• DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    largely decided by the relative quality of the lawyers involved.

    I am not convinced that is true but let’s say it is. How much worse would that be, if lawyers were not involved? At least the difference between how convincing an expensive and cheap lawyers are is not really that big. Being convincing is a job requirement. Remove them and you decide guilt in these cases entirely based on how sympathetic and outspoken the accuser and accused are.

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      2 days ago

      You clearly have no idea how harrowing a rape trial is for the victim, how few convictions there are proportionately and how underreported realise crimes are because of how awful and unsuccessful bringing a case to trial is for victims, or you wouldn’t be claiming that bringing that into the principal’s office of your local K12 school and your local college is somehow a good thing.

      • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 day ago

        how few convictions there are proportionately

        For every 100 reported to police, about 13 get sent to a prosecutor (the rest being dropped due to lack of evidence, strong contradictory evidence, inability to identify a culprit, that sort of thing) about 10 of which result in a charge and 7 in a conviction, prosecution and conviction rates not radically out of line with other crimes. Prosecutors only try cases they think have a good chance of being successful (meaning they don’t think the evidence is good enough in about a quarter of cases sent to them), and the standard for criminal trials is beyond a reasonable doubt. That 13 is a bit lower than other crimes, but not radically so. Most stats you see implying it’s much worse (like an order of magnitude worse) are essentially using a fudge factor for unreported rapes as though the criminal justice system can even hypothetically do anything about an unreported rape.

        Considering that the standard for a criminal trial is “beyond a reasonable doubt” while the standard for a Title IX hearing is at strictest “clear and convincing” and is often “a preponderance of the evidence” (aka slightly more likely than not), the rate of being found liable in a Title IX hearing is much higher, though not as high as it was when some schools used training said that women never lie but men will say whatever they have to to get their way, the accused didn’t need to be told exactly what they were being accused of or what evidence they needed a defense for and an accuser’s testimony could not be questioned.

        EDIT: Just to point out how ridiculous accounting for “unreported” rapes is, if every time a rape was reported to law enforcement the accused was summarily executed without any process of any kind, just accusation->death, the “conviction rate” would still be at most ten percent.

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          1 day ago

          Me: reporting, prosecution and conviction rates are disastrously low.

          You: that’s because they don’t come forward much, cases aren’t taken to court and men are found not guilty, therefore none of those men are guilty.

          You need a higher standard of proof to put someone in jail, but this is just chucking them out of the same institution as their rape victim, and kids get chucked out of school for just punching someone, without lawyers being involved. Just move the guy on. That’s all.

          Your accusation->death line is hyperbole.

          • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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            23 hours ago

            You need a higher standard of proof to put someone in jail, but this is just chucking them out of the same institution as their rape victim, and kids get chucked out of school for just punching someone, without lawyers being involved. Just move the guy on. That’s all.

            So, you want to end someone’s college career on someone else’s word alone, unless they can provide absolute proof that person is lying (and if we’re following Obama/Biden era rules they aren’t required to be told what they’re trying to prove beforehand) they should be expelled from college in a way that will make it much harder to get admitted to another one, right?

            Sounds fair /s

            I’d note that the Devos guidelines Trump brought back call for things to be done to make it easier for the alleged victim prior to any finding, so long as those actions aren’t punitive - examples given back in 2018 were things like changing housing arrangements or switching classes for one or both as necessary to separate them. The key point being not punishing the accused before any finding and establishing a process that is as fair as could be managed for making that finding.

            Your accusation->death line is hyperbole.

            It is hyperbole, but it’s hyperbole to demonstrate a point - when you talk about how abysmally low conviction rates are, even if we went as far in the other direction as possible and simply executed everyone accused on the spot, you’d still be able to complain that the conviction rate was painfully low at ten percent because the bullshit about including “unreported cases” in a way we don’t treat any other crime makes a ten percent conviction rate the highest it can hypothetically be, when it’s really not radically different than any other crime if measured by the same metrics.

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              23 hours ago

              Dude, unreported crime rates exist for other categories than rape and sexual assult, but it’s particularly high for crimes where victims believe that they are very unlikely to get a conviction and are very likely to have a terrible time in court and death threats afterwards, like sexual assault, rape, and organised crime syndicates.

              It’s not jail, it’s school exclusion. It happens all the time over far less serious behaviour than rape. Don’t bring that expensive lawyer justice-evasion victim-blaming victim-shaming shit into schools.

              Don’t keep failing to join the dots on the rapist changing the rules to benefit fellow rapists.

              • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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                3 hours ago

                unreported crime rates exist for other categories than rape and sexual assult

                …but no one tries to use them when calculating conviction rates, because they’re vague estimates rather than any kind of hard number and everyone properly understands in every other case that law enforcement can’t even hypothetically do anything about an unreported crime.

                It’s not jail, it’s school exclusion. It happens all the time over far less serious behaviour than rape.

                Are you college aged or older? Do you have student loans? Now, imagine you have all those student loans, but you have no degree and a dramatically harder time moving to another school (for which you’d have to take out further student loans if you manage to get in) because the previous school says why you were expelled when asked.

                If it were just “go to another school” with that being the full extent of the consequences, that would be one thing but it’s really not.

                Also, under the Devos rules supporting actions can be taken to make things easier for the accuser in response to the accusation alone (before any hearing, finding or even investigation), but those actions cannot be unreasonable, punitive or deny access to education (for example changing class schedules for one or both, changing housing assignments, or other things to prevent contact between them).

                victim-blaming victim-shaming shit

                So, no one can question or challenge any part of an accusation in any way? Or do you have some (likely media fueled) image in your mind that the guidelines allow for the accused or his lawyer to grill the accuser, shouting irrelevant questions at her until she breaks down and submits? Because what the Devos guidelines actually call for for cross-examination is that all questions have to be submitted to the judge-analog (typically Title IX coordinator, but can be delegated) who is supposed to decide if the question is relevant or not to the accusation and the question can only be asked if it’s approved. If she’s a slutty slut slut is unlikely to be considered relevant, as is what she was wearing unless an article of clothing is somehow central to the evidence.

                Question: In your ideal world, what would the process look like? Start from when it’s reported (unless you don’t think it should need to be reported, in which I want to know how the school is supposed to know) and go all the way through to a finding and punishment.

      • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        You say that as if I want to do it for shits and giggles.

        Yes, I would love for that to be unnecessary. For people to just look at a person and be able to accurately tell if they are guilty or not. That is not the world we live in.

        So in absence of that, I want something to prevent innocent people being punished (to a reasonable degree). Nothing better than a (watered down) trial was invented as far as I know.

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          1 day ago

          It’s just a school expulsion, not prison, and it’s well documented that women don’t go to trial because they know it will be them and their lives on trial, not the rapist, who will very very likely get off. Bringing all that into K12 is just bringing a set of scales that are tipped heavily in the rapist’s favor and a horrific experience for the victim into a school expulsion.

          Trump knows the effect this will have, and I expect you do too, but you’re pretending not to. Admittedly Trump is clearly and publicly well practiced at using expensive lawyers to silence women who have been raped and sexually assaulted by him, and I can’t say the same about you, but use your brain and stop defending the Rapist in Chief for watering down consequences for rapists in education.

          • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
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            22 hours ago

            Ah yes, the catastrophic effect having a person ask questions before they expel someone will have.

            You know what, since you clearly don’t care about expelling innocent people and there are many unreported rapist despite no lawyers being involved, let’s just expel everyone. That way, we expel all the rapists. Problem solved.

            Because there are clearly no issues with expelling innocent people in your head. It’s not like the mere accusation would follow a person for the rest of their life. I am sure they will have no issue explaining to employers, that it was just an expulsion and they are innocent, that they should be given a job.

            All that surely won’t have worse consequences than a lawyer asking questions.

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              19 hours ago

              Your characterisation of attack lawyers as mildly asking questions is disingenuous. It’s always full on character-assassination of the already traumatised victim. You also seem to think that lawyers bring truth and clarity where teachers and administrators cannot, and you’re incorrect. The situation in court is currently skewed very badly indeed in favour of rapists. It doesn’t need to be so in school. You’re also dismissing the effect that rape has on girls and women as if it were nothing. You would rather 99 out of 100 guilty rapists get to further traumatise their victim at school. It’s because you don’t care two cents about rape victims, you only care about male impunity, just like your leader Trump

              • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
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                19 hours ago

                You would rather 99 out of 100 guilty rapists get to further traumatise their victim at school. It’s because you don’t care two cents about rape victims, you only care about male impunity, just like your leader Trump

                If your only argument is making up fake numbers and facts and calling me Trump supporter and rape supporter, then there is no point continuing here. I can’t disprove every irrational fear you make up about lawyers in your head.

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                  18 hours ago

                  If your only argument is…

                  Actually, I made ten points, and you ignored almost all of them, as usual.

                  1. Your characterisation of attack lawyers as mildly asking questions is disingenuous.
                  2. It’s always full on character-assassination of the already traumatised victim.
                  3. You also seem to think that lawyers bring truth and clarity where teachers and administrators cannot, and you’re incorrect.
                  4. The situation in court is currently skewed very badly indeed in favour of rapists.
                  5. It doesn’t need to be so in school.
                  6. You’re also dismissing the effect that rape has on girls and women as if it were nothing.
                  7. You would rather 99 out of 100 guilty rapists get to further traumatise their victim at school.
                  8. It’s because you don’t care two cents about rape victims,
                  9. you only care about male impunity
                  10. just like your leader Trump
                  • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
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                    18 hours ago
                    1. Never used the word mildly, yes they are uncomfortable pointed questions. I admitted that multiple times. But they are still just questions.
                    2. No it is not. You may be surprised to learn that Lawyers are also human who don’t want to traumatize the victims. Hell, even if they were evil and did not care, they won’t do it because it would make them and their client look bad and likely loose them the case.
                    3. I believe a process where both sides are represented and able to present their case will bring truth far more often than administrators running the process however they feel like.
                    4. Arguably true, but only because rape cases usually lack any supporting evidence. The only way to “unskew” it is to require less evidence, resulting in more convictions of innocent people. I argue that going too far in the direction of “require less evidence” is bad. That is what the whole argument is about.
                    5. I disagree
                    6. I do not, now who is disingenuous?
                    7. Again, trying to attack my character based on your incorrect assumptions about ehat the effects of this policy would be
                        1. Just more personal attacks
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                  18 hours ago

                  You don’t need to believe me about how harrowing rape trials are for the victims, you just need to read about it even a little bit and you would know, but you have no interest in women’s experiences, or the statistics, you just want impunity for rapists.

                  If you don’t like being called a Trump supporter, maybe don’t spend so long online criticizing people for calling out the convict and Rapist in Chief for changing the rules to make it easier for his fellow rapists in school to use their wealth to not even get chucked out of the school where their victim is retraumatized every day.

                  Every time someone mentions that Trump is a rapist himself you start claiming that they only dislike this policy because they’re biased against Trump, where in fact we’re just not very keen on rapists making the rules about whether rapists can get away with rape in schools.