Man released after charges dropped
The district attorney's office has dismissed charges against a San Rafael man accused of raping a woman at Marin General Hospital.
Roy Anthony Herndon, 56, was released from jail last week after prosecutors dropped the case. His bail had been set at $500,000.
FRS Comment: So, once again, we see an arrest, and time spent in jail, BEFORE an investigation into the details was conducted.
The dismissal was prompted by doubts about the accuser's credibility, said Chief Deputy District Attorney Kathryn Mitchell. The case is no longer under investigation, Mitchell said.
Herndon had been charged with rape by a foreign object, assault with intent to commit rape, sexual battery by restraint and false imprisonment by violence.
"The evidence simply undermined her claims," said Herndon's lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Peter Arian. "This situation is a reminder that the government's allegations need to be scrutinized in every case."
FRS Comment: Again, if the evidence undermined her claim, why was he arrested in the first place? If one thing needs to be fixed, it is that the investigation must happen first, and the arrest should follow only if the charge is supported by evidence.
The woman reported her claims on Jan. 8, some five hours after the alleged incident occurred. The woman said she struck up a conversation with a man while waiting for a bus to Marin General Hospital, and he joined her on her trip, the sheriff's department said.
FRS Comment: The woman is not named, despite the fact that the evidence undermined her allegations. The man's name is splashed all over the story.
The woman told investigators that the man assaulted her after they had cigarettes together in a patio area at the hospital.
Based on the information provided by the accuser, sheriff's investigators identified Herndon as the suspect and arrested him early the next morning.
The public defender's office found evidence the accuser had been drinking excessively for days prior to the rape claim.
Thank to one of our readers for the tip.
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20 comments:
The problem with getting tough with Rape, is that so many girls are now making false rape accussations.
The rise in false rape accussations has been a boon for many law enforcement communities, so i doubt that they will try and break their gravy trains any time soon. It may take a civil rights case to break this Alliance for dollars perversion.
"FRS Comment: Again, if the evidence undermined her claim, why was he arrested in the first place? If one thing needs to be fixed, it is that the investigation must happen first, and the arrest should follow only if the charge is supported by evidence."
It follows from not requiring corroborating evidence. If a person can be convicted on nothing than the accuser's word, then a person can be arrested on nothing other than the victim's word.
"The rise in false rape accussations has been a boon for many law enforcement communities"
Actually, it costs them money in man-hours and other resources. It also takes away from other investigations, such as stranger rape where there is evidence of a crime, but the identity of the perpetrator is unknown. The police don't like people lying to them and wasting their time any more than anyone else would.
Law enforcement communities are raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars from the VAWA (violence against women Act),but in order to keep the "monies" flowing, they have to perpetuate the women are always the victim paradigm, and there are many ways for law enforcement to get the "statistic" to cash in on.
But you see this Alliance has to piss all over our constitution to do it, Which clearly states you cannot use state and federal dollars to discriminate, And i beleive using VAWA dollars to in effect "manufacture faulty and inflamatory statistics" is using state and federal dollars to discriminate.
Arresting on the basis of an uncorroborated statement BEFORE an investigation is generally improper. First, while rape can be charged with an uncorroborated statement of the accuser, it usually isn't. Second, for most rape claims, there is evidence pointing one way or the other. Such evidence is often difficult to come by, and that's why painstaking investigations are so important. But police should not just rely on the accuser's statement and demeanor. I would go so far as to say demeanor evidence is not just generally unhelpful, it too often leads to wrongful arrests.
And I agree -- I think false rape claims are among the last thing police want.
"Arresting on the basis of an uncorroborated statement BEFORE an investigation is generally improper."
Yes, I agree, but so is prosecuting on the basis of an uncorroborated statement after an investigation. I'm not saying that it's right, just that it's logically consistent.
Another thing is that people are extremely emotional and irrational when it comes to rape. If the police don't arrest an accused murderer, and after discovering evidence of guilt, find the perpetrator has fled, then that's how the system works. Otoh, if people find out that the police let a rapist get away, they go batshit crazy.
I also agree that "demeanor evidence" can lead to the arrest of the innocent, but regardless of an accuser's demeanor, when faced with claims or rape or domestic violence the police do not have the option to ignore even obvious liars. The patrolman who first discovered the Duke accuser drunk and disorderly (or whatever they call it down there) was completely incredulous.
I'd also like to see some evidence as to exactly how the police are allegedly manufacturing false statistics, and specifically what federal programs, under the VAWA or otherwise, grant money to local law enforcement is based on such statistics. The VAWA does grant money for training programs, but after reviewing the criteria for eligibility, I was unable to find any reference to crime statistics.
According to the UCR/NIBRS tallied by the FBI, the rate of rape has more or less declined since the VAWA, so if the police are involved in a feminist conspiracy to inflate the numbers, they aren't doing a very good job.
Another innocent life destroyed by a vile. malicious legal system. Zero accountability.
According to the UCR/NIBRS tallied by the FBI, the rate of rape has more or less declined since the VAWA, so if the police are involved in a feminist conspiracy to inflate the numbers, they aren't doing a very good job.
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The rape rate has fallen precipitously since then, so the feminist hysteria about rape is incredibly inappropriate, demonstrating their own pathetic need for drama. And this helps explain why there are so many false accusations now.
If the number of (real) rapes has fallen dramatically while the number of false accusations has remained roughly the same -- which makes sense, considering that false accusations are very lightly punished -- then that means that the percentage of false accusations has risen. Drain enough Tequila and all you have left is the worm.
Most of the real rapists are already in prison!
". . . when faced with claims or rape or domestic violence the police do not have the option to ignore even obvious liars."
They do it all the time. A client of mine -- that's what happened. And I hear from a lot of falsely accused people who are going through this. Not for DV where there's a supposed imminent threat, but for "acquaintance rape," they do it all the time -- hold off arresting until the investigation is complete. Men accused of rape are investigated all the time and cases are pending over their head sometimes for months without an arrest. If the police arrested EVERY man or boy accused of rape, they'd need to built new jails. Most cases, the police dispose of very quietly, sometimes without recording it by telling false accusers the facts of life.
The law allows uncorroborated claims to go forward, but it depends on the DA's position. Most of the time they don't want those. Very rarely do they take them.
Uncorroborated rape cases are prosecuted all the time. I don't know where you're getting that, Archivist.
Most rape cases are he said/she said.
Anon, prosecutors almost always have SOMETHING more -- even if it's not something that could stand alone. Even if it's just a pretext call whereby they catch the guy apologizing for the "rape." Even before the corroboration rules were changed, the evidence was generally circumstantial to corroborate rape claims. Corroboration doesn't mean you have to have another witness. I've written previously about circumstances where you'll see he said/she said claims pressed more (kid/adult is a big one). D.A.s want to win, and if they don't think there's a reasonable chance of that, it's a big waste of their time and precious resources.
I get the feeling that lots of times, the D.A. will prosecute "acquaintance" rape cases because the guy is "the type" who commits rape. If he's black, or has prior involvement in the justice system, or if he is some loser.
Anonymous - ”Uncorroborated rape cases are prosecuted all the time.”
While there little doubt that, at any given time, some number of prosecutions for allegation of rape which lack corroboration will be ongoing; the large question of their relative prevalence (as opposed to cases wherein there IS corroborating evidence) is a tougher one to answer.
Between the initial outcry to law enforcement (typically a patrol officer) and the decision by a DA to take a case to trial there are countless steps that are routinely undertaken.
First, at the risk of going on ad nauseam (since, most here are already painfully aware, but you’ve posted anonymously, so I don not know if you are a regular poster here), for the sake of full disclosure, I am married to a prosecutor; and, I get to “witness” much of what goes on with individual cases once they are submitted to the DA’s office for a decision on charging and possible prosecution.
I won’t presume to take up to much time nor space going into details (if you’d like to ask specific questions, I’m certainly ‘game”), but the decision to prosecute or, to use their terminology, to (which happens more than most people are probably aware) is not taken lightly [yes, I’m extrapolating this from my knowledge gleaned from a relative handful of prosecutors and police detectives working in four judicial districts in Colorado; but, I think that what I’ve observed is far more typical than not].
At the risk of my wife’s ire for over-disclosure, I would note that last week she tried a case in which the only corroboration to a rape claim was statements made to friends and family before any contact with law enforcement (and the defendant’s video-taped interview, which could possibly be seen as a confession*). My wife felt compelled to prosecute the case, even though she stated outright that it would be very difficult to convince a jury. Long-story-short, the defendant was acquitted last Friday afternoon. The outcome was NOT unexpected, despite a reasonable probability that (in this particular case), the rape accusation was legit.
What was far more interesting for me, as I observed a part of the Voir dire process was the outspokenness of women WRT the issue of FRA’s (the defense brought up both the ideas of false allegation and false confessions during that jury selection). Men seemed non-committal in the way they answered the question “did they believe false accusation could occur?”, as if afraid to risk being politically incorrect.
Several women, however, had no problem what-so-ever frankly stating that they KNEW that FRA’s occurred, one even going so far as to say (I was writing this down – partly out of amazement at what I was hearing - so I can quote it exactly), “Oh, I know they happen way more often that people care to admit”.
Another woman, who noted that her boyfriend was a cop, indicated that he had told her on several occasions that he had handled instance of initial allegations of sexual assaults that he either suspected were lies, or where the complaining witness had “withdrawn” the allegation while he was still questioning the accuser about the alleged incident.
It is TOO bad that this could not be video taped. I’m telling you, you guy’s would have been pleasantly amazed – both at the forthrightness of the acknowledgement of FRA’s, and that it was coming (exclusively) from women in the jury pool. During the portion I observed, there were four women who (strongly) acknowledged FRA, and only two women who said they doubted that FRA’s regularly occurred.
In talking to her following that session, my wife finally acknowledge that the increasing information/evidence of FRA’s was starting to show up more and more in jury pools; along with her stated frustrations that women making FRA’s were going to end up hurting real victims. Four days later, that may very well have been what occurred in the jury room.
slwerner, that is my experience, too, working in a busy court, for several years.
I keep telling everyone here, WOMEN are the most staunch defenders of what we do. They are less likely to post comments for a variety of reasons, but . . . wow . . . I get so many emails from mothers and girlfriends, etc. I try to answer all of them, and I make a special point of thanking them on behalf of every guy falsely accused, but they are important to our struggle.
Most prosecutors don't want to take a case where there equally plausible stories on both sides.
Axel - "I get the feeling that lots of times, the D.A. will prosecute "acquaintance" rape cases because the guy is "the type" who commits rape. If he's black, or has prior involvement in the justice system, or if he is some loser."
I was typing my last post while your post was being made, but I certainly want to jump on this one...
I bear direct witness to what you are saying.
I try not to over repeat it, but, some years ago, my wife did, in fact, plan to take a case to trial, that (fortunately) on the "eve" of trial was exposed as a lie about consensual sex ("nice" white girl trying to use sex to "score" a black thug boyfriend; then getting pissed off when he treated her like just another of his "bitches").
Only thing that made her finally admit that she had lied to police detectives, to rape counselors, to the DA's Office investigator, and to two DA's, was when she was advised of the sentence my wife would be seeking if he were convicted. Only when she came to realize that her lies might well send this guy to prison for a long time - given his criminal history - did she finally concede that she had been the one who sought and initiated the sex.
It was (yet another) uncorroborated he said/she said, which was likely filed as much based on his (lack of) character as it was on any seemingly real evidence (they did have his semen/DNA on the clothes she had been wearing). My wife was not eh DA who initially filed the case with the court, but it is quite likely that race and/or character issues came prominently into play in the decision to move the case forward.
slwerner, we've made that point about race and rape charges here, and I fear that we don't make that point enough. It IS a major problem. Still. Duke lacrosse was kind of the mirror (or negative) image of it. We recently stated: ". . . every time I hear of a case where the treatment of the innocent male seems excessive even by false rape standards (where unwarranted and excessive incarceration is the norm), chances are the victim of the false rape claim is a young black male."
We've also warned about men and teen girls.
I think the rule of thumb is, if you are male in a consensual relationship, you are at greater risk of a false rape claim, and of having that claim stick, if your relationship isn't "the type" that most people would expect to be consensual. And unfortunately, that includes black males having sex with white females. Even in 2010. In those sorts of cases, all bets are off about the prosecutor's desire to have something in addition to her word versus his.
"They do it all the time."
Investigating a rape accusation isn't the same thing as ignoring it. While I agree that they shouldn't ignore just them, there is now much more pressure to waste time on cases that seem like bullshit from the get go.
Black men are the victims of false accusations all the time, which is why Duke is such a sad story: the left-wing morons who supported Mangum could have been making a statement about the importance of due process, including for minority men.
Feb 22, 2010 7:56:00 PM
I agree.
Well the false rape and indecent assault allegations against 2 S.A. police officers has been reported highly from the media from the prosecution side but these two officers are innocent and suffered huge ramifocations because of it, immotionaly, financialy, socially and professionally why isn't the female who made these false alegations accountable
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