but jail is a terrible place to be. Even homeless people - people who live on the streets and sleep under bridges or in doorways - prefer homelessness over jail. Jail not only cuts you off from your whole life - including family and friends - it also prevents you from working, and from being much assistance to your lawyer.
2.) People who are in jail, and therefore not working, usually have court-appointed attorneys or public defenders. These people often mean well, but the fact of the matter is they’re grossly underpaid, and/or insanely overworked (or both). Although funding for police and prosecutors is always there, funding for indigent defense is pathetically insufficient. What that means in practical terms is that poor people in jail have lawyers they rarely see, and who are often juggling more work than they’re actually capable of doing.
3.) What that means is that they have a strong incentive to plead cases. A plea might take five minutes. A trial could easily take a week or more - and that doesn’t count all the work that goes into preparing for trial, which generally takes substantially more time than the trial itself (assuming it’s done right - which isn’t always true). (You may or may not know about this case, but there was one particular lawyer in Houston who represented death row clients, who slept through one of his trials. It’s probably reasonable to assume he didn’t put a lot of preparation into the case he slept through. Houston, at the time - I don’t know how they do it now - used a court-appointment system. It’s possible judges chose him for death penalty cases, because they knew he wouldn’t put up much of a fight.)
4.) Getting from arrest to trial (assuming you get there) can take years. During that time, the defendant is sitting in jail. In other words, he’s getting punished, before the trial even begins.
5.) At trial, the primary testimony is going to come from the complaining witness. The victim is going to be presented as someone who “has no reason to lie”. He or she may or may not have a reason to lie. It could be, for example, that he or she misidentified the actual rapist, but after two years is convinced that the person sitting next to the defense attorney is him. Or maybe she has a reason to lie, but the defense - for whatever reason - never found out what it was. Or maybe they did, but the judge ruled it was inadmissible. (Perhaps as a result of rape shield laws.) The defendant, on the other hand, obviously has a reason to lie: if he gets convicted, he’ll go to prison. There will be other witnesses called by the prosecution. Police officers, for example, or perhaps the first person he or she told about it. Perhaps there will be an expert witness, called by the state, to explain why the accuser waited so long to tell anybody, or why inconsistencies in her statements to police are typical of people who are survivors of rape. The defense, on the other hand, is likely to have no witnesses, other than the defendant. And if he’s ever been convicted of a felony or crime of “moral turpitude” the prosecution will be able to impeach him: for example, with a possession of cocaine conviction, or for shoplifting. Although the judge will instruct the otherwise, it’s likely that the jury will figure: “if he’s a criminal, he probably did this crime too.”
6). Finally, and this is theoretical: the jury is going to retire to deliberate, and they’ll be faced with a choice: to free a possible rapist, or to convict someone who might not be a rapist. Although the jury will be instructed convict only if they’re convinced beyond a reasonable doubt, it’s possible they won’t actually approach the case that way. It’s possible they’ll approach it from the perspective of which does less harm: convicting a possibly innocent person, or preventing a possible rapist from raping again.
Anyway, those are some of the reasons rape is hard to defend against. And obviously, many of them don’t apply to someone who’s rich: he’ll likely make bail, be able to help his lawyer, hire a good lawyer who will be able to spend a lot time on the case, and hire an investigator, who can help them find admissible evidence to show why the accuser might be lying (if there is any).
But as I said: the vast majority of defendants aren’t rich: they’re poor. You might not realize that if your only information comes from the news. But the problem with the news is that poor people getting arrested isn’t news.
I haven’t followed the Bill Cosby story, so I don’t know much about it. Sorry. My impression, though, was that many of the accusations are from so long ago, the statute of limitation has passed. I’m also under the impression (at the moment) there’s only one case going forward - a civil case. Of course, in civil cases, the only issue is money, not prison. Please feel free to correct me, if I’m wrong.
If Cosby is ever criminally charged, he’ll be able to post bond, hire good lawyers & investigators & etc.
Nevertheless, my own personal opinion - which is not the law - is that if a person is accused of a crime, the state - at the guilt/innocence stage - should be restricted to proving that he committed the crime he is actually accused of committing.
Introducing evidence of extraneous bad acts the defendant may or may not have committed prejudices the jury: if they hear about a lot of other bad things the defendant may have done, they’re less likely to be concerned with whether he’s guilty of this particular crime. Furthermore, if the jury hears about other bad acts the defendant may have committed, they’re more likely to either (a) convict him of being a bad person in general, or (b) convict him on the basis of a crime other than the one he’s accused of, or (c) succumb to the “where there’s smoke there’s fire” theory of guilt. Any of those is a bad outcome.
The best solution, in my opinion, is to 1.) fund indigent defense at levels comparable to the prosecution of indigent defendants; and 2.) prevent the state from smearing the reputation of defendants, so that juries (hopefully) focus on whether the state has proven the defendant is guilty of the crime he’s accused of committing - beyond a reasonable doubt.
I’d be pleased if you told me which ones were not charged with sexual assault.
I don’t doubt those wrongful convictions happened without the help FRE 413.
Having said that, FRE 413 only makes wrongful convictions that much easier.
Oh well, ask a silly question…
I should have known better than to think you were seriously interested in the topic.
I’m suggesting that it’s hard to tell why you brought that study up in this context, since nobody had said that it was impossible that men are victims of sexual assault – of course men are sometimes victims of sexual assault. One possible explanation for the fact that you brought it up is that what you’re really arguing, as you have done in the past, is that men are more often the victims of sexual assault, in which case you would be misrepresenting the numbers. But like I said, it’s not clear what your point is about the “third side.”
As far as your presentation about the criminal justice system: you’re making general statements about how criminal prosecutions work, which are generally accurate. But that doesn’t really speak to what makes sexual assault charges in particular so difficult to defend against. And it definitely doesn’t substantiate your point when it’s weighed against a historical record of sexual assault prosecution that was so uniquely tilted against the victim that measures like rape shield laws were considered necessary in the first place. You’re making almost a 400-year old argument, and the fact that it’s an idea about sex from that era that still has currency in some circles ought to give you pause:
You haven’t given any reason to believe that anything has changed in all these years to make this complaint suddenly a valid one, given that so few sexual assaults are actually successfully prosecuted in any context and always have been. It’s a bizarre kind of difficulty that these defendants must be having that doesn’t show up in conviction rates. Speaking generally about how criminal defendants are pressured by the system to make guilty pleas is a far cry from showing how “sexual assault is a particularly hard charge to defend against.”
You answered my rhetorical question about the absurdity of a government conspiracy against men with an emphatically affirmative reply and a 1,000 word* Introduction to Criminal Justice* lecture.
Then you misinterpreted my real question about the probative value of nearly identical multiple accusations. The Bill Cosby situation was only meant as an example - and I made that clear - but you answered it as if I was asking about him personally.
I’ve told you this before - and it’s really not meant as an insult - but you don’t talk to people, you talk at them, or talk down to them, robotically repeating the same platitudes about the oppression of men, and I don’t see why you would think that’s an effective approach when you are trying to persuade someone to accept your POV.
I do feel bad about being flippant with you, because I think you are overly invested in this topic to the point where you are incapable of a considered, evenhanded reply, and it seems obvious it is a personal issue for you. And it’s none of my business, really. But it’s frustrating and insulting.
I actually agree with most of your points about the inequity of the criminal justice system, but your continuing refusal to consider and directly engage the other side of an issue makes it less likely that your opinions will be seriously considered in return.
Your rhetorical question was:
You might not know this, but legislatures - states, as well as Congress - often write laws intended to make convictions as easy as possible. Giving defendants due process is expensive, unpopular, and time-consuming. Taking it away is popular, and makes convicting people cheap and easy. It’s a win-win, as far as the State, and states, are concerned. The only thing that really stands in the way is the Constitution - and then, only to the extent that judges are willing to follow it.
Most people are against giving criminals rights: it’s only when they themselves are accused of something, that they realize how broken the system actually is.
But now that I know it was only a rhetorical question, I won’t bother contradicting things you already know.
Maybe you missed this:
And this:
How about you actually address the topic in question, and back up your claim about sexual assault charges being particularly difficult to defend.
Well, obviously, I don’t understand, because this is you from #233:
And this is you from #235:
You claim first that the question you asked and that I answered was “rhetorical” - meaning I was wasting my time - and then demand I answer the same question again?
How crazy would I have to be to do that?
As much as it strains credulity that you really don’t understand this, the question
was rhetorical in the sense that it was a rhetorical statement to the effect of declaring that this would not make sense. You have not actually given any reason to believe that it does make sense.
You opened with “to understand why,” and then you said a bunch of things that aren’t actually helpful to understanding why it is extra hard for sexual assault defendants and why Congress would pass a law that made it even extra harder.
You’re being disingenuous now. Are you taking lessons from Jack of Words?
Go back and read the original posts, which I will spare anyone else reading this thread by not re-quoting here. You also conveniently neglected to respond to** Jimmy Chitwood**'s post, which I did re-quote in my last post.
Your little dissertation about the criminal justice system doesn’t directly answer the question about the difficulty in defending sexual assault in particular, which was your claim. The question before my rhetorical was “What are you basing this on?”
Your claim isn’t backed up by conviction rates either. So what actual direct evidence informs your opinion about sexual assault defenses in particular?
I am a woman, and a lifelong feminist, although I have of late decided I don’t really identify with modern feminism anymore and that’s a subject I’d like to get into as an offshoot of this when I have a bit more time.
But anyway, having ID’d myself in a very simple way, I am asking the following question with the utmost sincerity and absolutely zero intention to incite anything. I honestly seek answers.
Among the staunchest voices in this thread stating that we live in a rape culture and in other ways vehemently discussing sexual assault and rape as a pervasive problem, the question is this:
What sort of specific behaviors on the part of a woman can be taken into consideration in determining whether a rape has occurred, if any at all? I ask because it sometimes seems very much as though some people genuinely believe that any and every accusation of rape, no matter what, must be believed and agreed with, and I just can’t believe that smart people honestly feel that way.
So I’m asking if you can imagine any scenarios in which sex has occurred and a woman afterward says it was rape and you wouldn’t agree with her, or do you basically believe that her perception (assuming it is sincerely her perception, I am setting aside women who lie and know they are lying) is the only thing that matters in identifying the nature of the sexual encounter? And if your answer to the last is “Yes”, then I ask why his perception does not have any weight, how you might arrive at that.
All sincerely asked, I sincerely seek enlightenment about the way other people think about these matters.
Thank you.
Rape culture, no; date rape, yes. The only rape cultures are in Muslim-majority countries, but since liberals fall more in love with Islam with every suicide bomb that goes off, they’ll never talk about it. Here in the USA, everyone already knows that rape is horrible, and feminists’ idiotic attempts to retroactively reclassify every encounter between men and women as rape is yet another reason a whopping 18% of Americans call themselves feminists.