The Arkansas Supreme Court upheld a newspaper's right to name an alleged rapist based on information found in police records -- even though it turned out the man was not a rapist. The court affirmed the "fair report privilege" which allows newspapers to base reports on police records without fear of liability. Justice Paul E. Danielson noted the First Amendment expressly guards the press from "timidity and self-censorship" by the press.
Did you get that? A newspaper is Constitutionally protected from civil liability when it splashes the name of an accused rapist all over its front page for all the world to titillate to his humiliation even if, as happens a lot, it turns out the report was wrong and the man is not a rapist. The law has no concern whatsoever for the destruction of a man's good name attendant to such reporting.
This, of course, is in stark contrast to the "timidity and self-censorship" exercised by the press when it comes to naming rape accusers.
And let's be clear. Timidity and self-censorship are sometimes a good thing. Rape accusers should not be named. Withholding the names of rape accusers is sound public policy. Publishing the names of persons accused of rape is reckless, unnecessary, and an affront to human decency. Given the harm inflicted on accused rapists, publishing their names creates security risks and threatens their personal well-being.
Neither the accused nor the accuser should be named unless and until a conviction is obtained -- either for rape or false reporting.
We have made great strides is implementing laws and policies to make it easier for women to report rape. These include anonymity; extensive counseling paid for by tax and tuition monies; heightened sensitivity when being interviewed by police; exemption for accusers from taking polygraphs; the accuser's right to have rape kits preserved for years at taxpayer expense while she mulls over whether to press charges against a man or boy; exemption for accusers from underage drinking charges on college campuses for accusers; and special evidentiary rules at trial to jack up rape convictions.
These are largely good things, but they carry with them a heavy price: they enhance the likelihood of false rape claims. If we, as a society, countenance measures that make false claims more likely, it is a moral imperative that we provide protections to insure the safety of the presumed innocent from physical, mental and reputational harm. One such crucial protection is anonymity.
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14 comments:
No one is immune to rape hysteria, and laws are being passed based on faulty and inflammatory misinformation.
The only way to temper the beast of lies/hysteria is with the truth, but gender feminists now claim keeping the truth from the public "IS FOR THE GREATER GOOD", of which i say is BULLSHIT!!
Hi Pierce, fantastic post. I can't speak for anyone else, but I do what I can in the hopes that one day, logic and reason will win the day and we will see a balanced and fair representation for both rape victims and those accused of rape.
Mr. Fabulous
I really never have seen the big deal about naming rape accusers, unless it is a minor, or maybe in some other extenuating circumstances. We name band robbery or assault accusors, don't we?
"Rape is different", you say..in what respect? "With regards to naming the accuser" - why?? EVERY crime is unique. Why should rape be "uniquely unique"? We need to remove the tall platform placed under the crime of rape which elevates it to such a ridiculously high status.
Pierce, I think this may be one area in which you are maybe a little misinformed, or are protecting women unnecessarily. First of all, there is no such thing as "rape trauma". Sure, there is trauma associated with rape, but no such specifically definable "phenomenon" as feminists claim.
Second, what is the worst that can happen to an accusor if she is named? Her college frieds will not even try to ostracize her, leave alone beat her up as they would the accused. In fact, millions of women around the world will gather to support her.
She will be embarassed? Sorry, embarassing someone is not a violation of their rights, unless it it libel or slander or something..people get embarassed in the media all the time, just ask any celebrity.
Actually, now that I think of it, naming accusors would go a long way to prevting false accusations - if a woman knows she will be named from the get-go, certainly she will be less likely to file a false one in the first place; if for no other reason than she will know ahead of time, that if authorities do discover it is false, she will be on a lot of peoples' shit list - and deservedly so.
If a woman actually was raped and perceives she will be embarassed , then even if she is a little hesitant about coming forward due to being named in the media, well..timid it timid, some people are timid - but I'm sure her parents, friends, or some "support group" would convince her to come forward anyway.
In the few cases where the woman gets "screwed" by the above philosophy I have proposed? Far less harm done than numerous cases of innocent men going to prison, or getting beaten up, or committing suicide.
A lot of this boils down to the concept of protecting women which we all do, especially men - by instinct; even MRA's.
In about the middle of my post above, it should say "naming accusors would go a long way to preventing false accusations"
apparently, protecting women from becoming embarassed is more important than protecting innocent men from getting beaten up and killed. And it's not even as if the two are mutually exclusive!
Norm, I think its probably because if you embarrass a women she is less likely to give you sex.
Ofcourse Im talking about the subconcious of the male here.
There isnt much logic to it in most situations (I think thats why we are baffled by the attitude of society). It seems like most men have an instinctual blanket response. But I suspect thats whats going on with men at the base level.
Thanks, Mr. Fabulous. I have an interest in seeing rapists put away, as we all should. I have no interest in embarrassing women into not reporting rape.
False accusers lie for reasons that typically override embarrassment -- e.g., to save their necks and to "explain" an illicit sexual encounter by calling it rape. Most of these people likely will lie with or without anonymity.
In any event, I can think of many other ways to deter false accusers and to help the falsely accused aside from splashing the names of actual rape victims all over the news for their grandparents and teachers to see.
How about stiffer sentences for the false accusers and anonymity for the falsely accused for starters?
Our criminal justice system is about balance: make the law such that we nab as many criminals as possible without unreasonably risking punishing the innocent.
Most of us who read this site are justifiably angry at a system that treats men falsely accused of rape as flotsam. But that's not a valid justification to risk having innocent women who were raped sit on their hands and not report it out of shame. I want the rapists behind bars, as I am assuming we all do.
The solution is to have anonymity for rape accusers AND for the presumed innocent accused of sexual assault.
Who is Mr. Fabulous - should the above comment be in another thread?
Assuming it is in the correct thread, I'm sure there are other crimes where it's embarassing for the purported victim to come forward, especially if we drill all the way down to specific cases - but we give their names anyway.
I think SteveUK is basically correct, it is the psychology involved - we males have an instinct to protect women, and a natural deference to them and not wanting to piss them off.
In short, in this case at least it is misplaced chivalry.
"I'm sure there are other crimes where it's embarassing for the purported victim to come forward, especially if we drill all the way down to specific cases - but we give their names anyway."
Then why publish their names in those cases? Answer: we shouldn't. The fact that we don't do things we should in one sphere doesn't mean we should stop doing them where we do.
A lot of the rape reforms, including anonymity, came about when the excesses of the past were being corrected. How can anyone defend a husband's right to force his wife to have sex? How can anyone defend a defense attorney's right to introduce evidence that years ago a woman slept with a man other than her husband? (Note that similar remote and prejuidical "evidence" would never be admissible for any other crime, but it was often admitted in rape cases.)
The issue here isn't chivalry at all. It's that excesses were addressed that allowed for hardly any rape convictions and now the pendulum has swung too far in a twisted backlash against "patriarchy." Read Taylor and Johnson's landmark study of Duke Lacrosse -- "Until Proven Innocent." That's one of their theories as well. Now rape shield laws are sometimes applied in a way that defies common sense. But, believe it or not, there is a trend to allow introduction of prior false claims. It's now the majority rule.
But I want to be as clear on this point as possible: we need to acknowledge that most of the things done to convict rapists were not bad, or wrong. No fair minded person believes they were. We all want rapists off the streets (I hope we all do), and in days gone by, that wasn't happening because the law protected them in important ways. It is no sin to acknowledge that. The fact is, men want rapists off the streets as much or more than women.
But now, in our zeal to wage the war on rape, we've abandoned the presumed innocent, many of whom turn out to be factually innocent. And worse, our disingenuous feminst sisters insist the falsely accused are a myth, like Keyser Söze.
It's not about chivalry at all; it's all about the need to restore balance.
"The fact that we don't do things we should in one sphere doesn't mean we should stop doing them where we do"
The point is that there must be some reason the names do get released, say freedom of the press or something. I'm no lawyer so I'm not sure. But, the point is that if such an issue "causes" names to be realeased, it should apply to *all* crimes. In other words it isn't just as simple as "you shouldn't do this", as it would be if we were talking about stealing or something.
I find it hard to believe that there was ever a "low rate" of rape convictions due to women not coming forward. That's more likely feminist revision of history. You could just as well say that in the past, false accusors were more likely to be found out.
I should note that the psychology I've mentioned operates at a mostly unconscious level - if you get a chance, it pays to read Moxon's book. It really does shed a light on lots of things.
The way I see it, keep the media away from both,the accuser and the accused.
Norm, I agree 100% -- the law needs to be consistent and it's not. And it's not because the feminist agenda has held sway. But make no mistake, the excesses in the laws as written were plain on their face and needed to be adjusted. They were adjusted -- including adding laws that said males can be raped, too (remember, under common law, males could not be raped). I happen to like the law that says boys aren't allowed to be raped by women. It is fact that many, many rape trials devolved into putting the accuser on trial -- that's not revisionist history, it's fact. I do agree about feminist revisionist history -- if the feminists say a thing happened, I double-check it with a credible source before I believe it. I put no trust in anything they say given their lies in the false rape area.
At this point, I think we're pretty much on the same page about this, except we disagree over whether purported rape victims "should" be named or not. I'm not a woman and definitely not one who has been raped - maybe I'm underestimating the amount of embarassment or some other effect of coming forward.
No two MRA's are going to agree on everything, that's one thing I like about our movement is that most of the time, an MRA can disagree on a board (and elsewhere) and not be severely attacked or ostracized - unlike women within the radical feminist movement. You know, like the girl who was basically scalped a while back for disagreeing within a small group of feminists(they showed the piece of scalp on the TV news so apparently it really did happen; however I think she survived the attack).
As an aside, that may be one thing that undercuts the feminist movement - women have a very strong sense of "ingroup/outgroup" and can turn on each other at a whim - for example the few most beautiful women at the top of the hierarchy in a given environment such as a high school.
On the other hand, men tend to compete with one another(the dominance hierarchy), but this is mainly at work and certain other environments; as far as I can tell it doesn't seem to have affected the men's movement.
"The way I see it, keep the media away from both,the accuser and the accused"
the media is a bunch of unethical bloodhounds who will never be kept away, or held to any kind of standard at all on anything, for that matter. Why? Becuase they can always cry "freedom of the press - we're being censored!!"
Some time I think a real can of worms was opened when the powers that be decided to allow a totally free press. Any time someone even suggests they be held to a standard, people start shouting, "hey, Orwell! Communism!!" But ironically, part of the reason we are in fact in an Orwellian society right now, at least concerning certain issues, is because of the press - spreading lies, etc..
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