This sub's view on rape...

Algermas · 2014-05-30T23:21:52+00:00

You know what's psychologically traumatic? Being thrown out of college and essentially having your life ruined over false rape accusations.

AlphaWookie · 2014-05-30T23:25:48+00:00

Rape is bad m'kay. Violating due process and lowering the bar for conviction is bad m'kay. Not having good studies on false rape is bad m'kay.

Seriously the MHRM is not supportive of rape. If you would like to know more about the "rape issue" as it relates to the MHRM, I point you to this blog: http://www.cotwa.info/

It has been running for some years and is a good starting place to understanding this issue. Please, take your time to study it well. I would love to hear you thoughts after your review.

Be Well

Fercockt · 2014-05-30T23:27:02+00:00

Counterpoint:

Do you believe rape should be exempt to all rules of law regarding evidence? If so, does this position also apply equally to every other criminal charge?

Theft, criminal assaults, fraud... court isn't exactly pleasant but the victims of all crimes are required to both be present and have evidence to support their claims. If this your problem with have a different challenge

2014-05-30T23:33:27+00:00

Evidence for rape is notoriously almost impossible to get.

This doesn't justify decreasing the evidence requirements for a conviction.

The psychological trauma of having to be grilled by the person who has just raped you is clearly the reasoning behind this.

Assuming the rape accusation is true, of course. Denying the right to question has a tendency to turn "he said, she said" into "she said, and screw him".

Someone having prior sexual assault charges is clearly relevant to a case that can come down to almost heresay.

I'm cool with that, as long as it goes both ways. The defendant and the plaintiff should be scrutinized to maximize a just result.

Is there a consensus about this issue here?

No, because statistics depend on convictions. Just like the claim that most rapes go unreported (even though nobody could possibly know this), false accusations must be speculated from anecdote.

BlindPelican · 2014-05-30T23:35:35+00:00

Rape is bad - whether it's a male or female victim is inconsequential. I can say with some degree of confidence that you'll not find a single person here that thinks otherwise.

As to what we should do about it, you're looking at two different scenarios: actual legal proceedings and pseudo-legal, Title IX-esque proceedings.

In a court of law, where severe penalties exist, evidentiary rules have to be adhered to. Due process is an important, even crucial, mechanism for a civil society. We still operate under the idea that it is better to acquit the guilty than punish the innocent and this is exactly how it should be.

When you get to a campus, however, even though the ostensible penalties are less severe (expulsion as opposed to prison) there is still significant fallout for a person accused, guilty or innocent. Their lives are interrupted horribly. They may face ostracism or violence or extreme prejudice. So, the result is pretty bad as well - such an event is a life-changer.

Now, before I continue, you have to make a distinction here - do you assume an accusation is true, false, or unproven?

If you think all accusations are true, then we can drop this discussion completely. I think any person would consider this an unreasonable stance to take (even though some take it openly). The vulnerability for abuse of the system would be huge and this is completely contrary to every notion of fair and equitable treatment by authority.

By the same token, assuming all accusations are false is equally unreasonable. A person, usually a woman, may very well have been attacked in a most horrible and intimate way. To deny her accusation right off the bat is also horribly unfair and a travesty.

So, the only reasonable position to take is that accusations are unproven.

Each case is different and regardless of what statistic you ascribe to to determine percentage of false accusations, at any point there is a person, usually a man, who is on the other end of an accusation and that accusation could be false or it could be true.

There are real consequences to this for a person. This could be your brother, father, best friend, employer...even yourself.

So, this person's life balances on the accusation of another.

What then? How is this best handled?

c0mputar · 2014-05-30T23:32:03+00:00

Lowering the burden of proof because it's hard to prove someone is guilty of raping beyond all reasonable doubt undermines the integrity of the judicial system. People already have a hard time discerning what the threshold of all reasonable doubt means.

If you eliminate beyond all reasonable doubt, the already too high exoneration rate of convicted felons (or just innocent people) will multiply many times over. You might think, how can it multiply many times if a third of rape charges end in conviction? Well, if the prosecution only has to work with 50%, they'll prosecute a helluva lot more cases.

Obviously we don't intend for the defendant to be able to question the complainant directly. That is for the lawyer to do, which is the intended meaning of the statement.

Rape Shield Law shouldn't exist, but unfortunately juries are still morally neanderthal and will disregard a good case by the prosecution because they deem a complainant immoral. The judicial system has decided that the good outweighs the bad by passing this law. Ultimately, I personally don't have a problem with it because each case should stand on it's own.

As for Federal Rule of Evidence 413 and Rape Shield Law's commonality with other rules in non-sexual cases, I along with most people have no idea what the rules for evidence admittance even are. Lawyers go through extensive training to understand it, and I won't be surprised if the Rape Shield Law and Federal Rule of Evidence 413 are both redundant or unnecessary. I'm not qualified to say.

Lonemango · 2014-05-31T00:58:07+00:00

You have just been accused of rape. How do you prove you didn't do it? What would you want the standard of proof to be in your case?

Before you ask, if I were raped, what would I want the standard of proof to be? The same as if I were robbed, or mugged, or assaulted or murdered.

2014-05-31T00:58:59+00:00

I just wanted to make it very clear to you that if you were posting on /r/Feminism with a view contrary to what they generally believe, especially on the topic of rape, you'd already have been banned.

Karissa36 · 2014-05-31T00:32:24+00:00

the standard of proof required to convict a male student of rape all the way down to “preponderance of evidence” (anything above 50%)

Universities have no business conducting "star chamber" investigations for criminal offenses like rape. We have an excellent criminal justice system with massive protections for both rape victims and those accused of rape. We have over 200 years worth of carefully considered and reasoned rules on admissible evidence, designed to eliminate irrelevant and prejudicial information, and to seek the truth. We have attorneys and judges who have spent many years specifically learning the law, including rules of evidence, and how to apply them. We have a formal Appellate court system, designed to remedy mistakes in lower courts, and to provide supervision of lower court judges.

Compare this with a handful of liberal professors who never studied any law, often have massively biased opinions, don't keep a record or transcript of the proceedings, randomly decide what evidence they will even hear, and make arbitrary decisions for which there is no appeal. On top of this, they deny the accused an attorney and often refuse to hear his witnesses.

They make decisions that can result in a student being kicked out of the university, with such a black mark on his permanent record that no other school will accept him. Now if the university's decision was limited to an informal restraining order, preventing future contact with the alleged victim, and only a second "founded" complaint could kick the student out of the university, I might agree that the "star chamber" proceedings weren't that bad.

As they are currently conducted, with the severe penalties they inflict, this is a gross miscarriage of justice. Civil cases are making their way through the courts now and they will be successful. In five years, we will see a very different method for universities to handle these complaints.

MRSPArchiver · 2014-05-30T23:14:39+00:00

Post text automatically copied here. (Why?) (Report a problem.)

J_r_s · 2014-05-30T23:29:52+00:00

Rape is forcing an unwilling, or incapable person to participate in non consensual sexual activities regardless of relationship or gender. (I'm wondering if that's too broad...)

Title	This sub's view on rape...
Author	[deleted]
Upvotes	1
Comments	17
Date	May 30, 2014 11:14 PM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/mensrights/comments/26wzj7/this-subs-view-on-rape/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/this-subs-view-on-rape.1617817 https://theredarchive.com/post/1617817

Comments