Can't we all just get along?

[Francesca R]

*bangs head on desk*

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

*bangs head on desk*

Hey, I didn't put that bruise on your forehead.

 

[Francesca R]

But can't you see you are writing off justice for thousands of rape victims? "Oh there's no physical evidence? Well sorry but unless the defendant confesses, case closed". Is that the maximum amount of effort you think that should be extended by the state in the interests of justice?

 

[Lonewulf]

Actually, I hate to say it, but Ivor brings up a decent question. How DO you convict in a case like that?

But can't you see you are writing off justice for thousands of rape victims? "Oh there's no physical evidence? Well sorry but unless the defendant confesses, case closed". Is that the maximum amount of effort you think that should be extended by the state in the interests of justice?

Well... okay, just to put this into perspective (and I REALLY apologize if I offend for doing this), if Fiona's case was brought to trial, how can one go about convicting the man that raped her? Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the man involved had no prior rape convictions and was never on trial for rape before.

I'm honestly curious, and I mean no offense.

 

[Francesca R]

How you maximise the likelihood of conviction, without false conviction, and without abridgement of the defendant's legal rights and with minimum curtailment of anybody's civil liberties . . . is a vast subject. The book I mentioned above spends a lot of time on this.

My response was to what I perceived as an implied "It's impossible" rather than "How". I'll take that back though.

 

[Francesca R]

(ETA--I'm not going to enter any hypothetical discussion of an actual case that a member has opened up about, since personally I think this would disrespect the extension of trust she has shown).

On the general issue itself, sorry I will have to come back to this (at work, no access to resources)

 

[Lonewulf]

(ETA--I'm not going to enter any hypothetical discussion of an actual case that a member has opened up about, since personally I think this would disrespect the extension of trust she has shown)

You're right. I should have thought twice about that. I apologize, Fiona.

On the general issue itself, sorry I will have to come back to this (at work, no access to resources)

Well, I'm in no rush.

 

[malbui]

... Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the man involved had no prior rape convictions and was never on trial for rape before.

Forgive my ignorance of matters legal here, but would that even play a part? My understanding of the situation in the UK, which I'm happy to admit is negligible, is that jurors are not informed of any previous allegations against the defendant at the start of a trial. It's only after the verdict is passed and sentencing prepared (if appropriate) that the defendant's history gets an airing.

ETA: Of course, that wouldn't be true of the CPS's choice to prosecute, but it would have an impact on the jury's deliberations.

 

[Lonewulf]

How you maximise the likelihood of conviction, without false conviction, and without abridgement of the defendant's legal rights and with minimum curtailment of anybody's civil liberties . . . is a vast subject. The book I mentioned above spends a lot of time on this.

Hm, I should probably go and buy it. I admit that the subject interests me enough.

 

[Lonewulf]

Forgive my ignorance of matters legal here, but would that even play a part? My understanding of the situation in the UK, which I'm happy to admit is negligible, is that jurors are not informed of any previous allegations against the defendant at the start of a trial. It's only after the verdict is passed and sentencing prepared (if appropriate) that the defendant's history gets an airing.

ETA: Of course, that wouldn't be true of the CPS's choice to prosecute, but it would have an impact on the jury's deliberations.

I was thinking more on the impact, if they knew about it. I mentioned that so that it couldn't possibly be a factor in the case, whether "officially" or unofficially.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

But can't you see you are writing off justice for thousands of rape victims? "Oh there's no physical evidence? Well sorry but unless the defendant confesses, case closed".

Yes. Life is not fair and sometimes anything* we try only makes it more unfair.

Is that the maximum amount of effort you think that should be extended by the state in the interests of justice?

I am at a loss to see what can be done in such cases, but I'm willing to listen to your or anyone else's suggestions.



*Excluding Lonewulf's friend's solution involving a baseball bat.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

The regional variations in conviction rates show that there is plenty that can be done in order to increase justice in this area. Nobody expects that every rapist will be convicted, and the conviction rates will always be lower than for some other crimes, but there is still an awful lot that can be done.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4276214.ece

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7496013.stm

 

[Lonewulf]

*Excluding Lonewulf's friend's solution involving a baseball bat.

I just want to add...

I asked him about his attack on his rapist. I suggested that it could have caused more problems than it solved; escalation can be hazardous, in his case and the case of any bystanders. His justification was this:

He used a baseball bat instead of a gun (keep in mind this is in Texas, gun ownership is expected), so he would have almost no chance of ending up harming any bystanders.

And if the other guy had a gun... then the pain of the memory would be over.

He was angry and he was suicidal. I just want to include that; his solution was partly a suicide plan.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

This seemed like an interesting idea for cases where consent is an issue, but then you realise that once it became known that this was a police tactic, rapists would become wise to it. Not all of them though...

Prosecutors and police are considering using telephone calls or text messages to lure rape suspects into incriminating themselves.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) confirmed "initial discussions" were under way on whether such tactics could improve the UK's rape conviction rate. Under the system, rape victims call or message an alleged attacker in a bid to extract an admission of guilt.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7187813.stm

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

From Prof. Yaffle's link: ETA: Before she changed it)) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...on-rates-depend-on-where-you-live-472020.html

The Fawcett's Commission on Women and the Criminal Justice System, says the region with the worst record of rape convictions is Gloucestershire where fewer than one in 100 complaints results in a successful prosecution. This compares with 14 convictions from 100 complaints in Northamptonshire.

Almost half of all adult women in England and Wales have experienced domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking. Police in London receive on average two calls a week from women and girls reporting crimes linked to the notion of honour, such as forced marriage and murder threats by family members.

...

Yesterday, the Government launched its own programme for combating the discrepancy between allegations of rape and the number of cases that end in a conviction. One proposal includes the use of video interviews with victims, within hours of the offence - to support the credibility of the woman's evidence.

So the best conviction rate is 14%. Presumably that includes a number of rapes which had physical evidence to support the victim's recall of events.

The suggestion of using video interviews conducted within hours of the offence does not sound like a robust method of determining the truth, rather who is the more convincing actor/actress.

Whether I'm telling the truth or not, I'm not a convincing person.

 

[Francesca R]

Life is not fair and sometimes anything* we try only makes it more unfair.

I'm willing to listen to your or anyone else's suggestions.

Well which of these is it? You are simultaneously saying "Nothing to do here" and "What could we do?". To be frank, that indicates a type of closed-mindedness that will flatly reject any idea on the grounds that it is not perfect, which is not very encouraging.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Well which of these is it? You are simultaneously saying "Nothing to do here" and "What could we do?". To be frank, that indicates a type of closed-mindedness that will flatly reject any idea on the grounds that it is not perfect, which is not very encouraging.

Whichever you prefer to believe.

 

[Lonewulf]

Well which of these is it? You are simultaneously saying "Nothing to do here" and "What could we do?". To be frank, that indicates a type of closed-mindedness that will flatly reject any idea on the grounds that it is not perfect, which is not very encouraging.

You're misreading him, I think.

He said:

Life is not fair and sometimes anything* we try only makes it more unfair.

I'm willing to listen to your or anyone else's suggestions.

The first line does not negate the second.

"Life is not fair and sometimes anything we try only makes it more unfair." This is true; sometimes life is not fair, and any measures to attempt to make it more fair requires giving up something that most people would not want to give up, and would find more unfair (for instance, would you sacrifice personal privacy for security? And even if you would -- could you at least see the viewpoint of others that might consider a high amount of surveillance to be "more unfair" than having more security?)

It's obvious that he's suggesting that this is one of those cases. But by using "sometimes" and, in light of his second line, he's suggesting that in this case, things may be made more fair, and he's willing to be convinced, although he personally cannot see how it can be.

I don't see anything objectionable in such a statement, myself.

 

[quarky]

The guy in the O.P. was a jerk.
I'm glad it wasn't worse.

I was almost raped at gun point once. I was hitch-hiking, and a young male.
The guy driving was an older male. He locked me in the car. He tried to arouse me, quite unsucessfully, and finally shoved me out of the car on the N.J. turnpike at 3 a.m.

I was promptly arrested by a cop for being on the thru-way. It was a bad night. I had no way to prove to the cop why i happened to be out there, and so agitated.

I empathize big time with anyone dealing with unwanted sexual activity.
After that experience, I believe i was able to notice the initial signs of trouble, and extradite myself before it got worse.

 

[GreNME]

It's obvious that he's suggesting that this is one of those cases. But by using "sometimes" and, in light of his second line, he's suggesting that in this case, things may be made more fair, and he's willing to be convinced, although he personally cannot see how it can be.

I don't see anything objectionable in such a statement, myself.

Francesca is frustrated at the statement is because it's approaching the problem-- a possible crime that does start off as a 'he said / she said' (or some variation)-- from only the initial simplistic approach. If we're discussing hypothetical, in-the-vacuum, all-else-is-equal kind of scenario that kind of approach is fine, but real life is almost always not going to representative of that kind of approach. Rape cases do tend to hinge heavily on testimonial evidence since physical evidence can often be difficult to obtain or inconclusive, but that doesn't present an insurmountable challenge.

Very often in cases of rape-- in part because many rapes happen to people who know the perpetrator, and in part because of a high prevalence of mixed signals I described in an earlier post-- taking depositions from both immediate parties can be very illuminating for the police, the victim, and the perpetrator. Typically, a person who has committed a rape where the victim wasn't a stranger will not feel as though they did anything wrong, and will often insist that there's some misunderstanding and attempt clarification. Not only is that sort of reaction usually expected, but it's the reason why getting a deposition as early on in the case as possible is the most helpful in figuring out whether this is something that can be pursued or whether this is more of a civil or domestic dispute than a criminal one^*. After the initial deposition is made there might be a good reason for follow-up with the two involved parties, or sometimes there might be other parties whose statements can be helpful in drawing a useful illustration of what happened for law enforcement. None of this is going to happen until the first depositions, though, and simple cases of "s/he did it" versus "no I didn't" are not going to be the usual result coming from the questioning that these depositions cover. Just like with any crime, police are going to ask questions to establish the situation, what intents were involved from both parties, and whether either party was aware of the other one's during the course of the act. Right from the start, the steps required by law enforcement in determining the possibility of a crime are going to make this a far more complicated type of situation than "he said / she said" very quickly.

So, while I can understand the initial question Ivor put forth, the answer is easy: things go from that initial dilemma to one more complicated than that pretty quickly. My guess is that Francesca was frustrated because this much should be obvious. If it's not obvious, then now you know^**.



_{* I realize that putting things that way can seem very painful to a victim as well as to a falsely-accused perpetrator (though conceivably more to a real victim), but establishing a case of a believable crime having been committed is key to getting the "buy in" from police who will be investigating a case. I sorely wish there were more clear ways to get this across to otherwise frantic and traumatized victims, because I can almost guarantee that false allegation makers with malicious intent tend to be good (though not always skilled) at presenting their case in such a manner. ** And knowing is half the battle. GI-Joe!}