This discussion was created from comments split from: Former Stanford Swimmer Convicted of Rape.
Combined between both cases, you have witness testimonies, DNA evidence, lacerations on victim and video footage, and he has spent all of one day behind bars. Unbelievable.
^ Where is the outrage at this? People can walk away with a plea deal of probation after 2 charges?
Ugh. This kid would have gone to my kids’ high school, except he attended a (very well regarded) private school in the area.
I wonder if there is some background we don’t know – like the victim did not want to testify, and there was little chance of a conviction at trial if she did not. It’s possible the prosecutors are just incompetent or heartless, but there’s some likelihood that there was a problem with their case and they needed to take whatever deal they could.
It looks like rapist John Enochs went to Benet Academy, which as @pizzagirl says is a well regarded high school…and a religious high school to boot. What an embarrassment he must be to that community.
@Hanna, I fear you are right and perhaps the victim was unwilling to jump through all the hoops required to secure a conviction here. Aren’t there special protections in place when, say, children are victims so that they can be spared some of the indignities inherent in the system? Can’t we put those types of protections in place for victims of sexual assaults?
This is disgusting. He did not graduate from IU, according to an article I read. There has been a Title IX lawsuit filed: http://www.theindychannel.com/news/local-news/title-ix-suit-filed-against-iu
Does the victim has any day in a plea deal?
@prospect1, there may be places where accusers can testify by closed-circuit TV, and there are rape shield laws barring questions about an accuser’s sexual history and the like. But testifying is testifying, and you have to be cross-examined, and not everybody wants to or can do it.
The law has to be pretty careful about stepping on the Bill of Rights. The Sixth Amendment holds that a defendant has the right to be confronted by the witnesses against him.
@hrh19, BOY, is that lazy reporting. This is a private lawsuit by the victim, and “prosecutors” don’t have anything to do with it. Attributing the claims in a private suit to government actors is a critical mistake.
“Does the victim has any say in a plea deal?”
They have no say, though it’s possible prosecutors may be influenced by knowing the victim’s wishes. Prosecutors represent all of us, not just the individuals involved in a matter.
I’m stunned reading this, because I live in the general area and somehow missed any coverage of it on the news. I had to google it and found this article. http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/downers-grove/news/ct-dgr-rape-indiana-university-downers-grove-tl-0924-20150916-story.html. It’s upsetting.
I keep reading that victims should go to the police. What do you think?
Do you think going to the police is an effective solution?
Two rapes. Two known rapes. How many others are there? If I had to bet my life on how many rapes this guy has committed, I would have to bet on more than two.
I think some colleges handle this better than others. I think victims should go to the police, not the campus police.
dstark - I would agree.
@dstark - I believe that. Big gap between 2013 and 2015 incidents.
My opinions on what should be done to these type of people can’t be written here.
There are people rotting in jail because they cant get a quick trial or good lawyers and can’t afford the 10% needed to get a bail while people like these are walking.
Like 88jm, I’m in that area and I haven’t heard boo about it. It hasn’t been on local news as far as I know.
I don’t want to have this mounting sense of anxiety about my girls going off to college, but I must say I do.
The way this young man comes across from what I read in the article posted @88jm19, he probably sent chills down the spine of many young women. He was cold, deliberate, calculating, unperturbed and not dissuaded at being witnessed.
I cannot imagine being in the same room with such a … person.
I would like to imagine I have not been. But the repeated instances of this type of behavior makes me think that surely I have.
You can read all that in a couple paragraph newspaper story?
When there is any crime to report, students should know whether the “campus safety” department is an actual police department or not.
Obviously, some police departments, prosecutors, and judges handle these types of things better than others.
Where one reports to campus safety, there is nothing which precludes one from then reporting to the actual police department, correct?
Sometimes a two-prong attack, where one party having knowledge of the other, is enough to make either party work harder to get their job done.
@Waiting2exhale here’s an excellent article from Slate about women and alcohol and prosecution and a whole lotta stuff that if I had daughters I would make them read again and again and again.
This is the most important sentence of the entire article but the entire article bears reading: BTW 3,600 people have commented on this article if you are the type to deep dive.
and it concludes with this:
We should be happy that the young lady saw this through the legal system. Whether or not we collectively feel the punishment fit the crime cannot be ascertained. we simply have no insight based on 2 paragraph newspaper articles. There is simply not enough information. But the more cases that are brought, the more the legal system will understand what the American public wants. But until we help our daughters understand that matching guys drink for drink is NOT a feminist issue and more about personal safety most of American will turn a blind eye. Not a popular position but one that I am a strong believer in.
“The way this young man comes across from what I read in the article posted @88jm19, he probably sent chills down the spine of many young women. He was cold, deliberate, calculating, unperturbed and not dissuaded at being witnessed.”
I think there is a greater possibility that he just comes across as any typical young man. Looking at his LinkedIn, he was a server at a place I frequented. So for all I know he waited on me or whatever. I dislike this assumption that these kinds of folks are “recognizable,” creepy, leery, etc. That’s what causes our daughters to let their guard down.