@momofmusician17: Thank you for sharing your story with us. What a horrible experience – not only the assault itself but also the trial. Congratulations on surviving it all.
@momofmusician17: I second what the posters above have expressed.
@GnocchiB, I imagine that the defense counsel brought up the revoked award and the barring of his name among alumni to suggest that Labrie has already paid dearly for his poor judgement. In other words, he’s expressing that Labrie doesn’t deserve to go to jail bc he didn’t rape her but he did, in fact, pay dearly for being a jerk. I think that his Harvard acceptance was also claimed as rescinded, but I might have just seen that in one of the tweets I’ve read.
Thanks for sharing, @momofmusician17, and my respect to you for your bravery and the bravery of anyone going through the process of recovering from sexual assault and the additional trauma of a trial procedure. Sexual assault has touched many of us, either directly or through family and friends, and thus, becomes a topic which can carry a lot of emotion.
I think that with the DNA/semen, there is a lot more info that was probably given in the courtroom than what was imparted through tweets. I do remember one of the reporters commenting on the amount of detail in the forensic expert’s testimony and how all the jurors were, surprisingly, still awake. I thought I had read that some part of the semen could be tied to him but not the sperm, or that one expert said they didn’t find a match, but another - who did more thorough testing - did find a match.
A lot of confusion stems from the fact that unless someone was sitting in the courtroom each day, we don’t have all the details to go on. All we have are snippits of testimony in tweet form. Even a lot of the legal experts commenting seem to be basing opinions on very limited info.
Yes, there is an article from the Harvard Crimson saying that the defendant “is not enrolled” as of 9/3/14, but there is no official comment on whether he is taking a gap year, etc. Of course Harvard would not directly comment on the particulars of any specific student, so we will never really know what is going on, even though we all have opinions on it.
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/9/3/owen-labrie-sexual-assault/
@momofmusician17, thanks for your poignant and insightful post. I’m so sorry for what you went though, but admire your bravery for sharing it here.
@momofmusician17, I can only echo everyone else in thanking you, and also share their admiration of your strength and courage.
@GnocchiB, you mentioned this
MidwestDad3 wrote:
I thought the nurse who examined her said there was “redness” that could have been cause by actual intercourse or by rubbing.
Which is it? Does anyone have an actual quotation from her testimony, rather than someone else’s interpretation of it? This is the kind of thing that makes it impossible to draw conclusions as a mere onlooker.
My respect and admiration to you, momofmusician17. I am so sorry that you went through this horrific experience. ((HUGS)) and thanks to you for sharing your story.
I look at his calm, emotionless, manipulative demeanor, and it screams sociopath. Oh, and I forgot his glasses, which I don’t believe he ever wore before. Reminded me of Ollie North, who wore suits to work, but put on his marine uniform when testifying (and lying) before congress.
If I didn’t do something, but was potentially days away from being convicted of it, I would be nervous as hell.
Defendants often change their appearance for court. There was a case in Maine about 10 years ago where a thuggish guy knifed a Bated College student to death in a street altercation. He had a shaved head, was covered in tattoos (including on his head), and was wearing a T-shirt that said something rude about Jesus when he committed the crime. In court, he had hair covering his head tats, and a shirt and jacket and slacks covering the rest of them. His first conviction was vacated because the prosecution referred to “the Jesus shirt” when identifying him during the fight. He was subsequently convicted again. You would find it hard to believe that the pictures were the same person.
Labrie’s change in appearance was definitely engineered by his attorneys; of that I am 100% confident. I can’t hold it against a 19 year old kid for doing what his lawyer tells him to do.
article from one of the reporters tweeting heavily from the courtroom:
http://www.vice.com/read/who-will-the-jury-believe-in-the-new-england-elite-prep-school-rape-trial-827
“The sexual assault nurse examiner at Concord Hospital found that the alleged victim had “a laceration that would be consistent with penetration having occurred,” the Monitor reported.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/08/17/as-rape-trial-begins-elite-st-pauls-prep-school-in-n-h-faces-sordid-sexual-scoring-scrutiny/
@OspreyCV22 in post #182 wrote this: “Someone upthread wanted to know where “laceration” came into the story. It was mentioned in the Sept 3, 2014 article in The Crimson, soon after the arrest.” The Crimson wrote: “A forensic examination on June 3 by a sexual assault nurse examiner found “a laceration that would be consistent with penetration having occurred,” according to the affidavit.” (A police affidavit accompanies the criminal complaint. It is based on interviews that the police have conducted.)
Halfway through testimony on August 20, the judge issued a gag order which was interpreted by reporters as ordering that they were not permitted to tweet during trial. (The following day, after further analysis, reporters resumed tweeting.)
During the non-tweeting period ER nurse Samantha Hawkins and ER doctor Robert Rix took the stand and testified. Because it was during the non-tweeting period, the only information on their testimony is from published articles.
Lizzie Crocker, writing in a Daily Beast article that is generally slanted towards the prosecution’s narrative, stated this about the testimony: “A hospital nurse who examined the girl two days after their encounter, administering the rape kit, testified that the girl had redness in her vagina that could be consistent with an assault, but could also be the result of non-sexual irritation.”
Two days later, in an interview on MSNBC, former prosecutor Wendy Murphy interpreted that evidence in this way: “It’s when he took it to the illegal stage of penetration that the crime happened, and that’s not really in dispute. There was DNA. She had vaginal tearing. He admitted to his friends there was sexual penetration. That’s not up for debate in this case.”
People can draw their own conclusions.
" @OspreyCV22 in post #182 wrote this: “Someone upthread wanted to know where “laceration” came into the story. It was mentioned in the Sept 3, 2014 article in The Crimson, soon after the arrest.” The Crimson wrote: “A forensic examination on June 3 by a sexual assault nurse examiner found “a laceration that would be consistent with penetration having occurred,” according to the affidavit.” (A police affidavit accompanies the criminal complaint. It is based on interviews that the police have conducted.)"
So what is the question? Did a freshman “know that going up to the roof with a guy = having sex”? Did “going to the roof = going into a closet” with the senior? Did a “laceration consistent with penetration” mean there was sex or not"?
Thank you for sharing your difficult story, momofmusician17. My young relative’s rapist (also a relative) only got 7 years, but everyone was happy he was convicted (he and his wife were giggling and laughing during the entire trial).
But I am very sorry if people think “she knew what she was getting into therefore not rape”.
I let someone walk me home to my dorm room, what a kind gesture it was for him in my mind. I can imagine my brothers being gallant enough to do such a thing. I did NOT ask him into my room. I did NOT even flirt with him or kiss him or have any romantic banker previously - we had chatted briefly in a generic way about classes. I opened my door to go into my room, he held the door and followed me in. He proceeded to start kissing me and take my clothes off. I said no but was rather drunk so I could not stay standing. He made the smart decision to leave and i was not raped.
I was 19 and had no idea that if someone is nice enough to walk you home when you are drunk, that means that you know and they know that the point is to go into your room and have sex with you. And that therefore, it wouldn’t be rape, because I knew what was going to happen? Sorry, it never crossed my mind.
I firmly believe that there is a difference between someone who is flattered by attention by an older boy, and thinks (as she states, paraphrased) “I don’t want anyone to think I’m a baby” and someone who is invited to a roof - a roof mind you, which is assumed to be open air and to look at a view, not any vestige of privacy, versus someone who is taken to the roof, and a closet is unlocked, and she is shoved into a closet and raped. She also said she told him to stop “petting” above the waist (no = no?).
Will he be convicted? I don’t know.
Does a female have a right to go somewhere not in public with someone she was flirting with and not expect to be raped? Is someone shoving you into a closet indicative of planning a consensual act?
(and that is ignoring the “game” part of it)
“So what is the question?” @rhandco, this was the question:
Does anyone have an actual quotation from her testimony, rather than someone else’s interpretation of it?
^^It wasn’t as simple as being invited to go to the roof with this young man. She knew it was part of senior salute and discussed with friends how far she may go with him, etc. I’m not saying it was or wasn’t rape, but I’m just saying that she didn’t just meet someone in a public place and that unexpected sexual activity took place. She met up for a sexual encounter of some sort and consented to it at least when it began (including removing clothing). It is not like she had no idea there would be some sort of intimacy and merely met someone in a public place for no reason at all.
She was under the age of consent in New Hampshire. The encounter, with penetration, was by definition non-consensual.
My favorite sad attempt at a change of appearance for court was the case a few years ago when the defense attorney gave his client a suit, a shave, a haircut, but couldn’t do much about the tattoo across his forehead, which read “DILLIGAF”, which stood for “Do I look like I give a f----”!!
@rhandco, @soozievt makes valid points, and that’s why, in part, this case is complicated. Beyond what soozievt described, it’s also known that the girl shaved her vaginal area in preparation for this encounter. I don’t think there’s any doubt that she thought there was going to be some kind of sexual activity. But I do believe that she intended to stop before intercourse based on what her friend testified, although the accuser doesn’t remember the conversation. And I also believe the accuser when she said in her testimony that she tried to redirect Labrie away from anything under her waist, and that she said no to intercourse. But nowhere have I read that she was “shoved” into that room. It seems she went willingly. That’s still no excuse for him raping her, if he did. But so far, unless I’ve missed it, there isn’t any indisputable, tangible evidence that he did. Even the physical exam is resulting in conflicting interpretation, as @MidwestDad3 states in post #552.
I discussed this case yesterday over lunch with a friend who’s a photographer and so imagines everything as if framed by a camera or as if it’s filmed. She said when listening to the testimony, she feels like she’s watching a movie of this event taking place. At the point when Labrie goes with the girl to the locked maintenance room, and begins to unlock the door, my friend said she feels like screaming at the girl, “get away, run, don’t go into a locked room with him!” And that’s when I felt another deep pang of sadness for this girl. She trusted this guy enough to go into a locked room with him. As others in this thread have said, she was way over her experience depth.
Good point.
According to my NE boarding school class of '15 daughter (not St. Paul’s) “slaying” does not necessarily mean what I and other posters here have assumed. According to her it can mean any form of hooking up, from kissing to intercourse, and can even be used between friends in a non-sexual way.