Trump guilty of sexual abuse and defamation

Schadrach

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Because making sexual assault allegations against rich, powerful businessmen is often met with harassment, abuse, threats, and retaliation, as well as being damaging for someone's future romantic and professional relationships, while having a very low chance of success. This is well known by those who work with victims of sexual assault.
Also, wasn't it outside of statute of limitations, until NY changed the law on that fairly recently?

Surprised that's not an illegal ex post facto law, per Stodgers v California. Maybe because it's a civil case instead of criminal?
 

Silvanus

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Also, wasn't it outside of statute of limitations, until NY changed the law on that fairly recently?

Surprised that's not an illegal ex post facto law, per Stodgers v California. Maybe because it's a civil case instead of criminal?
Apparently, retroactive laws affecting the statute of limitations are acceptable if there's deemed to be a "significant injustice" in the law as it stood before, which the adjustments would address.

In New York prior to 2019, the statue of limitations for SA was 3 years. Its already legally acknowledged that victims of SA may not come to terms with their experience in that timeframe, meaning that the 3 year limit constituted a denial of justice for victims.

In California (where the ruling that Stogner addressed was made), the SoL was 10 years. I can only assume that 3 years was deemed to constitute a barrier to attaining justice (and thus a "significant injustice"), while 10 years was not.

And if you're thinking that all this is far too reliant on the personal opinions of judges, rather than anything written or objective, you'd be completely right. Honestly I don't see why the current legislators shouldn't be able to amend what past legislators passed.
 

Schadrach

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Honestly I don't see why the current legislators shouldn't be able to amend what past legislators passed.
Fair enough, but I also see the reason for not allowing retroactive changes. In the case of the Stogner ruling the new statute of limitations could be applied to cases that happened after it was passed, but couldn;t be applied retroactively to cases before it was passed. Which seems to be the general shape of things in most cases - the law as it stood when the act happened is the law that applies.
 

Trunkage

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Fair enough, but I also see the reason for not allowing retroactive changes. In the case of the Stogner ruling the new statute of limitations could be applied to cases that happened after it was passed, but couldn;t be applied retroactively to cases before it was passed. Which seems to be the general shape of things in most cases - the law as it stood when the act happened is the law that applies.
I cannot understand why there is a statue of limitations on SA. Or theft. Or arson. Or kidnapping. That sounds like a very good way to get all those things to happen more frequently

Australia has no statue of limitations on any crime that would result in a 6 month sentence (in the criminal courts, not civil.)
 

Absent

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I cannot understand why there is a statue of limitations
There are several reasons. One is pragmatic : after a certain time, it becomes too difficult to establish the facts with sufficient certaintly. The other is philosophical, and I'm not certain it is explicitely at the roots of our judicial system (as I relate it more to extra-bureaucratic societies' perception of the self), but people tend to change and evolve, and after a while, the person that you would punish isn't necessarily a person who would commit the crime. It would have little sense (in terms of "teaching a lesson", or "preventing it to happen again") to punish someone for something made by someone s/he doesn't recognize him/herself in. It would get closer to "two wrongs".

These are complex aspects to balance, many apples and oranges to compare, that's why statutes of limitations vary with the crimes. As often, societies have to awkwardly and arbitrarily set up a threshold somewhere. But having none whatsoever would raise its own issues, both moral and practical.
 

Gergar12

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5 million is chump change for a rich person like Trump, I want it to be more. I am still waiting for his prison term.
 
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Trunkage

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There are several reasons. One is pragmatic : after a certain time, it becomes too difficult to establish the facts with sufficient certaintly. The other is philosophical, and I'm not certain it is explicitely at the roots of our judicial system (as I relate it more to extra-bureaucratic societies' perception of the self), but people tend to change and evolve, and after a while, the person that you would punish isn't necessarily a person who would commit the crime. It would have little sense (in terms of "teaching a lesson", or "preventing it to happen again") to punish someone for something made by someone s/he doesn't recognize him/herself in. It would get closer to "two wrongs".

These are complex aspects to balance, many apples and oranges to compare, that's why statutes of limitations vary with the crimes. As often, societies have to awkwardly and arbitrarily set up a threshold somewhere. But having none whatsoever would raise its own issues, both moral and practical.
Number one. Yes, it could be harder to establish facts. I do NOT know why that would mean you ban it. If it's harder to establish facts, so be it. It just means that you are less likely to get a conviction. There is no problem here. It's a self-correcting issue someone overreacted to and pretended it is a moral hazard.

No wonder the Catholic church and the SBC keep moving around pedophile priests. You don't have to actually have to deal with the consequences if you... just pretend they don't exist until the clock runs out. And if they rape someone else... just keep shuffling until the clock runs out again. Do you know what THAT sounds like? A moral hazard.

Number two. Yes. people can change. They can also... not change. Like, the playboy Trump from forty years ago is not much different from the playboy Trump of today. he might have changed in other ways, but not in that one. It would be really stupid to make a blanket rule that just says that everyone changes when we know that some area, some people don't.
 
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tstorm823

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Number one. Yes, it could be harder to establish facts. I do NOT know why that would mean you ban it. If it's harder to establish facts, so be it. It just means that you are less likely to get a conviction.
That does not follow. If it's harder to establish facts, it's also harder to establish something like an alibi. Testimony or evidence that would exonerate someone may no longer exist.
 

Schadrach

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Number one. Yes, it could be harder to establish facts. I do NOT know why that would mean you ban it. If it's harder to establish facts, so be it. It just means that you are less likely to get a conviction. There is no problem here. It's a self-correcting issue someone overreacted to and pretended it is a moral hazard.
Because it's harder to defend yourself, and the balance of power here is heavily in favor of the state. People don't generally have indefinitely long paper trails of hard evidence of where they were and what they were doing at all times of day and night, and many businesses only keep the kinds of record that might exonerate them for months or a few years. So hypothetically if you had some circumstantial evidence someone may have done a crime you could simply preserve that evidence and sit on it until it's highly unlikely that any evidence in their defense still exists (so long as no one is actively seeking and preserving defense evidence this is probably a safe bet).

This is part of why I get very iffy about accusations of very old crimes coming out - whether or not the accused did it there's going to be very little they can use to defend themselves.
 

Trunkage

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Because it's harder to defend yourself, and the balance of power here is heavily in favor of the state. People don't generally have indefinitely long paper trails of hard evidence of where they were and what they were doing at all times of day and night, and many businesses only keep the kinds of record that might exonerate them for months or a few years. So hypothetically if you had some circumstantial evidence someone may have done a crime you could simply preserve that evidence and sit on it until it's highly unlikely that any evidence in their defense still exists (so long as no one is actively seeking and preserving defense evidence this is probably a safe bet).

This is part of why I get very iffy about accusations of very old crimes coming out - whether or not the accused did it there's going to be very little they can use to defend themselves.
Yeah, you guys keep thinking that this would lead to more conviction. The State has the literally same problems, making it harder for convictions to happen

Eg. If you don't have an alibi, that doesn't prove that you were there at the scene of the crime. Cases don't work like that. If you are the state, you have to prove they could be there if you want to convict
 

Ag3ma

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Trump's lawyers have got to be looking at Sisyphus and thinking "mood"
I think there's a certain element to this which supports the argument that for rich people, legal fines are just a form of expensive permission.