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Title : So . . . Let's Talk About "Innocent Until Proven Guilty"
link : So . . . Let's Talk About "Innocent Until Proven Guilty"
So . . . Let's Talk About "Innocent Until Proven Guilty"
"What about innocent until proven guilty? Sexual harassment is the only crime in America where it's just automatically GUILTY! No trial, jury, nothing! Sometimes women just make this stuff up!"
A man I respect said this to me the other day, and I referred him to Mitt Romney's subsequent tweet pointing out the legal fact that "innocent until proven guilty" is for criminal convictions, not jobs, TV shows, or Senate seats.
This is a crucial point.
Statistically, most rapes, sexual assaults, and harassment go unreported. Or, if they are reported, they are not prosecuted. Or, if they are prosecuted, they do not end in convictions.
If it's one thing I've learned in many years of practicing law, it's that the law is a blunt instrument. Contrary to our lofty aim of a perfectly just society, prosecutorial discretion, victims' fears, and evidentiary problems like lack of physical evidence or failure to timely test that evidence often stymie prosecutions for sex crimes.
Sex crimes, by their nature, usually happen in intimate one-on-one settings where there is no evidence beyond "he said/she said." Historically, most people side with "he" when the alleged perpetrator is a powerful man.
No asset is more valued, treasured, and protected in our society than a man's livelihood and reputation--especially a powerful or wealthy man. There's a circular feedback loop where these men become powerful because they are willing and able to wield sex as a weapon and evade justice, and then continue to wield sex as a weapon and evade justice because they are powerful.
The very idea that a woman might falsely accuse a man of sexual harassment or assault and "ruin his life" is a convenient straw man to discredit the relatively few brave women and men who come forward with their experiences. There is in fact very little incentive to truthfully accuse--much less falsely accuse--someone of these crimes and subject yourself to all of the cross-accusations and scrutiny that come with reporting. It's not a $32 million ATM payday like Bill O'Reilly would have you believe.
So the boogey-man specter of the vengeful false accuser is a construct that defies reason. Does that mean it never happens? Of course not. But it's actually far more likely that a man will be wrongfully convicted of murder after a trial and verdict by a jury of his peers than he will be wrongfully accused of rape or sexual assault or even sexual harassment in any way that threatens his liberty at all.
So maybe "innocent until proven guilty" isn't a great metric anyway.
I know a woman who was raped at gunpoint by a stranger. (That guy was prosecuted and convicted). I know a woman who was raped by a casual acquaintance. (That guy bragged afterwards that he "does this all the time and gets away with it."). I know countless women who have been sexually harassed, assaulted, and pressured.
I count myself lucky that the only harassment and humiliation I ever endured was what every woman endures: gross cat-calling, uncomfortable or awkward sexual aggression and posturing in her "visible" youth, and generalized discrediting, diminishment, bullying, and dismissiveness in her "invisible" older life.
We are at a crossroads now when women are finding some safety in numbers, and that is a good thing. The law simply does not provide victims of these crimes reliable equitable recourse to be made whole. These women and men are not lying about what happened to them.
That's fake news.
The fact that Bill O'Reilly, Bill Cosby, Louis C.K., and others like them have to suffer public shaming and pay the equivalent of speeding tickets as a penalty for their crimes makes "trial by media" okay by me.
A man I respect said this to me the other day, and I referred him to Mitt Romney's subsequent tweet pointing out the legal fact that "innocent until proven guilty" is for criminal convictions, not jobs, TV shows, or Senate seats.
This is a crucial point.
Statistically, most rapes, sexual assaults, and harassment go unreported. Or, if they are reported, they are not prosecuted. Or, if they are prosecuted, they do not end in convictions.
If it's one thing I've learned in many years of practicing law, it's that the law is a blunt instrument. Contrary to our lofty aim of a perfectly just society, prosecutorial discretion, victims' fears, and evidentiary problems like lack of physical evidence or failure to timely test that evidence often stymie prosecutions for sex crimes.
Sex crimes, by their nature, usually happen in intimate one-on-one settings where there is no evidence beyond "he said/she said." Historically, most people side with "he" when the alleged perpetrator is a powerful man.
No asset is more valued, treasured, and protected in our society than a man's livelihood and reputation--especially a powerful or wealthy man. There's a circular feedback loop where these men become powerful because they are willing and able to wield sex as a weapon and evade justice, and then continue to wield sex as a weapon and evade justice because they are powerful.
The very idea that a woman might falsely accuse a man of sexual harassment or assault and "ruin his life" is a convenient straw man to discredit the relatively few brave women and men who come forward with their experiences. There is in fact very little incentive to truthfully accuse--much less falsely accuse--someone of these crimes and subject yourself to all of the cross-accusations and scrutiny that come with reporting. It's not a $32 million ATM payday like Bill O'Reilly would have you believe.
So the boogey-man specter of the vengeful false accuser is a construct that defies reason. Does that mean it never happens? Of course not. But it's actually far more likely that a man will be wrongfully convicted of murder after a trial and verdict by a jury of his peers than he will be wrongfully accused of rape or sexual assault or even sexual harassment in any way that threatens his liberty at all.
So maybe "innocent until proven guilty" isn't a great metric anyway.
I know a woman who was raped at gunpoint by a stranger. (That guy was prosecuted and convicted). I know a woman who was raped by a casual acquaintance. (That guy bragged afterwards that he "does this all the time and gets away with it."). I know countless women who have been sexually harassed, assaulted, and pressured.
I count myself lucky that the only harassment and humiliation I ever endured was what every woman endures: gross cat-calling, uncomfortable or awkward sexual aggression and posturing in her "visible" youth, and generalized discrediting, diminishment, bullying, and dismissiveness in her "invisible" older life.
We are at a crossroads now when women are finding some safety in numbers, and that is a good thing. The law simply does not provide victims of these crimes reliable equitable recourse to be made whole. These women and men are not lying about what happened to them.
That's fake news.
The fact that Bill O'Reilly, Bill Cosby, Louis C.K., and others like them have to suffer public shaming and pay the equivalent of speeding tickets as a penalty for their crimes makes "trial by media" okay by me.
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