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You keep reapeating this like its an established fact, but it isn't. If the prosecutor proves beyond reasonable doubt that there was no consent, then a jury will in all likelyhood convict. All this "she was a slut" etc business is (whilst pretty disgusting) a side issue. Its a tactic used by defence lawyers to ensure that juries aren't swayed purely on the basis of an accusation. If the accusation is false, the accuser is likely to have embellished the tale with all sorts of emotional and evocative details and images, and the prosecutor will paint the character of the accused man as a callous disrespecter of women (or some variant on this) which might sway the jury even though there is no evidence. Thus it works both ways. Both sides of a legal dispute do this in almost every court case: its the lawyers job to ensure maximum advantage for his/her client. Thats the nature of the legal trade, as I'm sure you're aware being in it yourself.
If you were to remove character examination the exact same dilemma would be present, at least on the assumption that the jury is "impartial." A man takes a woman home, after a night out. Sexual intercourse occurs and the woman accuses the man of rape. The man denies this. As in the vast majority of cases, there is no other evidence actually relating to the crime in question (i.e. no witnesses, recorded material). You are a juror: what do you do? The balance of evidence needed to convict is in favour of the defendant: it needs to be proven "beyond reasonable doubt" that there was no consent. The balance of evidence is totally even in this (the typical) case - it is one person's word against another. These testimonies are equal if you do not bring any examination of personality/character into it. Thus the only decision you could rationally make is to acquit the defendant.
Everyone "believes" that the conviction rate should be higher, the question is how this is achieved. Also I'd be wary with those statistics that are being thrown around. They measure only reported/detected rapes. The states in question probably have much higher numbers of rapes than are shown in the statistics, but women are less willing to come forward. For instance in "aquaintance rapes" because as you have mentioned people have different attitudes to these. Thus you have a higher conviction rate because those that are reported are "sterotypical rapes" and easier to prove in a court of law (DNA evidence, evidence of violence, CCTV, witnesses, etc).
As I keep explaining, thats not the assumption (or at least not directly). The assumption in any criminal court is innocent until proven guilty. Proven beyond reasonable doubt. If the prosecution can prove that the man is lying then a conviction will result. The reason that the conviction rate is so low is because this is so hard to do.
Just to point out that all the evidence around the UK - including the 5% conviction rape is REPORTED rape conviction rates - and doesn't include anything unreported. If evidence on unreported rape was also reported it's likely you wouldn't come close to 1%
One other thing I don't understand your viewpoint Carlito - in all legal cases it nearly always comes down to one person's view against another - you don't automatically find someone innocent - you as a juror listen to the testimony and make the judgement upon that.
It seems strange that you can't imagine hearing the account of a rape and believe the victim
Its not as simple as believing them or not, its do you totally trust them, is there no real doubt in your mind. Rape is a serious crime and people on the jury must know that they are sending the bloke to prison for many years.
Where are you getting these statistics? If its the source you posted before ("Men Against Sexual Assualt") I have to say I'm quite disinclined to take them seriously. They're presented in a highly misleading manner and are obviously selective. Also, if you assume it is accurate, contrasted to the BBC source you posted also directly contradicts your asssertion that the estimation of number of reported rapes vs. actual rapes is equal between the US and the UK.
"Men Against Sexual Assualt:"
Only 16% of rapes and sexual assaults are reported to the police (Rape in America: A Report to the Nation. 1992). In 1995 there were 97,460 rapes reported to law enforcement officials. At a 16% reporting rate, this means that there were actually closer to 649,733 rapes in the United States.
http://sa.rochester.edu/masa/stats.php
BBC:
11,766 allegations of rape [in one year]...The report, carried out at London Metropolitan University, said crime data suggested up to 47,000 rapes were actually committed every year.
[thats about 23%]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4296433.stm
MASA also claims that: "the United States has the highest rape rate among countries which report such statistics...13 times higher than that of England" [these are "estimated" statistics] whilst the UK, according to the BBC, has a higher rate of reportage.
But thats the point, in all other legal cases it does not come down to one person's "view" (i.e. testimony) against anothers: it comes down to forensic evidence, multiple witness testimonies, CCTV footage, artefact evidence (e.g. assualt weapon), police testimony, etc etc. Those that are simply one persons word against another are very likely to be dismissed, because it is an inadequate method of judging guilt. It simply judges whether one person speaks and acts in a more convincing way than another, which has little on no bearing on whether their telling the truth. Rape is one of the very few crimes where there is typically no other evidence than the two parties' testimonies, it is more akin to contract law, which is judged in civil courts, where the burden of proof is lower because they are usually adjudging one person's word over anothers.
As for "believing" the victim: if I were a juror in many of these cases I probably would "believe," on balance, that she was telling the truth. But not beyond reasonable doubt. Thus your responsibility would be to acquit.
The problems are manyfold. Firstly, if a woman is strong she is less likely to be believed. Secondly, if the woman was drunk, the judge is likely to throw out her case because "she might have said yes", regardless of her testimony- even though the judge is only supposed to throw out a case if no reasonable jury could convict on the evidence. Thirdly, when it comes to the defendant, all he needs to say is that the woman is a slut and he will be believed, provided that the rape wasn't one involving violence. I honestly believe that specialist prosecutors and better training for judges would help solve point two, and expert witnesses on victim behaviour would help counteract juror prejudice on points one and three. I honestly believe that we would get significant results with that.
Even more to the point, many rape cases are simply not even getting to the trial stage- the police and CPS are deciding that there is no case to answer even though in most cases there is- or should be if the police did their job properly.
I note that the judiciary are against both propositions, and continue to decide rape trials based on the prejudices of out-of-touch judges.
Exactly: you must believe it "beyond reaonable doubt."
If it were just a matter of sitting and listening to one person accuse another and the other denying it, then saying at the end: "well, i believe the accuser more than the defendant I think," it would become a total lottery, and you would have many more cases like this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/northamptonshire/5339004.stm
By the way, notice how this miscarriage of justice "happened" to have occurred in the county which everyone has been praising for having the best conviction rate in the country...
Yes, there are very rarely "many" witnesses, but there are usually more than the two parties involved in the crime. And there is usually other evidence as well. In rape cases where there is another witness I'm pretty sure there would be very near to a 100% conviction rate.
And if a man is weak/angry/unconvincing he is less likely to be believed.
You've repeated this assertion many times and I've already pointed out to you why its wrong, without a response.
You're misrepresenting this point on a single case. The point is if a woman admits she was too drunk to remember whether she consented there is no way a reasonable jury could convict (unless of course there is other evidence) because the only "reliable" witness in this case is the defendant.
So accusing a woman of being drunk has no bearing on whether a jury should convict.
Assertion...perhaps thats true, and in some cases (as in every other area of law) it probably is. But as I pointed out 6 pages back, the job of the police and the CPS is to decide which cases are worthwhile pursuing because they may result a conviction. As we can see from those cases that are brought to court, hardly any of the strongest cases do result in a conviction, let alone the weaker cases (i.e. those not pursued by the police and CPS).
And bear in mind that many of the cases that go forward are the ones with evidence, with physical damage recorded, with witness statements, with circumstantial supporting evidence, with previous historys of abuse - and still result only in a 5% conviction rate.
Yes, you can, but I would suggest that beleiving one persons word over anothers, beyond reasonable doubt - neither of which you know or have ever met - on the basis of a testimony in court, is extremely rare. And rightly so.
Well I'm sure some of them have all of those things: and they are the ones likely to result in a conviction. But most of them do not.
What I don't understand about your argument is what you think of the attitude of juries...do British people have some kind of sympathy for rapists, to the extent that they will openly acquit a case in court, against their civic duty, when the evidence clearly demonstrates the rape took place?
But I don't personally think it's jury where the blame lies - I think it's the Crown Prosecution Service systematic favouring of rapists over people who have been raped, and penny-pinching refusal to go to trial without overwhelmingly strong case. Most cases never make it to court, and that is where the system is failing the most in my eyes.
Firstly, it isn't a misrepresentation to say that if the defence casts aspersions about the sexual past of the victim, or ths sobriety of the victim, that the defendant will, in most cases, be believed, unless the victim has seven shades of shit kicked out of her. After all, if she's drunk or she's had sex with men, she must be gagging for sex with anyone- in recent cases a taxi driver 35 years the senior of the girl was acquitted, as was a security guard, as have been countless on-duty police officers. I don't think for one second it comes down to "reasonable doubt".
When a police officer inflicts over 30 bruises on a woman with a long-term boyfriend yet STILL walks away from court, all because he said (by himself) that the woman made a joke about lesbian sex, I think my point is proven.
Also, since you ask, yes, I do think there is an inherent bias against women when it comes to rape cases. If the woman was drunk or young or dressed sexily she is far less likely to be believed, and I don't think it has anything to do with "reasonable doubt". And it isn't just bias by men, either. And in the CPS and police, as Jim says, there is an institutional bias against rape victims.
The simple fact is that tonight I could go out and rape as many women as I want, and I have a 99% chance of getting away with it. It's a marvel of the inherent goodness of human nature that more people don't go and rape people, there is never going to be any comeback on you.
What I am arguing though is that it is not to do with some sort of countrywide societal prejudice (or at least not primarily - it may well be a contributory factor).
The reason for the low conviction rate is with the law itself. You cannot blame juries for not convicting, judges for dismissing, and the police and the CPS for not pursuing, cases where there is little or no evidence for a rape beyond the testimony of the accuser. Its too hard to prove beyond reasonable doubt. Its just not possible to convict on the basis of the law as it stands in the vast majority of cases.
By the way this:
"for some reason in the last 20 years there has been an attitude that has resulted in almost no convictions for rape in this country"
I think is very misleading, as I explained before. Its not like the number and type of cases has remained the same, but juries have suddenly decided to stop convicting. The number of reported rapes have shot up over the last 30 years - and particularly in the last 5 years, and the majority of these have been "acquaintance rapes." Thus the actual number of rape convictions has not decreased (in fact I think it has increased), there are simply many, many more cases reported, so the conviction rate has gone down. And as I keep pointing out, the majority of the rapes that comprise the increase are "acquaintance rapes" which are very hard to prove in a court of law.
So its not like the British public have decided that rape isn't so bad after all, its because women now feel that they can come forward and report rapes (or accuse men of rape) because there is less social stigmatisation involved (and because anonymity is now legally protected). The fact that the conviction rates have fallen illustrates the difficulties associated with this particular crime (and the law) that were present all along.
No, because as I've pointed out 20 times its not whether or not the jury believe the defendant, but whether they believe the accuser beyond reasonable doubt. Its nothing to do with whether she was drunk or a slut, its to do with the evidence: if a defence lawyer said "I put it to the court that Ms. X is a slut" and there were 3 witnesses saying that she did not consent to sex, the jury would laugh at him and find the defendant guilty. When it comes down to one person's word against another all either lawyer can do is fling mud at the other party and hope that the jury believes their side of the story. Since this is essentially meaningless, as any jury knows, they have to acquit because there is no way of knowing who is telling the truth, and thus because the law favours the defendant they have no other choice.
I'm not going to point this out again because all you're doing is making the same assertion again and again, without any foundation in logic or fact.
No, I don't think it is, because firstly your talking about a case which you - or anyone else reading - does not know the full facts of, and secondly, as I've pointed out before a police officer's testimony is always considered more truthful than a civilian's (rightly or wrongly) in any criminal case.
Well thats total and utter bullshit. The point you were trying to make might have had some credibility (that it is hard to prove acquaintance rape) if you had not resorted to hyperbole, but if 10,000 women all independently accuse you of rape on the same night you are certainly going to be convicted and sent to prison for life.
I don't think that people are "pro-rape", but there is certainly a lax attitude to the victims of this crime that is not prevalent in other crimes. A victim of a robbery wouldn't be condemned or be responsible for it simply because he was drunk, but the victims of rape frequently are. Amnesty proved that.
Unless I stove someone's face in whilst I do it, I (like any other man) can go out and rape a woman tonight, and almost certainly get away with it.
"Been spending most my life, living in a rapists paradise"
You don't half have a weird turn of phrase sometimes Kermit.
Where's your sense of humour?
My sense of humour will return in 12 minutes when I get to leave this dump for the weekend
Believe the woman over the man every single time unless we're really sure she's lying?
All that would take is a half reasonable actor to take down any man anyone wanted for rape.
Most rape cases come down to:
Bloke: She said yes
Woman: No I didn't.
There will be some kind of background, often with intoxication or violence, but what the Jury are being asked to do is say that with the picture that has been painted by both side (often 2 very different scenes) can they decide for sure that the woman/man is telling the truth beyond reasonable doubt?
I don't think I could make that decision, I've seen some good actors and that niggle would be in my mind unless there was conclusive evidence.
Her being drunk or her having been dressed in a provocative manner will cause no end of problems, and it's not necessarily because the Jury thought she deserved it, it's because it introduces that element of doubt.
That Amnesty survey showed (using weighted and badly phrased questions) that a minority of British people consider women to be partially reponsible/culpable for being raped.
It did not show that juries are biased against women (in fact considering it was a minority that held these views it would suggest the opposite) in reaching a verdict in a rape case: which is not a decision on whether the woman was right or wrong in getting drunk, or wearing attractive clothing. It is a decision on whether the accused broke the law, as the judge would have advised them, and thats it. They make a decision on whether or not the accused had sexual intercourse with the accuser without consent, beyond reasonable doubt.
Again you make another assertion that you have repeated throughout the thread, and which I have already countered several times. It is not enough to state your unfounded opinion over and over again without responding to other people's points Kermit. But I'll repeat myself once more: the reason that the police and the CPS do not pursue many reports of rape is because they are almost certain that under the law of great Britain the case will be dismissed, or the defendant acquitted, for the reasons I've repeated time and time again.
I agree society has a bias (quite slight these days) against women: but that gives no necessary link to conviction rates of rape or societies attitude to rape. 100 years ago women did not have the vote and were considered inferior citizens, but rape was taken just as seriously and offenders punished as harshly than now, if not more so. I would say that if anything as bias against women has subsided attitudes towards rape have become more relaxed, because as you say some people now consider women partially responsible for men's behaviour (as they can and do act more provocatively), and since they are equal in the eyes of the law.
No, I don't think thats true at all. If somebody is staggering around drunk and is robbed I'd certainly consider them irresponsible and reckless and therfore more likely to be robbed.
Amnesty didn't "prove" what you're saying: as I said before they "proved" that a minority of people think that women are partially responsible for being raped. I think the people who believe "that" are actually saying that a woman who is irresponsible with her personal safety (e.g. getting drunk and climbing into an unlicensed minicab, or going home with a man she has no intention to sleep with) is more likely to be raped than a woman who is more careful and responsible in her actions, and that women who have behaved "responsibly" should be given more sympathy than those who have been reckless.
Yes, as long as you were in private and there are no witnesses or other evidence, just like any other crime. The differences are, as I'm about to point out for the 100th time, is that:
1) In most cases rape is committed in a private setting
2) Women usually (and understandably) do not resist with force
3) The actual physical act (sexual intercourse) is not illegal, it is the lack of consent (a single sentence spoken, or more likely the lack of a single sentence spoken) that makes it illegal: and it is thus difficult to prove with physical evidence
And therefore in most cases there is not enough evidence to convict the accused with the offence.
Well I wouldn't say "an awful lot" - it might provide some slight additional weight to the accuser's testimony but the essential problem still remains the same. Expert witnesses can also be discredited fairly easily, as the case of Meadows (in the cot-death fiasco) has illustrated, and lead to miscarriages of justice as illustrated by the case I pointed out earlier, which occurred in the county being pointed to as a model of how "expert witnesses" can work (which has increased the conviction rate by only 6% or so).
As to people behaving irresponsibily - fuck that, people don't deserve to be raped and can behave however they fucking like. They could walk down the road naked, pissed out of their face and I wouldn't think for one second it would make a damn bit of difference to whether or not someone raped them. They were raped... end of.
To be honest most of your arguement seems like a point by point attempt to turn the assualt of a woman back onto them and look at how they have behaved, and I'd say some of your viewpoints probably go quite a long way to explaining exactly why the conviction rate is so low.
Using secondary evidence would go some way to help conviction- it's already used in most other trials, and would help bolster an argument that the woman did not consent.
I also fail to see what your point is regarding the "miscarriage of justice". It happens, and it happens in all crimes, not just rape. There have been scores of people get sent down for murders they didn't do. Yes, some women lie, what's your point? That all women lie? That most women lie? That improving the conviction rate will send innocent men to prison? If its the latter you would, of course, be implying that 95% of women are liars.
It's interesting that you mention it though- it goes to show why the conviction rate is so low. Every time a woman lies about it its headline news, but rapists are rarely headline news. Do you know who Antoni Imiela is without google? But I bet you know who Nadine Milroy-Sloan is. Even though the false reporting rate is about 2-3%, its always headline news and its always implied that all women are liars.
I think I shall agree with Jim V on this one. I think iknowyourmum trying to claim that some rapes are less significant is abhorrent, and you backing him up is equally so. They're all equally abhorrent, and should receive the same penalty- life.
And shit like this only goes to show why 3 out of 4 rapes go unreported. It's a national disgrace, but nobody cares, as good girls don't get raped.