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College Sex-Assault Trials Belong in Court, Not Campus (2014)

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Re: College Sex-Assault Trials Belong in Court, Not Campus (2014)

#21

Post by FreeInternet »

Sevrene wrote: post #6
FreeInternet wrote: post #3

Bernie sanders agrees http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/12/bernie-sander... . I don't want to make this a political platform but nothing exists in isolation. Hillary is buying anonymous commenters on reddit and facebook and threatening internet freedom in the worst ways possible. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/04/21/hillary-pac... Under Hillary, expect large corporations to grow larger and forge…

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but you are aware your comment looks like propaganda as well, right?

https://www.google.com/search?q=define+propaganda&ie=utf-8&o...

> information, especially of a biased or misleading nature

Which part of my information is misleading?

Re: College Sex-Assault Trials Belong in Court, Not Campus (2014)

#22

Post by cperciva »

We live under laws on sexual assault that, in large part, were not written with women’s interests in mind. [...] The legal verdict on whether sex is nonconsensual still often rests on the perspective of the alleged perpetrator rather than the experience of the victim.

It would be contrary to the principles of fundamental justice to imprison someone who has done nothing wrong. If the alleged perpetrator of an offence has taken all reasonable steps to ascertain consent (and believes that consent exists) then any lack of consent is a tragic mistake, not a criminal offence.

As far as I can see, this was written with everybody's interests in mind.

Re: College Sex-Assault Trials Belong in Court, Not Campus (2014)

#23

Post by deciplex »

danieltillett wrote: post #16
deciplex wrote: post #11

It wasn't long ago that I would have agreed with this article in full. I may have even posted here on HN to that effect before. I am still sympathetic to the point it makes. However: Universities boot people out for other reasons which are not actionable in a criminal (or even civil) court all the time . Getting shitty grades, being a disruptive asshole in a class on a regular basis, and so on, can end your universit…

The major problem with this is the person booted is “convicted” of a very serious crime. Getting kicked out because you have been found guilty of rape by some sham court is a lot more harmful to the person than getting kicked out because you are disruptive in class. I sometime think we should adopt the Scottish system of not proven [1]. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_proven

Yeah, I know. That's why I'm still sympathetic to the view. I would hope that we could still have the tribunals but treat their findings for what they are: the non-professional opinions of a few administrators, based mostly on informal testimony, hearsay, and perhaps a poorly-executed investigation.

But, perhaps there is no way to accomplish that in a way palatable to most people attending a school. Maybe people are just going to take the obvious shortcut and say "this school admitted a rapist" instead of what actually happened.

If we can't work that out, then maybe these tribunals shouldn't exist. I'm just saying I'm not opposed to them in principle.

Re: College Sex-Assault Trials Belong in Court, Not Campus (2014)

#24

Post by CthulhuOvermind »

gozur88 wrote: post #17
CthulhuOvermind wrote: post #14

"The legal verdict on whether sex is non consensual still often rests on the perspective of the alleged perpetrator rather than the experience of the victim." I'm not sure I entirely understand this quote to its fullest. It is being argued that it is the experience of the victim that matters if sex is consensual. Isn't this quote logically wrong? Consensual by definitions means both parties agreed. But is the author…

>As far as I understand, an accusation should examine a perpetrator's perspective more, since that person is being charged with a crime. It depends on the way the law is written. You can certainly be guilty of criminal offenses absent any understanding or intent.

In the case of sex, it is an action that is legal(or not) depending on consent.

In the example I gave earlier, the female has obtained consent from her partner. The male changes his mind half-way through but does not stop or act in any different way.

In cases such as these, my understanding(and gut feeling really) is that since knowledge of consent is what makes an action legal, the person had no knowledge consent was revoked, and cannot be charged for something that is impossible to avoid being guilty of?

Re: College Sex-Assault Trials Belong in Court, Not Campus (2014)

#25

Post by mc32 »

CthulhuOvermind wrote: post #14

"The legal verdict on whether sex is non consensual still often rests on the perspective of the alleged perpetrator rather than the experience of the victim." I'm not sure I entirely understand this quote to its fullest. It is being argued that it is the experience of the victim that matters if sex is consensual. Isn't this quote logically wrong? Consensual by definitions means both parties agreed. But is the author…

Those situations are more edge cases and they are quite difficult because knowing what we know about the mind, it can play tricks. For example, we may feel very happy at one moment, but something could transpire to change the feeling and that may cause us to retroactively view the initial consent (maybe they thought the person was initially someone else) in a different light --but at the same time, most people give the benefit of the doubt internally (that is, even if they are truly aggrieved, they are likely to interpret the violation as their own fault, rather than blame the perp) It can become murky.

To make the point less gender political, view this as something which happens to a same-sex couple, so that the dynamics are less obvious about sexual politics and more about either force, misinterpretation, misrepresentation or confusion or a mixture of all the above.

Re: College Sex-Assault Trials Belong in Court, Not Campus (2014)

#26

Post by venomsnake »

lmm wrote: post #10
smegel wrote: post #9

> why not impose a simple set of rules to work with the criminal-justice system It's really simple. First you just need to figure out who's telling the truth.

Which is the justice system's whole job, and they've gotten pretty ok at it.

Courts start from presumption of innocence. Which is something that is not compatible with the "victim's story should not be questioned or challenged" approach that some advocates like.

Re: College Sex-Assault Trials Belong in Court, Not Campus (2014)

#27

Post by danieltillett »

deciplex wrote: post #23
danieltillett wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The major problem with this is the person booted is “convicted” of a very serious crime. Getting kicked out because you have been found guilty of rape by some sham court is a lot more harmful to the person than getting kicked out because you are disruptive in class. I sometime think we should adopt the Scottish system of not proven [1]. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_proven

Yeah, I know. That's why I'm still sympathetic to the view. I would hope that we could still have the tribunals but treat their findings for what they are: the non-professional opinions of a few administrators, based mostly on informal testimony, hearsay, and perhaps a poorly-executed investigation. But, perhaps there is no way to accomplish that in a way palatable to most people attending a school. Maybe people are…

There is really no way to solve this problem when you have basically one person’s word against another. I really feel for the victims, but I don’t know what can be done when the consequences of getting a conviction wrong are so high.

Re: College Sex-Assault Trials Belong in Court, Not Campus (2014)

#28

Post by chris_wot »

CthulhuOvermind wrote: post #14

"The legal verdict on whether sex is non consensual still often rests on the perspective of the alleged perpetrator rather than the experience of the victim." I'm not sure I entirely understand this quote to its fullest. It is being argued that it is the experience of the victim that matters if sex is consensual. Isn't this quote logically wrong? Consensual by definitions means both parties agreed. But is the author…

That's not the argument, I'm not sure how you got that from the article. In fact, all it is doing is criticising verdicts that clear perpetrators of rape if they think or say that they thought the other party was consenting.

In this regard, though the article doesn't actually say this, I think it's fairly logical that if the one making the claim they were raped wasn't consenting. Thus in all claims of rape there was one party who wasn't consenting to have sex, ergo there is no "two consenting adults"!

Let me put it this way: your own statement is that "Consensual by definitions (sic) means both parties agreed". If you agree this is the correct definition, then if the victim did not agree, even though the other party claims they did, then that isn't consensus.

Your idea is not about consensual sex - your idea is that consensus was percieved by one party, when in fact it wasn't. And again, that's not consensus because actual consensus to have sex needs to made by both parties in the act.

Re: College Sex-Assault Trials Belong in Court, Not Campus (2014)

#29

Post by CthulhuOvermind »

mc32 wrote: post #25
CthulhuOvermind wrote: post #14

"The legal verdict on whether sex is non consensual still often rests on the perspective of the alleged perpetrator rather than the experience of the victim." I'm not sure I entirely understand this quote to its fullest. It is being argued that it is the experience of the victim that matters if sex is consensual. Isn't this quote logically wrong? Consensual by definitions means both parties agreed. But is the author…

Those situations are more edge cases and they are quite difficult because knowing what we know about the mind, it can play tricks. For example, we may feel very happy at one moment, but something could transpire to change the feeling and that may cause us to retroactively view the initial consent (maybe they thought the person was initially someone else) in a different light --but at the same time, most people give t…

> To make the point less gender political, view this as something which happens to a same-sex couple, so that the dynamics are less obvious about sexual politics and more about either force, misinterpretation, or confusion or a mixture of all the above.

I like your suggestion about viewing this as same-sex couple situation. I wrote my post specifically gender-neutral so as to prepare for the inevitable accusation of sexism, and then reveal that in my example the female was the perpetrator. But I think your opinion is much better

Re: College Sex-Assault Trials Belong in Court, Not Campus (2014)

#30

Post by superuser2 »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #20

Title IX requires schools to perform some level of investigation. This is backwards. Title IX should FORBID schools for investigating and mandate forwarding of information to the police.

The purpose of internal disciplinary systems is to have a weaker burden of proof.

Meeting "beyond a reasonable doubt" is very difficult when the victim and perpetrator are in something resembling a romantic relationship and behind closed doors, to the point that almost no rapists would be found guilty.

Schools instead use the standard of "more likely than not" to return a finding of "responsible," which means the school can get rid of the rapist, even if there's not enough evidence to put him in prison. Lower certainty required for a less drastic action.

If only cases that DAs think are winners get acted on, the vast majority of campus rapes are immune from punishment.

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