An infamous Texas appellate case once held that it is acceptable for counsel to sleep in trial because it plausibly could be a tactic to garner sympathy for the client. I don’t know about jurors though. It could be a point raised on appeal, and there will be appeals for years in this case.
I still find it to be rather murky so far and not that clear cut (obviously I don’t know all the facts). It sounds like it starts out with both being agreeable to meet up for a sexual encounter of some sort. She talked with friends about it ahead of time apparently. She willingly goes into the room with him. She admits that the first stages of the intimate encounter were consensual, such as kissing, feeling, undressing. At some point, perhaps she was not willing to go further. Yet, we are not hearing of attempts to flee or scream, but that there was nervous laughter and so forth. Of course, if a girl firmly says “no” or to “stop” and a male persists, it is rape. But I wonder if her verbal and body language gave off that message when involved in an encounter that comes across as consensual for at least part of the time. The fact that she corresponded with him afterward in a friendly tone is also confusing. If she were very traumatized and feeling raped, one would think she would have ignored his emails afterward or at least not been friendly in them (but hard to put oneself in her young teen shoes). I’m simply saying that it doesn’t seem so clear cut so far. It still seems a bit of he said, she said. And it gets mucked up by the fact that it at least started out consensual (not sure if all of it was by the end or not…or if it is a matter of a confused teen or she changed her mind at some juncture. Of course, there is the chance he truly ignored any pleas to stop. But it is hard to conclude based on what has come out so far. It just isn’t like the kind of story you think of when the word, “rape” comes up, but obviously there is the case of rape even when two people agree to get together in an intimate way if one takes advantage and does something that the other refuses to do. This case seems to have a lot of mixed messages going on. The whole situation is unfortunate. My guess is that they are not the only case of this type at school between teens in this Senior Salute situation though.
Jurors fall asleep quite often. Many jurors are older and retired, so have the time for jury duty. Courtrooms can get hot, especially in August with a lot of people in the courtroom. Sometimes the testimony is pretty boring and usually they aren’t allowed to take notes, just listen. It’s not all like it seems on TV. There are a lot of breaks, there is a lot of time the jurors are removed from the courtroom and just SIT in the jury room, no tv, no papers, sometimes books are allowed. It can be really hot in the jury room, especially on a criminal jury where there are 12 plus alternates.
Usually someone notifies the judge that a jury is nodding off, the judge ‘wakes up’ the juror and asks if he/she needs a break, some water, if anything is wrong, etc, and the trial goes on.
@MidwestDad3 - if Labrie is found not guilty, I don’t believe the prosecution can appeal. Double jeopardy, right?
@soozievt, I concur with you that this case is murky. From what I have READ (obviously none of us have actually been at these proceedings to see/hear evidence), it sounds as if the girl concedes that the encounter started off as consensual. I’m not sure there is even any dispute about that.
She contends that when it got to a certain point, she said “no,” albeit possibly more politely than she should have, thinking this would suffice to end the encounter (and it should have been enough!)
He contends no actual intercourse took place at all, but if it did, it was consensual. I don’t understand that argument at all. However, if I were there to assess the demeanor of the witnesses, I would be torn between deciding whether she clearly communicated her “no” or not. It sounds like they got awfully far before she said “no,” and she was admittedly laughing (nervously) while saying it. I could see a jury concluding that this boy did not receive her signals clearly.
What I can’t get past is the whole Senior hookup/invite tradition, and the fact that this kid thought it was cool to “invite” a 15-year-old freshman to have sex with him. That is beyond gross to me, and if it were one of my sons I would never live down my shame of him. BUT, not sure that this is a “crime” in that state.
If a juror falls asleep, he or she is waked up immediately. If every juror who nodded off during trial were disqualified, you could never have a trial in a pharmaceutical patent infringement or complex securities fraud case!
Yes, the appeals will come if there is a guilty verdict. The State can’t appeal.
That’s the thing I am inferring so far that perhaps he did not “read her signals” clearly since she was going along pretty far into it before she supposedly said “no” though admits laughing nervously and we don’t hear about screaming or trying to get away. Still, “no” should mean “no!” but who knows how the whole thing came across.
The prosecution has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt and so far there is a bit of doubt and it is not so clear.
I do find the whole Senior Salute tradition thing horrible.
I don’t entirely agree that it is horrible for a senior to be intimate with a freshman generally speaking. Girls mature faster than boys. When I was a freshman in high school, I dated boys who were seniors (though did not have intercourse). So, I don’t find their age difference far fetched. I find the whole Senior Salute thing pretty yuck though.
@hrh19 - Her name was the one in caps presumably because he was pursuing her specifically for this game to get more points. According to the prosecution, shows he was targeting her specifically. One of the counts against the defendent has to do with using online technology to lure a minor (paraphrasing).
@gnocchib - SPS soccer doesn’t have a huge jock culture. It’s a mediocre team at best. Money did not come from there by reports I’ve heard. Not sure who was solicited other than some friends of the accused. I don’t think the solicitation was widespread and from all accounts, the school has been responsive and cooperative with the police and the victim. I don’t see ANY signs of the school doing anything to support the defendent, Never heard of the fundraising except for what is in the media. If I were a betting person, I’d say it would be the families of other boys involved in the contest. Given their sons’ involvement, there is an impetus there to get involved on top of the friendship connection.
I would say the girl’s family’s financial circumstances have nothing to do with this trial. It’s a criminal trial not a civil suit. The police and the prosecutor’s office spent over a month investigating the case before making formal charges. It’s safe to assume that they felt there are sufficient reasons/evidence to bring the case to trail. Taxpayers are paying for the case, not the girl’s family, right?
Reference this story to find a copy of the letter Labrie sent to friends’ families: http://www.concordmonitor.com/home/16057723-95/st-pauls-rape-suspect-remains-free-on-bail-hires-former-bulger-attorney
There is a link at the bottom of the article you can click on to see it. I give the local paper, theConcord Monitor, an A+ for staying on top of this case since the beginning.
High school freshman in my neck of the woods would not think of going with a senior as normal. Too old. They are not that mature. The girl is 15, even when my kid is freshman in college she is still immature.
Thank you. I appreciate your insights and your article links.
Couple of clarification points:
- A poster a couple of pages ago indicated the defendant had changed lawyer at least twice. He is in fact on his fourth lawyer. The first 2 quit, and don't know what happened to #3.
- His present lawyer, Carney, may look familiar to New Englanders, as he defended Whitey Bulger.
IMO the prosecution’s weakest point right now is that the friend was emphatic that the victim said what things she would do, yet the victim testified that she didn’t remember saying that to her. That is an awfully big credibility gap to overcome. Jurors will be wondering what else she is misremembering. It would have been much better if she had testified, “I was prepared to do X and Y, but definitely not Z.” But anyone can understand how difficult it would be to say that in front of your parents, classmates, and all the media in the courtroom. I’m not sure many people realize how truly terrifying it is to be testifying under these conditions.
@doschicos, thanks for posting the link to the copy of the fundraising letter.
Having 2 attorneys quit on the defendant makes me wonder about him - did they both tell him he should take a plea to a lesser charge but he is in such denial or is such a narcissist that he can’t believe he will not walk away from this unscathed?
It seems like the defense’s main motive should be to prove that penetration (or however NH defines the crime of rape) did not take place since as I understand it, she could not legally consent as a 15 year old. If it did take place, then as a matter of law he would be guilty, wouldn’t he? Instead, the defendant’s 4th /current lawyer is playing hardball with the accuser (“you really wanted it, didn’t you?”). I guess it takes big bucks to get really aggressive counsel.
Since this is College Confidential, I’m wondering what happens to the defendant’s educational plans if he’s acquitted. We know that Harvard said he was not enrolled as of the fall he was supposed to matriculate. Do we know if he may be allowed to enroll there at a later date? What other colleges would take him? Maybe he’ll post here about it using NotARapist as his user name …
An interesting comment made by a guest on NPR
“We give girls permission to say ‘no’ but we don’t give them permission to say ‘yes’.”
I think this is at the heart of many he said/she said date rape cases, girls who are a little unclear in the messages they give because they don’t want to look like sluts and/or don’t really know what they want, and boys who think they have to overcome a girl’s scruples in order to score. The ability of both parties to be upfront and clear about what they want would, IMO, change the dynamic in many of these cases. One of the problems is that these are kids with hormones a’raging which makes discussions like this doubly hard in the heat of the moment.
As the parent of both a boy and a girl I worry about my daughter ending up in a darkened room with a guy who doesn’t understand that “no” means no, but I also worry about my son being expected to be a mind reader in cases where he thinks both he and the girl he’s with are having a pleasurable consensual encounter.
I think there is also a possible case that the girl planned to do it, everything sounded good until she was in the real situation and then realized it’s not what she really wanted. I still think she is in the right. Also found out later that the situation was actually more of a rape than she had realized. I still believe her since she is very young.
I agree that it is quite possible that midway through the encounter, she realized she didn’t want to go through with the rest, but I also believe it is quite possible that in the midst of what started as consensual, her change of heart may have been unclear and hard to read. That’s what I think makes this a difficult case, or at least from what has been reported.
The problem is that in some ways it’s possible for both to be right. She says she said no but also raised her arms so he could remove her shirt and raised her hips so she could remove her pants. It’s fully possible for her to have felt raped and for him to have viewed whatever happened as consensual.
One of the things that makes me saddest about the girl’s testimony is that she repeatedly said things like “I didn’t want to offend him” and “I felt like I had no control. I felt like I couldn’t say no.” This was a young girl who was clearly out of her depth.
The nurse noted a “laceration” consistent with intercourse, not necessarily rape. From her testimony it sounds like the girl may have been a virgin, making this whole story doubly sad.
@gnocchiB I am wondering if plea negotiations perhaps fell apart on the issue of whether he would have to register as a sexual offender or not. Unless the prosecutor were willing to come down significantly, say to child endangerment, he would be going through life as a registered sexual offender by taking a plea.
A few other thoughts . . . If the internet or messaging were used to solicit a minor, will federal charges possibly be forthcoming? Will testimony show that the defendant was awarded his “points?” If so, that could undercut defendant’s argument that it didn’t happen, or at the least it shows he is a liar. And are there charges on the horizon for others, arising from this awful practice at this school?
I agree and being young, she might not have forceful or clear. But what I saw on the news, he texted her something like it she was great and she texted back, he was not so bad himself, reminded me of some stupid comment I made to someone I dated, I thought I was being polite. I was young and immature, possibly 17. Nothing sexual happened but young immature kids say stupid things all the time, not realizing the full consequence of what they say or deliver.