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It is currently Thu Aug 21, 2025 12:10 pm
US rape case loophole prompts uproar
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jonbwfc
What's a life?
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 7:26 pm Posts: 17040
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Sensibly, you're correct, you'd assume once she realised who he was she told him to stop (personally, I think she told him several things much stronger than that). However legally, in a trial, you're not allowed to assume things, no matter how logical they may appear. 1) Unless she says she told him to stop, you can't proceed as if she did. 2) If she did tell him to stop and at that point he did stop, you're back into the area that he eventually got off on. This is the point I was making, what you or I may see as logical or obvious is not how the court has to proceed. The court has to proceed on evidence and testimony, what is in a legal sense considered to be 'fact'. if we just went along assuming whatever we felt was right and convicting people on the basis of it, there'd be an awful lot of actually innocent people in jail. Innocent until proven guilty. Even when it's 'obvious' they are guilty.
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Tue Jan 08, 2013 2:53 pm |
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TheFrenchun
Officially Mrs saspro
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2010 7:55 pm Posts: 4955 Location: on the naughty step
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How about, if the woman believes she has been raped, it's rape? he had sex with her while she was asleep, that is sufficient to say that he has raped her surely.
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Tue Jan 08, 2013 3:05 pm |
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JJW009
I haven't seen my friends in so long
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 6:58 pm Posts: 8767 Location: behind the sofa
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I'm sure the courts and jury had far more detail of the case than we have, and they decided otherwise. If there had been any reason to find him guilty other than impersonation, then surely the prosecution would have used it? Whatever the details in this case, I don't think anyone disagrees that this particular law is out of date. And the law is being changed.
_________________jonbwfc's law: "In any forum thread someone will, no matter what the subject, mention Firefly." When you're feeling too silly for x404, youRwired.net
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Tue Jan 08, 2013 3:19 pm |
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cloaked_wolf
What's a life?
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 8:46 pm Posts: 10022
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How do you know she's not lying? How do you know it really happened? There have been plenty of cases where someone has cried rape when: 1. It was consensual and she realised it was a mistake 2. It was consensual and she was cheating but lied to cover it up 3. Nothing actually happened but the woman lies anyway? These kinds of cases ruin it for those were actually raped. They're less likely to come forwards because they may not be taken seriously. How about if we applied your logic to other cases? "The Frenchun is a thief/killer/{insert any severe crime}" "How do you know?" "Coz I said so." "Acceptable. Life imprisonment. " Seriously?
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Last edited by cloaked_wolf on Tue Jan 08, 2013 3:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Tue Jan 08, 2013 3:26 pm |
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TheFrenchun
Officially Mrs saspro
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2010 7:55 pm Posts: 4955 Location: on the naughty step
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 |  |  |  | cloaked_wolf wrote: How do you know she's not lying? How do you know it really happened? There have been plenty of cases where someone has cried rape when: 1. It was consensual and she realised it was a mistake 2. It was consensual and she was cheating but lied to cover it up 3. Nothing actually happened but the woman lies anyway? These kinds of cases ruin it for those were actually raped. They're less likely to come forwards because they may not be taken seriously. How about if we applied your logic to other cases? |  |  |  |  |
I thought the guy was caught in the room. my bad. But then he said that he was in fact in the room. And please amend your above message.
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Tue Jan 08, 2013 3:32 pm |
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jonbwfc
What's a life?
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 7:26 pm Posts: 17040
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The law does not (and cannot) operate purely on 'belief'. That would require us to be able to read minds. It goes on evidence and testimony under oath. If a woman believes she was raped she has a right to get the person she accuses arrested, have them put on trial and then she can stand in a witness box and say 'he raped me'. If there's enough evidence including that to satisfy a judge, then he goes to jail. In this case, that sounds about what happened. Then a law that frankly an idiot must have put in place messed things up, but that doesn't mean the system of prosecuting allegations of rape failed, because it didn't. Let's be clear about this - this is not a rapist's charter and it's not a case where a woman was raped and nobody believed her. They did believe her, he was prosecuted and he did go to jail. A stupid legal screwup means he didn't stay there. That's completely different from him not being prosecuted or being found innocent by a jury and it's no good reason to unbalance a whole legal system on the basis of it. Absolutely nobody believes it wasn't rape (other than maybe him, and who gives a... whatever what he thinks).
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Tue Jan 08, 2013 3:46 pm |
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TheFrenchun
Officially Mrs saspro
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2010 7:55 pm Posts: 4955 Location: on the naughty step
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I never said to only take the woman's word for it. But then you very rarely can proove rape at all if you don't, :S so there is not clear answer.
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Tue Jan 08, 2013 4:05 pm |
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l3v1ck
What's a life?
Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2009 10:21 am Posts: 12700 Location: The Right Side of the Pennines (metaphorically & geographically)
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Given that you can't give consent if you're asleep, I'd have thought so.
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Tue Jan 08, 2013 8:53 pm |
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jonbwfc
What's a life?
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 7:26 pm Posts: 17040
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This is the thing I don't understand about this case - I always thought that if it was 'non consensual due to one party being alseep/unconscious' it is by definition rape and nothing else need be examined. Under the law, a husband who has sex with his wife while she's asleep is guilty of rape. Given that, the whole thing about who he was or who he claimed to be at the time should be moot. They've effectively said the law that he got off on takes precedence over the 'can't give consent when unconscious' doctrine. I can't imagine why any court would do that.
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Wed Jan 09, 2013 12:07 am |
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Amnesia10
Legend
Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2009 2:02 am Posts: 29240 Location: Guantanamo Bay (thanks bobbdobbs)
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+1 how can anyone lose their rights because of that?
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Wed Jan 09, 2013 5:10 am |
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JJW009
I haven't seen my friends in so long
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 6:58 pm Posts: 8767 Location: behind the sofa
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I don't imagine they would. Unless the prosecution was incompetent then I'm sure there are many details to this case which we are missing in the two line description of the article.
_________________jonbwfc's law: "In any forum thread someone will, no matter what the subject, mention Firefly." When you're feeling too silly for x404, youRwired.net
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Wed Jan 09, 2013 10:53 am |
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