A New Study on campus rape and the one in five number

Parents Forum
921

QM: you know I always respect your opinions, and I think your point is excellent. I really hope you stay on this thread. Also, Hunt frequently points out it is better to allow some guilty to go free rather than risk convicting and punishing an innocent.( I really hope I’m not misrepresenting Hunt’s views.)

This is my view at this point in time. In all these gray area, he said/she said cases, where the accused is not convicted even if guilty - we may not have the luxury of not objecting, or avoiding the discussion, if we want to change the status quo. I have no way to know if Emma Sulkowicz’s accused is innocent or guilty of rape. I do know she has empowered other women, by her actions, to report their own assaults. I have no idea how to balance that good against the possibility her accused is innocent and substantially damaged by her actions.

Dstark has written pages about the idea that the fact someone is found not guilty doesn’t mean they are innocent. That was an important idea to me in these threads.

922

@Demosthenes49, I just said what I said. I am not talking about creating laws.

Just speaking for myself, I don’t automatically assume guilt. I look at what I know and may come up with an opinion. Many times I don’t have an opinion. I may change my opinions as I learn more.

I think the accused is guilty of many acts in the Stanford case. The accused did admit he fingered the girl. However, I am not sitting on the jury and if I couldn’t be objective, I would let the court know before the trial begins.

923

Hmm. First of all, I was not “defending” him. I was examining the facts that I could find before making a judgement about whether a rape occurred. All we have is the police report. No matter how terrible a person this guy is, he cannot be found to have raped a victim, unless he penetrated her. The only disclosed evidence we have to indicate penetration is the report that two witnesses in the dark said he was “thrusting” his hips. No pants down, organ exposed, or zipper open. If the rape kit shows no semen, and no injury, no other evidence of penetration by the perp, then do you think anyone will send him to prison for rape because two guys on bikes in the dark saw him “thrusting?” I don’t think that I could, but it sounds like many people on this thread would have no problem doing it. The piece most problematic for him as I see it, is the “I fingered her” statement in the police report. But if he doesn’t testify, is that alone enough to prove penetration? As I said before, I don’t know, since what he meant by that is unclear to me.

Attempt to commit rape or assault? Possibly. But those charges also have elements that must be proved, and we don’t have all the facts yet.

Posters on this thread like to say, “what if this was your daughter who was the victim,” but they never seem to say, “what if this was your son?” And what if he told you, his mom and dad, like he told the police, that he didn’t penetrate her, that he didn’t intend to rape her? Would you say, sorry, the police report attached to the charging document looks bad for you, so you must be guilty of rape? I would not. I would certainly tell him he was an idiot for getting so drunk and touching a woman he didn’t know, and his life was probably ruined for it, but if I believed him, I’d help him try to salvage it as much as I could.

Police reports are good evidence, but they are not the only evidence, and they are subject to cross-examination and corroboration.

The anxiety my questioning of this case seems to cause for some posters on this thread is palpable. It starts to feel like a witch hunt, to me.

924

it would be nice if we saw American young men act like the two cyclists, who are Swedish. According to the complaint, the one who chased and brought down Turner was visibly upset with what he’d seen.

925

There is no witch hunt.

That reads like a confession to me. We will see what the defense comes up with in this case.

The rape kit is going to be used by the prosecution. I wonder what the rape kit shows.

926

I would just like to note that I really don’t like it when somebody insults other posters or questions their motives, or says things like “if you had a daughter, you’d…” or “if this happened to you, then you’d…” Those kinds of comments can always go both ways, and when they are made it makes me, at least, think that those making them don’t really have rational arguments to defend their point of view.

I will add that it seems to me that there are opposing views here, and that I don’t find the extreme versions of either of them to be particularly persuasive. But one characteristic of the extremes seems to be annoyance at those who are trying to get a better understanding of the actual data.

927

On college campuses today it is quickly becoming a reality that the risks associated with combining a sexual encounter with alcohol are going to be equal for both men and women. That’s a new equation and some people are just having a harder time accepting it than others.

I read an article some time back which made sense to me. Basically it said that men have been unwittingly living in apartments with “tilted” floor their whole lives. It’s what they are used to, so waking up one day and finding that the floors are level is going to be an unsettling experience for them. And the now “evened” floors are going to feel very “uneven” to them.

928

@hunt,

The accused said he fingered the girl. I believe the accused. :slight_smile:

929

@dstark, I don’t understand why you are addressing that comment to me. I wasn’t really talking about you in my comment, even though I guess it did come right after one of yours.

930

probably not a good question to ask. sorry.

instead, today’s times, David Brooks

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/02/opinion/david-brooks-the-campus-crusaders.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&_r=1

931

IMO, Turner is despicable by his own account. If we believe him, he is having a consensual sexual encounter with this very drunk young woman. Then, he decides to wander away and get some air, leaving at the dumpster this partially undressed, disheveled, now unconscious woman, whose breast and genitals are exposed, not to get help for her but just because he isn’t feeling well and wants to get away. For me, that’s already in despicable territory even if he did nothing worse.

932

@hunt, I don’t know. We were talking about the Stanford case. You were talking about extreme comments. I think there is quite a bit of public information that can lead somebody to think the accused is guilty of some crimes.

A person’s theory, belief or statement should hold true for his or her own kid. So, when a person says something and he likely would think differently if it was his own kid, I take that into account.

I am ok with motives questioned. Motives should be questioned. Many arguments are really political in nature. When somebody quotes that blonde woman from Cornell, I must be getting old, I can’t remember her name, :slight_smile: yeah… I wonder about a person’s motives. When somebody likes what Cathy Young says and what she says is misleading, I question a person’s motives.

I was taught in college a person should try to understand where a person is coming from. Why does a person say what they say? Why does a person think what he thinks?

I worked in the financial markets. When an analyst said, investors should buy xxx, I always wanted to know why. What is in it for the analyst to say buy xxx? Does his firm have the stock in inventory and want to sell? Has the analyst done some analysis and he really believes what he is saying? What are other analysts saying? Why? What about analysts who disagree about xxx? Why do they disagree?

Understanding motives is very important in understanding a person’s comments.

933

@Bay: As it happens, police reports generally aren’t evidence at all; they cannot be introduced to prove guilt.

934

I’m a lawyer who worked with law enforcement agencies years ago. If there is a “motive” to be found for my perspective on this case, then that is it. I was trained to look at cases from both sides.

935

@Demosthenes49, is the comment the accused made about fingering the girl going to be allowed in court?

936

@hunt, you don’t think it’s a good idea to ask people to put themselves in other people’s shoes? How is that not rational, @hunt?

937

@Bay, I look at both sides too. I am waiting to see the defense in the Stanford case.

I do have opinions though. I believe in equal rights for women. I don’t think the police overall have done a good job on sexual assault in this country. I think schools should at times expel students for sexual assault. I do want the process to be fair for the accused. Having said this, I have no problem with Stanford telling the accused to never walk on campus again. Is that a contradiction? :slight_smile:

If I didn’t look at both sides, I would be broke. :wink:

938

Can’t the prosecution put the police on the stand and have them testify that the accused said X?

939

I would really like to see it too, but I doubt we will get to. My guess is that the perp will bargain for a lesser charge (assault, perhaps), and we will never see another explanation of what happened, other than the police report.

940

@Bay, I think what what you wrote in post 941 is likely to happen.