Anybody who would prey on the youngest and most innocent among us should be put in prison.
Jesus Camp
- Thread starter Bonestorm
- Start date
FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
No, they just need to be sent to a seminar.
I just don't see the reason for the statute of limitations on major felonies.
I'm not even certain they literally apply like you say.
They do. There are many groups looking to get rid of these statutes of limitation on specifically these crimes. If you don't believe me, google is your friend.
FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
I wonder why it isn't law yet in many places?
I haven't any clue. Maybe the low conviction rate after such a long period makes it ineffective in cost.
Socrtease
Verified User
Ok lets say that 15 years from now a woman comes forth Damo and says that on September 4th 2007 Damo raped me. How are you going to defend against that claim? Now lets do you one better, lets say that the woman claims that when you raped her 15 years ago, she was 6. So now you are accused of raping a 6 year old 15 years earlier and you have no way to disprove it. Now say what you want about our criminal justice system, if you are accused of raping a 6 year old the jury is going to look to you to prove you didn't. You really think that a person should be required to defend themselves 15 or 20 years into the future. What if you had an albi for that day but you don't remember it now. Matter of fact what were you doing September 4, 1997? can you come up with your whereabouts? That is why we have statute of limitations.
FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
Well it would be extremely difficult to prosecute too Socratese. But I see your point, people could come forward with no other intention than to destroy an enemies life.
It is, however, extremely difficult to prosecute a case just based on the word of the defendant.
It is, however, extremely difficult to prosecute a case just based on the word of the defendant.
If I have no way to disprove it, they have no way to prove it. This is a fallacious scenario.
FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
It doesn't really matter anyway. Having accusations against you, ruins your life. Having a case brought against you puts you on the sex offender registry in some areas.
Only conviction gets a permanent stay in such a place.
And to belay such things you give sentences for fallacious charges as well. Just saying, "Well, we'll let them sue and 'ruin' their lives because the accusations do that but we won't prosecute even with evidence because we set this arbitrary limit on it...."
It's not exactly logical.
We have DAs that are supposed to verify that they have enough evidence to convict before they bring charges for a reason. Consistently wasting the public money on impossible to convict "crimes" would net them a long stay in the unemployment line, if not what happened to that idiot with the Lacrosse team.... Disbarment.
FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
You can't deny that there is a big hysteria over this issue right now in the nation, Damo. It would be much more easier to get a conviction than to not. Juries don't care about evidence.
This is as untrue as any other. Juries do not convict on this crime without evidence...
We have DAs that are supposed to verify that they have enough evidence to convict before they bring charges for a reason. Consistently wasting the public money on impossible to convict "crimes" would net them a long stay in the unemployment line, if not what happened to that idiot with the Lacrosse team.... Disbarment.
It would be foolish of a DA to press charges on an innocent man who wouldn't be convicted regardless. If it was that easy to convict parents could just say their daughter said so and the conviction would be secured.
Socrtease
Verified User
Damo you ever hear of the Little Rascals sexual abuse case in Edenton NC? The allegations in the case were preposterous. There was no physical evidence that the abuse took place. Read about it here http://www.religioustolerance.org/ra_edent.htm and see how one man was sentenced to 12 consecutive life sentences after a jury found him guilty on absolutely ludicrous evidence. Here are a couple of quotes from the article.
"As in other MVMO cases, the children initially denied abuse at the school. However, after repeated interrogations, they started to reveal sexual and then ritual abuse. Children were criticized or rewarded in accordance with the abuse content of their stories."
"Of particular interest is the information the Jury received about the Little Rascals pre-school case in North Carolina. Eighty-five percent of the percent of the children received therapy with three therapists in the town; all of these children eventually reported satanic abuse. Fifteen percent of the children were treated by different therapists in a neighboring city; none of the children reported abuse of any kind after the same period of time in therapy."
Tell me now that you could not be convicted merely on allegations, especially when safe house interviews are conducted by people who go in presuming sexual abuse took place. There is a REALLY good book called Jeopardy in the Courtroom by Ceci and Bruck which goes into the fact that children cannot only be led into making these allegations but will make them up themselves to be more interesting. There was also a case in Washington where one girl testified that multiple people used her as a sex toy. What no one knew was that the girl lived with the investigating cop as a foster kid and he fed her the stories. She has since renounced but last I heard people are still in prison.
"As in other MVMO cases, the children initially denied abuse at the school. However, after repeated interrogations, they started to reveal sexual and then ritual abuse. Children were criticized or rewarded in accordance with the abuse content of their stories."
"Of particular interest is the information the Jury received about the Little Rascals pre-school case in North Carolina. Eighty-five percent of the percent of the children received therapy with three therapists in the town; all of these children eventually reported satanic abuse. Fifteen percent of the children were treated by different therapists in a neighboring city; none of the children reported abuse of any kind after the same period of time in therapy."
Tell me now that you could not be convicted merely on allegations, especially when safe house interviews are conducted by people who go in presuming sexual abuse took place. There is a REALLY good book called Jeopardy in the Courtroom by Ceci and Bruck which goes into the fact that children cannot only be led into making these allegations but will make them up themselves to be more interesting. There was also a case in Washington where one girl testified that multiple people used her as a sex toy. What no one knew was that the girl lived with the investigating cop as a foster kid and he fed her the stories. She has since renounced but last I heard people are still in prison.
We cannot base policy on the lowest common denominator. People are not regularly convicted on baseless charges. Again, as a DA would you not face serious consequences for bringing spurious charges such as the fool who brought baseless charges against the Lacrosse team?
Instead of saying, "We should never send these people to prison, yet we should allow the same allegations to go through lawsuits at a far lower evidence level" is a dichotomy that is prevalent. The money does not solve the problem of recidivism and losing a lawsuit does not stop a sexual predator of this type.
Seriously, it would be better to fix the system and add protections against spurious charges than to simply dismiss any realistic cases that could be brought to protect against the lowest common denominator.
Socrtease
Verified User
Damo people who maintained their innocence and who were eventually cleared in this case pleaded guilty to avoid the trial and prison time. I have dealt with these type of cases. When a person makes an allegation of sexual abuse and it is backed even by dubious statements and evidence, the defendant then has the tables turned on him, He has to PROVE he is innocent because if he does not the Jury is ALWAYS going to err on the side of the statements made by the child or children. The older these allegations get the more they become a he said she said and "victim" gets believed more. The Duke case is an aboration in criminal defense work. And it is rare if ever that a DA gets any punishment for it. In EVERY state in the Union DA's are imune from tort liability UNLESS you can prove bad faith and gross negligence in handling the case. Talk to ANY criminal defense lawyer and they will tell you that Mike Nyphong is the exception that proves the rule. Had this not been rich kids that played Lacrosse but instead football players that were on scholarship the results would have been different. I don't care what color the football players were either. Kids that play Lacrosse in college played it in Highschool. You and I live in the mountain west, how many denver public schools have Lacrosse teams? There are NONE in New Mexico. The economic status of the Duke players is the primary reason their case ended so well. You are deluded if you think that people don't get convicted on bad evidence. People spend decades in prison on the testimony of the victim for rapes that DNA later proved they never committed. As the case ages it gets harder to defend and easier to prosecute which is why we have statutes of limitation.
Again, you address the problem in the system rather than make it impossible to find justice. Most reports do not come out when the abused are children. Therefore we make it nearly impossible to find justice for the victims, even if there is good evidence and all to supposedly fix only the lowest common denominator.
Instead of working to find a solution, we just sweep it under a rug and unconvicted child rapists continue.
Socrtease
Verified User
But that is just it, statute of limitations ARE part of the solution. A person must have some certainty that 15 years from now an mad ex spouse is not going to come forward with accusations of sexual abuse of children in such a way that you cannot defend yourself. Letting people say "15 years ago so and so did X to me and I want them to pay now" is allowing prosecutions of people that cannot find evidence to prove their innocense. It is easy to prosecute, much harder to defend age old accusations.
Yet they can sue you and still you have the stigma. The solution doesn't work at all.
M'eh. One year. I usually go out to the Comedy Club, but my wife is sick this year and we chose to stay home.
Since she is sick she has gone to bed. I am still up, taking advantage of tomorrow off.