Brickbat: Sentence First—Verdict Afterwards

Orlando Florin Rosu / Dreamstime.com

Ann Coffey, a Labor Party member of the British Parliament, says the nation may need to end jury trials in rape cases. Coffey says conviction rates for rape are too low. Coffey says lawmakers need to consider creating special rape courts or making sure that jurors are properly vetted in order to increase rape convictions.

Comments

[AlmightyJB]

Why stop there? Why not just proactively put all white hetro men in prison?

[MatthewSlyfield]

Why not just proactively put all hetro men in prison?

FTFY

[AlmightyJB]

That's racist.

[Rat on a train]

You have to include intersectionality in your computations. Was the non-white hetero man punching up or down?

[Illocust]

So obviously, if this passes, the first thing that should be done is find one of Ann's friends/brothers/lovers/fathers and bribe someone to make a claim that passes the sniff test. Keep doing it until she suddenly sees the light on why you need to prove claims.

[Rat on a train]

Conviction rates are too low? Quotas are your solution. If you want a minimum 95% conviction rate, the first 95 are rapists, the next 5 get a trial to determine if they are also rapists, and repeat.

[Cyto]

The article is telling.... the "example" case they write about is a divorce case. She alleges her ex raped her - he was charged with 7 counts of rape and sexual assault.

They didn't give enough details to know anything about the case, but both my brother and my wife have worked in law offices where divorces are handled. They both say this happens all the time - women alleging rape or other assault as the divorce proceeds.

If "we are about to get divorced and we had sex but I didn't really want to because he left me 2 months later (or I was having an affair and I left him)" is the type of case she is worried about getting more convictions for, well, no wonder she has problems.

The example victim did make a good point - it took 18 months for her case to come to trial, so the jury saw her give testimony in a very different state of mind than they would have in the immediate aftermath. She talked about being on antidepressants and crying all the time - but a divorce will do that as well. Still, the point remains that being a sympathetic victim probably increases the chances of conviction. And putting 18 months or more between the events and the trial probably increases the chances that a healthy and strong-minded victim will not see justice and that a mentally ill non-victim who has rehearsed her story a hundred times will see her charges validated. Hence the need for a speedy trial.

[BigT]

The 'victim' should at least provide a sworn statement soon after the 'crime' to minimize recovered memories and rehearsals.

[SIV]

Gynocratic dystopia

[Fist of Etiquette]

It's terrible when juries won't do what you want them to do.

[Deconstructed Potato]

All cis-het men to wear tamper-proof bodycams at all times that record continuously, backed up at regular intervals to a government cloud. The cameras also stream live so that officials from the People's Commisariat of Rape Convictions can monitor the cis-het men and make record of any behaviour that may be presented as evidence out of context to bolster any prosecution, and immediately take note of anything that may be prosecutable. The cameras will also have additional inputs and be able to stream telemetry about the state of arousal, the direction of the man's gaze, and whether or not he has recently undergone his regular, mandatory STD check.

[Inigo Montoya]

What the hell happened to England to turn it into a shithole country? It's not just this wacko. The Home Secretary wants Chinese-style internet control and they want to monitor everyone on camera 24/7, Big Brother-style.

This was the nation that, more than any other, invented the ideas classical liberalism, individual freedom, and constitutionally limited government. Seriously, WTF?

[Longtobefree]

Labour governments.

[DiegoF]

No offense Mises Institute enthusiasts; I respect you. But as with damn near everything else you see in the UK, barring the 14th Amendment this idea would be about 20 years, generously, away from arriving on our shores. (And then, given this country's demographic trends, probably less than that away from going Federal.) Kiss a copy of our written constitution every day when you wake up, boys.

(It won't magically turn you into LC1789, if that's what you're worried about. I promise.)

[Cyto]

Check California. I think they are well ahead of that 20 year schedule. They are already moving to make the college "enthusiastic consent" penumbra of standards into law.

[DiegoF]

Indeed. Everything that they can possibly do within the Constitution is indeed arriving here; the Brits are canaries in the coal mines.

And this is indeed something they can. Under a proper reading of the U.S. Constitution, unless you have a generally strong reading of the 9A (which the current dominant "conservative" judicial philosophy, Scalia-ism if you will, most certainly does not do) and incorporate it against the states (which even I don't see how that would work), the State of California has every ability to regulate how its residents have sex. If they say only fuck while wearing full-body condoms and clown hats, or else it's a class 1 felony, then so be it.

[DiegoF]

(Believe me if someone can come up with an argument I'm wrong I'd love to hear it! In fact I plead with you! But until then it appears the weirdo people of California--remember when that used to conjure up images of freedom?--gets to turn their state into whatever dystopia they choose. And the rest of America can only hide in their states for so long. Our little American experiment in radical liberty continues its slow-motion conclusion.)

[Cynical Asshole]

the State of California has every ability to regulate how its residents have sex.

Unless they want to ban butt-sex. They have to allow that (Lawrence v. Texas).

Actually, maybe, just maybe Lawrence could be used as precedent. If the state can't tell people which hole to stick it in, then how could they tell people to get "enthusiastic on-going affirmative consent" during all sexual encounters? In fact, how would that even be enforced? Require everyone to film every sexual encounter? Get consent forms signed in triplicate and notarized? That would be a much bigger invasion of privacy than banning sodomy would ever be.

[Inigo Montoya]

The thing the dumbasses miss is that it's not really about intersectional feminism or whatever, it's about government control. Once you succeed in dispensing with jury trials for rape cases, jury trials for other cases will soon follow.

It's the same thing when it comes to terrorism. Idiots were okay with constant government surveillance to "protect" against terrorists, not thinking that means surveillance on EVERYONE. It's why the government loves them some terrorist fears!

The government will do all it can to increase power and become tyrannical. It is its raison d'etre. It's up to people to say no. Instead, you have dummies who let their often irrational fears make them capitulate to granting their leaders more and more power over ever-smaller aspects of their lives.

[DiegoF]

The article tag "England," by the way, reminds us of how odd it is that the UK parliament continues to rule England directly; whereas it no longer does Scotland.

[Robert]

Gee, I don't know, maybe you could come up w better...evidence? Just a suggestion.

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