The murder of a rapist? Or "gay panic" killing?

Great Debates
1

A totally bizarre and horrific incident occurred in Bloomington, IN, involving a guy who I actually knew, Mike Griffin, and a literature professor, Don Belton. The incident happened at the end of 2009 but the trial is now going on. You can take your pick of news links to the case here, but to summarize: Mike Griffin stabbed Don Belton to death. Belton was a black literature professor of some renown. This alone was shocking enough, but even more surprising was Griffin’s reason for doing it. According to him, he was raped by Belton.

Local opinions are ranging from the idea that Griffin genuinely was raped by this man, and killed him later, to the idea that he may have had sexual relations with him voluntarily, felt guilty about it afterwards, and then killed him.

Lots of people, as you may imagine, have said: “Rape? Come on! How could this big, tough guy have been raped by this small, effeminate gay professor?” And at first, it seems like an understandable thing to say. But: would anyone deny that a rape could involve drugs and/or alcohol to intoxicate the victim to the point of non-consent? Any human being in the world can be raped, if the rapist has drugged them. It doesn’t matter how big, strong and dangerous they are.

If some big, strong athletic woman publicly accused a small timid man of raping her when she was under the influence of alcohol, I doubt anyone would cast any doubt on the veracity of her claim. But the equivalent of this has happened here, and yet people are still insisting that a rape couldn’t have occurred because the supposed victim is so much larger and stronger than the accused rapist.

I must say, I doubt that Griffin killed Belton out of bigotry. I knew Griffin during high school (we played rugby together, actually) and he was not a bigoted guy at all. He never seemed homophobic (he was an active member of the school theater production, not exactly the environment of an anti-gay bigot.) I recall him being on the politically liberal side. He was a very nice guy, and he never seemed violent (off of the rugby field, anyway.) I can only imagine that he was traumatized in combat or that his brain was affected by the explosion of a bomb (he suffered a concussion and bleeding from his ears, if I recall correctly. There must have been brain damage.)

What do you think really happened here?

2

What happened on Christmas Day? Are we talking wandering hands at a Christmas party, or a drunken threesome in someone’s dorm room? It’s difficult to know how to process the claim of rape without knowing what actions constitute it.

Even granting the rape accusation, it seems pretty clear that Griffin’s actions after the fact were premeditated murder.

3

It looks like the murder happened two days after the alleged rape. That’s long enough that I can still buy the defendant being emotionally distraught. Totally separated from the world of the law, I would say that a strong emotional distress warrants lesser punishment because it decreases the capacity for normal, ordinary thought and it also incites reactions that would not normally be incited.

In the world of the court systems and our laws, I know that some forms of emotional distress are successfully used to get individuals lesser sentences, or are used as grounds for a lesser charge even. I don’t know enough about the criminal justice system to say whether such an approach would be appropriate in the jurisdiction in which the crime happened.

If he had killed Belton immediately after the rape, I could probably say that the defendant should perhaps even not be punished. That doesn’t mean I’m saying death is the appropriate penalty for rape, only that I would accept someone who was raped being so traumatized that right after the fact they could not meaningfully distinguish between right and wrong and thus should not be held culpable for their actions.

Again, I don’t know enough about the criminal justice system to know how much my opinions square with case law. We do know that for any form of mitigation the sex had to be rape, and that of course is something Griffin will need to demonstrate to some satisfaction to successfully defend himself against the murder charge.

I have no idea what really happened, but if Griffin was actually raped I think it is entirely possible he was so upset and emotionally distraught he did something he would not other wise do. Since I don’t know Griffin personally and information on this case is still somewhat scant I think it’s impossible to say until more details come out.

4

Looks like the jury is deliberating on this now.

Griffin said this during the trial:

The “keep him from touching me any more” is obviously something he has been coached to say, when arguing any sort of self defense you never state you were intending to kill, only that you were trying to end the threat to yourself. I don’t mind that per se, I do wonder why someone is carrying around a 10-inch knife. In most States it is illegal to just carry around a 10-inch knife, 10 inch knives are not commonly used as carrying knives unless you’re in the wilderness hunting.

Why did he have such a large knife?

Without having heard the testimony directly I can’t judge it for sure, but just based on this telling of it I sort of question the legitimacy of Griffin’s account of the stabbing. The description of the sex seems to ring somewhat true, but I don’t know that it would rise to the level of rape. Two people get super drunk and have sex. Griffin may have never consented to sex while drunk, but since both parties were drunk and one is deceased its impossible to know the particulars of what went down.

5

But from the Op sexually assaulted him in front of his girlfriend.

Wouldn’t that put a slightly different spin on it? So not only was Griffin too drunk to defend himself but the girlfriend was doing what while she was watching?

Her testimony would be very interesting.

6

She may have been drunk also.

7

Griffin is probably very reluctant to actually discuss the details of what happened sexually. It is probably extremely embarrasing to him. I remember him as being pretty soft spoken and modest and not the kind of guy who ever talked about his sex life in any way.

8

I don’t doubt - that’s why I would think that her testimony may be very interesting.

It’s not a fair assumption, but I suspect that there may be an element of her ridiculing him following the assault.

9

I’m not buying a rape. What I see is a murder and a trial excuse.

According to this website (an obviously pro-Belton site), Griffin testified that he didn’t actually have any memory of a sexual assault and was operating only on the word of his girlfriend, who was the drunkest of all of them. There was no forensic evidence presented for a sexual assault, and I flat see no reason to believe it.

It looks like the jury didn’t either since they came in with a guilty verdict today.

I suspect this was just a Hail Mary attempt to use the victim’s sexuality as an excuse to paint him as a predator and hope for a homophobic juror, but it doesn’yt appear that there was any actual evidence presnted for a sexual assault outside the girlfriend’s testimony.

10

Here’s a better description of what happened. The two men did have sex, as witnessed by the girlfriend. I doubt we’ll ever know if it was rape, or if Griffith lied to try to excuse his gay sex acts to his girlfriend (or himself) or perhaps Griffith was drunk to the point that even he doesn’t know.

In any case, raped or not, Griffith seems pretty clearly guilty of murder. While he may have been too drunk to defend himself during the Christmas party, the idea that two days later the only way a sober 25 year old marine could defend himself from an unarmed, older literature professor was to go to his house and stab him 22 times is pretty weak.

11

Griffin testified that he had no memory of a sexual assault. The jury doesn’t seem to have bought it, and there’s no compelling reason to believe anything necessarily happened sexually. It was a defense strategy in a murder trial that failed to convince the jury.

12

A consensual sex act sounds credible to me. Rape does not.

13

Sir,

This seems to be a little at odds with what I have seen you say in other threads about rape.

It seems obvious that Griffin was very drunk, so how could he have consented. Which by definition is rape right?

14

It’s been totally surreal to witness this whole thing, as someone who actually knew the guy. All of my memories of him are good ones because my time playing rugby in high school was one of the best times of my life. One of the strangest things is to constantly be seeing that photo of him in the newspaper where he just looks like the most evil, soulless monster. That’s the only face of Mike Griffin that the majority of people will ever know.

This is the “Timber” Griffin that I remember. A really nice guy and always smiling.

15

Consented to what? What is the real evidence that anything happened at all?

Plus it sounds like they were all drunk.

Plus, a Marine can’t fight off a little college professor?

I need to see better evidence than the testimony of one admittedly wasted girlfriend to believe thet a sexual assault actually happened.

ATA, for the record, I’ve never said that a drunk person can’t necessarily consent. That’s me. I have certainly had sex while under the influence of any number of things. I would not say that I was a rape victim.

16

I’ve said this before, but the only thing, I know for sure about people is that you never know anything for sure about people.

17

Given the cites here, if I were on the jury, I’d vote to convict Griffin.

I’ll add the caveat I am not on the jury and I am not pretending the cites here give me the whole story.

18

Missed the edit window. meant to say “that’s NOT me.” I have not been one of the people that says drunk people can’t necessarily consent to sex. I have consented to sex while drunk many times (and while stoned and while tripping balls).

19

So this wasn’t you?

20

“Too incapacitated” does not mean any level of intoxication at all. There are levels of intoxication. I’ve made it pretty clear in those threads that by “too incapacitated,” I’m talking about too drunk to comprehend whats going on or passed out. Not just drunk.