This article really details the challenges facing colleges when they try to adjudicate these types of cases. I thought it was well written and worth the read. Would love to hear everyone’s opinions.
I can’t imagine UVA was thrilled to see themselves written about once again, especially after the Jackie debacle but FWIW, I think the UVA investigators came to the correct conclusion in this case. Putting on my flame proof suit now… 
Aside from the main topic of sexual assault. I am disturbed by this paragraph.
“The wrestler helped Lind get dressed. Once outside, Lind and the wrestler began walking arm in arm when they were spotted at 11:45 p.m. by a Charlottesville police officer, who noticed that Lind was “very intoxicated,” was unable to walk without assistance, and had slurred speech and a vacant look in her eyes. Lind says she had no recollection of interacting with a police officer; she was allowed to continue home to her apartment.”
Why did this PO not call a transport for a “very intoxicated” individual? What if she had died by asphyxiation later that night rather just wetting herself? It seems like negligence to me.
“She unwrapped the condom and placed it on him, he said.” and "Because he had just met her, and because she was capable of carrying on a conversation, walking upstairs and performing “fine motor tasks, such as unwrapping a condom,” he was unaware of her “possible incapacitation.” I really hope that, “She unwrapped the condom” will be not be used as an indication of consent in the future. Are they going in the direction of he said “she unwrapped the condom” is a better defense than he said, “she said yes”?
If she said she unwrapped the condom that absolutely would be perceived by him as affirmation. I can’t imagine a person would perceive that in any different light. If he said she unwrapped and she said she did not then you are back to he said/she said.
According to the article, the female student had five drinks before she left her apartment to party:
"Lind, 19, a scholarship sophomore volleyball player from Southern California, started the evening in her apartment, eating a peanut butter and banana sandwich for dinner and nursing a Smirnoff Ice. She then downed two shots of tequila and two shots of vodka with her teammates.
She had planned to drink that night but had spoken with a teammate about making sure they did not over-imbibe. The two students even wrote out an hour-by-hour drinking schedule that the athletes dubbed their “shot clock.”"
The binge drinking culture present on most college campuses has to be the starting point for a solution.
The Kaiser Family Foundation along with the Washington Post has published a number of very good articles with the survey information embedded.
I am male and older, graduated in mid-80s, so I may be behind the times. Do females today unwrap a condom and hand it to a male for reasons other than having sex? Is there a new game not involving sex that females in college play with condoms that I am unaware of?
In my view, this has nothing to do about a defense; it has everything to do with intent. What is the clear intention of a female who unwraps a condom and hands it to the male that she is with?
Sorry that I didn’t make myself clearer.
Say you are on the jury for one of these rape cases, where the female is highly intoxicated and has little or no memory of events.
The defendant testifies:
A) “I asked her permission and she said yes.”
B) “She unwrapped the condom and placed it on me.”
All other things equal, would A or B sway your opinion.
I agree with the decision that was made. Whatever happened to accountability? She chose to have 5 drinks in her dorm as an underage student and then proceeded to attend a party where she could drink some more. Nobody forced her to drink. That was her decision. To me that is poor judgement. I don’t care that this is the culture. She offered to have this male student come over to her dorm but chose to go upstairs with him. It is his word against hers but if there is no accountability for underage drinking then these scenarios are going to happen again and again.
It is sad as young women/men they are smart enough to get into a good college but make poor personal choices.
As a young female student I think one has to be accountable for their own actions and the results of those actions and realize that if they make the decision to drink and drink to the point beyond a casual drink (intoxication) that they put themselves in an uncompromising situation. She did not care that she was underage and should not have been drinking in the first place.
Look at what happened to Hanna Graham. She was a straight A premed student but chose to drink to the point of intoxication. When you are under the influence you no longer have control of your senses and put yourself in risky scenarios that can result in dangerous consequences.
Lind sensed something was not right the morning she woke up but didn’t really have much memory of what happened the night before. Had she not been drinking would she have remembered? Is she going to continue to drink? Probably. Will she binge drink again or think twice about it?
There are students that choose not to drink and manage to survive college. The whole campus did not attend that block party. Before anyone says everyone drinks and that if a parent believes that their child doesn’t they are ignorant. That is not always the case. There are kids that drink and the parents don’t know about it but there are also kids that don’t and when they say that they are telling the truth. It is a personal choice but if you are going to drink irresponsibly not having any memory doesn’t mean innocence 100% of the time.
Neither.
I understand what you are trying to say, but medically both actions can exist, so your example really is not very useful. And any doctor can explain this to the jury and should.
The loss of memory is a latent effect of alcohol, not a determinant of actual behavior when one is intoxicated, i.e., loss of memory cannot be used as an indicator of how one was actually functioning at the time of an incident.
Physically, it is very easy for a female or male to be talking and to have the cognitive function to answer “yes” or the small muscle capability and tactile awareness to unwrap a condom, and yet in 10 minutes have zero memory of it. For some, the memory loss may take several hours to kick in, but in either case, the memory loss is not an indicator of function in the past.
And we have endless proof of this - how many times have you heard of a drunk driver driving home and then cannot remember anything from the evening before? This happens many, many times a day. Sex is no difference medically - one can function and go through the motions, talk, consent, unwrap condoms and have not a clue in the morning what happened.
The only solution here really to be fair to either party is to stop the darn drinking like this.
The effects of alcohol are far different on a 50 or 60 yo lifelong alcoholic than a young person. Lifelong alcoholics can still function in a blackout state.
I asked whether the wording of the defendants testimony would sway your opinion. I hope you would address my question.
I am a strong proponent of dropping the drinking age to nineteen. Many campuses only allow boxed wine or canned beer tp be served at parties. The students absolutely hate it. Spraying a mystery liquid into anyone or drinking “punch” are very risky.
I thought the guy who had knocked on the window and heard the female respond “Give us a minute” was important. At the time of the event, she was okay with the actions, even continuing to consent through the entire encounter. At no point did she say no, that she didn’t want to be with the freshman.
She’s arguing that she couldn’t consent because she was too drunk, that no matter what she said or did, no one could have sex with her because she couldn’t give consent. When did she reach that point? After the 5 drinks at her apartment so that even going to the street party was without her consent? The boy was also too drunk. Should she not have been charged with assaulting him because he couldn’t consent? She’s expecting that the freshman be able to make the judgment that she was too drunk to consent, but he too was not making rational decisions. If he’d also testified that HE had no memory of what had happened that night, who actually consented to the sex?
Hmmmmm…I read the posts here and as usual, I decided I better read the article.
The definition of consent is written in the article so I am not going to post it.
The accused said Lind opened the condom wrapper. That is not necessarily true. Could be false. Which leads me to this…
Too drunk to know what is going on…hmmmmm…
A Charlottesville police officer noticed Lind’s condition.
A couple of witnesses who noticed Lind wasn’t able to give consent. The guy who found Lind and the police officer are the two most important witnesses.
A coach made a remark or two about keeping quiet.
I also find it interesting that the accused knew exactly what went on in the bathroom. He wasn’t that drunk.
I think the accused athlete got very lucky.
I wonder what was in that spray…
@dstark I think that what Lind said in the bathroom is very important as well as to whether or not she actually said it. “Would you just give us a minute?” goes far past consent in my opinion and if she actually said that I believe that she has already given consent and is having a good time. I never read any where in the article about the wrestler testifying as to whether or not she said this but I think it was an important piece of the case.
This may surprise some, but I have no problem with finding the athlete innocent. It’s one thing to have a confirmed unconscious victim. It’s another thing to have someone who was conscious, but then drunk to recall anything that happened to them. With the amount of alcohol involved, neither was really capable of giving consent and as a result, you can’t punish either.
There’s also the point that she could’ve been so drunk that she initiated and was a more than willing participant.
This case had such a huge gray area, it would be unfair to punish the freshman. It’s also irresponsible in my opinion to get completely sloshed, act irresponsibly, and then be absolved of all of your actions once you “feel” wrong. Being drunk shouldn’t absolve you from responsibility for your actions if you willingly became drunk.
Now if you have someone slipping alcohol into someone’s drink so that they can take advantage of them, that’s different.
This was a case of bad decision making.
Here’s a comment from The Cavalier Daily that sums up how I feel about this case:
We actually don’t know how drunk he was. None of the witnesses mentioned it in the article.
I wonder if the student claiming she asked for a minute was on the same athletic team as the freshman.
I don’t see what is so shocking about the article or the investigation. I mean, I’d be shocked much more if I read an article where the accused didn’t have supporters claiming he did nothing wrong. At the same time that there are seriously readers blaming the woman for drinking too much.
@CaliCash that comment is BS.
The girl didn’t report the incident. She was trying and failing to move on from it. She actually was worried that investigation would cause problems for the athletes. Was she supposed to refuse to cooperate when she was questioned?
Too bad the commenter doesn’t feel the freshman guy should learn a lesson from his irresponsible behavior.
@Petengineer, thanks. I missed that quote.
I see your point. If Lind said that, it does help the accused.
You are confusing alcohol tolerance (which can be built up over time and prolong how long it takes one to blackout if you are prone to black outs) and blackout (which is where someone does not form long-term memories).
More importantly, blackout is function of genetics, not of long-term alcohol use. Either someone is predisposed to blackouts or not. There are some who are in between and their blackout probability is determined mainly by the rate of alcohol ingestion - faster drinking rate (higher volume per time unit) increases the possibility of onset of blackout.
NOTE: Blackout should not be confused with passed out. Passed out is an unconscious state where no physical activity can take place and often brain activity is very limited as well.
And my answer is still the same in that I would not be affected by the testimony because ALL intoxicated people can function, in many cases quite normally, in a blackout state.
All a blackout state signifies is that long-term memory formation is impaired. Blackout state has nothing to do with cognitive function ( e.g., saying “yes” or unwrapping a condom) such as you are implying because cognitive function could approach 100% of normal in a blackout state, and scarily often does.
Absolutely normal in a blackout state for this to occur.
And the female could have sounded normal as well without any slurred speech or anything. Blackout is not an indication a person does not know what he/she doing; it is just that later on they will not remember doing it.
There are people who are taken to the hospital totally drunk and they can tell you their names, home address, blood type, literally any info you want and even write stuff down for you because they have a high alcohol tolerance - yet they are really in a blackout state. Then in 30 minutes they pass out and in the morning have no idea they even talked to 5 doctors and nurses and have no clue where they are.
I cannot imagine how many times this scenario is happening on college campuses and students are erroneously saying that no way they consented or did those acts because they were blacked out. In fact, the student cannot even have a clue what they did when blacked out - so it is impossible to say what you did or did not do when blacked out, as you have no memory of it. All the student doing at this point is projecting what he or she would have done if not blacked out, which could be 100% incorrect, as to what really happened.