It’s neither funny nor surprising that wherever you go around the country, around the world, or around the Internet you are sure to stumble upon a case of men’s rights being trampled.
Last weekend I saw a commercial for the Turner Classic Movie “Birdman of Alcatraz”, the story of a man sent to prison for killing another man who had beaten the woman he lived with. But that’s not what this article is about. I Google’d the movie and eventually stumbled upon the story of the Scottsboro Boys, filing it away as an idea for an article.
When I read Kragshot’s own false accusation story on the Men’s Rights sub-Reddit I was reminded of the case. What happened to African American men in the 30s can happen to any man today.
From Wikipedia (emphasis added, text unedited):
The Scottsboro Boys were nine black defendants in a 1931 Scottsboro, Alabama rape case. The case was heard by the United States Supreme Court twice in Powell v. Alabama and Norris v. Alabama. These decisions established the principles that criminal defendants are entitled to effective assistance of counsel and that people may not be de facto excluded from juries because of their race.
Nine young negro male defendants were accused of raping two homeless white women on a freight train to Mississippi, and eight were quickly convicted in a mob atmosphere. The juries were entirely white, and the defense attorneys had little experience in criminal law and no time to prepare their cases. As each of the nine cases successively went to the jury, the next trial was immediately begun. Eight of the nine defendants were found guilty, and were sentenced to death, but later had their death sentences lifted by the Supreme Court, serving instead between six and nineteen years in prison.
I was immediately engaged. Here are a few key parts of the article which detail the “trial”:
Next, Dr. R.R. Bridges testified that Virginia Price was talkative and “not hysterical” when he examined her. The only injuries he found were small bruises on her back and the top of her hips. There was no tearing in the area of her genitals. He found semen in her that was “non-motile”, which indicated that the spermatozoa had been in her vagina for several hours. The Court allowed him to testify, over defense objection, that it was “possible” that she had been forced to have sex with six men, one right after the other, and not have any more injury to her body than he found.
On cross examination, Bridges confirmed that Price had no lacerations and was not bloody. Bates had two small bruises, about the size of a “nickel” on both sides of her groin. He agreed that she also was not hysterical and showed no other injuries. The only semen he found in her was located in the area of her cervix. The defense asked, “Both of these girls admitted to you they had had sexual intercourse previous to this, didn’t they?” The Court sustained the prosecution’s objection to that question. The prosecution objected to defense questions about what the women had told the doctor about their sex habits, whether Ruby Bates had a venereal disease, or whether the women had previously been virgins.
…
The Court sustained those objections. Many later commentators hold the refusal of the Court to let the defense inquire into other ways the women might have ended up with that semen was another example of how the defendants were denied a fair trial. In fact, virtually every account of this case is quick to mention that the accusers were alleged prostitutes. However, it is interesting to note that this fact likely would not be admissible at the trial of their accused rapists even today under Alabama Code Section 12-21-203, the Alabama “Rape Shield Law.” This law holds that the reputations for non-chastity or specific acts of non-chastity of the victims of an alleged rape are inadmissible.
It is interesting? No, it’s ridiculous. From my experiences at Wikipedia, however, stating the truth – even when properly sourced – will just get your contributions reverted by the political correctness Nazis.
Judge Horton grants Patterson’s motion of new trial
“History, sacred and profane, and the common experience of mankind teach us that women of the character shown in this case are prone for selfish reasons to make false accusations both of rape and of insult upon the slightest provocation for ulterior purposes. These women are shown, by the great weight of the evidence, on this very day before leaving Chattanooga, to have falsely accused two Negroes of insulting them, and of almost precipitating a fight between one of the white boys they were in company with and these two Negroes. This tendency on the part of the women shows that they are predisposed to make false accusations upon any occasion whereby their selfish ends may be gained. The Court will not pursue the evidence any further. As heretofore stated the law declares that a defendant should not be convicted without corroboration where the testimony of the prosecutrix bears on its face indications of improbability or unreliability and particularly when it is contradicted by other evidence. The testimony of the prosecutrix in this case is not only uncorroborated, but it also bears on its face indications of improbability and is contradicted by other evidence, and in addition thereto the evidence greatly preponderates in favor of the defendant. It therefore becomes the duty of the Court under the law to grant the motion made in this case. It is therefore ordered and adjudged by the Court that the motion be granted; that the verdict of the jury in this case and the judgment of the Court sentencing this defendant to death be set aside and that a new trial be and the same is hereby ordered.”
Male judges used to know that women could lie about rape. If anything false rape accusations have become more common, but it seems the entire “justice” system has forgotten the lessons of the past.
Have we, as a society, learned nothing?
