You deserve to be raped

[Sabine Grant]

I use the term "confront" because that's the proper legal term. It has nothing to do with "emotional and mental struggles".

One would have to automatically assume that the claimant has no emotional and psychological scars to suggest that the alleged victim be "confronted". Dismissing the reality that the "confronting" parties may be dealing with an ACTUAL victim. Placing such person in an adversarial environment denotes indeed a very poor understanding of the harm it would cause to an actual victim. An ACTUAL victim will be considerably emotionally and psychologically harmed if the tone of an inquiry is confrontational.

Trained law enforcement personnel involved in an investigation regarding a rape are not going to "confront" any individual who pressed charges.

No, they question her to determine whether her accusation is, in their opinion, credible. The "confrontation" is the right given to the accused (and their counsel).

I have no idea why you think that in the course of an inquiry process triggered by a University, the alleged victim would be confronted by the accused party. Try to reflect on the reality that an ACTUAL victim would experience extreme duress if the party who sexually assaulted or raped them is allowed to confront them in person. That would deter any actual victim from ever coming forward.

They will ask questions related to the circumstances of the rape without implying that it did not happen.

But they should also take heed to not err in the other direction and be too accepting of her allegations.

The questioning methods relied on by trained law enforcement personnel do not intend to lead the victim one way or the other. Any type of misconduct on the part of those investigators could lead to dismissal by a Judge of the presented testimony (ies). A bias criminal investigator can only harm either the case building process from the Prosecution or the case building process from the Defense.

As to inquiry processes triggered by Universities themselves, unless the local law enforcement investigation concludes there is tangible evidence supporting the rape accusation, IMO they should not take any disciplinary measures against the accused party.

I agree. However, the universities have been doing just that and it has gotten much worse since Obama administration mandated that universities must use the lowest standard possible and must restrict accused student's due process rights significantly.

Some will and some will not. I do not recall Jamies Winston (FSU) getting into any trouble for refusing several times to cooperate with the inquiry process triggered by FSU. He was given through the FSU inquiry process the opportunity to answer questions and present his version of his sexual encounter with the alleged victim....he dismissed it. Nothing has happened since then affecting his status as an athlete (Noles football team) or as a student.

Further in the course of such inquiry process, it would be totally unacceptable for the University Staff involved in that process to even think about "confronting" the claiming party.

The university is preventing the accused student to confront his accuser or the witnesses against him or even to have a lawyer present.

And that because a University is not a Court of Law mediated by a Judge who will insure that no badgering of the alleged victim and witnesses will occur when on the stand.Again, the belief that the accused party ought to be allowed to confront the alleged victim in such inquiry process denotes a total lack of understanding of how profoundly emotionally and psychologically damaging it would be for an ACTUAL victim while being compelled to being subjected to such face to face encounter with the party who violated them.

If the word came out that a University conducts such inquiry by badgering the claiming party, I guarantee you that it would be a deterrent for rape victims to come out.

Nobody said anything about "badgering" but the reality is quite the opposite - universities are bending backwards to believe the accuser unquestioningly and are punishing the accused even when there is exculpatory evidence like text messages, Facebook messages or the accuser being criminally charged with filing a false rape report.

Considering that the ratio of false accusations in NO way matches the high ratio of demonstrated and proven rapes, you somehow expect an inquiry process to allow for the accused party to confront in person the alleged victim. That would be a pure badgering process facilitated by the University. Without any concerns or care whatsoever for how damaging and harmful it would be to an actual victim.

It was brought up in the discussion thread regarding the actual reasons for such expulsions that it is NOT about the inquiry process concluding that a rape took place rather a matter of conduct violating the prohibitions on Campus addressing students having sex with drunk students. If you take the Winston's "case", FSU would be justified only in taking disciplinary measures based on:

1) violation of the dorm rules.

2) violation of the code of conduct on Campus addressing the situation of the girl having been picked up in a bar in Tallahassee, having consumed a high quantity of alcohol purchased by Winston's room mate (also a Nole football team member and student) to then be invited to go with him to his and Winston's dorm room. Following those steps, a sexual encounter between Winston (student) and a drunk student.

You do not want to add more social harm than the one I commented upon which covered the SPECIFICS of defense attorneys' tactics of relying on "slut shaming" and " victim blaming" while the plaintiff is on a stand in the course of a trial.

The accused has the right to defend himself. When the main "evidence" against him (as it usually is) is the claim by the accuser itself, her credibility is absolutely fair game, be it a criminal trial or a university tribunal. Unfortunately university tribunals have degenerated into kangaroo courts where the accused is not allowed to adequately defend himself.

And in Winston's case, he can tell FSU to go pack sand and that is the end of it.

Any time any University Staff receives a complaint that a student has been sexually assaulted or raped, they should automatically redirect the said student to filing a complaint with local law enforcement. Such Staff is not to confuse an inquiry process for equating the Justice system. They are not to be Judge or Jury. However if as I stated earlier ,the official investigation conducted by local law enforcement has gathered evidence which support the plaintiff's claim and which of course will trigger a prosecution based on specific charges pronounced by a DA ( SA in Florida), the accused party should be suspended temp until completion of the trial and rendered verdict. Usually, a Prosecutor will charge the rape/sexual assault accused party based on sufficient evidence (gathered during the law enforcement conducted investigation) that the claim is legitimate and the case can be won by the Prosecutor.

And if there are no criminal charges filed? Do you think that should be the end of the university action as well?

Again, grounds for expulsion or suspension have more to do with violations of a code of conduct set by the University itself than it has to do with their inquiry process ALONE having drawn conclusions that the accusation of rape or sexual assault was legitimate.

As to current policies of automatically suspending or expelling the accused party based solely on "he says, she says", I do not support them.

Thank you. But unfortunately that is the mandatory policy right now and many on here support it.

Non. What "many on here" have consistently brought up is that Universities have upgraded their policies addressing students code of conduct.The primary goal being to deter sexual encounters associated with heavy drinking.

I do not recall any FRDB members or/and now TFT members as self declared feminists ever claiming that false accusations of rape cannot happen because "women do not lie about rape".

Not in so many words but they do think false positives (which are result of lowering burden of proof and eliminating due process protections) are not a bog deal.

That is not at all how I have understood over the course of several years their reaction to your trotting the same hobby horse focusing on false accusations in every thread related to the topic of sexual assaults, rape, sexual crimes.

What I do recall though is those same members reacting to your dragging your hobby horse of false accusations in every single thread with a topic related to sexual assault/ rape. Making it appear that you focus solely on false accusations while disregarding the profound trauma experienced by rape victims.

Reality of false rape allegations is important part of the discussion of the topic because the knee-jerk reaction to rape is to label any suspicion of any claim no matter how dubious as "victim blaming" and complain about low conviction rate (which can be remedied most easily by lowering burden of proof of course).

The low conviction rate is due to the reality that part of the rape/ sexual assault cases are met with a social stigma where married women for example have an extremely difficult time being recognized as legitimate victims when the offender is their husband. Compliments of a society/culture like in the US still plagued with Judeo Christian based beliefs.

Or as another example, date rape cases. If the victim had a pre existing rapport with the rapist, it will heavily play against her. Add to date rapes, drugs facilitated rapes where the victim is rendered physically helpless by the perpetrator via "spiking" a drink and that without her knowledge. She would have to be able to think straight and rationally as she regains her physical mobility and capacity to rush to a medical facility and request a blood test (as part of the rape kit) to confirm the presence of X or Y date rape drug. Those cases are extremely difficult to get a conviction.Let's not forget that the vast majority of rape/ sexual assault victims will be in a state of shock as they were subjected to an extremely traumatic event.

Then of course the urban legend of rape occurring only under the use of physical force. As if threats of harming someone the victim wants to protect does not constitute the intent to obtain sex via force.

Next time you feel the need to bark at a tree, make sure it is not the wrong tree you are barking at.

I am just saying that we need to be careful before cutting trees in the first place because the trauma of being falsely accused is real as well. As is the damage of being arrested, tried and possibly convicted for something you didn't do. To a lesser extent, but still very real, is the damage of being suspended/expelled for something you didn't do.

And again, you seem to believe that those cases of expulsions are about the inquiry concluding a rape has occurred when the actual grounds are based on a Code of Conduct established via the University policies. And again, intended to deter sexual encounters in between students involving heavy drinking.

 

[Toni]

I use the term "confront" because that's the proper legal term. It has nothing to do with "emotional and mental struggles".

Trained law enforcement personnel involved in an investigation regarding a rape are not going to "confront" any individual who pressed charges.

No, they question her to determine whether her accusation is, in their opinion, credible. The "confrontation" is the right given to the accused (and their counsel).

This happens during a legal trial, after an arrest and charges have been brought and an investigation has been conducted. Universities are not courts of law and are not charged with nor are they allowed to arrest, incarcerate or bring to trial any student.

They are allowed and in fact are supposed to establish a student code of conduct and are allowed to enforce such code of conduct.

However traumatic and damaging you believe being accused of rape and brought before the university disciplinary committee, I think you would agree that the trauma would be far less than being arrested, thrown in jail and having to procure an attorney, post bail, stand trial, and of course, miss class while this was going on.

Of course I agree that no one should be falsely accused of anything. I also believe that no one should steal, murder, assault, or rape anyone else. I think we can both agree that as a society, we should work towards reducing such evils.

The university is preventing the accused student to confront his accuser or the witnesses against him or even to have a lawyer present.

The university is not a court of law. The university cannot forbid a student from hiring a lawyer. A university can conduct its review of student conduct issues according to the policies and procedures it has established, in accordance with the laws of the land.

As to current policies of automatically suspending or expelling the accused party based solely on "he says, she says", I do not support them.

Thank you. But unfortunately that is the mandatory policy right now and many on here support it.

Really? I missed that poll.

I do not recall any FRDB members or/and now TFT members as self declared feminists ever claiming that false accusations of rape cannot happen because "women do not lie about rape".

Not in so many words but they do think false positives (which are result of lowering burden of proof and eliminating due process protections) are not a bog deal.

Derec, your mind reading powers are not nearly as strong or advanced as you seem to believe. I think you would advance your position much more effectively if you would simply state your position and back it up without attributing thoughts and ideas and beliefs to those with whom you disagree.

 

[angelo]

This case raised eyebrows here at that time.
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/stories/s265381.htm