This is the reason that this site exists: to highlight the injustices emanating from wrongful rape claims; to give voice to the wrongfully accused. For 30 years a man has been labeled a rapist, spent time in prison, and likely has lost friends and family, not to mention his good name, his dignity, his honor and his self respect. All for something he did not do.
I would like to challenge anyone who thinks this site is about rape apology to please come and discuss how they can condone this by their silence, or by repeating the myth that women don't make false reports or that only 2% of rape reports are false. Lets just have an honest discussion about the issue of false reports.
Among the readers of this site, probably the least favorite quotations from modern feminism was found in this 1991 Time Magazine article by Catherine Comins. Ms. Comins was then a vice president at Vassar. She was discussing men who are victimized by false allegations of rape.
The misandry is breathtaking beyond words:
Comins argues that men who are unjustly accused can sometimes gain from the experience. "They have a lot of pain, but it is not a pain that I would necessarily have spared them. I think it ideally initiates a process of self-exploration. 'How do I see women?' 'If I didn't violate her, could I have?' 'Do I have the potential to do to her what they say I did?' Those are good questions."
Innocent men exonerated for rapes they did not commit.
March 11, 2009 - 7:15pm
Associated Press Writer
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - DNA tests in two more decades-old cases being reviewed as part of a massive state project to clear the wrongfully convicted do not match the individuals convicted of the crimes.
The Virginia Department of Forensic Science and the Richmond Commonwealth's Attorney's Office confirmed Wednesday that one of the cases was in that city. The department would only say that the other case was in the Tidewater region.
Authorities would not give details of either case.
The tests were part of a review of cases from 1973 to 1988 ordered after five men were exonerated of rape charges from biological evidence preserved long before DNA testing was commonly done.
Last week, authorities confirmed that a 2006 DNA test determined a Richmond man who spent eight years in prison for a 1979 rape was not the source of biological evidence in that case.
Link: http://wtopnews.com/?nid=25&sid=1622129
Posts
17 comments:
It is good that these men are cleared legally. The shame is they have a long way to go to be cleared by a society that has turned it's back on them. I also have to wonder what the prosecutors and jury members think and how they feel about this. I am sure the prosecutors could care less as these men were just things to be convicted so the prosecutors could get promoted. I would bet some of them are either judges,politicians or, have retired and do not even care to remember the lives they helped ruin. The jury members do not have to worry or care as they have total anoniminity,immunity and impunity. I also wonder how the victims ,as well as the possible false accusers feel. This is an abomination to true justice.
True justice is never served by the blood or sweat of the innocent.
First, I would like to establish that I agree that false accusation of any crime is horrifying. To call it an injustice is too understated to be a useful description. Nor do I wish to refute your primary claim that false rape allegations are frequent.
But DNA cannot exhonorate the convicted anymore than it can convict. All a DNA match says is that the sample matches the accused, not that the accused committed a crime. Other evidence must be presented and examined. A rejected match only means that the DNA sample does not match the accused, NOT that the accused did not commit the crime. It is very rare that the DNA alone is cause for conviction. In cases of rape, there are several scenrios to account for multiple DNA samples to be present and the one matchingthe accused not being the dominant one detected.
The more likely case today is a claim of rape after consensual sex, so DNA is present but not at issue.
I could care less how all of the people that hated these men feel karma is coming for themas is is for all of those who caused these men ,and other men like them, more than a world of hurt,sorrow,pain,grief,loss,suffering,disenfranchisement and, other things they should not have had poured on them.
Every time I hear of an innocent men being exonerated after suffering such an ordeal and such an injustice, I feel happy for them but I also feel like crying.
Does the false rape society have any association to the innocence project?
The innocense project is a classic example of missusing DNA evidence to get convicted criminals free. They use most of their effort to "exhonorate" people on death row but make their claims of innocense solely on the basis of DNA evidence. They ignore all of teh other evidence presented at trial and depend on the memories of witnesses growing cold. There is a reason that evidence gets cross examined and a reason why appeals follow the conviction. The Innocence Project ignores those reasons. There is every reason to believe that they have helped release brutal murderer and rapists back into the community.
DNA is just one type of evidence, not a whole criminal case. In the case where consensual sex is alleged, the DNA becomes irrelevent.
Roci,
And at times, there is nothing other than her word that he is the rapist.
The more likely case today is a claim of rape after consensual sex, so DNA is present but not at issue.
I would argue that it then is the central issue. If she is having feelings of remorse for a one night stand, and has the DNA to show that there was sexual intercourse, then I can guarantee that the prosecutor is going to hinge most of his case on the DNA and her ID of him. Both of which are easily obtained at that point.
And with the "No Drop" policy that most states have, when it concerns rape, even if she admits that it was consensual, the prosecutor can/will move forward with a prosecution.
As for the innocence project and the DNA, if it is proven that the DNA doesn't match the person convicted, then isn't that reasonable doubt that he is the rapist? I have yet to hear any law enforcement person (police, DA, etc), state that eyewitness testimony is reliable. It's quite the opposite. And yet for this crime, we have little to no standards of evidence.
Arkansas is trying to pass a law extending the statute of limitations on rape accusations, to forever, where DNA is present. So 20 years down the road, that ex-girlfriend could come back and claim you raped her, and now that rape kits are being kept indefinately, she could have had one done after a night of consensual sex, and just waited to bring it up later. How do you defend against that?
The case of Timothy cole is a good example. He was convicted and spent over a third of his life in prison for a crime he didn't commit. DNA cleared him after he DIED in prison, and showed another man, a serial rapist, was proven, by DNA to be the actual rapist.
So DNA, or lack thereof, is a damn good reason, if not to overturn a conviction, then at least gives a good reason to re-examin the case closely.
Sorry,
That last paragraph should be:
So DNA, or lack thereof, is a damn good reason, if not to overturn a conviction, then at least gives a good reason to re-examine the case closely.
Following a criminal trial and the exhaustion of apppeals, there are often multiple levels of petitions alleging ineffective assistance of counsel that sometimes last for years. The vast majority of these are without merit and many are frivolous. The Innocence Project is only involved as a last-ditch effort, usually many years after the fact, and it examines whether evidence introduced at trial that was material to a conviction connects the convicted man to the crime. Many of the convictions examined occurred at a time when DNA evidence was not admissible, or well understood. Far from being benefited by the passage of time, many innocent men have been destroyed by the passage of time. Evidence is lost, memories fade, witnesses disappear or die. The Innocence Project did not sit on the sidelines letting the appeals run out, etc. The folks who run the Innocnece Project very much want the efforts it undertakes to be a routine part of the trial process so that innocent men don't go to jail. If material evidence that led to the man's conviction was luckily preserved and if it contains DNA, then it would be reprehensible not to test it to see whether the right man has been sitting in jail all those years.
As for ignoring the other evidence introduced at trial, it has been proven beyond any question that witness identification evidence can be wholly unreliable, and that is generally the evidence that sends innocent men to prison.
No one ever maintained that DNA evidence can be examined in a vacuum, ignoring evidence that would negate its importance. If semen was preserved from an alleged stranger rape, and if the semen doesn't match the guy serving time for the rape, then there is no reason to think that releasing that guy is releasing a brutal rapist into the community.
In the case of consensual sex, the accused stated for the record that he did in fact have sex with the woman. DNA and her ID of him are at that point not relevent. The only issue at trial then is consent.
In any case, the DNA as well as the face ID and testimony by other witnesses can all be cross-examined in court to determine the verdict. DNA evidence that magically appears 10-20 years later gets no cross examination and no jury and no one to put it in the context of all the other evidence that was used in the original trial.
I have read of several Innocence project cases that were overturned on the basis of DNA. In one case, the man was caught red handed at the crime scene and was a repeat offender. In another, DNA was never presented at the trial because it was not relevent. THe conviction rested on other compelling physical evidence. In the average crime scene, there are hundreds of potential DNA samples to chose from.
I suppose that any person who gets convicted should claim inadequate counsel. He didn't win.
...and if the semen doesn't match the guy serving time for the rape, then there is no reason to think that releasing that guy is releasing a brutal rapist into the community.
Unless it was a gang rape, or the Dominant DNA sample found was from a previous partner.
Perhaps I am being overly pedantic, but DNA cannot clear anyone. It is limited to supporting the claim that a sample or group of samples found at the crime scene matches or does not match the suspect. It can neither convict nor exhonorate.
BTW there is no defense from false evidence. In fact, courts should stop using the word proof altogether since all they need to convict is to convince 12 people it is true. If you get 12 stupid enough people, or people in a hury to get home before they have to pay the baby sitter overtime, injustice will happen.
"BTW there is no defense from false evidence. In fact, courts should stop using the word proof altogether since all they need to convict is to convince 12 people it is true. If you get 12 stupid enough people, or people in a hury to get home before they have to pay the baby sitter overtime, injustice will happen."
This, I will agree with 100%. And for the 2 cases you are citing, DNA may not be the only evidence, and guilty men may have been set free. But then, that lack of a match, should at least allow for a review of the case, or a re-trial. Could you provide any links to the cases? I'm not saying you are wrong, but I have a hard time accepting that the Innocence Project would work to free someone where other evidence confirms the guilt. (In fact, they don't do that.)
Please bear in mind, there are also cases where DNA is the ONLY evidence, and is years later found to point to a different person.
WRT to the Arkansas law, what they are trying to do is allow a charge to be leveled 20-30-40-50 years down the road. If a rape kit is prepared, it must be preserved. So if she had consensual sex with him, then afterward went and got a rape kit test, she can, years later use that as her sole evidence (other than her word).
As the man, how do you remember 30 years later what happened on one specific night? How do you call witnesses for your defense? Make no mistake, if this law passes in arkansas, it will follow in other (All?) states.
This is starting to become a rant, so I'll stop here. Roci, I do understand where you are coming from, but if just one innocent man if freed due to DNA testing, then I am all for it.
"Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" - William Blackstone
My response to Roci on the general issue of DNA evidence in cases of sexual assault or rape, is as the Archivist stated, lack of it should be enough to establish reasonable doubt. By implying that the alleged perpetrator has to exhonerate himself beyond any question, Roci is effectively displaying the same mentality as "guilty until proven innocent", which is not surprising, as that is the state of affairs these days.
In my comment above, instead of "lack of [DNA] evidence", I probably should have said "a negative test result" (should be enough to establish reasonable doubt).
1. I also favor DNA testing being done as a matter of routine, not waiting for years later to try it. In fact, I also would favor mandatory DNA testing on all newborns to establish paternity.
2. I am not saying guilty until proven innocent. Rather, once proven guilty in a jury trial, undercutting a single element of evidence is not sufficient to overturn the conviction automatically.
3. As for the cases I mentioned, they were a few years ago. As I recall, the innocence project was putting a lot of effort into discrediting death penalty cases. To my knowledge they have never come to the defense of a Catholic Priest falsly accused of rape.
4. I think more injustice could be prevented if plea bargains were never permitted. Every charge should be proven in court, or dropped. It is immoral for a prosecutor to exrtract a confession in order to get a lower penalty. There is no real difference from this than beating a confession out of someone.
Roci said: "I think more injustice could be prevented if plea bargains were never permitted."
Depends on how you define "injustice." In theory you are exactly correct, but many men make an informed decision that they'd prefer not to roll the dice with their lives -- they'd like some control, and if they can get probation as opposed to possibly spending years behind bars, that's a deal a lot of men would prefer. The ordeal of a rape trial is something no innocent man should face, and for some, the only alternative to avoiding it is to plead out.
Post a Comment