And spamforbrains’ commentary?
LOL. You’re the one who came in with the legal hypothetical. If you believe it was necessary, why don’t YOU show ME where spamforbrains might have been “laboring under the belief that, as a matter of law,” rape victims are entitled to legal immunity on criminal charges when they report a rape?
For someone who claims to value precision in discussions of legal issues, you sure seem happy to jettison that precision when it’s convenient for you.
The poster in question was clearly talking not about legal immunity in the criminal justice system, but about notions of fairness in BYU’s disciplinary system. The discussion was explicitly, from the very beginning, about the disciplinary practices of a private university. The links provided were about BYU’s internal decisions to expel students who reported rape; they were not about the criminal prosecutions of rape victims who also committed crimes.
You understand, i presume, given your lawyerly smarts and education, the difference between the actions of a criminal prosecutor and the internal disciplinary procedure of a private university?
And in case you missed it, spamforbrains also finished off the discussion of this issue with the following observation:
Emphasis mine.
Happy to help!
But you didn’t help.
spam, in the sentence you quote, is saying he doubts the expulsion is illegal; he’s not discussing criminal immunity for her illegal conduct disclosed during her report of being raped. In other words, he’s saying the university has no criminal liability, and not discussing the criminal liability of the rape victim at all.
Happy to help you!
spam’s more general sentiment was perhaps, or perhaps not, hidden in inferences to be made from his post. He described the situation as the university expelling the rape victim for reporting the rape, but the supporting citation clearly described the penalty as arising from the rape victim’s concomitant use of contraband immediately antecedent to the rape. He may, therefore, have been suggesting that the victim’s contraband use was somehow protected as a matter of law if ir came to light in this fashion.
No other reason could have motivated such a disparity between spam’s characterization and the actual facts, so far as I can see. But I welcome your correction on this point.
Right. Which demonstrates his understanding that the university is legally permitted to expel a person for breaking the honor code, even if the honor code violation was discovered as a result of reporting a sexual assault. His observations were solely about the actions of a private institution, and not about the criminal rights (or otherwise) of a rape victim, all of which makes your initial query completely beside the point, nothing more than an exercise in self-pleasure.
This is hilarious!
The penalty described in the supporting citation was not a criminal penalty; it was university expulsion, at the hands of a private institution. Nowhere does it talk about criminal consequences as a result of the use of contraband, and nowhere does spamforbrains or the supporting citation make any claims about the issue of criminal liability (or protection from such liability) for a rape victim who also commits a crime. You’re excellent at identifying the possibility that someone might have suggested something that never appears in the things they said or in the things they cited, though, i’ll give you that.
More generally, in addition to finding things that simply aren’t there, it’s your method of pointing these non-existent errors. Why not, instead of your self-indulgent hypotheticals, just say something like, “Hey, spamforbrains, when you posted about the BYU cases, were you suggesting that a rape victim is legally entitled to immunity for criminal acts committed proximate to the sexual assault?” I’ve remarked on many occasions before that your legal expertise is incredibly valuable in many threads on this message board; it would be even more valuable if you didn’t insist on this sort of unhelpful bullshit.
The fact of the matter is these women were not “kicked out for reporting rape” they were investigated for other things such as drug use which violates BYU’s rules. I also see no evidence that BYU gave any sort of pass to the men involved who would’ve been kicked out merely for sex outside of marriage without BYU even needing to establish any sort of rape occurred.
Honestly popularizing the idea that a woman will be kicked out for reporting when the facts say otherwise is creating FUD which will scare women from reporting.
In addition to the instances at Brigham Young University cited above, the conservative religious institution Patrick Henry College in Virginia has punished/expelled rape victims, often letting the men off with lesser punishment. In some cases, the alleged rapists had also acquired and provided alcohol to the victims, which was an additional infraction against the college’s strict behavior rules. The Washington Post ran an article about it a while back.
My description above of Patrick Henry College as a “conservative religious” institution, may give the erroneous impression that the place is a divinity school. In fact, it is a liberal arts college which emphasizes Evangelical Christianity. A better usage would have been “conservative, religious”, or “conservative and religious”.
I don’t see anywhere in the WP article where it says rape accusers were expelled from Patrick Henry for making rape allegations, which is also not actually what happened at BYU either.
And why in any case would a general discussion on college treatment of sexual assault focus so heavily on a few of the very most religiously conservative colleges in the US? And not only because they are unusual, but because the standards they set (no sex outside marriage, young women committing to dress ‘modestly’, etc) are known to the students who choose to attend.