There are only two possible positive outcomes from this case:
Judge Aaron Persky is recalled.
Women are taught not to shower or go to the bathroom before a rape kit examination has been completed (the victim in this case did the later, which I believe is why there was not any forensic evidence of rape - and thus no rape charge).
I’m not sure someone should be able to ruin their entire life by something (short of murder, obv.) they did once (has anyone made allegations of prior offenses, even previously unreported ones?) when wasted out of their gourd at age 20. Which is not to say his sentence wasn’t too light. It was. But I think there has to be some middle ground where you give someone a chance for a second act, at least when they haven’t killed anyone. Most progressives I know lament the fact that convicted felons can’t vote, and have difficulty getting employment because they have to report their felony on employment applications. In those instances, if someone shrugged and said “they did it to themselves” they would be lambasted as a coldhearted “tough on crime” right winger.
So you don’t believe in the presumption of innocence and proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, two of the cornerstones of a free society. Duly noted. :dubious:
My best friend in college was thought “creepy” by some people who didn’t know him well, in large part I think because he had a speech impediment and wore very thick glasses. He also came from a poor inner-city neighborhood, and many of the people at this selective college were from affluent suburban private school backgrounds.
Someone reported to the local police that my friend had raped her. The police went around and questioned people in his dorm, and many of them were only too quick to assume guilt. I know for a metaphysical certainty that he was innocent, as do two of my friends from Minnesota who came down to meet us in a city over three hours away to spend the weekend together. This accuser claimed the rape happened on Saturday night, but my friend was with the three of us from Friday night to Sunday afternoon, hundreds of miles away. (And no, he did not have his vehicle there, nor did he have some unexplained period of time during which he disappeared for eight hours.)
I am sure many people dismissed his alibi as a friend covering up for him, and of course they didn’t know my Minnesota friends at all. But having three people vouch for his whereabouts was good enough for the police, particularly when the accuser had no corroboration of her story. The idea that a systematic and dispassionate investigation by the justice system should be replaced by the sort of ad hoc social prosecution you propose is appalling and disgusting to me.
Yes, precisely. Here, and on Facebook where I was just unfriended by someone over this, people want to turn the objections I express into my somehow loving Brock Turner like a brother or something. Sure, if someone sexually assaulted me or a loved one, my lizard brain would of course wish to put them in the stocks and have people hurl rotten produce at them all day. But the civilized part of my brain knows that this is wrong, no matter how vile a person may be.
This is where I think you are very wrong. I have been arrested and jailed (for alleged nonviolent drug crimes), and saw what happened to peers in my social group when they were also brought in for questioning. My roommate, a seemingly tough football player, completely wilted. He was facing only a misdemeanor pot possession charge but he was willing to name me as a dealer, which flipped my charge to a felony. All just because he was so afraid that his parents might find out he had been arrested. The cops further used this threat held over his head to get him to wear a wire and set up another friend of ours.
These college jocks from affluent suburban families thrive on being undisrupted as part of the respectable class. They do not want to play with fire by trying to beat a series of charges, especially knowing that a previous arrest on the same charge will make the heat on them the second time a lot stronger. To argue otherwise shows a lack of understanding of human nature, especially the nature of people from this privileged background. Their bullying needs to be challenged, at which point their edifice threatens to crumble and they will likely regroup and keep their heads down. Flip it around the other way: can you really deny that when there are no consequences at all, this is encouraging to them to feel like they can keep operating with impunity, and in fact to maintain the belief in their own minds that they aren’t even doing anything wrong?
Although he was a different age and socioeconomic profile, and the crime is more heinous and clear-cut, you can also see an example of what I’m talking about with the recent confession of Jacob Wetterling’s rapist and murderer. A quarter century ago he was on a tear, going after a whole series of young boys. But not all that long after Wetterling’s disappearance, he was questioned by the police–and it appears that despite their not being able to prove anything, he stopped cold with the attacks, and contented himself with child porn, which is what he was ultimately convicted on.
If you are insinuating I did not take a stand at that time, you are dead wrong. I have always told those assholes what I think of them, including on the cesspool of YouTube comment sections, much like I do with other right-wing shitstains I encounter. And I circulated on social media the memes that ridiculed them and their “actually, it’s about ethics in video game journalism” bullshit excuse.
A rape kit wouldn’t have worked because there was no penis in vagina intercourse in this case. Turner was interrupted before he got that far and had only gotten around to digital penetration.
That’s what happens when ANYONE commits a felony at 20. It shows up on your “permanent record.” Maybe after you serve your time and then spend another 10 years clean, your permanent record is wiped of your felony, but for right now, that’s how it works. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.
If you think that’s an issue, I would agree - but I think its a bigger issue with victimless crimes - possession comes to mind. Then with non-violent crimes - burglary, car theft, identity theft. Rape, sexual assault, assault and murder are violent crimes - I’d be harder pressed to believe you should get a pass after 20 years if you raped a child when you were 25 - or 35.
nmn
Have you read any of the reasons that rape victims shower immediately, don’t report immediately, and are further traumatized by rape kits?
Unless we seriously change the cost-benefit ratios for these things, we should have no reasonable expectation that this will change.
If for some reason this is a mystery to you, then here is an article to start with—
By the way, I’m not one of those progressives who think felons should get to vote. I do think that its reasonable to have some felonies fade off your background checks - however, the whole point to the sex offender registry is that they never will.
What “chance for a second act” would you give Brock Turner/?
That was less about you and more a ‘general you’; sorry if it seemed accusatory, it wasn’t meant to be.
However, one thing to consider is that in a public discussion, if you (both personal and generic) haven’t spoken out in a particular forum about one, but do about the other, your integrity is weakened. Maybe you truly do take a principled and measured approach to the issue, and speak out against teenage trolls in far-flung corners of the internet. But if you only take to the SDMB (or your personal Facebook, or whatever) to decry the white male victim, then you present a position that is maybe less considered than the one you truly have.
All of which is maybe fodder for a different thread, but the whole complicated morass we’re dealing with in the 21st century is about untangling the subtleties of language and culture that work together to keep power from women and minorities.
Also, you manage to find time and energy to read and argue with people in YouTube comments? You must really get off on extreme punishment; I can’t imagine a more frustrating, bash-one’s-head-against-the-wall way to spend my time!
How about the same thing I would wish for any non-murderer single offender felon: the chance to become a productive, anonymous member of society?
I don’t remember seeing anyone here take the gamergate line, but I don’t read the vast majority of threads so maybe I missed it.
I’m sorry, but this is a fallacy and it’s a bad argument no matter who uses it. Entering discussion A doesn’t require you to present your bona fides from discussion B.
Is there perhaps some fallacy of the excluded middle here? People must be allowed to say what happened to them and who did it without a mandate to go through the hell of the legal system. That’s different, to me, than singlehandedly trying to take down someone’s reputation. I never tried to destroy my adopted father’s reputation, but I am not going to lie about what happened either. And if at some point in the course of my healing, I write a memoir that includes a discussion of what he did to me, that’s on his conscience, not mine. In fact, I recently wrote a short piece about it that my writer friends have encouraged me to submit for publication. I’m not required to have a conviction in order to discuss what it’s like to be a survivor of abuse, or to advocate for others based on my own experience. If his name gets dragged through the mud *I don’t fucking care. * He should have thought about that before he molested me.
The problem is you’re thinking about this from the POV of people who are wrongfully accused. We’re not talking about that. We’re talking about people who actually committed the crimes they are accused of. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my adopted father is guilty. I don’t need the court of public opinion to decide that for me nor do I need a conviction to know it is true. Why the fuck should I care about his reputation? Why should I fucking care if the man who molested me receives some social blowback for his abuse? In this story, he manipulated and abused me for six years to satiate his own sick needs. Now my needs come first. Period.
Hey, wait a minute! What’s wrong with the University of Northern Iowa?
It’s a good school; I went there myself for a while.
First of all, let me say that it’s exactly kind of way of expressing yourself that comes off as condescending. So if you find that people are reacting to the way you say things, it’s something that you might look into.
Second, I very much believe in the presumption of innocence and proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In fact, I hold a degree from an accredited and respected American law school and I am licensed in two jurisdictions in the practice of law.
But what I also know is that those standards are criminal law standards, and they apply when the power of the state is being used to haul a defendant before the courts under threat of taking away his or her freedom or other form of criminal punishment.
These standards do not apply—and cannot apply—to every aspect of everyday life outside a criminal court.
Say I am an employer, and Employees A, B, and C tell me that Employee D has been creating a hostile working environment with his speech and has been physically importuning himself on them.
Say I am a parent, and Child A tells me that Relative B has been making unwelcome sexual advances.
Say I am chairman of Benevolent Association and Members A, B, and C tell me that Member D has been harassing them.
Say I am a university president, and Students A, B, and C tell me that Student D has sexually assaulted them.
There are times when life is hard. There are times where life does not give you a neutral default. In these cases, I have to talk to the people involved and decide whom to believe.
I have to be aware that in our society some huge percentage of sexual misconduct is never punished, say 90 percent, not just because it’s not reported, but because law enforcement officials make it very difficult for victims to come forward, because in large proportions of cases, law enforcement officials don’t want to take action, because in large proportions of cases, law enforcement officials disbelieve victims who are telling the truth. And even when there are prosecutions, because the criminal justice system sets very high standards before adjudicating guilt.
So I have to be aware that 90 percent of sexual deviants are running free without conviction. I have to know that I must make a decision, whether to act or not to act, and either one of those decisions is going to be likely to have an extreme impact on someone in my community, whether my employees, or my children, or my friends, or my students—people whose well-being is my responsibility.
Sometimes you have to decide, and you can’t rely on the justice system as a crutch to make your decisions on your behalf, because people around you are affected by your decision to act or not. And you have to do that with the knowledge that failing to act might be victimizing the victims another time.
And acting may be punishing an innocent person, without giving them the chance to plead their case, which I believe is far worse. I’m shocked and dismayed that you as an attorney would support that.
You know beyond the shadow of a doubt. But how can people who just know him at work and don’t know you be so sure? If we could all read minds…(well, but even then you have people with dubious recovered memories and moral panics like the infamous “satanic daycare” case. But I digress.)
Should each potential employer, or business associate, or client, do a little miniature trial and interview him, interview you and any other witnesses, character or otherwise? Do you see the problem there? I think you should feel free to tell your story in anonymous forums like this, and also with intimates with the understanding that they won’t go on a public campaign against him. But no, I would oppose your publicly naming him in a book.
I’m sorry, but I believe too strongly in the right of everyone, guilty and innocent alike, to be able to have a presumption of innocence and to be able to cross-examine the witnesses against them, to be represented by counsel, and to present evidence in front of a judge and a jury of their peers. To make someone unemployable and a social outcast is as serious a penalty as to give them years in prison. And I don’t believe it’s right to do that to someone without due process. Please don’t take this personally!
Just to make absolutely clear where I am coming from, this is not specifically about rape for me. Here’s a thought experiment to illustrate.
Let’s say I could be metaphysically sure that of ten men in a holding cell, nine of them were guilty of repeatedly kidnapping, torturing, and killing children (about the worst crime I can think of), but one of them was metaphysically certain to be 100% innocent. But I have no way to know which one that is.
I have the power to put them all in prison for life, but with no way for the innocent one to clear his name, or I can let them all go free. I choose freedom for all without hesitation.
I understand this might not be such an easy choice for many other people, but it is a core element of my ethical worldview. The way this maps onto real life is that if I’m on a jury and I think there’s about a 90% chance someone is guilty of a heinous crime, I am going to vote to acquit, and 11 other angry men and women are not going to dissuade me–unless they use logic and evidence to make me think it is at least in the 99+ percent range (and I will still feel uneasy about it unless it is more like 99.99%.)
That’s great. Your example of why your worldview is so superior and unobtainable to the rest of us, in response to the criticism that the rest of human society is not the criminal justice system and should not be held to the same standards, is:
you wouldn’t put people in prison if you knew some of them were innocent.
Tell me, is this the kind of stupid that feels smart, or do you actually know that was really stupid?
You realize nobody cares when people get raped and molested, right? Nobody cares who did it. Nobody cares if it’s true. Nobody cares. Every once in a while there will be a high profile case in which everybody will pretend to care, but when it’s their relative/friend/acquaintance going through it, nobody gives a shit. Nobody talks about it, nobody holds anybody accountable, nothing happens. Maybe, occasionally, someone loses their job. Then they get a new job. Life moves on.
My Mom’s 2nd husband also molested me when I was too young to remember. He confessed, pled guilty, was convicted of criminal sexual conduct, and served time in prison. At the time, there were people coming up to my mother and offering to have him killed in prison. Now that he’s out? Nobody cares. One of my aunts dated his cousin, saw him at family events, nobody bothered to tell me. Nobody cares. He has a job, a family, his life is fine.
I had a friend growing up whose older brother raped her at knifepoint multiple times. He went to prison. As soon as he was out of prison, my friend was pressured by her entire family to reconcile with him, forgive and forget, Jesus knows the way. He had a job, he had a life. Eventually he died.
I know another convicted rapist in my extended family who got a slap on the wrist for being a rich boy. When the grandparents took all the kids to Europe he was invited, he got married and has a daughter the worst he has suffered is he’s not allowed to go within so many feet of her school or somesuch. He has plenty of friends.
Nobody cares.
Forgive me if the notion that a mere accusation can permanently destroy someone is farfetched to me, given how many actually convicted rapists I have seen return to complete normalcy with everyone looking the other way. It’s amazing how even very smart, socially adept people will swallow complete bullshit when faced with an inconvenient truth about someone in their social circle. As my husband’s little sister put it, after hanging out for hours drinking with our convicted rapist on a cruise, ‘‘He didn’t really do anything. He was just a bystander.’’
And no, I’m not taking it personally. All I can do is state my case and hope I am heard.
FTR in my particular instance I wouldn’t be publically naming anyone in a book, but everything I write I will publish under my own name. I’m a writer, I want credit for my work, that’s the deal.
I’m curious how you feel about moral wrongs that aren’t explicitly against the law. If your wife cheats on you, are you allowed to tell people? If a man has a history of jealous, controlling, possessive relationship behavior, is it all right to warn people away from him? If someone is a compulsive liar, can you publicly call them out on their bullshit? Or should people never have any consequence for their actions unless it’s punishable in a court of law?
They are not being subject to criminal punishment by the state. You are not putting them in prison. You are not killing them. That’s the difference.
Criminal law standards are for criminal courts. We have to live 99 percent of our lives outside of the justice system. And we have to make decisions that affect the people around us. And a failure to act is just as consequential as a decision to act.
That’s what I mean when I say that sometimes life is hard. You have to make hard decisions. And you can’t rely on the justice system.
Sometimes our relationships are subject to the law. So if you fire someone unjustly, you might be subject to a claim under civil employment law. But the vast majority of our social relationships are not subject to the criminal law system.
A person doesn’t necessarily have the right to stay in my employment if I believe he or she is harming other employees. A person doesn’t necessarily have the right to stay a member of my social club. A person doesn’t necessarily have the right to the company of my children. A person doesn’t necessarily have the right to remain a student in my university.
The standards of criminal law don’t apply to every single situation. Sometimes we just have to decide whether we believe that someone is harming the people around us and exclude that person, because 90 percent of the time, the criminal justice system will not do anything about it. Sometime life is that difficult.
We are not talking about putting people in prison. That’s the business of the justice system. That’s the whole point.
We are talking about excluding people from our social groups when we believe that they are harming other members of the group.