|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: Rape, Bullying and 'Anonymous'
|
Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
|
Posted
I don't what it's like elsewhere (or elsewhen). In NYC, several decades ago, the DA who landed a rape case decided whether or not to pursue it to trial based on a number of factors:
First, understand that the prosecution's primary goal is to win cases. Many prosecutors have their jobs through elective office; a high "win-to-loss" ratio makes re-election more likely. There's no percentage in pursuing cases the prosecutor is likely to lose.
(Incidentally, under the law in that place and time, rape was a crime against the state. IOW, a case could go forward without the victim's cooperation or consent.)
1. Is the victim credible? (i.e., will the victim seem credible to a jury? In the absence of rape shield laws, a victim's sexual history could be examined in open court, often to the victim's discredit). How does she speak, comport herself? Is she likely to arouse a jury's sympathies?
In addition to this possibility, women who are poor, Women who are quite young, women who are very emotive in their ways of expressing themselves, women of color, women who are single, women in "questionable" occupations, poorly-educated women, women who have, however innocently, engaged in any behavior that could seem or be made to seem suspect which be "discovered" and admitted into testimony, etc., are often deemed "not credible."
Prosecutors know what their juries are apt to be like, and what kinds of prejudices they're apt to bring into the jury room with them.
2. How credible is the defendant? Are there prior convictions, and if so, is there some way to reveal that to a jury? Or is this a first offense? Were there drugs or alcohol involved? Etc. etc.
3. What kind of (if any) physical evidence exists to corroborate the prosecution's claims? If so, has this evidence been handled/held securely throughout police custody of such evidence? The sheer volume and complexity of the possible evidence in a rape case can pose enormous challenges for large, multi-layered police organizations, and for small, inexperienced (low-crime-rate) rural police departments.
Women are not "trained" to be rape victims. Often a victim will go straight to a shower afterward in an effort to clean herself, destroying evidence (and possibly making herself seem suspect) in the process. She may dispose of clothing or bedding involved, again destroying evidence. She may, in a state of confusion or fear, muck up the scene of the crime. She may do these things out of overwhelming rage, revulsion, fear, or any other highly-charged emotion. But by the time the case comes to trial -- months or years after the event -- a creative defense attorney can make all kinds of hay with ANY action she performed or failed to perform during the rape or in its aftermath.
How do I know all this? I am a rape survivor, and some 20 years ago put in a couple of years' work setting up a rape crisis line and training volunteers to assist victims of rape and incest in a county where I then lived. I counseled many victims along with their families and loved ones, and supported many through police investigations and trials.
There's one other factor that must be borne in mind: Back when I was doing this (it may be different now), an apprehended rapist had committed an average of 12 rapes before being arrested for rape for the first time.
I'm not a prosecutor, but photographs of the event being committed strike me as not necessarily useful as evidence in a trial situation. By their nature, photographs (as opposed, say, to video) are instantaneous -- one-second views of a situation that may have developed over hours. We can't "hear" what's going on; we can't know what came just before or just after a particular shot; we may not even be able to identify with certainty the individuals pictured.
FWIW.
--------------------
Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
Many prosecutors have their jobs through elective office; a high "win-to-loss" ratio makes re-election more likely.
I know this is the case in the United States. Is it the case anywhere else?
I've always found it extremely odd, personally, but then that just might be cultural.
EDIT: Of course, even where prosecutors are appointed or employed by other means, a high success rate is desirable for your prospects of begin reappointed or just keeping your job.
[ 15. April 2013, 01:35: Message edited by: orfeo ]
--------------------
Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
EDIT: Of course, even where prosecutors are appointed or employed by other means, a high success rate is desirable for your prospects of begin reappointed or just keeping your job.
I cannot see this as being other than true anywhere.
--------------------
I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
EDIT: Of course, even where prosecutors are appointed or employed by other means, a high success rate is desirable for your prospects of begin reappointed or just keeping your job.
I cannot see this as being other than true anywhere.
Yes, but Porridge's point, I think, is that (chief) prosecutors are in the moderately unusual position of deciding upon their own work, in a sense that most of us aren't.
--------------------
Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
|
Posted
Someone has circulated a picture of the boys or at least one of them raping. The information is that it went 'viral'. Maybe the police thought it looked like the 15 year old wanted to be raped. We'll have to wait to hear. If the police ultimately do not charge and the boys 'who had sex with her' are identified, then perhaps it is lawsuit time. It sounds that perhaps a whole long list of other young people contributed to the shaming and death of this girl. Do they need to suffer so as to understand their wrong behaviour? I'm thinking yes.
--------------------
Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
|
Posted
There is another issue, separate from the actual mistreatment of a non-responsive girl: that is, the dissemination of child pornography.
It is now arguable that placing a baby picture in a high school yearbook is tantamount to disseminating kiddy porn, protected only by long-standing custom.
How is it that, given the police having dedicated child porn units who can identify rapists by minute clues within videos, the police were unable (or unwilling) to prosecute anyone for posting the videos in question?
Does the apparent raping of a comatose 15-year-old not constitute child porn, since she was clearly under the age of consent? Or are the rules different because "boys will be boys"?
We tend to make fun of/think poorly of the idea, espoused by fundamentalist Christians and Muslims, that any sight of an unclothed female allows men to have their way. Do we automatically assume that men have absolutely no control over their lust, once they have committed the act?
Why are men given a free ticket to assault females?
--------------------
It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
Does the apparent raping of a comatose 15-year-old not constitute child porn, since she was clearly under the age of consent? Or are the rules different because "boys will be boys"?
Let's leave the rape aside for the moment, and imagine it was consensual sex. Yes, a 15-year-old can't legally consent to sex, so the sex is a crime, and videoing it is child porn.
However, in the usual case, teens are not prosecuted for having sex because one of them is underage (and basically never if both are underage). If you don't prosecute for the act, should you prosecute for a picture of the act recorded by one of the participants?
(In the case of the rape of Rehtaeh Parsons, the boys involved are mostly or all underage too.)
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
The best thing I see about all of this is that Anonymous is relatively grassroots. If people, probably mostly relatively young people, want to change rape-culture, as a generation we can. If this is a sign that more and more people are aware of the issue, that's a good sign.
On the other hand, sex offenders have always been targets for vigilante justice. Hence sex offenders in high security prisons needing their own segregated ward ...
--------------------
Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Someone has circulated a picture of the boys or at least one of them raping. The information is that it went 'viral'. Maybe the police thought it looked like the 15 year old wanted to be raped. . . .
A photograph cannot show "rape." It can only show a sex act in progress. A one-second snapshot can't show whether the victim consented, screamed, resisted, or shouted no.
Likewise, a photograph (unless time-stamped, which perhaps cellphone photos sometimes do) cannot clearly show a victim's age. If the age of legal sexual consent is 16 (don't know if it is), how different does a potential victim look the day before her 16th birthday and the day after it? For that matter, how dramatic is the change between a girl 6 months before turning 16 and a girl one month after turning 16?
Look, what happened to these young women is absolutely outrageous. What happens to all victims of all sex crimes is outrageous. But we can't fix the multiple, culturally-complicated problems which surround the issue of rape either with our outrage or with vigilantism, however well-intended or apparently justified.
Stop. Think. Imagine what it might have been like for the Nova Scotia girl to have endured what she endured, proceeded to trial, and the prosecutor lost the case? We are assuming the boys would have been found guilty and convicted.
As the song tells us, "It ain't necessarily so."
In my own case, the prosecutor was confident of winning -- so confident that he went for a second trial after the first one resulted in a hung jury. When I refused to testify again (I lost 15 pounds in 3 days of being grilled on the witness stand by the defense and could not face the experience again), I was compelled to testify through subpoena.
I cannot begin to tell you what it was like to get up on a witness stand, tell the truth, and not be believed by 12 strangers who heard things I found all-but-impossible to describe.
The second trial resulted in a prosecutorial victory. I needed two years of therapy post-trial; the perp got 6 months in prison.
With what we (seem) to know about both the Nova Scotia and Steubenville cases, it's easy for us to conclude that juries would convict.
There's no guarantee that, given what details would and would not be allowed into testimony, given what the defense would and would not be allowed to get into during cross-examination, that a conviction is by any means assured.
--------------------
Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
lily pad
Shipmate
# 11456
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
Does the apparent raping of a comatose 15-year-old not constitute child porn, since she was clearly under the age of consent? Or are the rules different because "boys will be boys"?
Let's leave the rape aside for the moment, and imagine it was consensual sex. Yes, a 15-year-old can't legally consent to sex, so the sex is a crime, and videoing it is child porn.
However, in the usual case, teens are not prosecuted for having sex because one of them is underage (and basically never if both are underage). If you don't prosecute for the act, should you prosecute for a picture of the act recorded by one of the participants?
(In the case of the rape of Rehtaeh Parsons, the boys involved are mostly or all underage too.)
Probably better to use the term sexual assault as there is no crime of rape in Canada.
Also, in Canada, a 15 year old may give consent to a peer who is no more than five years older.
Pictures could be considered child pornography.
http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/dept-min/clp/faq.html
--------------------
Sloppiness is not caring. Fussiness is caring about the wrong things. With thanks to Adeodatus!
Posts: 2468 | From: Truly Canadian | Registered: May 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
|
Posted
Porridge writes: quote:
A photograph cannot show "rape." It can only show a sex act in progress. A one-second snapshot can't show whether the victim consented, screamed, resisted, or shouted no.
Likewise, a photograph (unless time-stamped, which perhaps cellphone photos sometimes do) cannot clearly show a victim's age. If the age of legal sexual consent is 16 (don't know if it is), how different does a potential victim look the day before her 16th birthday and the day after it? For that matter, how dramatic is the change between a girl 6 months before turning 16 and a girl one month after turning 16?
Cellphone transmissions are always dateable, and this information can be obtained by warrant from the provider.
As the Department of Justice note provided by Lily Pad tells us, any photograph taken of a sexual act engaged in by someone under 18 is a criminal offence, even if the act itself be consensual. In Canada, circulation of such photographs is an offence, so I would imagine that the Crown would have no trouble securing convictions in most cases.
In Canada, prosecutors are normally officials of the Department of Justice or the Department of the Solicitor General. The administration of justice is a provincial responsibility, and not all provinces have a DPP. As others have suggested, there are real questions to be asked about the decisions in this case, and it seems that the provincial cabinet is concerned enough to order another look.
Posts: 6236 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lily pad:
Pictures could be considered child pornography.
My question is rather whether they should? Does it make sense for photographing yourself having sex to be an offense, when the actual sex is legal?
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
Cellphone transmissions are always dateable, and this information can be obtained by warrant from the provider.
Fair enough. However, this answers only one of the potential difficulties -- establishing the victim's age at the time the photo was taken. I haven't seen the photos from this case (and won't attempt to even if available, for the sake of my own peace of mind). I have seen cell phone photos of other material, however. A cellphone photo which clearly shows a sex act in progress may or may not also clearly show the faces/identities of the (both, or all) parties to the act in that same photo, which I assume would be necessary to establish guilt without reasonable doubt.
quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
As the Department of Justice note provided by Lily Pad tells us, any photograph taken of a sexual act engaged in by someone under 18 is a criminal offence, even if the act itself be consensual. In Canada, circulation of such photographs is an offence, so I would imagine that the Crown would have no trouble securing convictions in most cases.
Again, fair enough, plus I know nothing of Canadian law and IANAL. But also again, consider the victim. She has gone through hell; her life and development (recall that in both cases under discussion, we're talking about victims who have not yet reached legal, physiological, or emotional maturity) have been utterly disrupted, and her social integration has been trashed by the perpetrators and those who "side" with them by shaming and ostracizing victims.
I have no idea what the penalties for the potentially "convictable" crime of possessing/transmitting child pornography is compared to the crime of sexual assault perpetrated against the victim in Canada.
However, her trauma is going to be broadcast far and wide in pursuit of "justice" in either situation. It's as though the driver of a car had run her over, and rather than being tried for attempted manslaughter or vehicular homicide or what-have-you, is placed at juridical risk of having his license suspended for a while.
And the driver may not be found guilty even of that. Assuming a still-living victim, how does this provide her with "justice?"
Assuming that the perpetrator(s) ARE found guilty and DO get their "licenses suspended for a time," how does this protect the community of potential rape victims?
--------------------
Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
With what we (seem) to know about both the Nova Scotia and Steubenville cases, it's easy for us to conclude that juries would convict.
There's no guarantee that, given what details would and would not be allowed into testimony, given what the defense would and would not be allowed to get into during cross-examination, that a conviction is by any means assured.
I don't want prosecutors pushing cases with poor evidence. I want authorities to investigate to the fullest extent possible. Steubenville suggests they do not. I could fill this website with cases that show they do not.
I feel for your pain. And I also do not wish to put victims through that hell if there is no chance for conviction.
I simply want cases fairly evaluated.
--------------------
I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
|
Posted
Re pictures. Most digital pictures have some code attached to them: what device took the picture, when, and may also contain additional information such as GPS coordinates. Such meta data has been controversial outside of criminal cases, because someone can determine details of virtually any picture uploaded to the internet.
It is true that a picture can't show a rape. But in the Nova Scotia case the police even delayed interviewing the teenagers in question.
--------------------
Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
|
Posted
Porridge, I want to thank you for sharing your story here. I am grateful for the healing you have undergone that has gotten you to the point where you were able to do so. I'm honored you feel this is a safe community. It definitely shifts the conversation-- in a good way--when we are able to take it from abstractions to a reality right in front of us.
![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif)
--------------------
"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
|
Posted
Where has the media reported Anonymous is wrong about the boys they (can) name?
Posts: 2193 | From: Pullman WA | Registered: Apr 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Porridge, I want to thank you for sharing your story here. I am grateful for the healing you have undergone that has gotten you to the point where you were able to do so. I'm honored you feel this is a safe community. It definitely shifts the conversation-- in a good way--when we are able to take it from abstractions to a reality right in front of us.
Thanks, but the truth is, I've rather taken the reverse route -- from personal reality to a set of general observations. The people to thank here are the multiple survivors I've been privileged to support, along with their courage, perseverance, confidences, and discoveries en route to recovery. They taught me everything I know.
Hey, it's how I deal.
--------------------
Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
Where has the media reported Anonymous is wrong about the boys they (can) name?
Where is there evidence that the media never gets things wrong?
--------------------
Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Re pictures. Most digital pictures have some code attached to them: what device took the picture, when, and may also contain additional information such as GPS coordinates.
"When" is a function of the date set on the camera, which may or may not be correct. And all these EXIF fields are just text - they can be trivially edited with a text editor.
This isn't to say that it's useless, but if you just have the image file from the web, and not from the camera itself, the EXIF data by itself doesn't buy you too much.
(At least in terms of evidence that will stand up in court. As probable cause for an investigation, the GPS coordinates in the photo would be useful.)
[ 15. April 2013, 16:57: Message edited by: Leorning Cniht ]
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Re pictures. Most digital pictures have some code attached to them: what device took the picture, when, and may also contain additional information such as GPS coordinates.
"When" is a function of the date set on the camera, which may or may not be correct. And all these EXIF fields are just text - they can be trivially edited with a text editor.
This isn't to say that it's useless, but if you just have the image file from the web, and not from the camera itself, the EXIF data by itself doesn't buy you too much.
(At least in terms of evidence that will stand up in court. As probable cause for an investigation, the GPS coordinates in the photo would be useful.)
I was referring to the transmission of the photo as data from one cellphone to another-- such data is preserved by providers for some time and would, in any case, be available from both receiving and sending devices. This would give the date. (disclosure-- in my former RL I was a witness in a non-criminal public service disciplinary procedure, where similar questions were addressed, so I heard a fair bit about this arcane topic).
Porridge-- I haven't seen the photographs either, nor do I want to, but I would have said that there was a strong case for a prosecution on the lesser ground, if not on the greater charge of sexual assault. I still think that the authorities need to explain why they did not pursue the case with vigour.
Posts: 6236 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view
