That pertains to the type of state procedure used. It doesn’t pertain to Title 9 proceedings as @harvestmoon pointed out.
@roethliburger I know the case – it was decided last December. It does not affect the way WSU handles it’s Title IX cases.
In Washington state the public universities are given the legal status of “agencies” and thus hear some cases pursuant to the APA with an abbreviated hearing. In this case the judge held because of what Arishi had at stake - his PHD and losing his and his families citizenship he should be afforded a full hearing under the APA.
It has nothing to do with how WSU will adjudicate campus assault as their conduct code excepts Title IX cases from the procedures followed in the APA and pretty much follows the DCL.
^From the opinion itself:
It seems clear the judge contemplated the ruling applying at least in part to Title IX hearings, although stopped short of over-ruling the DCL. And people, including @HarvestMoon1, frequently bring up how college disciplinary proceedings operate, for charges that don’t fall under Title IX.
I just looked at the case it makes for interesting reading of the facts. It is cited as follows “Arishi v. Wash. State Univ., 196 Wn. App. 878”
¶"13 In the spring semester of 2014, Abdullatif Arishi, then a PhD graduate student at WSU, was charged by the Whitman County prosecutor with the third degree rape and molestation of a 15-year-old girl. Mr. Arishi’s relationship with the minor came to the attention of a state trooper who responded to the scene of a car accident in which the 15-year-old, identified in court filings as “MOS,” rear-ended another car. Clerk’s Papers (CP) at 100-01. She did not have a driver’s license or a learner’s permit. The car she was driving belonged to Mr. Arishi, whom she knew as “Alex,” and who was her passenger. CP at 100.
¶14 Several facts that came to the trooper’s attention caused him concern about [***11] the Arishi-MOS relationship. Mr. Arishi was 40 years old. MOS’s mother, whom the trooper contacted, had no idea that MOS was not at home, or that she was with a 40-year-old man. At the time of the accident, MOS, whose mother had pulled her out of school over bullying issues, was supposed to be working on her studies at home.
¶15 Since MOS lived in Pullman, the trooper contacted the Pullman Police Department upon completing his response to the accident and passed along his concerns. The matter was assigned to Detective Todd Dow.
¶16 Detective Dow promptly called the hospital where MOS was being treated for minor injuries and spoke with MOS’s mother. The mother was aware MOS had been spending time with someone named Alex for several weeks, and she believed they had been communicating for approximately two months. MOS had described Alex to her mother as “a college kid or something like that,” and as “18 to 19 years [old].” CP at 239, 49. MOS’s mother told the detective she had learned recently that Alex paid some of MOS’s cell phone bills and had given her money. She was aware that the day before the accident, Alex bought MOS a cell phone. [890] She did not know the extent of the sexual activity between MOS and Alex. [**12] She only learned on the day of MOS’s auto accident that Alex was actually 40 years old, that MOS had not spent the day studying at home like she was supposed to, and that Alex had offered to give MOS a car."
@Roetholisberger please obtain the judges decision and read it in it’s entirely. He rejects the idea that it is a Title IX case – how could it be? The alleged victim was not a student at the university and the judge specifically notes that.
Then go to WSU’s disciplinary process and see how they are procedurally adjudicating Title IX cases.
And it’s not going to apply to the vast majority of non Title IX cases that WSU handles either. The judge applied the 3 pronged test articulated in earlier case law and for Arishis’s particular case they concluded his circumstance required more than an abbreviated hearing. Most cases will not rise to that level under the articulated test.
You are confused. Colleges suspending students are not criminal matters. If your contention is a college should not be allowed to suspend or discipline a student without a criminal conviction, large parts of any school’s code of conduct will be instantly invalidated.
Why should it be easier to suspend or discipline a student for cheating than it would be for sexual assault?
@roethlisburger your quote in post 182 is dicta which has no legal effect whatsoever
“Beyond a reasonable doubt and unanimous go hand and hand in court. Requiring an unanimous ruling in a civil matter is just nonsensical.”
FYI.
Civil court verdicts in all federal courts must be unanimous.
Civil court verdicts in two-thirds of the states must be unanimous. In the one third of the states, sometimes majority is enough. In others, super-majority is required. The number of jurors can be any number – 6, 8 and 12 are the most common.
All federal criminal court verdicts must be unanimous.
Most (but not all) state criminal court verdicts must be unanimous. SCOTUS has held that state court criminal verdicts do not have to be unanimous under the federal Constitution. SCOTUS says 12 person juries are not required by the Constitution either.
But SCOTUS also says that a 5-1 vote is not allowed in state criminal cases. If the criminal jury is only six people, then it has to be 6-0 unanimous.
“Civil court verdicts in all federal courts must be unanimous.” Unless the parties agree otherwise and if they don’t get an unanimous verdict they do it over.
“Civil court verdicts in two-thirds of the states must be unanimous” Do you have a cite for that? Also again if an unanimous verdict is required they do it over if they don’t get it.
See Hanna #61
IMHO, Jameis Winston is a crummy example of “these cases are so hard to prove!” We have no idea what evidence might have turned up had the investigation begun promptly and professionally. That accuser went to police/medical care the same morning, and then there was an unreasonable delay. A lot of crimes become harder to prove if the police don’t act promptly after a report.
“Civil court verdicts in two-thirds of the states must be unanimous” Do you have a cite for that?"
I wrote that too fast. More than one third require unanimous for civil. Of the remaining two thirds, most require super-majorities (often five/sixths, sometimes two/thirds). Some require unanimous, but then allow for super-majority but only after a certain amount of deliberation has happened. So less than one third allow for a simple majority. So it is all over the place.
@HarvestMoon1 - I understand the difference between criminal and civil law. I was in a bit of a hurry and I can see how you could think I was confused by my posts.
What I was trying to say in post 175 is that you really should have to have more than just someone shouting an accusation in order to brand a person a sexual predator. I can’t get all hung up on preponderance/clear and convincing. I will let the lawyers fight over that one. However, there really should be more than just one person pointing a finger at another person.
So in your view, Proudpatriot, just as every dog gets one bite, every man gets one rape, and it’s only when he rapes a second time, so that there are two people to point fingers, that anything needs to be done about it?
@roethlisburger uh… Hanna #61 (I feel like I’m quoting scripture now!) does not address my question.
@Proudpatriot is suggesting that schools require a criminal conviction, which is a much, much higher standard than schools have for all sorts of other “code of conduct” issues. So what @hanna and @proudpatriot would be saying is: Sure, you can be expelled for being accused of cheating on an exam if our process finds you guilty, but if you’re accused of rape, nothing can be done until the trial is over, which, in the case of one serial abuser at UW-Madison, for instance, was over 12 months - for the first go round. What if there is an appeal?
Is that really the “fix” you all think is a good idea here? I mean, I doubt even DeVos’ commission suggests going that far. The liability a school would face if there were further assaults by someone in this situation? I suppose police could make voluntary withdrawl from school a condition of bail (they have done that elsewhere) but otherwise… wow.
Well, that escalated quickly!
Logical implication. A very large number of rapes happen in private, when there are no witnesses, and no videos are made. I understand and accept the impossibility of getting a conviction in such a case, in the interests of justice. However, that doesn’t mean that I am going to positively advocate for it.
A related point is that any of the lawyers on this thread could get a client off in a situation where there are multiple accusers, but all of the actions were in private with no witnesses. So more than one person pointing fingers does not mean the the accused person can be convicted in court, or even suspended or expelled from a university.
I have never seen a case where there was truly no evidence other than the parties’ memories. There’s usually stuff like witnesses to each party’s level of intoxication before the event, text message invitations to breakfast the following morning, dorm-entry swipes showing a timeline, roommate testimony about how the parties acted later, etc. It can point in either direction, and university panels may exclude or disregard it, but it’s there.