Gangrape Rewarded
I attended this trial. It was especially interesting that the prosecutor kept referring to the three men involved as ‘boys’, when they were fully grown men. The woman was 17.
The judge found inconsistencies in all of the stories, thus establishing reasonable doubt in every story. Yet he convicted the victim. ‘Boys’ will be ‘boys’.
The young woman’s friends were a classmate at high school and her mother. The mother a) has always been seen with an alcoholic beverage or high on prescription pills by all who know her, b) provided the 17-year old with the alcohol she’d had that evening, which she stole from the store she cashiers at and c) was awaiting her boyfriend’s return to her home within two months of the rape. That boyfriend was in prison for molesting his own daughter. That’s hardly a credible witness with any sympathy for victims of sexual assault. But none of this could be introduced into evidence. Only the 17 year old’s sexual history could be exposed.
Additionally, the two ‘friends’ were the ones who convinced the 17 year old that she should report it to the police. So if the young woman is guilty, the instigating accessories to her ‘crime’ are considered credible experts about how a rape victim should act.
The outcome took me completely by surprise, as it did many others. But then, boys will be boys.
(My report cannot be truly objective as I’ve known the victim since she was a baby. I was sufficiently upset at the proceedings that, in the hallway outside the courtroom, I told the prosecutor and lead detective that they were “miserable pricks” and “a disgrace to their profession.”)
December 3rd, 2005 at 9:31 am
Sometimes I think getting angry is all that’s left. Angry enough to reach for pitchforks and torches.
It’s one of the reasons why I stopped writing, I think. Everything sounded like a howl.
December 3rd, 2005 at 11:02 am
I’m sorry–actually, I’m amazed that you could actually put together some coherent sentences this morning, because I know I would have to straitjacketed and sedated.
You’ve been ‘hanging in there’ through so much this year you must have arms of iron.
December 3rd, 2005 at 11:35 am
Kevin,
Words of comfort fail in the face of this horrifying story.
Is this Judge “appointed?”
Does this young girl understand that she is not the guilty one here?
Is she getting any help?
I’m not asking for immediate answers here, but if there is anything we in “blogtopia,” (and am I the only one who finds skippy’s formulation bitterly ironic, increasingly, I guess Emma is evidence I’m not) can do to support this young woman, do let us know, whenever you can get beyond the pain of knowing this can still happen, not that gangrape can occur, but that a victim who has the guts to say “no” more than once, and go to the police, ask for justice, can stukk find herself victimized a second time by the very people who are supposed to be seeking justice for her, And that goes for you, as well.
I, too wonder that you could write about this. Thank-you for doing so.