“Wow, so according to the anonymous source, the complainant is a tramp, not like the nice girl he supposedly started dating later?”
No, according to the source, Montague treated the second girl way better than he treated the complainant. It’s about his behavior, not hers. It may be a total fabrication, but it has nothing to do with tramps and nice girls. If I were disappointed about someone I liked not wanting me as a girlfriend, then I might get enraged or devastated when I saw him giving my friend everything I’d hoped for. I mean, a lot of us have been there.
“Sterrett is in worse shape than before the case.”
Strongly, strongly disagree. These suits aren’t about money. No one collects more money than it takes to litigate. They’re about clearing his record. He has about a thousand percent better chance of a desirable transfer (or grad school admission) given this result.
Just remember everybody that much like (in my opinion) the tribunals are rigged against the accused, this is the one point in the process where the accused has the whip hand. There is no more reason to believe that the information put out by the anonymous source(s) and the lawyer tells the whole story than there is to believe the guy is a rapist just because Yale called him one.
“No, according to the source, Montague treated the second girl way better than he treated the complainant. It’s about his behavior, not hers. It may be a total fabrication, but it has nothing to do with tramps and nice girls. If I were disappointed about someone I liked not wanting me as a girlfriend, then I might get enraged or devastated when I saw him giving my friend everything I’d hoped for. I mean, a lot of us have been there.”
It could be this, but it could just as well be that the victim couldn’t stand the thought of her sorority sister being sexually assaulted like she was. It seems quite possible that Yale had evidence of other prior incidents and that is why the punishment in this case was quite extreme.
I also think that we lose sight of why this is considered a Title IV violation and that is because sexual assault on campus fundamentally impairs a female student’s ability to study and complete their education. People should read the article below to see that the pendulum has not turned in favor of women on all campuses and what it can be like to try and attend college alongside your assailant. I think this is why we need to have some sort of college tribunal process in addition to the criminal system. I agree that colleges have had trouble with the implementation of these processes, but I think they should work to improve the system, rather than return to the time when victims had no protection on campus. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/college-sexual-assault-gag-orders_us_56ddd17ae4b0ffe6f8ea278c
@Hanna, I didn’t write what I wrote well. Of course Sterrett is better off after his countersuit. I meant Sterrett was not really made whole or fully compensated. He was better off before UMich ruled against him in the first place.
@Ohiodad51, what was highlighted in post 151 is a reason some other system besides the court system should handle these cases.
A school should have the right to expel somebody. Liebman has it right imo. Pittsburghscribe is correct also.
'And this time it was proper dating, going to the movies and to restaurants, not just hooking up for sex like it was in her case.
‘I don’t know if she was jealous or not, but it certainly seems more than a coincidence.’
…because to me that sounds like it’s about the complainant since the only direct quotes are those above and both refer to her, not him - “in her case”, “she was jealous”.
We do agree that the source is saying that the complainant is just jealous and trying to get back at him.
But he wasn’t accused of treating others badly or having sex with others or even sexual abuse of others. He was accused in one case. The investigator was looking at one case, asking questions about one incident. That’s the problem with a hearing board not trained in criminal procedure trying a criminal matter. Prior bad acts should not come into it. If others had complaints, they should have made them, they should have been investigated one at a time, the student should have been able to respond to each incident.
This is actually a pretty decent editorial on this whole thing and pretty much how I feel about these college judicial tribunes - no one wins and everyone loses.
@dstark, having the power to do something is a different question then whether it is wise to do that thing. Plus, we are not talking about just any criminal conduct, we are talking about felony criminal conduct. And not just any felony, but one of the big three (rape, incest, murder). Saying it is understandable that a college handles a case of vandalism itself is different than saying a college should handle a case of a professor sleeping with her thirteen year old son.
@twoinanddone, yes you are right if the focus is sanctioning the conduct of the accused. That is not the focus in the tribunals though. The focus there is on making the accuser/women generally “safe”. Different thing.
I think we should give up the legal system of the United States.
If you don’t have money, if you don’t have power, you are screwed under our legal system.
About 3 percent of rapists are convicted. How many other crimes are never solved? Lots. How many criminals are never brought to justice? How many people are sitting in jails, never convicted of a crime, because they can’t meet bail? How many people are sitting in prison because of non violent offenses?
Despite what a few attorneys say, the legal system moves very slowly.
People break laws anyway. Just drive on the road. How many traffic laws are broken every second?
(Steph Curry misses half his shots. He should quit).
I think we should close the legal system. The country would save a lot of money in legal fees. We could get rid of lawyers. Nobody likes lawyers anyway.
Anarchy is fine. Who needs laws and rules? Anarchy is fine.
I’d love to see our criminal justice system improved. In so so many ways. I know @dstark’s comments above are a bit tongue-in-cheek, but there’s some truth to the “brokenness” of the system.
That said, I strongly believe that alternative college forums for real crimes are not the solutions. First of all, they only apply to a tiny slice of the population, leaving most Americans with nothing but our broken public system. Second, they employ processes that are inconsistent from school to school due to ginormous variances in funding, and probably even inconsistent within a single school. Due process is necessarily shortcutted for men AND women.
Imagine how much better it would be if we could reform our public criminal justice system to be better, swifter, more available, more fair, for all Americans. What a pipe dream, I know.
In many (most?) states college administrators, professors and coaches are mandatory reporters. I am pretty sure that since 2014 this is the case in Connecticut. We should not expect to see colleges handling cases of a college professor sleeping with her 13 year old son.
This is actually a pretty decent editorial for this media outlet on this whole thing and pretty much how I feel about these college judicial tribunes - no one wins and everyone loses.
I am involved in a lawsuit. The case has been going on for 6 years. I think it will be over in two more years. (I was involved in another lawsuit that is going to take 10 years to solve. Maybe more. That’s enough lawsuits for me. I learned plenty. )
The case I am still involved in is a case where I am going to get back between 1 and 3 cents on the dollar. The attorneys and their staffs are going to make 3 to 9 times more than the plaintiffs are getting back. (The equivalent of 7 to 9 cents per dollar creditors lost. That is $7 to $9 million). I am only $35,000 of the total losses.
I talked to one of the attorneys. The defendant (in a civil case) should be in prison . The guy committed a multi year ponzi scheme. At the end of the scheme, the defendant had assets of $10 million and debts of $100 million.
There was no arrest. There is no criminal trial. Nobody wants to make an effort to throw the guy in prison. I think he is 80 years old now. Frankly, if the guy was thrown in prison, it would cost society even more money. Trials aren’t cheap. Keeping a guy in prison isn’t cheap.
Let’s not pretend the legal system is anything close to perfect. The legal system is made up of human beings. Law enforcement does not always gets its man or woman.
What Liebman (post 153) explained is what the schools are doing is different than what the legal system is doing.
Yeah…people are trying to keep schools safe. What a concept!
@twoinanddone : I submit that you do not know whether any one of the many factual premises in your statement is true, and you are completely wrong on the law.
– We do not know whether he was ever accused of or investigated for other events.
– We do not know whether he was accused in one case, two cases, or ten cases.
– This investigator may or may not have been looking at just one incident. Other investigators may well have looked at other incidents. And the investigator or other administrative personnel may have compiled information about “uncharged” incidents for purposes of determining an appropriate penalty.
– This board was NOT “trying a criminal matter.” It was trying a college disciplinary matter, with a range of potential penalties, none of them as serious as would be possible in, say, a misdemeanor trial.
– If it were a criminal trial, and especially if it were a nonjury criminal trial, both prior bad acts and uncharged offenses might well have come into play at the guilt stage if they were highly consistent with the conduct at issue in the current case, or if they helped prove motive for the charged offense. And once a defendant has been found guilty, both prior bad acts and uncharged offenses can be considered as part of sentencing. In either case, the uncharged conduct is not required to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt in order to be considered by the judge or jury. That is not to say that a college disciplinary board would necessarily follow the same rules, but if it considered prior bad acts or uncharged conduct it could do so in a manner consistent with the current understanding of what due process allows when due process is required.
– Others may have had complaints, and made them, and their complaints may have been investigated, one at a time or together. We do not know whether any of that happened or not.
– If there were other charges, and if uncharged conduct was taken into account at the hearing, we certainly do not know that the accused student was unable to respond to each incident. It would be really surprising if that were the case, but no one has claimed that happened.
Everything we know comes from a very artificial, minimalistic, and frankly self-serving PR release from the student’s attorney and an even less informative response from Yale, plus the various news stories about how other students have reacted, and now the not-very-reliable, but also not-very-informative statement by an unidentified source. None of those three sources even pretends to give a comprehensive account of what happened at this hearing and why. None of those sources even had an interest in giving a full account. It’s really a mistake to make stuff up on the basis of absolutely no information.
Totally disagree with post 165 when it comes to schools or businesses.
The schools aren’t trying a criminal matter. I don’t think people are listening to each other.
Schools and businesses can have different rules than the court system. This doesn’t mean the accused shouldn’t know what he is accused of or shouldn’t be able to defend himself.
Prior bad acts and patterns should be fair game for schools and businesses.
If I have a business, I can’t fire somebody unless they are arrested? Or they have to be convicted of a crime? Some attorneys are making things up.
@momofthreeboys Your editorial link echoes my concerns in this, thanks for posting!!
IMO its a reach to say they aren’t trying to investigate a criminal matter when investigating sexual assaults on campuses. Sexual assault is a (felony) criminal matter and just because the victim doesn’t want to exercise her rights to file a criminal complaint doesn’t change that…
To have a felony occur on campus and no police, not even university police, brought in to investigate is concerning. There’s a reason the term “proper authorities” exists.
I have personally seen school Title 9 personnel back the school’s version rather than the truth… video of a girl getting her hand stepped on by a male student caught on film - the school said it didn’t happen. The accused was a school board members child. A teacher said she was there the whole time and no contact was made. Later someone who filmed it on her phone brought the evidence to the family of the victim, She didn’t bring the evidence in right away bc she was a student in that teacher’s class and was afraid of getting a bad grade if she contradicted the teacher. There are too many conflict of interests that can occur in school investigations.
I also find it hard to believe that in this case the lawyers are making up the facts they presented in their PR when they specifically state these facts are agreed upon by both parties … if they are making this up they would be open to libel or slander, no?
All we know is that Yale,through whatever process they have, found Montague guilty and gave him the harshest punishment they can give, which is expulsion. However, there has been no arrest or criminal investigation against him. So, what kind of actions in this case would deserve expulsion from Yale’s point of view, but fall short of even warranting a criminal investigation?
I also read somewhere that no university police or New Haven Police have ever investigated Montague- so if he did have priors they weren’t at the criminal investigation level or at the call the university police and report him level
First let me state that, in the absence of any other reliable evidence, I tend to put a lot of weight on the fact the Yale found the facts strong enough to expel this guy. I think the person who said that Yale was looking for a “high-profile, non-minority student whose parents were not major donors or alumni as a ‘perpetrator’.” is probably full of it.
But even though I’m inclined to believe this guy might be guilty, here are some cautionary notes -
I believe this is misleading and frankly much more wrong than right. I don’t think there’s any circumstance under which a judge would use a prior arrest or even indictment without a finding of guilt for another crime as evidence of guilt in a current matter.
A judge wouldn’t even allow anyone to use a prior conviction for another crime as evidence of guilt except under fairly narrow circumstances - for example, in general they won’t allow anyone to use a prior conviction for armed robbery as evidence that a defendant was guilty of this particular armed robbery. They would allow it if the conviction for the prior armed robbery involved the use of (say) a rare 19th century weapon, and a rare antique weapon was used in the current case. In that case the evidentiary value exceeds the prejudicial value. A judge might also allow a conviction for a crime involving dishonesty to be used to case doubt on the credibility of a witness. But these are fairly narrow exceptions.
Ironically, this is pretty contrary to the current movement on campuses to “ban the box”. These people seek to stop colleges from asking applicants if they have prior criminal convictions - even for offenses like rape. The theory is that minority and poor students are convicted at higher rates than rich and white students, so asking about prior convictions is racially biased. I think they probably have a point for low-level offenses like underage drinking and marijuana possession, but I think it’s crazy for schools like Yale to admit students who have been convicted of felonies without at least having the chance to make their own judgements.
I’m not very comfortable with the “single investigator” model. This is based on my experience from seeing a few similar processes in the past, I think you have to be very worried that the “single investigator”, whoever they are, is pretty much deciding these cases. The vast majority of the evidence that the panel sees is compiled by the investigator. More to the point, the vast majority of evidence the panel doesn’t see is what the investigator has chosen to exclude. Also, because it’s human nature for the panel to view the investigator as the most “fair and balanced” person, the panel will read between the lines of the report and will be strongly inclined to adopt the conclusion that the investigator is pointing towards.
I think it’s clear that colleges need to have a disciplinary process to expel rapists. But they need to do it right. Lowering the standard to preponderance of the evidence without any other due process protections doesn’t help us find the truth of what happened. How many people would like themselves or their 19 year old son to be hauled into civil court, not allowed any real legal representation or the ability to introduce evidence or to cross-examine witnesses and then found responsible on the basis of little more than a 50/50 decision? It’s simply crazy to think that any real truth-finding is going to happen in a tough case.
The OCR is just wrong to force schools to do this against their better judgement, and many people who have actual experience handling these cases in schools have said this repeatedly. And, at least in my experience, many of the staff in these Title IX offices have dedicated their careers to fighting for the rights of women. If they are saying that they aren’t comfortable with these changes, then that is telling us something.
I don’t think the lawyer is making up facts at all. Like Hanna, I assume that everything the lawyer presented as a fact agreed by both parties is actually a fact agreed by both parties. But completely missing from the lawyer’s presentation is any kind of statement that the facts agreed by both parties that he listed, plus the issue of consent or not, were all of the facts considered by the panel. There was maybe an implied assertion that it shouldn’t have been considering anything else, but that would just be an argument.
Everything I said above is completely consistent with the lawyer’s statement of the agreed facts. There could have been many other facts on which the parties did not agree. There could have been many other facts on which the parties agreed, but the lawyer did not put in his list.
