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Woman admits lying about rape

For every Crystal Magnum there is a "Marie." There was a ProPublica article called "An Unbelievable Story of Rape" that takes place across two states and several years. She claimed to have been raped, then recanted after aggressive interrogation. She was charged with a misdemeanor. Some time later it became obvious that she had been telling the truth. There are a number of salient points that could be taken away from this case.

If we were to charge people for making false accusations, there will be wrongful convictions. One should also take into consideration that a penalty for making a false accusation might discourage someone from recanting and instead pressing forward, the results of which would be unpredictable.
If you can't be bothered to read the article, or the book that resulted, there's also a Netflix adaptation here: https://www.netflix.com/watch/80153509
 
For every Crystal Magnum there is a "Marie." There was a ProPublica article called "An Unbelievable Story of Rape" that takes place across two states and several years. She claimed to have been raped, then recanted after aggressive interrogation. She was charged with a misdemeanor. Some time later it became obvious that she had been telling the truth. There are a number of salient points that could be taken away from this case.

If we were to charge people for making false accusations, there will be wrongful convictions. One should also take into consideration that a penalty for making a false accusation might discourage someone from recanting and instead pressing forward, the results of which would be unpredictable.
For every case there is another one. But we're talking about this one.
 
At the time, some people here insisted that any accusation of rape should be believed, which is idiotic.
Once again, trying to boil a sentiment down to a pithy line makes it easy to misinterpret.

The whole 'believe them' thing was meant to be more like 'don't immediately start treating them like a pariah/liar/fool' and 'don't (as an aquaintance or an internet rando) very publically interrogate their claim, especially to their face' and less like 'immediately go to the accused's house and slash his tires and see if you can get him fired from his job as though the claim is definitely ironclad factual'
 
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For every case there is another one. But we're talking about this one.
KC Johnson and Stuart Taylor wrote by far the best book on the Duke lacrosse case, Until Proven Innocent. On p. 381 they wrote, "And even accusers who admit that they have lied should usually be given a break let other false accusers be deterred from recanting by fear of punishment...But North Carolina attorney general Roy Cooper, alluding to her severe mental illnesses--details of which remain secret--said that he would not prosecute her because she seemed so deluded as to believe her own false accusations."

A portion of my comment was intended to flesh out their first point. The rest of my comment was intended to address BigRed's comment, "I also think anyone admitting or proven to have made such a false claim should get the same sentence as the accused would have gotten." I was also addressing something that this otherwise excellent passage of their book omitted, namely the problem that there are false recantations.
 
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