Therumancer said:
CrystalShadow said:
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And you're labouring under the assumption that most accusations made are false, and also that making such an accusation carries no penalty for the person making it, isn't at all traumatic, and in short, is easy to do.
Also, as fascinating as your statement on the US justice system may be, I don't live in the US, and given that you are making comparisons to countries whose laws I am much more familiar with than those of the US, which, despite your implications have similar issues surrounding rape, and I still don't think you have much appreciation for what even the threat of being raped is about.
Given how closely the conviction rates for rape have some rather odd correlations with the who the alleged victim was, this leads to the conclusion that many legal systems are biased towards the idea that only certain types of people get raped, and anyone else is probably lying about it somehow.
Well, anyway, I hope you never have to find out for yourself what it means to be subject to even the mildest form of abuse that could ever be called 'rape'. - Ah, but wait, you're in the US. So according to your legal system, you can't be raped, no matter what someone does to you. (Well, assuming my assumption about you being male is correct, anyway.)
Don't you just love legal technicalities?
Again, the principle of the US Justice System is INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY. It doesn't matter of it's theft, rape, homicide, or anything else for that matter the entire system is based around the idea that the accusations are false and that the burden of proof falls on the accuser, with the defendant only having to raise a reasonable doubt. In the US Justice system it doesn't matter if someone's guilt is 90% likely, of even nessicarily what the Jury thinks on that grounds, but whether the defendant created a reasonable doubt.
That's not *my* standard, that's the standards of the country. A point a lot of people argueing with me seem to miss.
As far as rape goes, too late, already happened. As I've said before, when I was a little kid I was raped by an older kid. Wound up blocking it out, but I know it happened. I really dislike it when people hear me discuss certain subjects they naturally assume things like this. To be brutally honest with you this information has a lot to do with why I at one time had the ambition of going into Forensics and studied for that in school before financial problems made it so I couldn't finish. It's also why I've spent a lot of time looking into the issue of homosexuality, groups like NAMBLA, and other assorted things that come up in other posts. That said, in this case what I'm telling you isn't even contreversial, or based on some obscure piece of information, it's no less than the basis for the entire American criminal justice system. In a practical sense the system assumes the accusor is always a liar, and the defendant is innocent, before anything happens, and this applies to all cases, as a universal principle excepting matters of
national security or trials conducted under martial law or during a declared state of emergency.
OK, OK. I admit I made the same assumption you did. (It's implicit in the indirect accusation you made of me being a 'white knight'.) - I speak from experience too, unfortunately, but my experience is precisely with the stuff that could reasonably considered a 'grey area'
Also, my problem with you focusing on the US, is that similar problems (and related low conviction rates) happen in many countries, even ones with different legal principles.
I don't know how familiar you are with legal systems outside the US, but while the US and most English speaking nations derive their legal principles from English Common law (Innocent until proven guilty is one of many such inherited principles), much of mainland Europe has legal institutions derived from the Napoleonic code.
Among the seemingly counter-intuitive ideas this system embodies (compared to English principles) is, You have no right to do anything unless a law explicitly grants you such a right. (That is, rather than being allowed to do anything which there isn't a law forbidding you from doing, by default you aren't allowed to do anything unless permitted by a law. - in practice many things are permitted without specific laws, but it's the principle here, not the practicality that I'm describing)
The other notable point being that this same legal framework defines people as being guilty until proven innocent. The exact opposite of US principles. The implications of that should be quite obvious.
But why do I mention that anyway? Because even in legal systems based on these reverse principles, Rape convictions remain quite low.
The principles of the system alone don't properly account for your statement.
There's also a tangential argument I can make, in that the (admittedly largely circumstantial) evidence hints at the actual US legal system being a bit out of touch with it's principles, because there seems to be a rather excessive number of false convictions.
The numbers for such things are by their very nature highly speculative, but typical assumptions make it 0.5%, while the circumstantial evidence points at anything from 3-8%, with tendencies towards higher figures for violent or controversial crimes.
In a system operating under the principle of 'guilty until proven innocent', false convictions are a problem, but kind of innate in the system. (after all, if people are assumed guilty by default, then clearly the system takes the stance that it is better lock up someone who is innocent, just in case, than to let a guilty person go free.)
False convictions in a system based on 'innocent until proven guilty' however, point to the system failing to accomplish it's goals. If 1 in 20 people being locked up didn't actually do the crime, then it makes a bit of a mockery of the idea that people are presumed to be innocent.
Still, this is a bit circular. You're arguing based specifically on US legal ideology, while I am not. (and would not, because US ideology is unlikely to mean anything to me personally when it comes to legal matters. - I've lived in several countries and visited dozens, but I've never so much as spent 5 minutes in the US).
In any event, the problem I'm contemplating is clearly somewhat different to the one you are.
What happened to me personally wasn't done by someone particularly violent. It didn't come out of nowhere. But it basically shows that if you give an inch, some people will take a mile. And 'no' is not something certain kinds of people seem to get unless you do the equivelent of kick them in the nuts in the process. If someone does something without to you without really taking the time to check it's alright, then follows up by refusing to stop once they've started, what can you say about that?
Sometimes it's easy to see what's right and what's wrong. Many times however it is not. The law is the law, but it often has little if anything to do with reality.
