And how is this different to what Griffin is claiming?
And you pretty unequivocally did say that a woman too drunk to give consent is raped.
Then you said is this thread that you never said such a thing. :rolleyes:
Or is it only rape when it happens to a girl and is consensual sex when it happens to a guy? You don’t have any sons right?
Griffin didn’t claim anything. His girlfriend did, and not very credibly. Plus the murder victim was also allegedly drunk at the time, so if you think drunk = raped (which I don’t), then you have to think Griffin is a rapist.
That’s not what you said in an earlier thread.
For what it’s worth, I DON’T think Griffin was raped…
it was just the seeming inconsistency in your position that hit me.
In one thread you say that a woman can be too drunk to consent, yet in this thread you are saying unequivocally that although the testimony (and I agree not credible) is that he WAS too drunk to consent he was NOT raped.
You don’t find this strange at all?
DtC said he didn’t find Griffiths claims credible, not that it was categorically impossible for him to have been too drunk to consent. Your trying to hard to find a contradiction thats not there.
I don’t agree with your conclusion that the jury “didn’t buy” the sexual assault. The jury could well have concluded that the sexual assault happened, but still convicted him of murder. He didn’t remember the assualt himself, which lessens the claim that he was operating in some diminished capacity induced by rage over the assault, and in the final analysis, he could have been sodomized for 12 straight hours by the victim and a troupe of acrobatic albinos, and that’s still no legal justification for committing murder two days later.
The jury might have disbelieved the sexual assault story in its entirety, or they might have believed some of it, or they might have believed every word of it, and still voted guilty of murder.
Worst. Cirque du Soleil show. EVER.
It’s always hard for me to form an opinion of “what happened” based on what is reported about what was said in and out of court; the parties involved are too biased and have too much at stake, and the reporters will play up the more sensational aspects of the case. But from what’s been reported here, I’m not sure I would have considered the rape story sufficiently credible to function as mitigation for the murder.
Verdict is in, Griffin has been convicted of murder. He faces 45 to 65 years in prison.
I’m kind of surprised he wasn’t given a somewhat lighter sentence. I guess his story of the sexual assault was not really believed. Still, I don’t understand why else he would have killed Belton. Griffin is not some hyper-macho “kill the queer” bigoted goon, despite the evil-looking picture and the constantly-repeated label of “ex-Marine” as if that is the only thing that defines him as a person. Like I said, he never struck me as the kind of guy who was homophobic at all, let alone enough to kill a man because he regretted a sexual encounter with him.
I think this trial would have been totally, totally different if Griffin were female and Belton were heterosexual.
What isn’t credible about him being too drunk to consent?
In a word? Regret. He may have been a liberal and tolerant guy, but my guess is it’s one thing to have those views in the abstract and another to find yourself in a really confusing situation like this.
I don’t think this is really anything like a gay panic or transgender panic defense. Whether he was raped or just very remorseful about consensual sex, Griffin might’ve been very emotional when he went to see Belton two days later. But that’s not panic. The idea of the panic defense is that the defendant is so surprised and upset that upon learning the person is gay/TG/whatever, they lose control and aren’t responsible for the killing. You can’t say that happened here. Whatever happened between those guys, Griffin had two days to think about it and brought a weapon when he went to see Belton. Confronting someone that way and bringing a deadly weapon is stupid. If he thought he was raped, going to the police would have been the thing to do. I don’t know if there would have been grounds for a criminal case even if it was rape, but it would have been a place to start and the fact that Griffin did not go to the police makes you think he might’ve wanted to keep the sex a secret.
I doubt we’ll ever really know what happened here, and it’s possible that Griffin’s war history also contributed to what happened. In any case I’m sorry for what you’re going through as you try to figure out how your friend wound up in this situation, Argent Towers.
Yeah, it’s really been bothering me lately. Of course I should be more bothered by the death of Belton, but that’s just not how it plays out when you knew the murderer personally and not the victim. Belton sounds like he was a good guy, aside from whatever it was that he did with Griffin; whatever it was, he certainly didn’t deserve to die from it.
Griffin always seemed like a happy go lucky guy and not the aggressive, dangerous type. Now he’ll spend the prime years of his life in prison. I’m sure it will be absolute hell for him. I’ve known guys who were the kind of guy where they could go to prison and just adjust to it perfectly because they were already violent, conniving, criminally-minded guys whose friends were the same kind of people. Griffin was not one of those guys, at all.
The testimony is that they were BOTH drunk.
The fact that the other guy was just as drunk and was a lot smaller.
Why should he have gotten a lighter sentence? He murdered another human being in cold blood.
Yes. You should.
I never knew him so it’s not as jarring. Many in the community did know him and he is well missed.
People get killed all the time for all kinds of reasons. You hear about it on the news every day. But the idea that something could happen in a seemingly-normal person’s mind to make him stab someone else to death…that is scarier to me than the act of murder itself.
Where do you get the fact that the other guy was just as drunk?
Surely you don’t mean that the (alleged) rapist’s being drunk is a defense. That (alleged) rape doesn’t justify murder is, of course, a different question.
Oy. I don’t question those who say they are victims of rape. It’s just not my field. Maybe that’s leftover from being an advocate or something. I don’t know.
Moral of the story: Don’t assume consent from someone when they’re drunk, especially if they are ex Marines who don’t play for your team.
But seriously, people, you don’t have to physically overpower someone to rape them. :rolleyes:
Of course not. I mean that the attempts to say he couldn’t have consented are moot if they were both drunk.
Remove the gay angle from the story. Suppose a woman is raped at a party- or is told that she is, she personally doesn’t remember it- and kills the perp two days later. I think the jury would vote to convict even if it was proven the alleged rapist had sex with her.