<p>M2l. The burden is on the prospector to prove the accused is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. In the first example, in most states, the prosecutor would try to prove she was not in imminent peril or in fear for her life and so has other options. The defense would argue the opposite, of course. While the shooter would be considered innocent until proven guilty, being caught with the gun and the dead body tends to lead to conviction in many case.</p>
<p>In the second, if the accused was foolish enough to confess he took the item and did not have anything to prove it was given, likely would be a conviction. Actually, much more likely to end in a plea to much lesser offense. </p>
<p>I don’t get how these are comparable to he said she said in rape cases on college campus. </p>
<p>“They still do have to prove it. But part of this determination is determined by the likelihood of such a scenario.”</p>
<p>So, my struggle here is that this suggests that “He said, She said” may be an acceptable standard in some situations, just not in rape cases. This is different than “Innocent until proven guilty” to me. You don’t really have to prove someone guilty. This seems to undercut the argument that it is unAmerican to convict someone on another persons word.</p>
<p>I hear what you are saying about the plausibility of the scenario. In a way, that makes some sense, but it is clearly not consistent with the view that you have to be able to prove the defendant is lying to get a conviction. </p>
<p>“Do you know how many car thieves say that the owner lent them the car? If they have no prior relationship with the owner of the car, this answer doesn’t fly in court.”</p>
<p>About as many as rapists who claim is was consensual?</p>
<p>“BTW, you cut out the entire logic behind my response. If these situations are truly analogous, then consensual sex in and of itself would be extremely rare and hard to believe.”</p>
<p>Well, store owners make donations all the time. It is not rare, or hard to believe in that case. A male student attacking a female student is also not exactly rare or hard to believe in my mind. </p>
<p>What I’ve seen from you and some others in all of these threads is a stream of accusations leveled at anyone who dares to question the Title IX process, ranging from “Why are you even talking about it because the real problem is assault and a few dozen innocent guys whose lives are destroyed are just not important in the larger picture, obviously you don’t care about victims AT ALL” to vile insults leveled at those of us who are the parents of those wannabee-rapists and thugs, AKA all male college students.</p>
<p>When you consider the efforts of the Innocence Project, do you look at them and say “Why are they even talking about those guys, obviously they don’t care about the victims at all, murder is the real problem”?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Oh, for doG’s sake. Has it occurred to you that in the one case there is no doubt that a person has been shot dead and by whom, and in the other there is no evidence at all that a crime has been committed at all, other than–in your scenario–one person’s word? No rape kit, no bruises, no toxicology reports, nothing at all? The idea that these situations are analogous is ludicrous.</p>
<p>@awcntdb I knew you would react that way and try to obfuscate your quotes with conflicting quotes etc. Yes, yes, yes, we get that you have unambiguously said you think both the accuser and accused should have equal rights and be given equal credence. However, then you make statements that clearly show you bias toward the accuser. I have shown just the very first two that I came across. If you want to think my arguments are disingenuous, or strawmen, or whatever, there is nothing I do about that. </p>
<p>Your continued posts where you unequivocally state your opinions as if they are fact (and opinions that all favor the accused and not the accuser) are just an example. </p>
<p>I’ve said all I am going to about the subject and will no longer engage in debate with you. Obviously we differ and how we think your posts come across; I will let the other readers draw their own conclusions about both of our posts. </p>
<p>I would assume they were talking about a case where there was a rape kit. If they weren’t, let’s add that. So, what you end up with is a a case where someone is dead and there is proof, but no way to know if it was murder or self defense, and another case where there was clearly sex and it is also “he said-she said”.</p>
<p>Obviously there are differences because it’s hard to think of a case where someone wants to die (other than Euthanasia, which really isn’t probably applicable), but there are plenty of cases (most) where the person does want to have sex. So, I agree that it is not a perfect analogy. I do however think that because many or most cases of sex in the world are consensual that an accuser is at more of a disadvantage than an accuser in any other crime. </p>
<p>So, returning to the conversation I was having with al2simon, al2simon said that of the cases s/he knew about at their college, “Most cases are drunken sex or a bad breakup. Fortunately, the incidence of reporting was low enough that I couldn’t give you accurate statistics about the truly serious cases.”</p>
<p>I asked what counted as “truly serious.”</p>
<p>Al2simon said, " The definition of serious that I was using were incidents that would trigger a Clery act report in the maximum category. "</p>
<p>I didn’t know what the Clery Act categories were, so I looked them up. [Here</a> (page 37)](<a href=“https://www2.ed.gov/admins/lead/safety/handbook.pdf]Here”>https://www2.ed.gov/admins/lead/safety/handbook.pdf) they are, straight from the US Department of Education handbook on the Clery Act. The only Clery Act categories for sexual offenses, other than Statutory Rape and Incest which I assume don’t apply here, are Forcible Rape, Forcible Sodomy, Sexual Assault with an Object, and Forcible Fondling. That’s it. That’s all the categories.</p>
<p>For the purposes of the Clery Act, unless the person would agree that they consented, the sexual misconduct counts as “forcible.” Raping an unconscious person, fondling someone who says no but doesn’t fight back-- these are “forcible.” “Non-forcible” is only used for acts of a sexual nature that would never be legal between the two (or more) people involved, either because they are closely related or because one of them is a child.</p>
<p>I don’t know what the “maximum category” for a sexual offense is for Clery Act purposes; it doesn’t seem to be listed in the handbook. Drunken sex when one person does not consent is Forcible Rape. I would call that serious. Drunken sex when both people consent is not reportable under the Clery Act.</p>
<p>That aligns pretty closely to most criminal law. As I mentioned Michigan has 4 categories - 3 are felonies and 1 is a high court misdemeanor along the lines of ‘forcible fondling.’ Drunken sex when one person alleges they did not consent will always be difficult to prove unless the person was witnessed in an incapacitated state. </p>
<p>CF, Not surprised that is what they have pleaded. I don’t think you imagine them to say, Yes we did it take us away. Slim balls don’t operate like that. Anyway I am talking about the local papers and local people. From what I have read and heard, no one is talking at all, not the college or anyone. The only thing I have been able to see in the papers is that each of the five have different charges, a couple of them have also been charged with kidnapping. So they must have some very specific information they are not letting the public know about. The public is on her side. I think that is the basic argument here, that women don’t get support when they report rape. This woman is getting support both from the police and the public. Other than the heinous nature of the rape, how do you have a problem with it already? You cannot project that they are going to get off? The justice system is handling it. </p>
<p>I understand it’s difficult to <em>prove</em> drunken sex when one person alleges they didn’t consent. But either the drunken sex is determined to be rape, in which case it’s a serious offense, or it’s not determined to be rape, in which case it’s not counted as any offense. It’s never an offense that is not serious. </p>
<p>This issue doesn’t sort itself neatly into lefty/righty. It is really more of some lefties vs other lefties.</p>
<p>Those highly concerned with civil rights of women definitely lean lefty. But then you have public defenders and law profs at Yale and Harvard (who lean pretty lefty) concerned about due process. </p>
<p>From Harvard, you’ve got Alan Dershowitz who probably has never cast a Republican vote in his life. You also have Charles Ogletree, who was Obama’s personal mentor at HLS and who has been publicly calling for the Michael Brown cop to be arrested. But then it is Obama’s DOE/OCR that is driving the title ix agenda. </p>
<p>I guess Dershowitz and Ogletree are patriarchists, despite their impeccable liberal credentials. </p>
<p>CF - Thanks for the link. It refreshed my memory. The two categories I was thinking of are Sex Offenses-Forcible and Sex Offenses-Non-forcible. All 4 of the specific offenses you mentioned are <em>subcategories</em> of Sex Offenses-Forcible, and the aggregate category was what I meant by “maximum category”.</p>
<p>There weren’t zero such offenses but there were few enough that we could go over each specific one (subject to privacy laws). Some weren’t actionable. For example, suppose a student visited a friend in another city and was sexually assaulted. Really only two policy issues: 1) are we providing enough support to help the student, can we do anything more 2) would more education on safety and alcohol issues geared toward female/all students help. Some students weren’t used to city life and might not be aware of surroundings or the dangers of being drunk in a strange city and away from friends. At least one time that I can remember an accusation was recanted. Asides from these types, it was the remainder that I put into the “very serious” bucket. Again, lucky that the rate was low (NOT zero).</p>
<p>Here’s another point that might shed light on how I think about these issues. Don’t know if it’s been focused on in the thread. Most of the reports focus on cases where a formal accusation was filed, but here’s my broad understanding.(not an expert and going senile, so please don’t take my word). There are actually four possible phases for an accusation 1) initial phase, when student makes someone aware of incident 2) mediation 3) formal accusation 4) criminal complaint. The guiding principle is that the accuser can choose how they want to proceed after phase 1. Almost all of the conversation in the thread is focused on phases 3 and 4. But there are quite a lot of accusations that are handled at phases 1 or 2. For example, if a student makes crude remarks or grabs a body part, the accuser might be fine with mediation – the offender could apologize, receive counseling, agree to a no-contact order. Or they could decide not to pursue. Or they could pursue formal accusation but drop. I don’t think these are in the reporting you google, but the schools look at all four phases. I don’t know what the broad statistics are, but maybe someone does.</p>
<p>Anyway, we’ll be heading on vacation soon and then I need to go back to the salt mines, so please don’t be offended if I don’t respond or respond sporadically.</p>
<p>In MOST cases, the person does not want to have sex. That is, for almost everyone in the world, I don’t want to have sex with them. The chance that I’d want to have sex with someone is seven billion to one against. If some random person said I wanted to have sex with them, and I said I didn’t, if you went by percentages, you’d believe me. And that is true of everyone else, too: they don’t want to have sex with most other people. </p>
<p>There might be other evidence to consider. In a case of accused sexual assault, there would certainly be other evidence. But still, if you just go by the percentages you should believe the accuser, by a mile.</p>
<p>al2simon thanks for your responses. It pretty much aligns with my guess at what occurs and I presume some cases can be handled with mediation and would not be reflected in current Clery reporting. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t buy that or kids wouldn’t end up in bed together. I would agree that somewhere along the line in some of the statistics, one of the two decides they don’t want to be doing whatever they are doing anymore or view the event differently with the light of dawn. </p>
<p>The only Non-Forcible Sexual Offenses in the Clery Act are statutory rape and incest. That’s it. Every other reportable offense counts as Forcible. Any kind of drunk intercourse that was nonconsensual, any kind of intercourse with an incapacitated person, any kind of non-consensual fondling that’s reportable is Forcible.</p>
<p>Another angle on how this is not a right/left issue. </p>
<p>Check out these recommendations to Obama from the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. Hardly a Tea Party group. The out-spoken victim, advocate and author from UVA (Liz Seccuro) is a RAINN board member fyi. Their take is that the college tribunals under-punish and trivialize rape, leaving rapists out on the loose. While steam rolling the accused at the same time. The worst of both worlds (their words not mine):</p>
<p>"De-emphasize Internal Judicial Boards</p>
<p>The FBI, for purposes of its Uniform Crime Reports, has a hierarchy of crimes — a ranking
of violent crimes in order of seriousness. Murder, of course, ranks first. Second is rape. It
would never occur to anyone to leave the adjudication of a murder in the hands of a
school’s internal judicial process. Why, then, is it not only common, but expected, for them
to do so when it comes to sexual assault? We need to get to a point where it seems just as
inappropriate to treat rape so lightly.</p>
<p>While we respect the seriousness with which many schools treat such internal processes,
and the good intentions and good faith of many who devote their time to participating in
such processes, the simple fact is that these internal boards were designed to adjudicate
charges like plagiarism, not violent felonies. The crime of rape just does not fit the
capabilities of such boards. They often offer the worst of both worlds: they lack protections
for the accused while often tormenting victims.</p>
<p>We urge the federal government to explore ways to ensure that college and universities
treat allegations of sexual assault as they would murder and other violent felonies. The fact
that the criminal justice process is difficult and imperfect, while true, is not sufficient
justification for bypassing it in favor of an internal system that will never be up to the
challenge."</p>