Yes Means Yes law passed

[JAZZGASM]

There was a case in a nearby town about 5-6 years ago but I can't remember enough information for google to find a link


And how many of you men seriously think a woman is going to put herself through the trauma and humiliation of a rape trial just to get back at some dickwad she thinks jilted her?

I think the current laws are sufficient. However, the number of false rape claims are higher than you might think. FBI reports consistently put the number of "unfounded" rape accusations around 8%. In contrast, the average rate of unfounded reports for other crimes tracked by the FBI is 2%. Often times false accusations are done out of shame due to religious reasons (I couldn't willingly have sex against the rules of my church, etc.)

The rape laws are a double edged sword. On the one had, if we punish false accusers, it could deter women that were actually raped from coming forward. Obviously we need to prevent that. However, I have read about a few cases where it was proven that the man never even had sex with the woman, and still no punishment for the woman.

I don't want to downplay the mental and physical anguish caused by rape, but a false accusation of rape can also be detrimental to the falsely accused. I have a close friend that was accused of sexual assault when he never did anything to the woman (she was stalking him and he avoided her like the plague. After the charges were dropped she continued to stalk him and he eventually got a protective order). Having a law that requires affirmative consent may be a good idea. But the issue of proof seems to negate the effect of this law. Without other witnesses, how does one prove they affirmatively consented?

 

[♪alt13]

There was a case in a nearby town about 5-6 years ago but I can't remember enough information for google to find a link


And how many of you men seriously think a woman is going to put herself through the trauma and humiliation of a rape trial just to get back at some dickwad she thinks jilted her?

Jurors
Can't live with em
Can't live without em

People are going to get **** wrong. The ideal of our legal system is justice but in practice it ain't so easy.

 

[One Brow]

I thought this whole thread is about some new law that states that a woman had to say YES to sex or its rape

As in, any act of sex with a mute woman would be rape? No, the point is that consent needs to be unequivocal.

 

[One Brow]

How do you figure someone is supposed to meet this requirement without a yes?

Body language, manual manipulation, etc.

 

[moevillini]

here is a link, this is the specific case I had in mind:

https://www.billoreilly.com/b/Videotape,-rape-and-prosecution/-484354566689748840.html

The initial findings
The man who videotaped the incident, Sonny Smith, now 21, pled guilty to child porn charges, and was sentenced to four months in boot camp.

One of the men who had sex with the woman, Christopher Robbins, now 21, was never taped. He argued the sex was consensual, and was acquitted by a jury last year.

Burim Berezi, now 20, was captured on camera having sex with the woman and fled to Albania shortly after he was charged. He remains at large....

more details from the link:

"A judge in Illinois threatened to throw a woman in jail because she refused to watch a videotape of her own alleged gang-rape,"...


The case
On December 7, 2002, 17-year-old Adrian Missbrenner threw a party at his parents' home in suburban Burr Ridge, Illinois. The alleged victim, who was 16 at the time, showed up at the party and began playing drinking games, apparently "chugging" vodka straight from the bottle until she vomited. She claims she passed out and woke up the next morning naked from the waist down, with obscenities scrawled in marker all over her legs and stomach, with no memory of what happened. She asked an acquaintance, who told her several guys had sex with her while one videotaped it. She was also told that others spit and scrawled derogatory words after the sex. She went to police to file a report and the videotape was recovered....


...The videotape
According to reports I was reading that morning, Missbrenner's defense attorney, Patrick Campanelli, argued the sex was consensual and wanted to play that tape for the 20-year-old woman, and cross-examine her about it. The newspapers wrote that she had become visibly upset and told Judge Kennedy she wouldn't watch it.

Prosecutor Michael Deno argued that the woman hadn't given her consent and didn't remember anything after blacking out....

I agree that the law is not perfect. And I agree that there most definitely have been instances where innocent young men have been convicted of "rape" or other crimes by overzealous attorneys and DA's, or by "victims" who have some other agenda (the case of Gary Dotson/Cathleen Crowell Webb for example) But these problems exist already, and I don't think this law is going to exacerbate those types of occurrences.

And I hope that this law might prevent a defense attorney from thinking he has a slam-dunk defense just because there's video evidence that shows a passive victim.

 

[One Brow]

Honestly, this law won't prevent the situations it hopes to, which is a situation where a girl is drunk and is taken advantage of.

You mean, the way that laws against murder prevent murders?

If a girl is that drunk, who is going to remember if she gave consent?

https://jazzfanz.com/showthread.php?32212-Yes-Means-Yes-law-passed&p=900191&viewfull=1#post900191

I've never been that drunk, so I'll ask those on the board with experience. How often did you wake up, and see vomit on, say, the bed, and think to yourselves that someone forced your mouth open, held down your tongue, and made you vomit? How often did you see a fist-sized hole in the wall, and assume that someone carried you to the wall, balled your hand, and pounded the wall with it? How often did you see a urine-soaked rug, and assume that someone pulled down your pants and pushed on your bladder until you peed?

So far, no one has come forward to say they believed they were forced to vomit, punch the wall, o pee on a floor. Similarly, people know the difference between when they made a bad decision while being drunk, and when they were raped.

 

[One Brow]

Did the boys claim she gave verbal consent?

Sometimes. Sometimes everyone acknowledges the woman was passed out or just too drunk to respond.

I'm not saying I am against the law. I agree with the sentiment, for the most part. I just don't see it being effective. Babe has kinda hit the nail on the head. A person with a public defender would probably be convicted with or without this law and one with a good lawyer would get off.

You have to get the case to trial before you can get a conviction. All over the country, prosecutors have refused to prosecute the rapes of people who were drunk, often so drunk they could not stand, or even passed out. This law is a clear green light for those prosecutions.

 

[♪alt13]

Body language, manual manipulation, etc.

Pretty sure "body language" is too vague to be an acceptable defense under this law.(pretty sure that's the whole point of the law)

What do you mean by "manual manipulation"?

 

[One Brow]

Pretty sure "body language" is too vague to be an acceptable defense under this law.(pretty sure that's the whole point of the law)

Pretty sure you're completely wrong. Any jury would take "she was naked, pointed between her lags, and waved me toward her" as consent.

What do you mean by "manual manipulation"?

Sorry, I don't write pornography.

 

[♪alt13]

Sometimes. Sometimes everyone acknowledges the woman was passed out or just too drunk to respond.



You have to get the case to trial before you can get a conviction. All over the country, prosecutors have refused to prosecute the rapes of people who were drunk, often so drunk they could not stand, or even passed out. This law is a clear green light for those prosecutions.

The reason prosecutors are not bringing these cases to court is not because they do not have a legal basis to bring the charges. It is because they fear they will be unable to get a conviction. They already have a green light. They choose to not pursue it. Maybe they do this because they want to focus resources on cases they can win. Maybe they are afraid that it will negatively impact their conviction rate and hurt their career.

 

[♪alt13]

Pretty sure you're completely wrong. Any jury would take "she was naked, pointed between her lags, and waved me toward her" as consent.



Sorry, I don't write pornography.

So you don't think a frightened person would perform manual manipulation? If a man forces a woman to do that he is in the clear?

It seems like you're arguing against the law and you don't even realize it.

I'd like to know what mo thinks.

Does manual manipulation and body language imply affirmative consent?

 

[One Brow]

The reason prosecutors are not bringing these cases to court is not because they do not have a legal basis to bring the charges. It is because they fear they will be unable to get a conviction. They already have a green light. They choose to not pursue it. Maybe they do this because they want to focus resources on cases they can win. Maybe they are afraid that it will negatively impact their conviction rate and hurt their career.

You are discounting the effects of rape culture in this analysis. The law sets a clear standard that "you got drunk" does not equate to sex. Perhaps this seems obvious to you, but many people get confused on the issue.

 

[One Brow]

So you don't think a frightened person would perform manual manipulation? If a man forces a woman to do that he is in the clear?

A man can force a woman to "yes" out loud, for that matter. You're grasping at straws here.

 

[♪alt13]

A man can force a woman to "yes" out loud, for that matter. You're grasping at straws here.

You are discounting the effects of rape culture in this analysis. The law sets a clear standard that "you got a handy" does not equate to consent. Perhaps this seems obvious to ****ing everyone, but you seem to be confused on the issue.

 

[jimmy eat jazz]

I think the current laws are sufficient. However, the number of false rape claims are higher than you might think. FBI reports consistently put the number of "unfounded" rape accusations around 8%. In contrast, the average rate of unfounded reports for other crimes tracked by the FBI is 2%. Often times false accusations are done out of shame due to religious reasons (I couldn't willingly have sex against the rules of my church, etc.)

The rape laws are a double edged sword. On the one had, if we punish false accusers, it could deter women that were actually raped from coming forward. Obviously we need to prevent that. However, I have read about a few cases where it was proven that the man never even had sex with the woman, and still no punishment for the woman.

I don't want to downplay the mental and physical anguish caused by rape, but a false accusation of rape can also be detrimental to the falsely accused. I have a close friend that was accused of sexual assault when he never did anything to the woman (she was stalking him and he avoided her like the plague. After the charges were dropped she continued to stalk him and he eventually got a protective order). Having a law that requires affirmative consent may be a good idea. But the issue of proof seems to negate the effect of this law. Without other witnesses, how does one prove they affirmatively consented?

You haven't answered her question. Of the 8% of unfounded rape claims, how many of these actually went to trial? There's a world of difference between falsely accusing someone of rape and falsely accusing someone of rape and then going through the entire trial process.

 

[JAZZGASM]

You haven't answered her question. Of the 8% of unfounded rape claims, how many of these actually went to trial? There's a world of difference between falsely accusing someone of rape and falsely accusing someone of rape and then going through the entire trial process.

Regardless, a false claim statistic that is 4x larger than other crimes is telling. If someone is willing to allege rape, I would think there is a high likelihood that they would be willing to go through a trial. Many that don't go to trial are due to evidence proving the falsehood of the claim, etc.

 

[jimmy eat jazz]

Regardless, a false claim statistic that is 4x larger than other crimes is telling. If someone is willing to allege rape, I would think there is a high likelihood that they would be willing to go through a trial. Many that don't go to trial are due to evidence proving the falsehood of the claim, etc.

This is one of those cases where a naive interpretation of data can lead to erroneous conclusions. A false claim statistic that is 4x larger that other crimes sounds hugely significant until we stop to realize that it still constitutes a very small minority of rape claims.

You ASSUME that this statistics translates into similarly high number of false rape claims that go to court. I am skeptical of this assumption. My prior would be that a very small percentage (even trivial percentage) of false rape claims go through the trial process.

Of course, neither of use know who's correct in this case. Still, given the many millennia during which countless millions of women have been sexually assaulted with no punishment meted out to the assaulters, why are people so fixated on worrying about very few cases of false accusation of sexual assault rather than on creating a system that holds assaulters accountable for the very, very many cases of actual sexual assault.

 

[JAZZGASM]

This is one of those cases where a naive interpretation of data can lead to erroneous conclusions. A false claim statistic that is 4x larger that other crimes sounds hugely significant until we stop to realize that it still constitutes a very small minority of rape claims.

You ASSUME that this statistics translates into similarly high number of false rape claims that go to court. I am skeptical of this assumption. My prior would be that a very small percentage (even trivial percentage) of false rape claims go through the trial process.

Of course, neither of use know who's correct in this case. Still, given the many millennia during which countless millions of women have been sexually assaulted with no punishment meted out to the assaulters, why are people so fixated on worrying about very few cases of false accusation of sexual assault rather than on creating a system that holds assaulters accountable for the very, very many cases of actual sexual assault.

Yes, I assume that statistics on one end would correlate to the other end without seeing anything to disprove it. It may be inaccurate, but seems reasonable to me... And, I would not say 8% is a small statistic. Tell that to the roughly 7,500 people in the U.S. that are falsely accused of rape each year. As I stated, I think the system should be set up where a woman will not be punished for making a proper accusation (or one without definitive proof). I also think those that are proven to have clearly lied should be punished, as the accusation can also cause severe detriment to the accused, even if not convicted. I would always balance the scales to lean towards the alleged rape victim, but there has to be fairness in the system. Having seen the havoc it caused to my friends life to be accused and to go through a trial (which thankfully was quickly dismissed), I can see the viewpoint from both sides.

I agree the it would be difficult to break down the percentages of cases that go forward (or would go forward but for clear evidence to the contrary).

I agree that the law should be tailored to protect rape victims. I only think accusers should be punished when it is clear they lied (and not that they just cannot prove they were raped), and I think the punishment should be harsh, regardless of whether the accused has to go through a trial.

But I really don't think this affirmative consent law will change anything. Anyone accused of rape in a situation where this law would be effective will state the victim consented. Unless there was a witness (which would be rare) how do you prove it?

 

[jimmy eat jazz]

Yes, I assume that statistics on one end would correlate to the other end without seeing anything to disprove it. It may be inaccurate, but seems reasonable to me... And, I would not say 8% is a small statistic. Tell that to the roughly 7,500 people in the U.S. that are falsely accused of rape each year. As I stated, I think the system should be set up where a woman will not be punished for making a proper accusation (or one without definitive proof). I also think those that are proven to have clearly lied should be punished, as the accusation can also cause severe detriment to the accused, even if not convicted. I would always balance the scales to lean towards the alleged rape victim, but there has to be fairness in the system. Having seen the havoc it caused to my friends life to be accused and to go through a trial (which thankfully was quickly dismissed), I can see the viewpoint from both sides.

I agree the it would be difficult to break down the percentages of cases that go forward (or would go forward but for clear evidence to the contrary).

I agree that the law should be tailored to protect rape victims. I only think accusers should be punished when it is clear they lied (and not that they just cannot prove they were raped), and I think the punishment should be harsh, regardless of whether the accused has to go through a trial.

But I really don't think this affirmative consent law will change anything. Anyone accused of rape in a situation where this law would be effective will state the victim consented. Unless there was a witness (which would be rare) how do you prove it?

Fair enough. My final point would be that the system has for so long been so tilted against women, that it seems to me a good thing to try to tilt it back the other way. Like most things, it belies and easy solution and requires balancing of competing objectives/values.

However, before I am swayed by the 8% figure, I need more info about it. Of this 8%, how many were subsequently dropped in short order, how many times were the falsely accused vindicated without trial, how many time were the falsely accused not vindicated, how many times did it go to trial, how many times was an innocent man convicted, etc.?

 

[Gameface]

Yes, I assume that statistics on one end would correlate to the other end without seeing anything to disprove it. It may be inaccurate, but seems reasonable to me... And, I would not say 8% is a small statistic. Tell that to the roughly 7,500 people in the U.S. that are falsely accused of rape each year. As I stated, I think the system should be set up where a woman will not be punished for making a proper accusation (or one without definitive proof). I also think those that are proven to have clearly lied should be punished, as the accusation can also cause severe detriment to the accused, even if not convicted. I would always balance the scales to lean towards the alleged rape victim, but there has to be fairness in the system. Having seen the havoc it caused to my friends life to be accused and to go through a trial (which thankfully was quickly dismissed), I can see the viewpoint from both sides.

I agree the it would be difficult to break down the percentages of cases that go forward (or would go forward but for clear evidence to the contrary).

I agree that the law should be tailored to protect rape victims. I only think accusers should be punished when it is clear they lied (and not that they just cannot prove they were raped), and I think the punishment should be harsh, regardless of whether the accused has to go through a trial.

But I really don't think this affirmative consent law will change anything. Anyone accused of rape in a situation where this law would be effective will state the victim consented. Unless there was a witness (which would be rare) how do you prove it?

In the end I think you're right. Yes means yes has essentially always been the standard. It's the right standard.

Obviously proof of rape is still required for a conviction, so unfortunately rape allegations are still an uphill battle for the victims.

Too bad there isn't a real solution that helps the victims without opening the door to unfounded allegations leading to convictions.