Another raid based on a simple accusation...this time against David Copperfield

[DustinD]

Sexual assault is different than simple assault because there is rarely a "he said she said" with simple assault. How often does someone cry assault after a sparring match? Almost never.

If the case centered around them having vs not having sex than it could be easier if physical evidence was present. Rape is one of those crimes where alleged consent can make things tricky unlike most other crimes.

[Hawkmoon]

I still don't understand how the FBI has any jurisdiction, since the alleged crime is alleged to have taken place in another country, and apparently no complaint has been filed with the law enforcement authorities in the jurisdiction where the alleged rape took place. The fact that the woman is an American citizen doesn't automatically make every country she visits, anywhere in the world, subject to FBI jurisdiction.

Does it? If so ... how?

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

http://www.fbi.gov/contact/legat/legat.htm

[Firethorn]

Does it? If so ... how?

What about crimes committed at sea?  Maybe the FBI claims jurisdiction for crimes committed between US Citizens when no other jurisdiction claims it.

Or, in this case, the country that the crime allegably occurred in declines to demand jurisdiction because the crime occurred between visiting US citizens, why worry about the cost of a trial/punishment if the country they belong to is willing to do it?

[Matthew Carberry]

Didn't we have a thread not long ago about how, basically, if you are a US citizen and commit what would be a crime in the US in another country, even if it isn't a crime there, you can still be charged domestically?

[Chris]

Sorry, I'm not up on my federal jurisdiction.  you know, the whole he said/she said thing also makes child molestation difficult to prosecute.  One of the worst serial chld molestors I've heard of in Ohio was being indicted on what amounted to he said/he said.  Right up until they found the digital camera and several dozen discs.  See, he liked watching his "accomplishments" and reliving the moment when alone, so to speak.  Funny how quickly a jury can convict after they've seen a child witness testify, then they see the defendant engaged in sex acts with that same child...may he burn in hell forever. 

The Duke case sucked because the prosecutor lost track of what's right versus what would keep him elected.  He forfeited his honor far his paycheck, and now he has neither.  At the same time, he made many real cases all the more difficult to prosecute.  hope he saved his thirty silver pieces...

[Glock Glockler]

It's always possible for accusers to lie-that's true of any crime, like assault.  I don't think it's any more likely or troubling when a sex crime is alleged

Just for starters, if someone is the victim of an assault they'd probably have at least some physical trauma that could be shown to the police. 

If the witness can answer questions, appears credible in her speech, and has a consistent story with details that tend to confirm the account, that's pretty solid proof to me

Do you think there's even the slightest bit of problem with this standard, convicting someone without the slightest bit of "evidence" aside from someone's claim?  People can lie, some are actually quite good at it, and with that guilty until proven innocent standard you'll have even more bogus accusations and men's lives will be destroyed because of it. 

[De Selby]

Just for starters, if someone is the victim of an assault they'd probably have at least some physical trauma that could be shown to the police. 

Sorry, I was thinking of the traditional legal definition of an assault, in which there is no contact.  So no, there wouldn't be any trauma.

Do you think there's even the slightest bit of problem with this standard, convicting someone without the slightest bit of "evidence" aside from someone's claim?  People can lie, some are actually quite good at it, and with that guilty until proven innocent standard you'll have even more bogus accusations and men's lives will be destroyed because of it. 

I only ever see this raised as controversial in sexual assault cases-how many people have lambasted murder convictions based on the fact that a witness positively identified the defendant as the murderer?

A woman testifying in a murder case, for example, saying "I saw that the defendant shoot the store clerk and run out, and yes, I'm 100 percent sure that's the guy."  That's going to be pretty damning evidence, even if no gun was found and they didn't do CSI analysis of the shoe prints in the store to match it to the suspect's sneakers.  Would you say any such murder conviction should be overturned? I wouldn't, and I don't think most people would either.

Seems to me there's a double standard-eyewitness accounts are accepted as good evidence in any case other than a sex crime case.  Even when the penalty might be life in prison or death for those other crimes.

[Glock Glockler]

Sorry, I was thinking of the traditional legal definition of an assault, in which there is no contact.  So no, there wouldn't be any trauma

yeah, sorry, but in that case your point is essentially meaningless because you're down to the same problem of "he tried to hit me" and "no, I didn't" and trying to base a conviction off that. 

A woman testifying in a murder case, for example, saying "I saw that the defendant shoot the store clerk and run out, and yes, I'm 100 percent sure that's the guy."  That's going to be pretty damning evidence, even if no gun was found and they didn't do CSI analysis of the shoe prints in the store to match it to the suspect's sneakers.  Would you say any such murder conviction should be overturned? I wouldn't, and I don't think most people would either

The difference is that in cases like that you actually KNOW a crime has been committed because you have a dead body, it's just a matter of properly identifying the one who did it.  That is worlds apart from convicting someone simply because they say a crime has been commited with no evidence.  The accusor has the up-hill battle of proving one guilty from the de facto status of not guilty, you should need more than just an accusation. 

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

"Do you think there's even the slightest bit of problem with this standard, convicting someone without the slightest bit of "evidence" aside from someone's claim?  People can lie, some are actually quite good at it, and with that guilty until proven innocent standard you'll have even more bogus accusations and men's lives will be destroyed because of it.  "

did i miss something?  was someone convicted?

[Manedwolf]

The conviction is almost redundant, now.

As soon as the media runs with "OMG RAEP!!!!11one" , their character is assasinated.

[De Selby]

That is worlds apart from convicting someone simply because they say a crime has been commited with no evidence.

Again, so people are credible to identify a murderer, but not to identify when a rape has occurred?  I don't accept that.  What you are basically saying is that rape should never be tried, because it's a crime for which there is almost never evidence of a physical sort-sexual contact isn't proof of a crime, the state of mind of the victim is the element that makes the sexual contact a crime.  And there's absolutely no evidence that rape victims are more likely to lie about whether a crime was committed than say, a witness is likely to lie about who he/she saw commit a murder.

A credible witness's story is not a "mere accusation"-anymore than a murder witness's identification is a "mere accusation" that a particular defendant was there and committed the crime.  It will be judged by a jury for its credibility, and a defendant will be able to confront the witness in order to expose holes or inconsistencies.

If you don't think juries can tell the difference between a lying witness and a truthful one, then your problem is with the entire jury trial system, not with rape versus murder testimony.

[tokugawa]

Shootinstudent- Did you just say if the accuser is a good lier, to convict?  You seem to discount physical evidence, but one of the essentials of a rape claim should be to ensure that a sexual encounter DID occur- then we can discuss whether or not it was consensual. If it did NOT occur, there is no basis for the claim at all. With no physical evidence, and only the accusers word, we are reduced to a version of the Salem Witch Trials. To see the modern day equivalent, I suggest you look up the Wenatchee sex ring a few years ago, in which a LOT of innocent folk, mostly poor Hispanics who could not afford good legal representation,, were put away based solely on the word of the adopted young daughter of a cop.

[De Selby]

Shootinstudent- Did you just say if the accuser is a good lier, to convict?

No-you should convict if you think the accuser is telling the truth.  That is what I said.

You seem to discount physical evidence, but one of the essentials of a rape claim should be to ensure that a sexual encounter DID occur- then we can discuss whether or not it was consensual.

I don't discount it-it's just not the only, or even most important, evidence there is.  If we applied this standard, it would be almost impossible to ever put child molestors in jail.  Do you think that's a good thing?

Yes, innocent people can be jailed by good liars-but they can be jailed by bad police, faked evidence, and any number of things.  This is a risk in any system where you don't have an oracle to tell you the truth, and the risk that a rape victim is lying is no greater than the risk that any of these other witnesses are lying.  Yet I don't see people arguing for the whole justice system to be thrown out-they only want to make it harder for rape victims. 

[Matthew Carberry]

Alleged rape victims who otherwise have no evidence (of sexual contact, of physical struggle, of any other physical evidence or even of reasonable proximity in time and location) to support their claim.  An important distinction.

As far as eyewitness testimony goes, that's been demonstrated to be very unreliable and I for one would be unlikely to vote to convict on it for murder or any other major felony without other supporting evidence.

[Mabs2]

Does this really matter?
Guilty or not, we could never keep him locked up.
IT'S DAVID COPPERFIELD.

[Firethorn]

No-you should convict if you think the accuser is telling the truth.  That is what I said.

You should convict if you believe that the accused commited the act beyond a reasonable doubt.  I'm sorry, but I don't trust people that much very often.  It becomes a big character test.  The prosecuter attempts to build up his witness's integrity and tear down the defendent's, the defense attorney the opposite.  The general result is both sides end up drug through the mud.

Let's put it this way:  You have a female college student, valedictorian in HS, swearing somebody raped her.  Great case, right?
But the guy she says did it is ALSO a college student, valedictorian in HS, and swears he didn't do it(or that it was consensual).  Who do you believe?

Let's say she has average grades and does some MJ(comes out in trial).  Who do you believe?

For stuff like this - you need physical evidence, or multiple witnesses.  Not necessarily of the act, but events leading up to the proposed incident.  Skilled questioning can help, because it has the ability to poke holes in false testimony.  But a skilled, but biased, questioner can skew the results the way he or she wants it.

If the guy's already a convicted rapist, it gets a lot easier - but that ties into physical evidence.

Child molestation is another one that's ended up with a fairly large number of false convictions - they've had cases of psychologists, in 'treating' and 'coaxing the details out of' a young child, they end up causing the child to imagine things that didn't happen.  It happened with a girl who imagined her father raped her - problem, she was at summer camp in the USA and he was in Europe the summer she ended up saying it happened.  The father ended up divorced, in jail, seperated from his family, ostricized, and ultimately ended up commiting suicide over it.  It turns out that the psychologist had a huge rate - she had issues with her father and ended up projecting them onto her patients.

Please note that most molestation charges that stick have multiple witnesses over a period of time, or there's physical evidence - video, pictures, physical injuries, etc...

[Glock Glockler]

Again, so people are credible to identify a murderer, but not to identify when a rape has occurred?  I don't accept that.

I said no such thing, what I did say was that the situations were not comprable for a specific reason.  A statement by a witness is information and I don't think I would convict someone based on that alone, but if you have other evidence pointing to someone's guilt the eyewitness identifying the accused could be some very nice icing on the cake. 

What you are basically saying is that rape should never be tried, because it's a crime for which there is almost never evidence of a physical sort-sexual contact isn't proof of a crime, the state of mind of the victim is the element that makes the sexual contact a crime.

No, I am saying that the whole "innocent until PROVEN guilty" thing is kinda cool and I don't think we should abandon it because rape stirs up a lot of emotion.  The accused should be considered not guilty until the prosecution PROVES beyond a reasonable doubt that they are guilty, if more evidence is required for that than a mere "he did it" than so be it. 

And there's absolutely no evidence that rape victims are more likely to lie about whether a crime was committed than say, a witness is likely to lie about who he/she saw commit a murder

Wrong, the witness to the liquer store robbery probably doesn't have a relationship with the person they identify, if they do then that fact is highly relevant and the nature of that relationship should be examined.  In the case of date rape there obviously is a somewhat intimate relationship there to begin with, and strong emotions in one direction can very easily be strong in another.  I personally know someone who's life was seriously messed up because of a completely bogus rape accusation, and unfortunately due to the standard that you support he basically had to prove himself not guilty, and proving a negative in that situation is kinda impossible.

[Manedwolf]

Does this really matter?
Guilty or not, we could never keep him locked up.
IT'S DAVID COPPERFIELD.

That's a good point. Every time they locked the cell door and turned around, he'd be coming through the hallway door facing them, or just missing completely. 

[ilbob]

I think people are savvy enough that mere accusations of rape are no longer taken anywhere near as seriously as they were a few years ago.

[Manedwolf]

I think people are savvy enough that mere accusations of rape are no longer taken anywhere near as seriously as they were a few years ago.

Tell the media that.

[ilbob]

I think people are savvy enough that mere accusations of rape are no longer taken anywhere near as seriously as they were a few years ago.

Tell the media that.

While there are some people who believe anything they see parroted on TV by the talking heads, most Americans are not so foolish as to believe what is being spouted anymore. They may be entertained by it, but I doubt they seriously believe it anymore.