Convictions for Accused Rapists at Vanderbilt University

No, actually, that’s blaming the victim. Also, “Don’t go out with a guy who seems nice, friendly and polite, but who will end up raping you with several of his friends,” does not sound like useful advice to me, because I don’t know how to follow it without using a time machine.

Vandenburg was convicted of criminal responsibility for the rapes committed by the other players. In Tennessee, penetration of anus, mouth or vagina by anything (finger or water bottle) counts as rape.

The criminal case results are in post #1 of this long thread.

Critics of Vanderbilt’s opaque investigation process–and those of school’s nationwide–question if the school determined a rape had, in fact, occurred, as Vanderbilt has refused to release its on-campus findings.

College students should report these incidents to the local police first, as they best equipped to deal with it.

I’m sorry “Vanderbilt campus investigation cleared football players of rape a year before court conviction” was misleading. That is the title of the newspaper article.

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was some magic bar code on people by which we could tell good character?

The young woman in the Vandy rape case had known Vandenburg for about 2 weeks during which they had gotten together 3 or 4 times prior to the night in question. She got drunk. He drove her home in her car. Her access card didn’t work–or she was so drunk she used it incorrectly. So he said he’d take her to his place. He drove there. She passed out in the car.

I think most young women would agree to be alone with a student at the same school they had known for a couple of weeks and gone out with 3 or 4 times without him doing anything which alarmed them. If you watch the 20/20 show, it’s obvious she simply did not believe that Vandenburg was capable of doing what he did. She believed his story about taking care of her all night and cleaning up her vomit.

The other guys were not part of the picture until after the victim and Vandenburg arrived at the dorm and he asked their help in moving her.

That was very difficult for the victim to do in this case. The police told the victim she was a victim.

We have seen where incidents on campuses have vast room for improvement on how these type of situations are handled.

Glad to see more protocols for handling better. My DD’s college president spelled out the resources available on campus and improved reporting processes. At orientation, they do a lot of education to assist in prevention of these kind of situations.

Hope campuses make the improvements necessary, and students act more responsibly. When the students return to campus in ‘under the influence’ condition, people that see what is going on do need to take responsibility in alerting some kind of authority if they cannot physically intervene. If the rapes happened at the bar (like in the bathroom) I would hope it also would not have been shoved under the rug. Yes on the surveillance camera review. The evidence off the perp’s pictures/videos shows also how they thought they could totally get away with their behavior.

@MomofWildChild, just saw the 20/20 episode regarding this incident. It’s my feeling that even if a retrial is ordered, the outcome won’t change much because the facts won’t have changed at all and those videos are pretty telling.

Vandenburg’s attorney was annoying. I realize his job is to represent his client, but continuing to insist that his client’s only “lapse in judgment” was for recording the incident sure seems like a disgusting oversimplification of his client’s actions. The way he spoke about his client, I was almost expecting him to say that we should all be thanking him for doing an unselfish favor for society by recording this atrocity.

I’m not a lawyer, so certainly don’t know about Tennessee law. In many states, if you are driving the getaway vehicle in a bank robbery and one of the robbers kills someone, you the getaway driver, in spite of not killing anyone, can be convicted of murder. Is that the case in Tennessee? Is that why the jury convicted V. of rape even though he was not recorded on video as doing such?

Apologies if this question has already been addressed in the thread.

Vandenburg was convicted of “criminal responsibility” for the rape. Here’s the relevant part of the Tennessee statute:

I’m glad not to have seen the video, but everyone who has seen it is saying that it shows Vandenburg urging on the others. That would count as promoting or assisting, in my book. Evidently the jury felt that way too.

ETA: In Tennessee having criminal responsibility is legally the same as committing the crime yourself.