• surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I mean, yeah. His lawyer talked him into accepting a no contest plea deal. He accepted guilt even though he did nothing. He’s black, and they didn’t they could win.

    All of that says nothing about the woman or how we should treat possible victims, and everything about how broken our ‘justice’ system is, especially for minorities.

    If you want to get something fixed, focus on that, not on possibly silencing real rape victims.

      • Psychodelic@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I think it’s because what you’ve said makes it so the implication is that they’re probably lying. How isn’t that obvious? You do understand the context for the current situation we find ourselves, in which people are saying believe victims, right?

        Better question: which do you think is more common? Dudes being wrongly punished for rape or rapists walking the streets because of how brutal it is for ladies to come forth with “accusations”? The answer to that directly highlights why people might feel the need to say we should believe rape/sexual assault victims.

        Seriously, like 1 in 4 (or 5) ladies has been sexually assaulted or raped, what do you think the number for dudes that have been wrongly accused of rape?

        • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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          9 months ago

          I believe the statistic was somewhere about less than 0.7% of rape charges are lies.

          And that is only of the rapes that are reported. The real number is even lower.

          It is awful that it happens, but not nearly prominent enough to conclude a problem with the system.

        • barsoap@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          Seriously, like 1 in 4 (or 5) ladies has been sexually assaulted or raped, what do you think the number for dudes that have been wrongly accused of rape?

          Irrelevant. Blackstone’s ratio: It is better for the guilty to walk free than for one innocent to suffer. If it applies to murder, it also applies to rape. Rape isn’t worse than murder, I hope we agree there.

          Especially in the context of the US’s excuse for a justice system which most of this seems to be rooted in that age-old principle doesn’t even begin to apply, with people getting coerced into plea deals, worse, “you’re black noone will believe you”.

          To go ahead in such a situation and say “but think about the women he didn’t rape but others raped” is to bend the narrative to justify the US’ reneging on fundamental principles of justice, with the race angle involved it’s even worse.


          Also, side note: Sexual assault isn’t rape, but combining both looks like a convenient way to pad statistics. A gal grabbing my crotch or slapping my butt is sexual assault never have I filed a criminal complaint… and neither get men asked such questions in polls.

      • _NoName_@lemmy.ml
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        9 months ago

        The exact same problem is cropping up twice here.

        Women are raped at a high rate, and often when they come forward they are defacto treated as if they’re lying. At every step, quite often- not just during the trial. The “believe women” political push was about women’s testimonies being taken more seriously, because currenty everyone expects a much higher burden of truth from them, and thus most cases are dismissed. Of course, conservatives with antifeminist motives chose to scarecrow the movement as they’ve done with literally every feminist initiative.

        On the other end, black folks- black men especially- are also subjected to a much higher burden of proof than white folks. Juries regularly find black men guilty of charges with little to no evidence past testimonials from the victim. That’s ultimately why this guy took the plea deal- he and his lawyers figured he couldn’t win a fair trial.

        These are still both issues with not just our justice system, but our society as a whole, and both need to be addressed.