Ridiculous rape laws...

[Grahame]

Just to back track to the beginning of this thread, the female concerned CLAIMED she was asleep.

 

So i guess it has to be true then...

 

:suspect:

 

Was she asleep when she went into her flat and invited her friend in and was vomiting? Did all that happen in her sleep. Come on.

[Bago]

Taking emotional aspect into consideration is not how a verdict should be reached in a criminal trial, as I keep saying it should be based on the evidence. She was either raped or not, how she feels is the reason for the crime of rape but not the evidence of it.

Okay, then let me ask you this question.

 

What do you "define" as rape ?

[hazel]

The high court judge gave the jury this advice in the open court.

" If you think he was uncaring whether she consented or not then he is guilty "

hazel

[Bago]

You've obviously been asleep yourself if this is the first time you've heard of this part of the law regarding rape. If a women is delirously drunk, and so is the man, who's to say who gave consent and who didn't? Up until recently the law favoured and went the way of the women, giving the men absolutely no chance of a fair verdict.

 

It's all very easy for women to jump on the band wagon and demend any man accused of rape has his balls chopped off but what most don't understand is quite how being wrongly accused of rape can affect and ruin a mans life.

 

Accusing a man of rape is a very powerful weapon a women holds against men, it's about time the law recognised that accusation doesn't always mean guilt.

I think this thread was started because it is only recently that the legal system was emphasizing the important point of consent. Mutual consent. Not just emotional blackmail.

 

It is also quite easily for a man to say that she nodded her head, or she mumbled something, and that she approved happily when the victim was either not in a state to make a conscious happy decision, or is not rationally aware of her actions because of false promises etc. Yes, even men is capable of falsehood, and emotional manipulation too.

 

Accusing a woman of not being raped is quite a heavy blow to the victim. I thought that this was controversial is because the law was changing and actually is listening to the further proves and facts of such scenarios, and conviction rate was supposed to go up, or something. Yet, this judge in the newspaper article threw out the case because he is implying that, just because she is drunk, she is not being raped. Yet, he did not take into consideration of the re-emphasis of the laws, which is that, even if a person is drunk or under the influence of alcohol:

 

consent under drunken state is not necessarily rational consent.

 

If you are drunk, then why would it be a consentual decision? (Preumably assuming that a consent is one based on rational mind and thoughts.)

[pedr]

I'm trying to see if the judgment is on any of the legal databases yet - I've not found it so far.

 

If that was the direction "If you think he was uncaring whether she consented or not then he is guilty" then I can understand the quashing of the conviction. If she was asleep then it is presumed she wasn't consenting, but the jury might not have been convinced that she was asleep.

 

What the prosecution needed to prove was that he did not believe she was consenting, or that if he did believe it, his belief was unreasonable. You can't commit rape negligently - I mean, failure to take care over whether someone's consenting isn't rape. You have to either know that they are not, or have made such a gross mistake that it wouldn't be reasonable to believe she was, in the circumstances.

 

It could well be that the facts of this case were such that a belief in consent was unreasonable - but the most important thing a judge ever does is sum up the law and direct the jury on what questions they need to answer. If he gets this wrong, convictions will be overturned.

 

I'll post again if and when I can read the actual judgment, though!

 

I suppose the thing to point out is this: the state of mind of the victim is actually somewhat irrelevant. Whether or not she consented isn't the actual issue, no matter how odd that sounds - what matters is what the defendant believed at the time, and how reasonable that belief was. If he was convinced she was consenting, and that belief was reasonable, then he's entitled to be acquitted even if she wasn't. Does that seem odd? Yes - but I can't see any other way for us to deal with the issue.

[Bago]

i agree with you. its an emotional subject and hearts rule minds.

It is an emotional subject, and that is why yourself and Liam mentioned the possibility of the woman crying wolf instead of believing in her, and to at least look at all evidences, and to question and ask and consider all angles.

[Bago]

I suppose the thing to point out is this: the state of mind of the victim is actually somewhat irrelevant. Whether or not she consented isn't the actual issue, no matter how odd that sounds - what matters is what the defendant believed at the time, and how reasonable that belief was. If he was convinced she was consenting, and that belief was reasonable, then he's entitled to be acquitted even if she wasn't. Does that seem odd? Yes - but I can't see any other way for us to deal with the issue.

Yes, it seems odd and ludicrous. That is why so many female members even here are in upcry about it. It is no wonder conviction rates of such hideous crimes are so low.

 

I know that men may not know what women want and that there is a gender difference and bias, but this is ridiculous.

 

So basically, the whole legal system just questions the moral value of the defendent then? That if he thought it was reasonable, then he goes off scot-free, but if felt remotely guilty, then he incriminates himself? I can't see a male will incriminate and admit to it, when he knows there is a sentence at the end of it. Since obviously as extreme as the woman being drunk and asleep is not even good enough to imply that she was not in a state to give consent.

[pedr]

So basically, the whole legal system just questions the moral value of the defendent then? That if he thought it was reasonable, then he goes off scot-free, but if felt remotely guilty, then he incriminates himself? I can't see a male will incriminate and admit to it, when he knows there is a sentence at the end of it. Since obviously as extreme as the woman being drunk and asleep is not even good enough to imply that she was not in a state to give consent.

Nope, not quite.

 

The system questions the moral blameworthyness of the defendant. It asks "Did this defendant do something criminal in circumstances where it is right to punish him for it?" Honest, reasonable, but wrong belief in consent means that someone isn't guilty of rape - because there is nothing morally blameworthy. We don't convict people only on what they actually do. We convict people who do criminal things with criminal intent. And in this case criminal intent means 'having sexual intercourse with a woman while not having a reasonable belief that she was consenting.'

 

And it isn't whether the defendant thought it was reasonable - it is whether a jury thinks it is reasonable. Whether the 'reasonable man (or woman!) would consider the genuine belief in consent to be reasonable.

 

Now the law changed last year, so now it's presumed that a woman isn't consenting if she is asleep - though the defendant can rebut that presumption. But I think we'll find that the Court of Appeal ruled that the judge didn't direct the jury properly, and that's why they quashed the conviction. A properly directed jury might have convicted this man - though of course, these cases are notoriously hard to prove: he could claim that she wasn't asleep, and then we're back to one person's word against another.

[babychickens]

just read the papers, it happens, john leslie was ruined, and still is because of accusations that were never prooved, theres been instances of footballers quiet often in the press and other celebs. i differ from you because im not predudiced by the sex i am. basically people canot be locked up if there is no evidence.some women lie and predudice women who have been raped. this makes it more difficult to convict. what im trying to say is that women need to look at themselves (those who make false accusations) because they are doing women who are victims no favours. even if a woman has been raped the guilty party cannot be convicted if there is no evidence. its a basic priciple of british justice, which is flawed....

 

i really don't understand what you're getting at. yes, there have been examples of celebrities who have been accused of rape, for which evidence was never found. that doens't mean they didn't happen, just that there was insufficient evidence to say that either a rape occured OR that it didn't and teh woman is lying. i'm sure if i were to look through a few old newspapers i'd come across examples of serial rapists who were finally brought to justice following years of investigations during which the women involved had repeatedly accused the man of rape, but the women were not taken seriously.

 

you still haven't provided any sensible answer as to why you think lots of women who bring rape accusations to court are lying. examples of high-profile cases in the media are not representative of all rape trials.

 

if i am prejudiced because i am female, then you are prejudiced because you are male. as it happens, i have had no contact with rape cases, and as such am probably more objective than you. you appear to be slightly obsessed with women bringing false accusations, and that these women are responsible for the failure of other women to bring their rapists to justice. as i said before, it is a failure in the justice system, not in other women. lying women do not make it harder for real rape victims to get convictions, because convictions are based on evidence.

 

by the way, you have contradicted yourself in the above quotation - first you say that lying women make it harder for raped women to get convictions, then you say that a raped woman can get no conviction if there is no evidence.

 

i'm not going to exchange comments with you anymore because your arguments are confused and flawed, and i can't be bothered. i get the feeling you don't actually read the comments i (or others) make before you respond to them anyway.

[babychickens]

Just to back track to the beginning of this thread, the female concerned CLAIMED she was asleep.

 

So i guess it has to be true then...

 

:suspect:

 

just as he claimed she had consented, i suspect.