WASHINGTON - The House has passed a bill that would get tough on persons who make false claims of sexual assault and rape.
The measure would impose a mandatory seven year prison sentence on proven false rape claims.
Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), said that the bill represented "a giant step back for women who are raped at the rate of one every twenty seconds in this country. Women already are afraid to report their assaults, and this law would only insure that women will suffer the shame of rape in silence."
And if you are still reading this, by now you've probably figured out that the bill referenced here is too good to be true. You would be right: it's April Fools' Day. But if you saw the headline and felt it was a leap forward for justice, but then quickly told yourself that it'll never happen (perhaps you learned your lesson from the false hopes raised last year in connection with the UK plan to grant anonymity to men accused of rape -- that plan was scrapped when women protested it), then this particular April Fools' Day hoax only serves to illustrate how fouled up our system is, where a perfectly sound and logical proposal could never become law because the entire rape milieu is so terribly politicized.
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14 comments:
Never say never.
Duke Lacrosse Players Get to Sue Nifong
http://nation.foxnews.com/duke-lacrosse-case/2011/03/31/duke-lacrosse-players-get-sue-nifong
You have fooled me... and it was supposed to make my day.
My first thought when I saw this, was, "well, now Samantha Geimer will never tell the truth..." And still it was worth it. Polanski is relatively safe today, while thousands (low estimate) men are not.
(an analysis of Geimer case as it was in reality, as opposed to people's sick fantasies, can be found here: http://polanski-oddmanout.blogspot.com/2011/03/famous-case-nobody-knows.html)
American law enforcement protocol perversions and semantics games have fostered and enabled a now "culture of false rape accusations".
The only way to return integrity to the true rape accusations is to discourage the false rape accusations by at least charging with a misdemeanor.
If you add a culture of false rape accusations, with a gender-Raunch perverted legal community (especially in the north-eastern states) you get serious "Perversions of the course of justice"
Wow, that is great news that the duke lax boys can sue the perverts who wanted to lynch them. Where are the duke 88??
Anon,
The Duke 88 were a group of professors and staff from Duke University who, before any proof had been offered, called for the imprisonment of those accused. There was some pretty vile stuff from them. And to this day, they have never been reprimanded by the school, or offered and apology to the falsely accused.
I knew it was a hoax immediately. Why (other than the obvious)? That kind of thing would not be a federal statute. It would be handled on the state level.
But all your points are valid. Carry on.
It certainly could be a federal statute, although the vast majority of rape cases are handled on the state level via state laws. Federal laws often become the model for state laws. Fed.R.Evid. 413 -- the most draconian rape law on the books -- inspired a bunch of states to follow suit and enact their own similar evidentiary rules.
Right after reading the title I knew this was an April Fool's joke - I'm rather cynical in general, moreso on 4/1.
However, whether it's for false rape allegations or drug offenses I don't agree with mandatory sentencing. If I recall correctly, SCOTUS basically knocked it out a few years back - judges can follow mandatory sentencing guidelines but they don't HAVE to, taking the "mandatory" out of mandatory on at least the federal level.
In some non April Fools Day actual scientific news; scientists have discovered that the sub-molecular structure that makes up the female DNA strand is in a shape very similar to the $ sign. It's true!
The discussion about this at Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/ggahj/new_law_would_impose_mandatory_seven_year/
While the post might be taken by some as just a hoax, it does raise interesting points for discussion.
Wouldn't this law actually be a problem? Most of the time people say 'proven false rape claims' it refers to rape claims which were declared false by the accuser. Redaction is the standard of proof for proven false rape claims. Aren't women way more likely to stick to their story simply out of fear of going to prison for seven years? wouldn't it reduce the retractions and therefore decrease the amount of the falsely accused who are exonerated by their accuser's retractions, which is basically the only way to be found innocent once you've been accused?
Anon at 1:44: we've dealt with similar arguments many times. See here: http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2011/03/it-is-far-better-to-prosecute-false.html
Even though I knew it was a joke, I still have to change my underwear after reading it.
Mandatory 7 year sentence? That would rule!
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