"Rape victim" recants testimony that sent man to jail for 9 years. No punishment.

[Gilian]

If this was a girl in in her mid teens or older I would absolutely slam her with harsh punishment for ruining someones life.

This case is a little complicated based on the fact the the man accused and the victim were father and daughter. Further complicated by the fact that the daughter was 11 years old at the time.

I'm not defending the girl at all but I can't lie and say that 11 year olds are at a mental capacity that they make good decisions at that point in their life. It's fucking sad but do you punish a 23 year old based on her actions as an 11 year old?

I really don't know what you do in this case because there are good arguments on both sides. I certainly side with the father one hundred percent, but the circumstances are just awful. Like I mentioned at the start of my post, if this was a grown woman or someone in their mid to late teens, I would absolutely without a doubt be demanding that something be put in place to stop this type of behavior.

Rape is an awful crime, but taking a mans freedom away for 9 years is honestly just as bad. I know movies aren't accurate of what happens in real prisons, but I know for a fact other prisoners and authority figures themselves don't take kindly to people who were charged with rape. Let alone that the victim was a child.

And you think no one talked to this girl and said are you very sure? Or that the mother said something. I assume the mother would have noticed at least something. Or maybe the mother also just made up her mind and just went with it just to have some sort of revenge on her ex-husband.

[v2prwsmb45yhuq3wj23vpjk]

And you think no one talked to this girl and said are you very sure? Or that the mother said something. I assume the mother would have noticed at least something. Or maybe the mother also just made up her mind and just went with it just to have some sort of revenge on her ex-husband.

Little kids can be very good at lying.

[starlord]

A lack of evidence for your case isn't inherently evidence against you. Trying to prove that something didn't occur, which is what you'd need to do, is pretty fucking difficult. Failing to prove that it did occur is not the same as proving that it didn't nor is failing to prove that it didn't occur the same as proving that it did occur.

basically only those who admit to it would be punished. that solves the problem i guess.

[Deleted]

Right - Im not being funny, but wasnt there a medical done on this little girl, I mean at 11, they should have been able to check if she was or wasnt raped - like in joan of arc

[Wells]

You don't have to punish her for her actions as an 11 year-old, but you can punish her for her actions as an 18 year-old, 19 year-old, 20 year-old, 21 year-old, 22 year-old and 23 year-old. That is, failing to come forward until now.

Well that depends on when the statute of limitations on obstructing justice starts counting.

[Auloria]

I have read a lot about it, actually. None of the reasons stated that I read were that they were going to be legally punished for their report.

I dug up the report. http://webarchive.nationalarchives.g...05/hors293.pdf

Page 31. A non-exhaustive list of reasons victims don't report:

● not naming the event as rape (and/or ‘a crime’) oneself
● not thinking the police/others will define the event as rape;
● fear of disbelief;
● fear of blame/judgement;
● distrust of the police/courts/legal process;
● fear of family and friends knowing/public disclosure
● fear of further attack/intimidation;
● divided loyalty in cases involving current/ex-intimates; and
● language/communication issues for women with disabilities and/or whose first language is not that of the country where they were assaulted.


Fear of punishment does not come up.

I do understand the concerns of the women's groups, however, I think we can successfully prosecute false reports AND increase reporting rates. There needs to be ample education that victims will not be punished for filing a report, will not be punished if there is no evidence, will not be punished if there is no guilty conviction, and will ONLY BE PUNISHED if they are found guilty in a court of law of filing a false report.

---------- Post added 2012-11-23 at 09:00 AM ----------

And you think no one talked to this girl and said are you very sure? Or that the mother said something. I assume the mother would have noticed at least something. Or maybe the mother also just made up her mind and just went with it just to have some sort of revenge on her ex-husband.

There was also physical evidence of intercourse, and her story was very consistent. My first thought was that someone else abused her and she subbed in her dad's name.

[Gilian]

Little kids can be very good at lying.

I meant that she could have changed her mind after being educated about what she is doing by maybe her mother or an authority figure. If my mother said something about what I was doing at the age of 11 or 12 I would have thought about what she said. So saying she doesn't have the mental capacity doesn't really justify not punishing her.
And like someone else said that she didn't come forward when she was older (at 16 - 21 yo) says enough also.

I bet she was afraid to come forward and then made a deal of some sort that she wouldn't get punished just to free this man. Sad.

[strangebreed]

if there was a punishment for a case like this, wouldn't the girl just never admit to lying? then the guy would continue to be in prison.

[Beat5beat]

so, "real rape victims" wont always have solid evidence? glad we cleared that up.

Real or fake, if there is no evidence then we should not as a society convict the man. The testimony of a single person, in the case the victim alone should NEVER be strong enough to convict a person of ANY crime. There NEEDs to be additional evidence, not necessarily physical, circumstantial could do (For example, maybe additional witnesses testified that he had previously approached young girls around the school) Or perhaps there is evidence of him flirting with under age girls on the internet. Whatever the case, there is non physical evidence that could be used, and I could agree with a conviction built using non physical evidence. But in this case all they had was a single testimony of the victim herself, who was 11 years old and her parents just underwent a divorce. It should not be possible to convict anybody under those circumstances. You don't want to live in a society like that, just like the john adams quote, when the line between innocence and guilt is blurred and both are punished equally, fear then the world you live in.

[v2prwsmb45yhuq3wj23vpjk]

I meant that she could have changed her mind after being educated about what she is doing by maybe her mother or an authority figure. If my mother said something about what I was doing at the age of 11 or 12 I would have thought about what she said. So saying she doesn't have the mental capacity doesn't really justify not punishing her.
And like someone else said that she didn't come forward when she was older (at 16 - 21 yo) says enough also.

I bet she was afraid to come forward and then made a deal of some sort that she wouldn't get punished just to free this man. Sad.

What? Do you even understand what you just said?

Well that depends on when the statute of limitations on obstructing justice starts counting.

Many more crimes than obstruction of justice could come into play.



You know, I'm kinda done arguing the 'righteous' point, I'm going to switch over to what I originally thought of because I haven't seen it mentioned.

Punishing this girl is not going to help anybody. Punishment would just make this case more public, a case where there was a gross miscarriage of justice that would tell would-be false-accusers "I can get away with this if I just don't admit to it." and will also send the message to anybody who already has falsely accused to say nothing because coming clean will result in their punishment.

Edit: I guess somebody DID say it eventually,

if there was a punishment for a case like this, wouldn't the girl just never admit to lying? then the guy would continue to be in prison.

[starlord]

if there was a punishment for a case like this, wouldn't the girl just never admit to lying? then the guy would continue to be in prison.

yeah but we'd all soothe our sense of schaudenfreude over those dumb enough to.

[Gilian]

if there was a punishment for a case like this, wouldn't the girl just never admit to lying? then the guy would continue to be in prison.

If there was a punishment maybe she wouldn't have lied to begin with. I guess people who are in situations like this will be given information about what can happen and asked if they are sure they want to go down that road.

[Tojara]

And you think no one talked to this girl and said are you very sure? Or that the mother said something. I assume the mother would have noticed at least something. Or maybe the mother also just made up her mind and just went with it just to have some sort of revenge on her ex-husband.

I have no idea what happened prior, there isn't enough information.

She very well could have been coerced into saying it by her mother, who knows.

As a male I didn't know what rape was at that age, it might be different for females though. She might have known loosely what it was, knew that it was bad and thought it was a great way for getting back at her father. She being 11 probably didn't know how bad of an accusation like this is and at that point she couldn't really back down because a lot of kids are fucking great liars. It probably progressed to a point that she knew it was wrong but didn't want to say anything because little kids think something like being scolded or grounded for weeks/months would be the worst thing in the world. She probably had no idea what was going to happen to her father, at least to that severity because 11 year old kids don't have a solid grasp on this world to begin with.

It's painfully clear that not enough was done to prevent this from happening in the first place though. You see a kid saying something as awful as this happened to them, and then find out it's a young girl, and wow, shit storm ensues. I'm not saying there are vast injustices and reverse sexism against males, because on a grand scale that isn't true. I do find that females especially at younger ages are much more sheltered and looked after than a typical male, and we as a whole (males included) will get much more up in arms if something happens to a young girl.

While we still follow the law it's not followed as strictly as it is in many other cases. It's now PERSONAL for everybody because everybody is trying to make sure this poor girl will make out alright, the public let alone anybody invested in this case now has a strong emotional attachment for seeking justice for this poor innocent girl.

Like I think at the bare minimum the only thing you could probably do is seek punishment from the age in which she stops being a minor ( I don't know what it is in the U.S compared to Canada) up to the age in which she told the truth. Again, in the end there just isn't much you can do. Punishing this person at this point would just send the wrong message at this point

[v2prwsmb45yhuq3wj23vpjk]

If there was a punishment maybe she wouldn't have lied to begin with. I guess people who are in situations like this will be given information about what can happen and asked if they are sure they want to go down that road.

I think if I was my morals permitted me to lie about such a thing in the first place, this case would just reinforce the idea that I could lie about such a thing and get away with it so long as I didn't say anything.

[Gilian]

What? Do you even understand what you just said?



Many more crimes than obstruction of justice could come into play.



You know, I'm kinda done arguing the 'righteous' point, I'm going to switch over to what I originally thought of because I haven't seen it mentioned.

Punishing this girl is not going to help anybody. Punishment would just make this case more public, a case where there was a gross miscarriage of justice that would tell would-be false-accusers "I can get away with this if I just don't admit to it." and will also send the message to anybody who already has falsely accused to say nothing because coming clean will result in their punishment.

Edit: I guess somebody DID say it eventually,

Yes I understand what I am saying.

So it's okay to not have punishment and have people lie and putting innocent people in prison? Is that better? If people know there is a punishment they most likely won't lie about it to begin with. And if they lied knowing they could get punished for it it is very unlikely they would come clean anyway.
If there are people who already falsely accused someone they can make a deal or something to free that person.
And doesn't help anyone? It would have helped the guy who was in prison for 30 years. And I would think those people would like to see some sort of justice after being wronly accused and after their lives have been ruined.

Do you understand what you are saying? Putting someone in prison for 9 years while being innocent is probably much worse than all the other outcomes. And the guy who had a good life in front of him and then being put in prison for 30 years for doing nothing wrong.

[DechCJC]

Not sure if I should feel angry about equality. Woman supposedly gets raped, man gets jail for x years, woman confesses - no punishment because of trying to encourage false victims to come clean. Not only is it incredibly rare for a woman to rape a man, but even if a woman DID rape a man - I bet they wouldn't believe it or even look into it.

What has her age got to do with it? There are devious fuckers at every age, hell, i've even heard of kids in University at the age of 9! Not sure if this is the same thing, but meh. I hate this justice system >.<

^ Everything I said was half-assed and lack-luster cause i'm tired, don't quote me on it.

[starlord]

I think if I was my morals permitted me to lie about such a thing in the first place, this case would just reinforce the idea that I could lie about such a thing and get away with it so long as I didn't say anything.

keep in mind this is an 11 yr old. when i was a kid, something similar but much less severe happened to me. a teacher at my school overheard me & other children discussing how our parents punished us (bragging of course) and took it into her head my mom was abusive. a big investigation ensued and my mom ended up having to take anger management classes, though in the end they never found anything. i had no idea what was going on at all.

[tjanson]

If there was a punishment maybe she wouldn't have lied to begin with. I guess people who are in situations like this will be given information about what can happen and asked if they are sure they want to go down that road.

Riiight. That's not going to intimidate the hell out of anyone trying to report an incredibly traumatic and embarrassing incident. "If you're not 100% sure, you'll go to prison" said the detective to the eleven year old girl.

---------- Post added 2012-11-23 at 09:21 AM ----------

Yes I understand what I am saying.

So it's okay to not have punishment and have people lie and putting innocent people in prison? Is that better? If people know there is a punishment they most likely won't lie about it to begin with. And if they lied knowing they could get punished for it it is very unlikely they would come clean anyway.
If there are people who already falsely accused someone they can make a deal or something to free that person.
And doesn't help anyone? It would have helped the guy who was in prison for 30 years. And I would think those people would like to see some sort of justice after being wronly accused and after their lives have been ruined.

Do you understand what you are saying? Putting someone in prison for 9 years while being innocent is probably much worse than all the other outcomes. And the guy who had a good life in front of him and then being put in prison for 30 years for doing nothing wrong.

While I do sympathize with the people falsely jailed(and agreed, I can't imagine anything short of death or mutilation being worse than being jailed for something I didn't do for that long), I don't think it happens often enough to amend a law to include punishment for 11 year olds if they lie about being raped.

[Gilian]

Riiight. That's not going to intimidate the hell out of anyone trying to report an incredibly traumatic and embarrassing incident. "If you're not 100% sure, you'll go to prison" said the detective to the eleven year old girl.

Depends on how you bring it. Obviously only idiots would say what you said, "If you're not 100% sure, you'll go to prison".

While I do sympathize with the people falsely jailed(and agreed, I can't imagine anything short of death or mutilation being worse than being jailed for something I didn't do for that long), I don't think it happens often enough to amend a law to include punishment for 11 year olds if they lie about being raped.

I don't see what that has to do with anything. It doesn't happen often enough so whatever?

[bestpike]

If there was a punishment maybe she wouldn't have lied to begin with.

Yeah, if you assume an 11 year old knows the justice system inside out... right. At that age the best you can know is what kind of chocolate you'd like to eat. I don't know if someone else mentioned this, but has anyone thought about that there was actually a rape and the girl just forgave her father after 9 years? Just saying, don't know about the facts.