Dr Deth doesn’t want to try him again because its so unfair for him. And denies he is a rapist because he hasn’t been convicted in a court of law. All that means is he hasn’t been convicting. It certainly doesn’t mean he isnt a rapist. There is a factual answer to that question whether he is ever convicted or not.
I argued that I am very sure he is a rapist based on the sheer number of women coming forward but…but…its going to be very hard if not impossible to prove he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Your expertise in prosecuting rape cases is?
White collar crimes are difficult to prosecute. Fraud is difficult to prosecute. I might actually shoot myself before I have to prosecute an offense under banking laws.
Rape is a bread and butter heinous crime like murder or GBH, which requires no special knowledge nor is it particularly technical.
Cases like Cosby’s fail not because rape is a particularly difficult crime to prosecute. They fail because they should never have been taken forward with the evidence that was presented.
If Cosby was not such a famous personality facing a public backlash; there would have been little chance of the case being taken forward. Of course if he had not been so famous then chances are he would have been arrested and convicted at the time. So take your pick.
This link is a sample, it’s the first thing I found searching “Celebrities with multiple felonies”
I didn’t have one in mind, but the wife watches TMZ and similar shows. It seems quite common when there is a gun,drug,dui, story and there is also a laundry list of other convictions.
I have seen friends do years(2-5) in prison for one theft, assault, gun or drug charge, most were a first felony, some were first conviction ever.
IMHO I feel I’ve seen celebrities get probation for slam dunk “go to prison” charges and then get more felony charges while on probation and still get fines,re-education, community service and rehab.
I could be wrong, but it seems like rich or famous people get a different schedule of punishment.
The ones you bring forward are easy to prosecute. That’s why you prosecute them. The majority are not prosecuted, because rape is hard to prove. Just look at the number of rape kits that have never seen the light of day.
If rape were easy to prove, there wouldn’t be a vast gulf between the number of rapists and the number of convicted rapists.
Even if we take it as true that the case for this particular situation is weak, we still have a bunch of other women who can verify this pattern. This should be admissible evidence, as it is why most people argue there is no reasonable doubt. Even if you can’t convince the jury of a particular rape, it should be enough to establish that he rapes.
So, yes, this should be brought forward, because the overall right thing to do is to legally punish a rapist. That is justice. If the justice system can’t provide it, then people will attempt to provide it extralegally. That’s why it’s so important that the justice system make the right choices.
And why I am really, really big on saying we need reform in the justice system.
This is what I meant, and I assumed this was largely common knowledge - the number of rapes that are purported to happen vs. the number of rapes that get prosecuted is disturbingly low. It’s precisely because the available evidence is usually so lacking, and it’s so difficult to establish what was consensual and what wasn’t. I mean, is anyone here really unsure whether or not Bill Cosby committed rape? He’s been accused by something like 50 women, and he’s conceded some freaking disturbing things in depositions. And yet, despite that, there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that he’ll see justice, because at the end of the day, testimony from the victim is not enough to establish guilt, and in many rape cases, there won’t be any evidence beyond testimony from the victim. The fact we can’t put a serial rapist like this behind bars is a good sign that we are doing a really miserable job at dealing with rape.
I must say I don’t find the “he was accused by a lot of people” thing to be terribly persuasive. Indeed I find it intellectually lazy and think that for it to have any meaning some evidence beyond simple accusations must be presented.
The difference between consensual sex and rape is sometimes just the word “No”, and nobody but the two parties around to hear it. It is this kind of case though, with plenty of potential evidence of a pattern of behavior that is so hard to bring into court that is a huge problem. A lot of cases are just two people, consensual activity before the sex, one claims to have said “No”, the other one says that didn’t there was no objection, no other accusations of misconduct, very difficult to prove.
Does anyone know why more witnesses weren’t brought in to testify about the many other claims? Were they unavailable/unwilling to testify? Was it a legal matter about the narrow definition of a pattern? Did the prosecution do it’s best here?
Its problematic and prejudicial to allow alleged victims to testify on the guilt/innocence portion of a trial. We dont allow it for any other crimes as far as I know. While its vitally important to protect victims of rape, its also important to protect the civil rights of those charged with rape because some of em will not be guilty of the crime.
Lets be very thoughtful about jettisoning rights for the accused.
I had to read this 3 times to figure out your first few sentences. I presume you mean we don’t allow victims of other crimes that the defendant has allegedly committed to testify. Since we pretty much always allow the victim of the specific criminal act the defendant is currently being prosecuted for to testify. Except for murder trials.
It was clear. BigT wants to allow all possible victims to testify whether there is any evidence they were victims or not. He thinks this will overcome any lack of actual physical evidence. Its more important to put away 100 accused rapists than allow 1 actual rapist to go free.
And “establishing that he rapes” gets us…? The statute penalizes the criminal conduct of raping specific persons at specific times and places. Establishing that a whole bunch of people report a pattern of rape in and of itself carries a penalty of absolutely nothing, we still need to prove this case.
Because of what’s involved in the Cosby cases, the defense has the advantage in that due to the known weaknesses of witness testimony they can go after the credibility of the pattern-establishing testimony and reasonable doubt.
If your neighbor had been accused of rape by over 40 people, would you be happy knowing your wife was at their house? At a certain point, it’s really hard to write these things off as coincidence. Particularly when many of the accusations are past the statutes of limitation, so the victims will never see any justice or restitution. What’s the motivation to lie about being raped by a celebrity? Are these women disturbingly into death threats?
Well, how about Cosby’s admission that he gives women quaaludes illegally? How about his admission that his view on consent is not exactly affirmative?
“I don’t hear her say anything,” you say during the deposition, describing your encounter with the plaintiff. “I don’t feel her say anything. And so I continue, and I go into that area between permission and rejection. I am not stopped.”
The legal rule is: other bad acts are inadmissible against the defendant in order to prove that the defendant acted the same way in the issue at trial.
However, they are admissible for other reasons. Prior convictions can be used to impeach the credibility of a defendant who testifies. Prior bad acts can be used to prove absence of mistake, or to show a common plan, scheme, or motive. But this cannot be the sort of general similarities that similar crimes will have. In general, the sorts of similarities here are not the kind of “signature” specifics that the law permits. (Back in the day, almost any sex crime could be used to show propensity to commit any other sex crime, because they all showed the defendant’s “lustful disposition.” This is no longer the case. I assume this is the regime BigT advocates.)
Yeah, that’s kind of the shit thing about all of this. As horrible as the current system is at dealing with rape cases, it’s really hard to imagine substantial changes that would make things better for the victim without being brutally, horrendously injust.
Bricker given that we know that most rapists have more than one victim, if you’ve been accused of rape by multiple other people that actually does raise the prior probability that you’re a rapist in this specific case as well.
I’m not a lawyer so not necessarily advocating that legal standards of evidence and statistical standards of evidence are the same thing, but it’s not entirely fallacious to use previous sex crimes as evidence that this one happened as well.
But, then, what happens when a guy is on trial for rape and says, hey, I’ve got an expert here who says most rapists have more than one victim – you know, the kind of guy who’s been accused of rape by multiple other people, right? You sentenced a guy like that just yesterday, using that exact reasoning? Yeah, well, I’ve never been found guilty, before; I’ve never even been accused of rape before. So, full marks for breaking out an absence-of-evidence-ain’t-evidence-of-absence argument; but count something in my favor if you counted some against him, huh?
I explicitly said “not necessarily advocating that legal and statistical evidence should be the same thing,” so I’m not making legal recommendations here.
That being said, the fact that someone has not been accused of rape before is weak evidence that he’s slightly less likely to have committed this particular rape. It can of course be overridden by many other sorts of evidence, like if the victim offers a convincing story, if there’s physical evidence etc…
