Suit alleges police encouraged vigilante justice

We've often spoken about the damage done by a false accusation, both here and on our old site. We've documented many instances of beatings and even death (as noted HERE) from a false allegation. Unfortunately, this is a much overlooked byproduct of a false claim of sexual assault or rape.*

It's all the more heinous when the harm is officially condoned. The following is a piece out of Philadelphia (LINK), and it is an update of this story. 

Treatment of woman on trial for alleged sexual exploitation of male minor raises concerns to COTWA

A former female teacher is on trial in Canada for allegedly sexually exploiting one of her teenage male students nearly a decade ago. Newspapers have published a summary of the trial testimony of the alleged victim, who claims that between the ages of 15 and 17, he had sex with his married high school gym teacher hundreds of times. The alleged trysts, which supposedly occurred in the former teacher's office as well as in her master bedroom, ended eight years ago.  The presumptively innocent woman is named in the story and her picture is shown. The accuser's identity is not disclosed.  (See here).

Mother didn't mean to get someone in trouble when she told her son a rape lie, but . . .

Jane Steven, 41, came home after a night out and, for reasons that aren't clear, lied to her son that she'd been raped by strangers. Steven, who purportedly had been experiencing personal and medical problems at the time, presumably did not think she'd get a flesh and blood human in trouble when she uttered the falsehood, but she didn't count on her son calling the police.

The rush to judgment in the Trayvon Martin shooting: it's not just, but we should be asking what fuels it

George Zimmerman is in hiding, fearful of the death threats lobbed his way in the wake of the shooting death of Trayvon Martin that has gripped the nation. And we still don't know all the facts.

Director Spike Lee retweeted to his 240,000 followers an address he thought was George Zimmerman's. The message said “feel free to reach out and touch him [Zimmerman].”  As if that wasn't bad enough, it turns out Lee publicized the wrong address. The couple who actually live there -- a 70-year-old school-cafeteria lunch lady with a heart condition and her 72-year-old husband -- have received hate mail, unwanted visits from reporters, and fearful inquiries from neighbors. To keep themselves from harm, they have temporarily moved to a hotel. And we still don't know all the facts.

Dozens of North Miami Beach teens left school to protest the Trayvon Martin case and stormed the aisles of a drug store, damaging merchandise. And we still don't know all the facts.

It is a noble impulse to be outraged when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain social group. It is neither just nor noble to assume that such targeting occurred before we have all the facts.

The rush to judgment among some prominent voices on the left assumes George Zimmerman is responsible for a terrible hate crime, and that isn't fair to Mr. Zimmerman. He hasn't even been charged, much less been afforded the due process to which all Americans are entitled.  This is not a defense of Mr. Zimmerman; it is a defense of a sacrosanct Constitutional process being short-circuited by assumptions and rage.

On the other hand, some prominent conservative voices want to label it all a tragedy exploited by race-baiting pimps and leave it at that. They are unwilling to entertain the possibility that the black community's rage in this case might be fueled by an otherwise valid perception that, in general, innocent black men too often are presumed guilty by a racially biased criminal justice system.

Responsible voices should insist that the black community's rage is, at best, premature in this particular case. And while we await the facts in this case, our time would be well spent better understanding that rage, which chronically seethes just beneath the surface, and honestly ponder what's behind it.

Confusing Case: Consensual Sex or Mistaken Identity

A woman complained that she was raped by a man when she was given a ride to Fiesta Island.  Using a description of a man given by the woman, police arrested a landscaper who admitted that he engaged in consensual intercourse with the woman.  At the accused's arraignment, the accuser told the judge that the accused was not the man who raped her.

"This man is not the man at all, and I'll stick with that for as long as I live," said Laura C. in court on Monday.

Landmark college newspaper editorial: recognizes balance between the the rights of the accused and the victim

COTWA applauds the editorial board of the Duke Chronicle, the independent daily at Duke University. It has written a thoughtful editorial called Crime and Time that recognizes the critical balance that should be at the heart of handling sexual misconduct on campus, and everywhere else--the balance between protecting the rights of the accused and insuring that victims get justice.  We don't agree with everything in the editorial, but it is among the best pieces on the subject we've read in a student newspaper, or anywhere, because the tone is pitch-perfect right in its sensitivity to that critical balance. The editorial correctly recognizes that achieving that balance is difficult, and it doesn't pretend to have the answers, much less a monopoly on the truth.

The editorial discusses a recent change to the school's sexual misconduct policy that reduces the statute of limitations on sexual assault from two years to one. The editorial board calls this change controversial, but does not adopt the typical knee jerk reaction in favor of one side or another.  An extended quotation is warranted:

Miami Planner Falsely Accused

Here is an interesting story of an attractive female falsely accused of running over her ex-boyfriend's foot with her car.  He was caught by a private investigator she hired who filmed the ex-boyfriend putting on the cast and limping to the State Attorney's office, then he took the cast off and walked away in flip flops.

http://www.wsvn.com/features/articles/investigations/MI94742/he-said-she-said-part-2/

Rushing to judgment is not a noble impulse

It is a noble impulse to be outraged when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain social group. The instances in our recent history are too many to chronicle, from the Holocaust to the Bosnian and Rwandan Genocides to the lynch mobs of the Old South to Matthew Shepard, and a thousand -- no, a million -- others. Rational people recognize such injustices as particularly heinous.

But it is neither just nor noble to assume that such targeting occurred before we have all the facts. It is wrong because it isn't fair to the alleged perpetrator.

In the Trayvon Martin case, fact allegations are emerging that paint the case as more complicated, and less clear, than many are portraying it. See here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/26/MN0R1NQC9D.DTL. It is not only unclear whether Mr. Martin was targeted because of his race, it is unclear what happened, period.

Thomas Sowell put it this way:

"The man who shot the black teenager in Florida may be as guilty as sin, for all I know — or he may be innocent. We pay taxes so that there can be judges and jurors who sort out the facts. We do not need Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton or the president of the United States spouting off before the trial has even begun. Have we forgotten the media’s rush to judgment in the Duke University 'rape' case that blew up completely when the facts came out?

"If the facts show that a teenager who was no threat to anyone was shot and killed, it will be time to call for the death penalty. But if the facts show that the shooter was innocent, then it will be time to call for people in the media and in politics to keep their big mouths shut until they know what they are talking about.

"Playing with racial polarization is playing with fire."

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2012/03/27/geraldos-advice-could-save-lives.html

Hamilton girl made false rape complaint

On February 27th, a fifteen year old girl claimed that as she was walking home from school, she was forced into a car and raped. The allegation turned out to be false. 

A police officer stated that the girl was re-interviewed, and "as a result of enquiries made into the allegations a number of inconsistencies in the girl's account were identified and when confronted with these the girl admitted to police that she had made up the story and that she had not been raped as she had earlier reported.''

The girl will be referred to the Hamilton Police Youth Aid Section.

Link: http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/6608142/Hamilton-girl-made-false-rape-complaint-police

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/13219190/girl-admits-to-false-rape-claim/

Woman falsely accuses police officers of sexually assaulting her

Two Victorian policemen arrested Karly Enid Jean Mitchel, 25, for being drunk outside a South Yarra nightclub, and she repaid them by falsely accusing them of sexual assault.

Mitchel had been refused entry about 2am on August 6 last year to the Circus Nightclub and then spent 45 minutes abusing crowd controllers. The police arrived, and Mitchel became abusive. They arrested her for being drunk.

After her release from custody, she complained that she had been "groped" on her breasts by the police and touched on her inner thighs and outside her crotch.

The police investigated, and the CCTV footage and witness accounts did not support her story. She admitted the following month she had made a false report.

Mitchel pled guilty. Mitchel's defence barrister Trish Jones said Mitchel was apologetic, that she had reflected on her poor behaviour and now appreciated the effect of what she had done. Mitchel, who has no prior convictions and is a full-time carer for her young child, wrote a letter of apology to the police officers. Alcohol had been a problem for her in the past, but she had now moderated her intake. Her defense barrister claimed that at the time of this incident, she had been involved in a dispute with the father of the child.

Magistrate Bill White told Mitchel that the offence was taken so seriously because the role of police was to protect her and everyone else. It was vital, he said, for people to be honest and frank with those whose primary duty was to protect all citizens.

Mitchel was ordered to pay $1898 in costs.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/victoria/2000-fine-over-false-rape-claim-20120323-1voau.html

Navy Times Supports Army Model for Sexual Assault Prosecutions

The Navy Times published an article comparing the prosecution rates and conviction rates across the armed services.  The Navy Times reporter states that the Army's prosecution rate has leapt 20 points from an abyssmal 6% in 2008 to 26% in 2010, and the Army's conviction rate (58%) is the highest of the armed services branches.

http://www.navytimes.com/news/2012/03/military-army-improves-help-sexual-assault-victims-032212w/

The reporter compares the Army's statistics to the other branches' statistics in order to make a case that the Army's model should be used across the armed services.  Specifically, the Army has prosecutors who are dedicated solely to the prosecution of sexual offenses.  Also, they have investigators who are dedicated to the investigation of sexual offenses.  The Navy, Marines, and Air Force do not, which explains the lower prosecution and conviction rates in those services.

The 'all sex is rape' trope is back

Remi Watts, opinion editor of The Gauntlet, the undergraduate newsweekly of the University of Calgary, resurrects the "all sex is rape" trope that rational people long ago rejected in a singularly meaningless and other-worldly piece called Age of No Consent. 

Watts posits, with no authority beyond his or her serene ipse dixit, that "[y]ou have never had consensual sex." Why? Because "[w]e are incapable of making autonomous and well-informed decisions."  I'm lost. Why is that?  Because of "the direness of our present circumstances," of course. Well, sorry, but what does that mean?  It means that "the inherent barbarism of the social, economic, political, religious, academic and cultural corrals into which we are captured and contained" render it "impossible for anyone to adequately consent to sexual activity in the present."

Sigh. It's infuriatingly meaningless, and as wrong as it is silly.  Watts seems to suggest that because there are inequalities among people, "consent" is not possible. S/he writes: "The behemoth that is our way of life is thoroughly infected. The laws, the language, the imagery -- everything our senses can be imbued with, even one another, has been infused with patriarchy's dominating, savage values. The same system that allows spliced and splayed 'women' to be devoured also liquidates our capacity to make well-informed judgements and to understand and appreciate our own sexualities. We live under the same roof, and eat the same stale, mouldy bread as the whore and rapist do."

Watts seems woefully unschooled in the concept of "consent." By analogy, the common law has developed well-honed precepts to determine when a manifestation of assent is not legally operative.  Microsoft routinely contracts with small companies and individuals with very little economic clout, and sometimes the "weaker" entity exacts advantages Microsoft wouldn't offer without prodding. The fact that inequalities generally exist cannot, of course, negate the possibility of consent.  The concept of "duress" is employed to invalidate agreements due to the absence of the kind of freely given consent that society has decided is necessary to bind people to their promises. The classic example is a loaded gun pointed at someone’s head with a threat that “either your brains or your signature will be on the contract,” per Don Corleone. A contract is voidable for duress if (1) the victim’s manifestation of assent has been induced by an improper threat, and (2) the victim has no reasonable alternative except to manifest assent.

None of that is what Watts is talking about. A garden variety sexual advance is not an improper threat, and women have reasonable alternatives to participating, they can say no. Watts starts, and ends, with the premise that one party in a sexual encounter is not a free moral agent but, rather, a leaf in the wind, and that her manifestations of assent are nothing short of lies because she can never consent.

The rest is not worth discussing -- Watt's dream of a world of "autonomous equals, adequately informed and genuinely in touch with ourselves" and about "annihilating the destructive order at hand . . . ."

There will never be constructive discourse about these issues so long as the people interested in talking about them insist on passing off stupidity for thoughtful analysis. Student newspapers are notorious for this sort of thing, where angry feelings of victimhood trump rationality and a healthy respect for the accumulated knowledge of our forebears. 

Watts ought to demand that his or her tuition money be refunded: that school isn't teaching him/her how to think.

Sexual Assault Claim Dismissed by Judge

Velvet Leclair filed a lawsuit for a sexual assault she claimed took place in the cellblocks in 2007. However, the suit has been "dismissed in its entirety" by Superior Court Justice Stanley Kershman, who said that her story was not established on "a balance of probabilities."

After reviewing the evidence, which included videotape footage, and noting that Leclair acted aggressively toward officers, it was concluded that the police had done nothing wrong.

One of the officers that was named in the suit, Detective Norm Redmond, said "I'm definitely relieved." And: "I don't believe anyone has the right to make false allegations in search of a payday, just because I wear a badge."

This is not the first time Detective Redmond has been cleared in the Leclair fiasco. After interviewing several witnesses, including one of Leclair's friends, an internal police investigation previously sided with the officer's version of events. The civilian police commission also cleared Redmond.

Leclair was arrested in 2007. After a night out at Bluesfest and then going to several bars, the car she was traveling in was pulled over. While officers were dealing with the driver, Leclair exited the vehicle and body checked one of the officers.

Link: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Judge+dismisses+claim+police+sexual+assault/6309711/story.html

Bethlehem 911 dispatcher allegedly lied to police about sex assault following DUI

On February 25th, Ashley J. Wenbourne, a 911 dispatcher, told police that the reason she was driving while intoxicated was that she was fleeing from being sexually assaulted. 

The moral crusaders who confuse sex with rape . . .

Frank Furedi has written a provocative piece, The moral crusaders who confuse sex with rape, where he zeroes in one particular aspect of what he dubs our "abuse-obsessed contemporary culture." According to Mr. Furedi,"sex has been recast as an activity that involves intense peril" and that is "inextricably linked to the idea that human beings are damaged, that men are innately violent."

Student cautioned over false sex assault claim

A 17-year-old who falsely said she was sexually assaulted at the University of Sussex has been given a caution for wasting police time.

She claimed that on the 15th of February, she was sexually assaulted on the Falmer campus, but after the police began investigating, she was arrested.

She has since confessed that she made the allegation up.

Det. Insp. Mick Jones, urged victims of sexual assault to continue contacting police. He said: "I want to reassure the public that all allegations of sexual assault are taken extremely seriously and, as in this case, a large number of police resources are used to gather all available evidence."

Link:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-17364278

He said/she said rape claim dropped, accused sues accuser

An unnamed 20-year-old female undergraduate at the College of William and Mary claimed that in the early morning hours of October 15, 2011, she was raped in a campus residence hall by a 27-year-old male undergraduate and Iraq War veteran named Jeffrey B. Weaver.

According to the criminal complaint, the accuser told the police that she and the accused walked from the College Delly to her dorm room at around 1:45 a.m. When they arrived, she said, the two spent time kissing before she asked him to leave. She claimed that all she wanted to do was kiss. She asked him to leave, she said, but he would not get off of her. According to the police report, the woman said that Mr. Weaver physically overpowered and raped her, then departed.

Mr. Weaver maintains he had consensual sex with the woman and that she provided him with a condom. After about 10 minutes she said she didn’t want to continue, and Mr. Weaver says he stopped.  He claims the accuser changed her story multiple times after reporting the encounter. He claims the accuser told a friend “at first, I kinda said yes,” then changed her mind.  Moreover, he says, details about the alleged attack also changed.  In nurse’s notes from Riverside Hospital where a rape examination took place, he says the woman said Mr. Weaver retrieved his own condom from his pocket, whereas, at Mr. Weaver’s bond hearing in October, the accuser said she gave a condom to him.  Mr. Weaver alleges the woman provided false testimony in hearings to get him expelled from the college.

One news report, posted online just three days after the alleged incident, described the encounter in terms that led readers to believe it was a definite rape:

▲"The Virginia Gazette reported the perpetrator to be Jeffrey B. Weaver, a 27-year-old undergraduate student." (In fact, the online report from the October 18, 2011 Virginia Gazette did not report that Mr. Weaver was "the perpetrator." It only said that Mr. Weaver had been "charged" and was a "suspect," although it did refer to the accuser as "victim.")

▲"It is likely that Weaver will now be dismissed from the College in light of the 2011 Campus Safety Report, which instituted serious consequences for those whose actions were in breach of the sexual misconduct policy."

▲"This shocking incident adds to current statistics at the College that show that five percent of students have experienced rape or attempted rape in the last year, raising questions about campus safety."

In January 2012, charges against Mr. Weaver were dropped. According to Commonwealth Attorney Maureen Kufro, after reviewing the evidence of the case and consulting with the alleged victim, the decision was made to not prosecute. Kufro would not elaborate on the specific reasons for dropping the charges.

Now, Mr. Weaver has filed a civil action accusing the 20-year-old woman of knowingly giving false information to police and health care workers, and repeating it to college officials while seeking to have him removed as a student at W&M.

The suit accuses the accuser of defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and malicious prosecution. It seeks $5 million in compensatory damages, plus interest and court costs. He also seeks $350,000 on each count. Further, the suit emphasizes that the woman’s statements led to media coverage. He lists more than a dozen print, TV and Internet accounts of the story, which caused him to become depressed and withdrawn, and his hair began to fall out.

It would be most unusual if this accuser has the ability to pay a sizable judgment entered against her.

Despite the fact that the allegations of the complaint represent Mr. Weaver's assertions and there has been no adjudication, some readers assume they know the truth.  The comments beneath news story include the following: "Good for him, I hope he wins and I'm a female . . .." And: "FINALLY...it appears that the 'tables are turned' towards JUSTICE and what will eventually be the TRUTH!" And: "These girls think they can get a man all worked up then change their mind. Then ruin a mans life. . . . ." (The last comment is curious, given that women are entitled to "change their minds" during the act.)

Isn't it curious that so many people seem to know what happened based on the word of just one party?

Links
http://www.dogstreetjournal.com/story/4799

http://flathatnews.com/2011/10/21/76003/

http://www.vagazette.com/articles/2011/10/17/news/doc4e9ca0a7157f7159064569.txt

http://www.andanh.com/watch/p1/flathat.wm.edu

Officer Alfonsina Delacruz's bogus rape and kidnapping report

In 2005, probation officer Alfonsina Delacruz told police that her ex-boyfriend had abducted, raped, and assaulted her.  But technology was her undoing. Investigators discovered cell phone records showing that during the time she was supposedly abducted, she repeatedly called the ex-boyfriend.

Officials did file charges against the ex-boyfriend because they do believe he assaulted her.

In addition, it was initially recommended that she be fired for the false rape charge.  The NYPD Chief of Personnel, Rafael Piniero, said at the time: “She clearly lacks the maturity, discipline and integrity necessary to remain a New York City Police Officer’’

Only a month later, that recommendation was reversed. Nevertheless, she pled guilty to the departmental charges she was brought up on, and she was permitted to keep her job.

Link: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bronx/officer_bogus_report_2SlwSaNWDNkz57n2IKOWbL?utm_medium=rss&utm_content=Bronx

Decreasing the risk of suspect misidentification

A bill introduced in the Connecticut legislature would change the way eyewitnesses to crimes are shown mugshots, reducing the risk of misidentification. 

Currently, when an eyewitness is shown a series of potential suspects, either live during a line-up, or in photos, it is done simultaneously. A recent study shows that suspects should be shown sequentially, one at a time, which results in an opinion based on the eyewitness’ memory.  The results showed that using sequential identification as opposed to simultaneous identification reduces the chance of a witness identifying an innocent person with little or no reduction in accurate identifications.

State Sen. Eric D. Coleman, D-Bloomfied, co-chairman of the legislature’s Judiciary Committee and an Eyewitness Task Force member, noted: “Just this week, a man was released from Connecticut prison after serving five years for a rape he did not commit.”  Hubert Thompson of Hartford served five years in prison for rape and was released Friday by a judge after being exonerated by newly presented DNA evidence.

SOURCE: http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2012/03/17/news/doc4f63d4b9ceadb590562607.txt

For more, go to the Innocence Project: http://www.innocenceproject.org/understand/Eyewitness-Misidentification.php

Welcome, readers

Welcome, False Rape Society readers, and everyone else.

It's a new day in the Community of the Wrongly Accused. This blog is dedicated to giving voice to persons wrongly accused of serious criminality.  We humbly hope one day to become a serious force for changing the culture of apathy when it comes to the problems of persons wrongly accused of serious criminality. The causes of their insjustices are many and cut across all ideologies. There's no time for ranting, venting, or engaging in "ideological squabbling."  There are too many serious injustices to write about.

A couple of housekeeping matters:

The original bloggers from False Rape Society will gradually transport the historical archive of actual injustices they've chronicled to this site -- meaning the news accounts of wrongful accusations will be included on this site, showing the date originally posted on False Rape Society.  FRS sometimes veered into ideological territory, and those posts will remain at FRS.

In addition, we now have four bloggers and could always use more. If you think you can contribute something worthwhile to this site, write to us at cotwa@rocketmail.com

Boys are recipients of corporal punishment 80% of the time, and new study raises serious concerns about effects of spanking

Poor children, minorities and children with disabilities are subjected to corporal punishment in school at grossly disproportionate rates. http://www.stophitting.com/index.php?page=tenthings A small measure of attention is finally being paid to the injustices behind these disparities.

An overarching disparity is one based on gender.Boys are the recipients of corporal punishment at rates more than four times that of girls.  In a projection for 2006, the Department of Education Civil Rights Data Collection (http://ocrdata.ed.gov/) estimated that boys were the recipients of corporal punishment over 80 percent of the time.  See here: http://ocrdata.ed.gov/downloads/projections/2006/2006-nation-projection.xls That's not to mention suspensions and expulsions.

A new study about corporal punishment shows that it isn't just the gender, race, ethnic, and socio-economic disparities of corporal punishment that are troubling, it's the effect of corporal punishment on the recipient, especially boys. It seems that when corporal punishment is used on boys societally deemed "most deserving" of it, it has exactly the opposite effect as the one intended.

Marines Share Views on 'War on Sexual Assault'

Active Duty Marines offer a different opinion on sexual assault in the military to Business Insider writer Eloise Lee.  In the article, the Marines explain how they are afraid of female Marines pulling the "rape card," that mandatory sexual assault briefings teach service members that if alcohol is involved, consensual sex is impossible, and how they feel accused men and women are subject to a "guilty until proven innocent" prejudice in the Marine Corps.

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-03-12/news/31146664_1_military-cases-sexual-assault-military-justice-system#comments

Just wait until the Marine Corps follows the Army's lead.  Back in 2009, the United States Army institute their plan to combat sexual assault in the military by creating 15 Special Victim Prosecutor ("SVP") positions, which has since been increased to 33 SVP's.  The SVP's are senior Captain and Major Army Judge Advocates whose sole mission is to prosecute sexual offenses.  They also hired 5 highly qualified experts to observe and advise the SVP's during a court-martial.  Meanwhile, Trial Defense Service has appointed zero defense counsel who are equivalent to SVP's to defend Soldiers.

http://www.army.mil/article/16130/army-striving-to--decrease-sexual-assault-increase-reporting/

One would believe that such a move would increase conviction rates by decreasing the number of questionable cases.  Read how an attorney at The Judge Advocate General's office spun the low conviction rate of courts-martial two years after implementing the program:

"I don't think it's an accurate way to measure the success of our program," said Janet Mansfield, an attorney with the Army's Office of the Judge Advocate General.  Asked how the Army was determining whether it's working, she responded that it was "hard to define." 

"We want to see that due process exists," she said. "We want to see that victims are happy with the experience of the court-martial, if not the outcome."

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/11/28/131523/militarys-newly-aggressive-rape.html#storylink=cpy

Notice how Ms. Mansfield connects the Constitutional right to due process to the alleged victims, and not the Servicemember accused.

Cornell Daily Sun Recognizes that Making it Easier to Punish the Accused for Sexual Assault Increases the Risk of Punishing the Innocent

The Cornell Daily Sun has written a thoughtful editorial discussing an uptick in sexual assault reporting on campus, and the fact that the school's Office of the Judicial Administrator has lowered the standard of proof in cases involving alleged sexual misconduct from "beyond a reasonable doubt" to "preponderance of the evidence." This revised policy is in response to the Department of Education's April 4, 2011 "Dear Colleague" letter.

The editorial correctly notes that lowering the standard of proof "has . . . made it easier for victims to win cases in the campus judicial process . . . ." That, in itself, is a benefit that should not be trivialized.

Contaminated DNA sends teen to jail for a rape he didn't commit

A woman was raped in Manchester, a city Adam Scott, 19, had never even visited, but Mr. Scott was arrested and charged with the rape and thereafter spent three months in jail. Why? Because LGC Forensics in Teddington, South West London, which does scientific testing for Greater Manchester Police,  allowed Mr. Scott's DNA sample (which police had on file from an unrelated matter) to come in contact with a swab collected from the rape scene.  The contaminated DNA made it look for certain that Mr. Scott was the rapist.

Lose-lose: Court refuses to quash conviction of woman who falsely retracted rape accusation

In the UK, the court of appeals has refused to quash a criminal conviction of a woman who was jailed for falsely retracting an accusation of rape against her allegedly violent and abusive husband.

The court found no basis to conclude her retraction was made under duress, as that term is defined based on hundreds of years of common law. "We can see no basis for concluding that the appellant felt exposed to violence or the threat of violence when she made the false retractions on which her prosecution was founded. The defence of duress was not realistically available . . . ."

The decision sends all the wrong messages.

No one disagrees that rape is an underreported crime.  Untold numbers of women simply don't report their abuse, and, of course, are not punished for it. The court's decision today tells women who've been raped that if they do report, they'd better be prepared to see it through, creating yet another reason to hesitate about reporting.

By the same token, sometimes, a recantation is just.  Retracting a false rape allegation is often difficult and painful, as Biurny Peguero Gonzalez can attest. She was the woman who recanted at the urging of her priest, thereby freeing an innocent man from a lengthy, and apparently brutal, prison sentence. See, e.g., here. Today's decision tells women who should recant that they'd damn well better be believed, or else they will be criminally charged on that basis, and the innocent man may obtain no relief. Thus, we fear the decision creates unnecessary hurdles that may discourage recantations intended to save innocent men.

Although the court's decision might be technically correct, it doesn't advance the ends of justice. Women should be permitted to freely recant their rape claims. Even if the court doesn't accept a recantation due to evidence of duress, it is imprudent and unjust to punish women for recanting.

It is sometimes unjust to defend the presumptively innocent

Information has surfaced that two deceased luminaries of the Catholic Church, Mother Teresa, a candidate for sainthood, and widely respected scholar Father John Hardon, a candidate for beatification (a first step toward sainthood), publicly defended a priest named Donald McGuire, whose case, according to the Catholic paper Our Sunday Visitor, "is among the most appalling in the annals of clerical abuse."

The legal infirmities in punishing 'sexual coercion'

More and more colleges are punishing men for engaging in a form of consensual sexual behavior obtained by supposed emotional or verbal “pressuring.” They call it “sexual coercion,” and it sanctions men not for forcing themselves on, or physically threatening, women, but for doing nothing more than nagging for sex. Men are being punished for doing precisely what, for decades, society has been telling them they’re supposed to do — ask for sex.

Sexual coercion is an amorphous blob of a concept that is defined in myriad ways. No rational person questions policies that punish sex procured by physical threats. That’s not what is at issue here. The policies at issue punish students for sex procured after “unreasonable” verbal or emotional pressuring.

The school can invalidate a woman's manifested assent by later deciding that the man’s conduct in obtaining it was too boorish, too overbearing, or too insensitive. Most importantly, for the first time, men are being held responsible for sexual misconduct even though their “victims” have reasonable alternatives to engaging in the sex act but choose not to exercise them.

NCHERM, the organization that advises colleges across America on their sexual misconduct policies, has a model sexual misconduct policy, found here, that has been adopted in whole or in part by colleges across America. On page 9 is found an example of  sexual coercion:

Woman charged with falsely reporting kidnap, rape

The drawings above do not depict real men. They were apparently concocted out of whole cloth by a woman police now say lied about being kidnapped and raped.

On February 16, 2012, Jennifer Marie Shipley, 32, of Marietta, Georgia, claimed she had been kidnapped and raped over the course of two days in January 2012.  The police asked for the public’s help identifying two men wanted in the attack. These artist sketches appeared in the news report.

According to the news report:  "Police said the attack began on Jan. 17, when the woman was walking along Windy Hill Road near South Cobb drive in Smyrna. About 8 p.m. that night, she was forced at gunpoint into a 1990s gold Chevrolet Caprice and taken to an unknown location, where she was beaten and sexually assaulted, according to police."  Shipley claimed she wasn't released for two days.

One of the suspects was described as a black male with dreadlocks in his early 20s, 6 feet 2 and 140 pounds. The other suspect was described as a Latino male in his early 20s with short, black, spiked hair, 5 feet 2 and 150 pounds.  Ms. Shipley is white.

Now police say the kidnapping and the rape never happened. Ms. Shipley has been arrested and charged with making the incident up. Police did not give a motive for Shipley's actions.  Police say they have obtained evidence that led to Shipley’s arrest but did not provide details on the evidence. She was charged with one count of making a false statement.

Links: http://mdjonline.com/view/full_story/17547218/article-Police-release-sketches-of-2-rape-suspects?instance=secondary_story_left_column andhttp://www.ajc.com/news/cobb/cops-cobb-woman-charged-1361732.html

The community of the wrongly accused

This blog is dedicated to giving voice to persons wrongly accused of serious criminality. The most serious wrongful accusations typically involve murder and related offenses, but fortunately, these appear to be rare. The Innocence Project addresses the principal causes of wrongful convictions for such crimes.

More common are wrongful accusations of heinous sex crimes. Because of their prevalence, and the stigma that attaches to victims from them, by any measure these are fundamental social evils.

For various reasons, rape and sexual assault have become politicized in the past several decades. As a result, despite the grievous harm often suffered by the wrongly accused, the unique needs of the victims of such wrongful accusations are rarely acknowledged, much less addressed.

Persons wrongly accused of serious criminality typically suffer the deprivation of liberty and unjust and often severe reputational harm. Presumptively innocent men and boys accused of rape are often jailed for inordinate periods of time, and sometimes in harsh and unconscionable conditions. They often lose their wives and girlfriends, social acquaintances, businesses, jobs, not to mention their financial savings defending the claim. Some are beaten, chased, spat upon, and some are even killed. Some kill themselves. The emotional toll is incalculable.

Compounding the problem is that false accusers are often excused with little or no punishment, inviting others to falsely accuse with impunity and without deterrent.

The victims most acutely affected by this phenomenon appear to be young minority males, but the problem also affects white males and even some women.  For every person wrongly accused, there are typically some, and sometimes many, loved ones affected.

This is their blog--a safe haven where the wrongly accused and their loved ones can be assured that they are not alone, and that in some small way, their needs are being publicly aired.