It is time to stop blaming the wrongly accused for putting off women from reporting rape

saint2e · 2013-08-27T11:51:54+00:00

"We feel bad that you almost had your life ruined, and that your reputation is tarnished by a liar, but we're not going to let you have justice because your justice will make it harder for someone to seek their own justice.

Your feelings and right to restitution are not as important as those of other people who will be wronged in the future."

2013-08-27T12:52:09+00:00

Whoever the lawyer that was quoted was needs to learn the difference between coming forward and sending out spam news bulletins about allegations against their uncle. I doubt any of this would have happened if it had been properly investigated and he was found innocent.

thepizzapeople · 2013-08-27T12:29:47+00:00

"But don't you see?! This judge made an egregious error! This Uncle is clearly guilty and they're not only letting him off the hook but punishing his victims! This is terrible! You see we know he's guilty because no woman would ever make false accusations. It doesn't happen. Ever. And if you show me evidence of it happening I'll either blithely ignore it or claim that the cases you presented were also miscarriages of justice and despite the courts' decisions and evidence, the accusations weren't false and the accused were guilty as sin."~Feminism

MRB2012 · 2013-08-27T18:12:33+00:00

Punishing liars isn't going to stop people from telling the truth.

wardog77 · 2013-08-27T17:28:40+00:00

It’s 'very rare' to see victims of alleged sexual assault found liable for defamation

There is no way she could have been saying this with a straight face. The accuser was found to be intentionally lying about this guy yet she is somehow a victim? Really?

Bohica69 · 2013-08-27T14:45:25+00:00

The award of damages is entirely appropriate and correct.

Nomenimion · 2013-08-27T18:27:33+00:00

I'm glad for this libel judgment, and I hope it chills would-be liars to the bone. Now we need to start sending the wolf-criers to prison where they belong.

fluxBurns · 2013-08-27T19:44:15+00:00

I am curious how the judge determined these women were lying? Allegations from the 80s are hard to disprove.

frankiecruz · 2013-08-27T15:21:59+00:00

The most valid point:

"...the persons who seek to deprive the wrongly accused of justice do no favors to rape victims. Giving liars license to harm innocent men and boys without consequence undermines the public's confidence in the way rape claims are handled. Jurors will be all the more wary of convicting even men and boys who should be convicted for rape if they believe that the system gives liars a free pass. If we want to seriously address sexual assault, we need to seriously address the false accusers."

I could imagine a situation where a woman who had little to no physical evidence to support her claim (e.g., if her attacker wore a condom) would feel intimidated by the possibility that, if reported and charges failed to carry through, she herself could face charges, merely for having insufficient evidence. This would be like having two crimes committed against her and both being condoned by law.

That being said there are some completely false claims of rape, where the victim is the person who was wrongly accused. But how do you prove false accusation? If there were two people in the room and they had sex, how could anyone but the two people involved be a judge of consent after the fact?

tyciol · 2013-08-28T06:15:07+00:00

I notice in this article under phrase "see here" it links to this article which has Dean Kilpatrick claiming:

The prevalence of rape, "to make a long story very short," has not decreased over the past 15 years. The number of adult women who will become victims of forcible rape has actually increased 25 percent. Wow.

This set off my warning signs here. Anyone wanna bet that this could be influenced by population increases (ie total number, not percentage) and increased rates of reporting or conviction?

Not to mention that false convictions of rape increasing would also increase the perceived amount of victims.

Also mentioned cops asking Sara Reedy "how many times a day do you use heroine?" as if that wasn't relevant if she did have a history.

cndnchck · 2013-09-04T17:23:54+00:00

couldn't have said it better myself! i love seeing a woman standing up against the ultra-feminists!

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/09/04/barbara-kay-a-sign-of-hope-for-the-falsely-accused/

boomfail · 2013-08-27T22:03:06+00:00

I don't know whether to upvote or downvote this...

Ted8367 · 2013-08-28T01:49:40+00:00

'Predominately, the courts have wanted to encourage people coming forward with their allegations of abuse,” Grace said.

... and the encouragement applies equally whether the allegations are true or false. Therefore the courts, at least part of the time, are encouraging false allegations of abuse.

Official encouragement of false allegations of abuse is a possible reason for the number of false allegations of abuse to be higher than for false allegations of other sorts of crimes.

Title	It is time to stop blaming the wrongly accused for putting off women from reporting rape
Author	PierceHarlan
Upvotes	204
Comments	46
Date	August 27, 2013 11:26 AM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1l6j35/it_is_time_to_stop_blaming_the_wrongly_accused/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/it-is-time-to-stop-blaming-the-wrongly-accused-for.1165363 https://theredarchive.com/post/1165363

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