By Una Salus Victus
A solution must be found to ensure that all are treated equally, with the same protections and privileges, within a court of law. With the rise of False Rape Allegations (FRAs), countermeasures and law reformations have become necessary. The foundation of the law must return to the ideal of innocent before guilt and help prevent the stigmatization of the accused before they have been afforded their day in court. Anonymity for the accused of said crimes will maintain the integrity of the court, while at the same time, ensure that justice properly administered.
This paper is in no way meant to detract from the seriousness of rape in both its forms (mens rea: guilty mind as well as mens actus: guilty actions). Rape is an abhorrent crime that deserves the maximum sentence to those who commit it. However, is the punishment of rape about justice, retribution, or incapacitation? Retribution and incapacitation cannot happen with any form of validity without justice and when they do, the system of justice becomes a mockery of itself. It is at this point where false rape allegations are located.
As it stands, false rape allegations have found a place among the most inhuman ways to disenfranchise the accused. These allegations have come to be known as the female form of rape. This paper will be addressing this form of rape, one that is perpetrated by a certain demographic of women (and a few men). A solution for a way to alleviate the turmoil wrought upon the falsely accused must be found. The most cohesive definition of this issue was published by Philip N. S. Rumney in his article entitled False Allegations of Rape:
At its most basic level, a false allegation can be defined as the description of an event that the complainant knows never actually occurred. Such a definition suggests conscious or malicious motive on the part of the complainant.
Eugene Kanin, who authored False Rape Allegations, further clarified this definition when he wrote, “false rape allegations are not the consequence of a gender-linked aberration, as frequently claimed, but reflect impulsive and desperate efforts to cope with personal and social stress situations.” (81)
Insofar as false allegations are concerned, there exists “Legal Dominance Feminism (LDF)” (Greer 947). There is also a distinct misandrist approach to the topic and legal classification of rape. The catchphrase used for support by the LDF mentions their desire to combat the underreporting of rape to the authorities by the legitimate victims of this crime. Those who make up the LDF include activists as well as prominent legal scholars. One major issue with the LDFs is that many have no sociological background to draw upon to enable them to conduct research to prove their claims. Also, they do not root out their sources thoroughly enough. It is hard to avoid the inference that legal studies are written using only the sources that support the thesis of their work. There is also a tangible lack of concern for those who will inevitably and innocently be persecuted. It’s akin to the adage about breaking eggs to make an omelet. Essentially, it is irresponsible research.
It is important to understand that the LDF consists of the radicalized feminist cabal and the more mainstream members of feminism tend to disagree with these assertions on one point or another. The most revered and well known in this radical group, insofar as this issue pertains, are Mary Koss, Jill Saward, Ruth Hall, as well as the activist group she founded and chairs known as Women Against Rape (WAR).
“In 1982, Mary Koss, then a professor of psychology at Kent State University in Ohio, published an article on rape in which she expressed the orthodox gender feminist view that “rape represents an extreme behavior but one that is on a continuum with normal male behavior within the culture” (Sommers2). Mary Koss is well known for a study she conducted on behalf of Ms Magazine in 1985. In this study, a survey was distributed nationwide to women attending universities. By the end of the survey roughly 3000 female university students were interviewed and their surveys were tallied. The figures that Koss and her associates arrived at were that 15.4 percent of those surveyed were victims of rape, and 12.1 percent had been the victims of attempted rape. The two statistics of total sexual assault was 27.5 percent. This would later be referred to as the One in Four Figure in legal scholastic as well as activist circles.
Jill Saward is a member-activist of the group Women Against Rape (WAR). Her personal story involves the tragedy of being gang raped at the Ealing Vicarage (known at the Ealing Vicarage Rape). Her father, a vicar, and her boyfriend were assaulted and bound by masked assailants who obtained entry to the residence illegally. Since that time, she has devoted her time to helping other women overcome their own ordeals as well as being very outspoken on the issue of sexual violence toward women.
Ruth Hall, as mentioned above, is the Chairwoman and founding member of the Women Against Rape (WAR). Though based in England, WAR is known on both sides of the Atlantic as the laws against rape are similar in both the US and the UK. Hall established WAR in 1976. Hall has been an extremely vocal figure wherever the subject of rape has come up for debate.
The most significant point of the Koss report is that 73 percent of the women she interviewed disagreed with her final assertions. Dr. Christina Hoff Sommers, author of Researching the “Rape Culture” of America, analyzed the data of the Koss Report and discovered that Koss herself had “found that 42 percent of those she counted as rape victims went on to have sex with their attackers on a later occasion. For victims of attempted rape, the figure for subsequent sex with reported assailants was 35 percent.” As it would be extremely uncommon for women who have either been raped or survived an attempted rape to return to the arms of their attacker, it is reasonable to assume that the Koss Report contains some fraudulent statistics. In the end, Koss dismissed the views of the women who didn’t believe that they had been raped and went forward with publishing her study. Koss was able to justify her actions because her questionnaire was intentionally ambiguous. This decision by Koss would later have serious ramifications that would bring into creation the beginning of what some refer to as the Sexual Grievance Industry (SGI). The SGI asserts that there is a “rape epidemic” especially on college campuses. This enabled the conglomeration of women who proclaim themselves feminists to provide the direst rape statistics bereft of empirical data to support their assertions. According to Heather MacDonald, author of The Campus Rape Myth, as it pertains to the Koss Report, “believing in the campus rape epidemic depends on ignoring women’s own interpretations of their experiences- supposedly the most grievous sin in the feminist political code” (3). This was also the precursor to rape law reform.
Prior to the reformation of the rape laws, during the mid 1970s, society held rape in a very different regard. It was more common for a rape to happen by a stranger as opposed to now where the most common assailant is an acquaintance or family member. There also existed a cultural stigma attached toward the victim of rape that included public shaming of the victim. Essentially, it was more common to place blame upon the victim than it was to offer them sympathy for their ordeal. This stigma created a very harrowing experience for the women who were legitimately brutalized and prevented justice from being meted out as necessary. The rape reform laws were needed to help ensure that all members of society received equal protection under the law.
It was during this time that the law, as it pertained to rape cases, followed closely the common law system of the English. This system outright discouraged rape proceedings from being carried forward and was well known among victims. As such, there existed fewer convictions of rape. During this time, it was (unfortunately) a better idea to just accept what happened and move on versus trying to obtain justice for oneself through the courts. According to Christopher Bopst, author of Rape Shield Laws and Prior False Accusations of Rape: The Need for Meaningful Legislative Reform:
At common law, a woman who concealed her injury for a considerable period of time was presumed to have feigned her story. Consonant with the treatment of women as chattel property, common law provided a spousal exemption for rape. As part of the “forcible compulsion” requirement, a woman was required to resist to the utmost, except where precluded by fear of grave harm. If a woman failed to provide such resistance, it was presumed that she must have either consented or encouraged the rapist… Concerned about unfounded accusations of rape, however, several states, through statute or judicial decision, installed a specific corroboration requirement for rape prosecutions.
The growing support of reform for the laws as well as the activism that surrounded this issue is what precipitated the change. “In a movement that some feminists think may ultimately damage the cause of women in general, new statutes and case law have recognized as forcible compulsion threats other than the use of overt physical force… Some courts have reduced or eliminated the “reasonable mistake” defense, a result unique to rape cases” (Bopst 130). The conflict with this law is that without physical force, it becomes extremely difficult to distinguish between a willing participant and someone who has been legitimately raped. The word rape, itself, conjures an image of one person’s physical desire to another person’s detriment. The person who does not desire such intimate contact would likely bear signs of a struggle, unless either lethal or passive coercion was used to force their consent. These methods include, but are not limited to), a knife, gun, or alcohol/drugs. Without these measures of forced compliance, it would be difficult to prove the innocence of someone who assumed the acquiescence of the accuser to their physical ministrations signified consent for continuance. The reason the removal of force is relevant is because only through force is rape provable. The use of force greatly limits the possibility of he said, she said scenarios, as well as, cautionary convictions.
The next changes pertained specifically to the rape laws. “The corroboration requirement once so prevalent in American rape law was abandoned by most of the states. Through statute or judicial decision, many jurisdictions abandoned the jury instruction concerning the ease of making or the difficulty defending against a rape charge” (Bopst 131). At this point, corroboration on the accuser’s part is no longer required; conversely, this rule does apply to the accused. Essentially, if the accused cannot provide corroborating evidence of their innocence, then they will find themselves legally in a position that only encourages a guilty verdict.
Next came the “rape-shield” laws, (Fed. R. Evid. 412) which excluded the sexual past of the accuser if it had no bearing on the accused in the case. This meant that any promiscuity on the part of the accuser was now inadmissible in court if it didn’t pertain to the relationship to the accused. These same laws do not pertain to the accused. Without being able to rely upon the sexual past of the accuser, defense had to instead prove their case by proving mendacity. According to Bopst:
The Federal Rules treat differently the character of a victim or the accused in a criminal case from the character of a witness. Under the Federal Rules, the alleged victim of a sexual assault assumes the dual role of victim and witness. Consequently, relevant evidence about the alleged victim may be introduced through either the 400 rules governing character or the 600 rules governing the credibility of a witness. Through these rules, evidence about prior false allegations of rape may be admitted (133).
While this sounds simple, the act of admitting evidence of prior false allegations is much more complicated. The Federal Rules don’t streamline this ability. Being both victim and witness means the accuser falls under two different sets of rules (the 400 and 600 series). There exists the ability to simply ask the accuser if, in fact, they have accused others of false allegations. The difficulty of this presents itself whenever the accuser commits perjury. Were this another type of criminal case, the defense could treat the witness as hostile, however this will not work in a rape case because of the accuser’s victim status. Most jurisdictions treat the evidence of prior false allegations as extrinsic (past criminal deeds) evidence and to introduce it into the case requires a very specific protocol. It is important to remember that both federal and state laws must be satisfied to present extrinsic evidence in rape cases. Because extrinsic evidence is time consuming and can taint the credibility of the “witness”, there is conflict about the correct procedure required to present it. This conflict is further increased once state laws are applied. Essentially, what works in one state likely will be over-ruled in another. Over time, the ability to enter into evidence proof that the accuser has established a history of false allegations became so difficult that it simply fell out of common practice; however, a well practiced attorney who knows their way around this type of case will routinely be able to introduce such evidence, consequently these attorneys are very expensive. This is one area where further reform is needed, however, the subject of rape has become so politicized that any change of the law in favor of the accused is fought relentlessly by the LDF. Bopst maintains a similar stance:
Since the critical issue in a rape case is whether a rape of the complainant by the defendant actually occurred, the credibility of the complaining witness is a material issue. To exclude evidence concerning the credibility of the complainant jeopardizes the ascertainment of truth, especially if the witness directly contradicts the evidence sought to be admitted by the defendant (144).
Following this the laws were changed and eliminated mens rea requirement for a rape to have occurred. Mens rea means guilty mind and the LDF stated that it was too stringent a condition and pressed for reform. This is where the law gets tricky. At this point, common law practices of rape have thoroughly been abolished. One would assume that before a rape took place, the assailant first thought of rape as the intended or possible outcome. Bereft of mens rea, the charge of rape is emboldened and the ability to defend against it is further reduced. This law would be acceptable if false allegations didn’t happen or held a significant criminal charge. Since that is not the case, as long as there are innocent men accused of rape, this law is ill advised.
The next reformation deals with anonymity for the accuser. In the UK as well as Florida and South Carolina for the US, rape accusers are legally afforded anonymity. Outside Florida and South Carolina, an informal rule has been maintained by the media that forbids the listing of any alleged victim of rape. The issue this presents is that the accused don’t have such courtesy afforded to them and wind up facing a trial by media. On the other hand, the very definition of common law entails a set of rules that is commonly followed by society. The very fact that the prosecutor’s office doesn’t mention the accuser’s name via live press conferences signifies an agreement between a legal institution and the media. As such, common law is established. A character assassination inevitably happens when one is accused of rape. It doesn’t matter how contrary to one’s character the accusation is once an identity is released into the public; it has become human nature to rush to judgment despite any inconsistencies within the rape charges. Those accused will typically face a loss of intimacy with current and potential romantic or domestic partners, loss of reputation with society, as well as a loss of trust among most (if not all) of their friends and family.
Then, laws across the 50 states were enacted that either lengthened or removed altogether the statute of limitations on rape cases. This law can be both good and bad. Good in that if a person who has access to children (who has abused them sexually) is still working in the field can be brought to justice by someone who has grown both physically and mentally and no longer fears speaking against them. Bad if someone uses time as a way to cover the gaps in a false allegation. All in all, this law likely has little occurrence of enabling or preventing the likelihood of false allegations.
Finally, the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was signed into law in the US and the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) was enacted in the UK. The two laws are similar in that they were put in place to ensure that battered and sexually abused women have enough protection under the law to ensure their safety. The VAWA was eventually expanded to include dating abuse situations, domestic violence and stalking. The CICA program compensates victims financially for sexual assault. The negative side of both programs has begun to happen with more frequency. In the opinion of the author, VAWA was needed. It must be noted that new laws intended to address one area badly in need of representation may, over time, create an opportunity for those who would use them for selfish gain. VAWA, as it turns out, is too open ended and, as it stands, has allowed many false reports to come into existence. It has now become common-place for the opening volley of divorce proceedings to contain alleged sexual or physical abuse.
According to the False Rape Society’s author who goes by the pen name Archivist, “The CICA, funded by the Ministry of Justice, pays victims of “violent crimes” according to an established scheme of tariffs. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme (2008) sets forth the standard amounts paid for each category of crime”(1). No matter the severity of the ordeal, this board does not compensate men who have been falsely accused of rape. Another point made by Archivist:
While the Compensation Scheme is designed to cover crimes of violence, an exception is made for non-forcible rape and other sexual crimes not involving violence…Under the compensation scheme, non-consensual penile penetration warrants UK £11,000. (Page 34.) Greater sums are allotted depending on the severity of the injury inflicted. A non-penetrative sexual physical act “over the clothing” warrants UK £1000. (Page 34.) This, presumably, includes a single instance of inappropriate touching. (3)
This system is rampant with fraudulent claims. In its current form, a claim may be presented to the compensation board before a police investigation or court of law has established the validity of the claim. The inappropriate touching can include being groped by a stranger in a dark club. This requires no police report about the incident which further undermines any validity of the claim being found. The simple solution for this type of problem would be to avoid the locale; however, as long as there exists free compensation, there will be those who will file motions for compensation In all truth, this is to be expected especially in the current climate of economic affairs.
The next legal change pertained to the use of the polygraph; common practice was now prohibited. Rape accusers, at one time, were required to take a polygraph test before the investigation moved forward. Ironically, it was this method that enabled the filtering out of the majority of false rape cases. Further proof that this law is used as a one-sided method to protect the accuser comes when one sees that the accused is sometimes forced to take a polygraph. In many cases, even ones with non-cohesive facts, the fraudulence will never be investigated until the accused consents to and passes a polygraph test.
Following this, Fed. R. Evid. 413 was enacted. This law allows evidence of a defendant’s prior offenses, no matter how long ago, to be used to prove their propensity to behavior that would have enabled this charge to have happened. This bill will also allow prior criminal cases where the accused was found innocent to be presented in opposition by the prosecutor. This law is exactly the reverse of the rape shield laws. Whereas the rape shield laws forbid the use of the accuser’s past against them, this law enables the past of the accused to be used to their detriment. This effectively corners the defendant and has been used to send many innocents to prison.
Lastly, rules were enacted on college campuses that allowed the administration to expel males accused of sexual transgressions. Additionally, most institutions have rules that prevent the prosecution for underage drinking of any female who comes forward with a rape allegation even if the allegation later proves to be false. This process incentivizes the filing of false rape allegations in order to dodge an underage drinking charge. Underage drinking while on college property is an offense that is commonly punished by expulsion. In light of this, it is both understandable and predictable that some accusers concoct their victimization after being apprehended for underage drinking. Sadly though, the concept of right vs. wrong is abolished with the application of this law and these same students take what they have learned beyond the university level and into the professional world, thus perpetuating this cycle of false allegations for personal gain.
After all this legislation, the sexual grievance industry and the LDFs still insist that nothing has helped to curb the underreporting of rape, though some good came due to their efforts. What has happened as a result of these laws is a cultural shift in how rape is perceived. There is now a stigma attached to rape that shows just how grievous the crime is and how much the public understands the turmoil it does to someone’s life. The amount of overall retribution on the victim’s behalf as well as the amount of sympathy generated is better than it was forty years ago; But at what cost? Edward Greer author of The Truth Behind Legal Dominance Feminism’s “Two Percent False Rape Claim” Figure, harbors a theory on the cost:
LDF proclaims that women are deterred from making false rape charges because, inter alia, rape complainants are subjected to harrowing “second rape.”…However, LDFs essentially static view of false claims simply does not take into account that as the sanctions and costs of bringing rape charges are reduced, an individual’s calculation of whether to deliberately make a wrongful charge correspondingly shifts. LDF exponents do not acknowledge that if the “second rape” disappears, so too does the very disincentive which is advanced as the main reason underlying the existence of few false reports (961).
It helps to understand the motivation behind the enactment of these ten laws. Popular legal literature states that, while false rape allegations exist, there is less than a two percent chance of them occurring. According to Edward Greer, “This empirical statement is ubiquitously repeated in legal literature. Dozens of law review articles reiterate the two percent clause. This empirical fact, however, is an ideological fabrication” (949). Greer goes on to state that, “as far as can be ascertained, no study has ever been published which sets forth an evidentiary basis for the “two percent false rape complaint” thesis” (951). Michelle Anderson of Villanova Law School wrote in her 2004 article The Legacy of the Prompt Complaint Requirement, Corroboration Requirement, and Cautionary Instructions on Campus Sexual Assault that, “over time and perhaps through repetition, this two percent false rate has come to constitute the “conventional scholarly wisdom” on the matter” (34). Among this list of refuters are Stuart Taylor Jr. and K.C. Johnson, who co-authored a book about the Duke rape case of 2006 entitled Until Proven Innocent. In this book, they directly address the two percent clause:
The standard assertion by feminists that only two percent of sexual claims are false (…) is without empirical foundation and belied by a wealth of empirical data (374)
The most interesting part of this statistic is its longevity. As mentioned above, this statistic has endured the last thirty-five years and is still repeated to this day.
Christopher Bopst, who is mentioned above, provides a unique perspective because he was among those who failed to doubt the two percent clause yet still believed that, even if true, the two percent who are falsely accused deserve equal protection under the law.
The origin of the two percent clause, as it turns out, comes from a book written by Susan Brownmiller titled, Against Our Will. The statistic in question was originally a speech that a New York City magistrate gave to an audience that included Brownmiller. The passage in question is as follows:
A decade ago the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports noted that 20 percent of all rapes reported to the police “were determined by investigation to be unfounded.” By 1973 the figure had dropped to 15 percent while rape remained, in the FBI’s words, “the most underreported crime.” A 15 percent figure for false rape accusations is undeniably high, yet when the New York City instituted a special sex crimes analysis squad and put policewomen (instead of men) in charge of interviewing complainants, the number of false charges in New York dropped dramatically to 2 percent, a figure that corresponded exactly to the rate of false reports for other violent crimes. The lesson in the mystery of the vanishing statistic is obvious. Women believe the word of other women. Men do not.
What is most astonishing about this passage is the lack of empirical data to support it (indeed, there is even no record of the speech ever being given) , yet it is a statistic that is repeated by a wide margin within legal scholastic studies and articles (Greer pursued the facts of this speech to the point where he attempted to find police reports to back it up. There weren’t any). In fact, (in the UK) in a briefing by the Women Against Rape, for debate in House of Commons, 8 July 2010 it was said that, “the latest Home Office research found that some officers are still so prejudiced as to think that up to 50% of rape reports are lies, yet only about 3% of rape allegations are false, which is lower than false reports for other crimes” (Ruth Hall NO TO ANONYMITY). The VAWA contains the same clause about false allegations being less than 2%, located at Pub. L. 102-199, S Rep. 102-197 n. 48 October, 29 1991. In fact, Mary Koss, who is also mentioned above, was instrumental in ensuring the VAWA was signed into law. It was she who quoted the two percent clause that the VAWA contains.
In light of this, what is truly needed is further reformation of the rape laws. With the laws favoring the accuser, the accused stands to lose everything. One of three reformations is in order, anonymity for the accused until conviction, anonymity for none, or the accused loses their right to anonymity the moment it is proven that the case is fraudulent. Ideally, the same anonymity that the accuser enjoys should be given to the accused until conviction. Even if the case is proven to be fraudulent, the accuser typically retains their anonymity while the accused (after having endured negative media attention) has to pick up what little is left of their shattered reputation and simply solider on.
Understandably, the stigma of a false allegation never completely goes away. With the technology being as advanced as it is, the ability to find the name and image of the accused before exoneration is easy. To this day, it is possible to locate web pages of both the Duke and the HOFSTRA cases before it was proven that these men were the victims of female rape.
The resistance to anonymity for the accused is both vast and outspoken. Ruth Hall, founder and chair of WAR believes that offering anonymity to rape suspects will undermine the very system through which they are prosecuted. According to Hall, women are still overwhelmingly the victims:
“in fact women… need protecting, first from violent men- rape, sexual assaults and domestic violence are common crimes- and then from the criminal justice system which continues to be biased against women. Why in this context, is the government singling out men accused of rape for special protection?”(2).
With this statement, Hall seems to be intentionally overlooking the ordeals the innocent must endure. Long before jury selection, their image and name have been broadcast by the media and their reputations have been vilified. Another point is that minors accused of rape have automatic anonymity, yet no one advocates the removal of this right. Concurrently, this protection has not, in any way, hindered neither true nor false allegations against them.
Western society has come to crave sensationalism and it is the opinion of the author that, over time, that craving has both unintentionally and negatively obscured judgment. Innocent before guilty doesn’t mean what it should. Innocent of the charges, likewise, has lost validity. The media contributes to this by not covering the exoneration with the same fervor as they direct toward the initial charges. The charge of rape is typically front page news while the exoneration of said charges is usually found somewhere in the middle of the paper if at all. If all one reads are the charges, then it becomes difficult to resist becoming one-sided. If those who falsely accuse were investigated with the same intensity as those they accused, then a reversal of this negative aspect upon society would begin, ironically, the politicization of rape crimes prevents the media from conducting business in this way to prevent any negative ‘attention’ befalling them.
Hall goes on to say, “we don’t want to see men accused of rape getting special protection that people don’t get for other crimes. Anonymity for men has already been tried, but the police said it hindered their investigations, because they could not put out calls for women who had been raped by the same man.” Hall is, in the opinion of the author, deliberately ignoring the fact that rape is classified as a special crime in both the US and the UK. There is no other criminal case that provides anonymity for any of the victims or witnesses. There have been issues in murder trials where the witness is targeted by the very criminals they are testifying against, yet the idea of anonymity has never been considered. Using Hall’s logic, if receiving anonymity constitutes “getting special attention” and she is so adamant that it should not be offered, then the alleged victim should not have it either. The point that Hall is missing in her second argument is the climate of rape has changed dramatically since the last time anonymity was proposed for the accused. Anonymity for the accused was last proposed at the beginning of the rape reformation law period and, at that point in time (when the victim was mistreated by the courts), truth was to be found in her statement. Now, not only have times changed, but the stigma surrounding the ordeal of reporting a rape has greatly diminished and the rate of false allegations have, likewise, increased to the detriment of the innocent. Another reason to favor providing anonymity for the accused concerns celebrity cases. When celebrities are accused of rape, it is not difficult for the public to identify the accuser. Celebrites accused will always undermine the anonymous system. If the accused are popular enough, there exists the possibility that those who are familiar with the accuser could potentially offer their names and images to unscrupulous members of the press for personal gain. This is precisely what occurred during the rape trial of Los Angeles Lakers’ player Kobe Bryant. Essentially, Bryant’s celebrity status undermined the anonymity protection of the accuser.
Sam Jones, editorialist of The Guardian, a newspaper in the UK was able to obtain an interview with Jill Seward. Seward joins the cacophony of voices in opposition to the proposed anonymity for the accused idea. According to Saward, the changes would, “send a damaging message and may discourage victims from coming forward.” Saward offers no empirical data to support this argument. As such, like Hall, Saward is guilty of using emotion and straw man arguments as the basis of her arguments. Both Hall and Saward seem to be living with the same mentality they exhibited back in the 1970s. They refuse to identify the problems with the current system and insist that all women are still being victimized by the court system.
On the introduction page of the Women Against Rape website, one is shown pictures of women during rallies and demonstrations. One such picture depicts a woman holding a poster that reads, “rape wasn’t in my marriage vows.” This coincides with WAR’s widely held belief that women don’t lie about rape and wives lie least of all. While it is certainly possible that women married to abusive mates suffer greatly at their hands, to say that no women are lying is a very naïve (perhaps sadistic) fabrication of events. A simple refute to this has been addressed by Rumney. In 1976, this very issue came up and the emphasis was on false allegations as they pertained to divorce proceedings. The passage Rumney quotes is as follows:
When that stage of hatred is reached [during divorce], the more hurtful the allegation the more likely it is to be made…There does not have to be any evidence of injury. All that a woman has to do is to disarrange her clothes… In marriage, the charge [of rape] can be made with ease when the couple are living under the same roof… one must also have regard to the ease with which the allegation being made… there are many reasons why a woman could be vengeful towards her husband… Therefore, one has to be very careful (147).
Women like Hall and Saward fail to acknowledge what happens whenever a false allegation is made. False allegations cheapen the hard-fought modern view of rape and the sympathy that true victims deserve. False allegations also disenfranchise a segment of the population. The reason that false allegations don’t have a more stringent penalty is largely due to the adherence of the two percent clause. If rape is really a special case unto itself, then there should always have been an included penalty for those who lie about it. LDFs won’t even consider that because they either aren’t concerned about innocent men or these prosecutions could potentially undo all their efforts and re-establish the pre-reformation rape law stigma of the 1970s. The truth upon the matter is this is precisely the mindset that will eventually indoctrinate society unless some action is taken in order to properly mete out equal justice. Another point to consider is that if the penalty for filing false charges is ever increased and those who file them are prosecuted on a regular basis, then the amount of recantations will potentially and drastically drop causing more innocent men to be wrongly imprisoned.
The last point to consider is the fact that false allegations exist in every corner of criminal law and rape is no different. Those disenfranchised the most by false rape allegations will be the ones who already carry this burden in other areas of criminal justice. In every other instance of the criminal justice process, African Americans and Hispanics are disproportionately represented. The same holds true for rape. For African American men among the socio-economic lower class (which, to be fair, also includes men of other races), a false allegation is especially damaging as they have fewer options for defense and cannot easily relocate. This forces them to endure this negative stigma forever. This type of pressure creates a type of mental surrender and robs the accused any chance of becoming a productive member of society. For African Americans, false allegations and the trial by media that follows have the same effect that the Jim Crow laws had upon African Americans in the 1950s.
The truth of the circumstances is this; just as other crimes are both falsely and under-reported, so too will be rape. Nothing will ever change that. The reporting of legitimate rape claims will never be 100 percent. Laws won’t change or solve this issue as there are other forces in society that contribute to it. For instance, if an unmarried Muslim woman is raped anywhere in the world, it is unlikely that she will come forward as this ruins her chances of getting married because, according to her culture, she has now become soiled due to the loss of her virginity.
There is no law or statute that can be implemented which will eliminate false accusations and the negative stigma from such accusations is, in most cases, too oppressing to overcome. In light of this, anonymity for the accused until a verdict of guilty is passed is the only viable solution to ensure equal protection, as well as, equal justice under the law.
Works Cited
Anderson, Michelle J. “The Legacy of the Prompt Complaint Requirement, Corroboration
Requirement and Cautionary Instructions on Campus Sexual Assault.” Boston University Law Review, Forthcoming, 2004. Web. 31 Jun. 2010
Archivist. “Britain Pays Women to Lie About Rape, but Denies Compensation for Men
Destroyed by Rape Lies.” The False Rape Society. E. Steven Berkimer, 30 Jun. 2010. Web. 22 Jul. 2010
Bopst, Christopher. “Rape Shield Laws and Prior False Accusations of Rape: The Need for
Meaningful Legislative Reform.” Journal of Legislation 24:125. (1998): 125-148. Print
Brownmiller, Susan. Against Our Will. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975. Print.
Greer, Edward. “The Truth Behind Legal Dominance Feminism’s “Two Percent False
Rape Claim” Figure.” Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review 33:947.
(2000): 947-972. Print.
Hall, Ruth. Women Against Rape. Ruth Hall, 2010. Web. 01 Jul. 2010
Jones, Sam. “Rape Cases Anonymity for Defendants Would Be Insult to Victims, Say Activists.”
Guardian. Guardian, 20 May 2010. Web. 22 Jul. 2010
Kanin, Eugene J. “False Rape Allegations.” Archives of Sexual Behavior 23. (1994): 81-92. Print
Mac Donald, Heather. “Campus Rape Myth.” City Journal 18.1 (2008): 21-34. Print
Rumney, N.S. Philip. “False Allegations of Rape.” Cambridge Law Journal 65(1).
(2006): 128-158. Print.
Sommers, Christina Hoff. “Researching the “Rape Culture” of America” Leadership U., 2010.
Web. Sat. 22 Jul. 2010
Taylor Jr, Steward., and KC Johnson. Until Proven Innocent. New York: 2007. Print.
Violence Against Women Act of 2005. Pub. L. 102-199. S Rep. 102-197. n.48. 29 Oct. 1991. Print
