Sentenced to 30 years with no evidence, only testimony. Has this always been the case?

I guess there are apps, for specialty uses, but if I correctly infer that you think this will become a widespread & common practice-- I don't foresee that. How many times have you been getting intimate with a woman, and thought to yourself, "I hope she won't accuse me of rape?" That would seem, to me, to be a bit of a turn off. Also, of course, if one is operating under the assumption that a woman is going to lie about such a serious thing, you wouldn't necessarily have to even do anything with her (unless she wanted to get your "DNA evidence," to improve her case). But again, who does that, with this in mind, from the start? That seems like the move of a psycho, which might be ascertained by the police investigators, or the jurors, if it got that far.

But what I'm saying is that, if this app you speak of, remains a fringe type item, which I believe it would, then for a guy to either start off a date with this request, or to later on, stop things, to videotape a legal consent, is going to be risking putting off his female companion, and losing that opportunity. I mean, it is extremely rare, for a man to accuse a woman of rape. So you would basically be telling your intended coital partner, that you don't trust her not to accuse you, afterwards, of raping her. You don't think that women might see that as a red flag? That it might send a pretty creepy vibe? At the very least, it seems to be giving your date advance notice, that you will not be calling her, afterwards. If you were an NBA star, you would probably not have much trouble, getting this consent. But I just don't see many guys jeopardizing every sexual encounter, due to the fear of something that the odds are extremely against, ever happening.

Just my opinion.

 

With the way current consent laws have been written in many progressive areas, even if the man had a signed statement from the woman made in the presence of witnesses, expressing consent to sex, she could still accuse him of rape afterwards.
The feminist crowd believes a woman can always change her mind at any moment, and that she should be believed without evidence.
I have posted numerous stories in this forum about men were convicted of rape, even though there was no doubt the woman begun having consensual sex with that man, or went into the bedroom with the intention of having sex.

You are correct that it would be extremely unlikely for a woman to go into a situation with the intent of having sex already planning to accuse that man of rape. Usually what happens in those sorts of situations is something happens during sex, or immediately afterwards, which the woman is not happy with. She can feel "raped" or "sexually violated", and then accuse the man of rape even if he did not actually rape her.
Two examples from other stories are (#1) the man had a certain type of sex with her, she reluctantly accepted even though she was not keen on it, and it was very painful for her. Then afterwards felt violated and coerced and believed the man had been in the wrong. Or (#2) the man disappeared after the sex was over and did not call her back, and so she felt she had been sexually used and taken advantage of, since she was expecting a relationship, but he had just used for a night of sex and wasn't actually interested in seeing her again. So she lied and accused him of rape.

 

in my time it was not a problem for couples, but if I was young today, I would use an app - I think it will catch on, especially for those more well off, that have lots of options

in the future, it could be built right into the dating apps *especially if it becomes assumed it's rape with no consent in the app (all it takes is a few rape accusers saying they never consented in the app, and the person being charged)

I mean, when I was young, who would have thought people would use an app for dating.... or even cell phones for that matter

 

The thing is, even if a woman gives her consent, she does have the right to change her mind, at any point. And if she says "stop"-- guess what? Any previous agreement becomes void, from that point on. So I really don't see how much of a benefit this app would be, as all it would certify was that the sexual encounter began as something mutually desired. But unless you're going to film the entire act-- which, of course, you could always ask your dates to consent to, in the present time, without needing wait for some future app-- I don't see what having this agreement gets you. I think that in date rape situations, women often acknowledge that they were initially receptive. That does not equate to a free pass for the guy, to do whatever he wants-- no takesy backsies.

Hopefully some women read this thread and share their perspectives; but I am sticking by my contention that asking a woman, just as things are getting hot & heavy, to videotape her consent, is only going to kill the mood.

 

What you seem to be ignoring is burden of evidence.
Yes, we agree the woman theoretically should have the right to change her mind. But the truth is, no one (no one else) knows exactly what went on behind those closed doors.
It's one thing if we (as a society) have decided we are willing to put a man in prison because a woman says he raped her.
It's another DIFFERENT thing if you decide that a man should be put in prison when the woman says she was raped, although we have evidence that the woman wanted sex and went into the bedroom with him.

Do you still want to put the man in prison even if there were people who saw both alleged victim and perpetrator happily walk into the bedroom together, were nearby the room and heard no screams?

 

she does, but then at least there is the fact that she consented, she would then need to prove she changed her mind, which would be harder to do

consenting on a app, means your ready to have sex, you don't consent hours earlier

 

I, personally, do not want to put anyone in prison: that is what police and prosecutors and juries and judges, are for. To determine the truth, as best as all those can, looking at all the evidence, in any specific case. How, then, am I "overlooking the burden of evidence?"

 

You are ignoring the key central issue: How is "truth" determined?
I realize of course every case is unique, and to some degree has to be decided on a case by case basis, but that does not mean there are not some ways of categorizing the type of evidence and considering these types of cases in general.
If there has been a problem with numerous cases in the past, and we refuse to consider what the problem is, because we insist each case is entirely unique, then we are doing a disservice and ignoring a particular problem that is leading to injustice.

Apparently you do not believe society or politicians should have any input into whether women should be believed in rape trials, in what sort of surrounding circumstances they should be believed, and instead believe that issue should be entirely left up to the judge and jury every time?

There are general rules that I think society can debate, and that society should debate.
Saying it's all just going to be decided by a case-by-case basis is just being lazy.

 

You seem to have ignored the key issue of what I said.
The issue is not about what theoretically happened (which we will never be able to know for sure), but how the evidence should be used.

Since all we have is her claim that she was raped, should we automatically believe her and put the man in prison for a long time? Even if we have proof she was intending to have sex with that man that night.

The issue is NOT about whether she has the right to change her mind. (She does)
The question is does she have the right to be believed, if she changed her mind, when the only evidence that the assault happened is her testimony, but solid evidence does exist that she went into that situation intending to have sex.

 

if someone came forward and said they were raped, and they gave consent on a video moments before sex, I would have a hard time believing they were raped, sure most jurors would be that way - it's more credibility for the accused in that case

"You seem to have ignored the key issue of what I said."

*** I thought it was DEFinning I replied too, not you?

 

Again, you offer no evidence that there are women who "consented to sex," who later claim that they did not. My belief is that there is almost always one of these two other explanations:

1) A woman decides to have sex, but then changes her mind. I have no reason to believe that, in such cases, the rape victim does not portray the situation exactly as I have just stated. Your comment about it then being "harder" to prove this, makes no sense. The only logical way to interpret those words is that you are claiming that women who did actually consent to sex, when they file a complaint, and later go to court, claim otherwise; that is, that they lie to police and perjure themselves, in court. Does such a derogatory assessment, not seem to you that it should require some factually citable basis? This brings me to the other, main real explanation:

2) The man thinks that he is getting non verbal signs from the woman, of her consent, but in fact he has misread these. But one need not inject any personal electronics into the situation, to fix this. If your prospective app customer, when he believes he is getting the "go" sign, merely says something, to get the woman's unambiguous verbal confirmation of his feeling, no app is necessary. I think there is a negligible chance that, if he tells the woman that he wants to make love to her, and waits for her to answer that she would like that, as well, he will later face her in court, denying that she consented. But it still doesn't give him the green light to ignore anything she says, after that point.

 

"Again, you offer no evidence that there are women who "consented to sex," who later claim that they did not. "

good, we agree, if there is a video of a woman consenting to sex moments before sex, that favors the accused, as I am saying the same thing

 

And yet men have been convicted in similar situations to that. Like the Mike Tyson case.

related thread providing some details of that story: Judge deciding what is "relevant", excluding evidence from trial

Or in more modern times with crazy "affirmative consent" laws, where we totally have evidence the woman was going to have sex with the man, and the woman admits either to consensually beginning to have sex with the man, or getting naked with him in bed, but claims something happened during the sexual encounter that she did not consent to, and thus she was "raped".
Several men have been convicted in those situations.

So if you view this as a problem, a law should be passed to specifically address this, to specifically instruct judges what the burden of evidence should be in these sort of situations, so that it will not happen.

 

he had a video of her consent moments before he had sex and was convicted?

 

As I previously explained, what usually happens is the woman changes her mind about having sex after it is over.

She feels violated, after it is over. She is angry and wants the man to be punished.

This could be because she was unhappy with the sexual encounter, even though she did not say no (or sometimes not clearly express no) before or while it was happening. Or it could be because she would have never approved of the sex if she knew something that she did not find out until after it was over.

In both cases she can feel "raped", even though rape did not actually happen. So it's not psychologically difficult for her to accuse the man of rape and lie.

Sometimes a woman might also accuse a man whom they are in a long-term sexual relationship with. That is a third category.
This could be due to her being angry because he is cheating on her, or her wanting him out of the way to take his house and money because she has a new boyfriend.

 

In that case there were three witnesses who said the woman was acting in a way towards him that very clearly seemed to imply sexual consent, shortly before the alleged sexual assault.

It's not exactly the same but is very similar to your hypothetical of a video of the woman giving consent.

 

The problem of NBA players getting accused of sexual assault by women (usually black women) who slept with them and then wanted to get lots of money was so common that - beginning in the late 90s - it became standard practice for NBA players to get women to sign a consent form (in the presence of a witness) before they will sleep with them.

A lot of these women even try to get pregnant so they will be able to collect child support payments, which helps give some additional background to the sort of situation these NBA players are in.

 

Some of the public seems naive enough to think that proof is needed for a conviction in a criminal trial. That's often not the case.

"Proof" is just very solid evidence that is so strong it's extremely unlikely the conclusion is wrong.
Usually it would be considered "proof" when there is a primary single piece of evidence that is extremely strong and overall there is at least a 98.5% probability that the implication it has is correct.

But in many criminal cases, lower probabilities are accepted than that. And oftentimes it can be difficult to try to determine exactly what the probability is numerically. Real world facts are just too complex to easily turn into numbers.

 

Testimony is obviously a form of evidence. "Evidence" in trials is usually either witnesses, or physical evidence. (Remember that "evidence" does not always mean it is reliable evidence or that it should be enough to convict someone)

I think what sets off alarm bells and makes you have a gut instinct that something in this was wrong is that there did not exist two witnesses for the same crime.
Rather what we have is two separate witnesses for two separate alleged crimes.

If a man was being accused of rape and both the woman who claims to have been raped, and another separate woman who says she saw it happen, are the witnesses, then there would be very little dispute. The man should be convicted of rape. (Absent any other compelling evidence, of course)

But when the witnesses are not saying they witnessed the same crime, that gets into a much more questionable situation.

And of course there's a big problem when the court system has been set up to give both those witnesses a huge amount of money if their testimony is to be believed.

(I would be far more likely to believe a woman who claims she was raped if she never tries to sue the man for money and had nothing to gain from having him sent to prison. Unfortunately a lot of accusers wait until after a man is convicted in a criminal trial to sue him for money, so the jury usually does not know that she is going to sue him and try to get money)

 

That reply must sound different in your head, than it does to anyone reading it. Maybe after CCitizen's next reply, he will have learned enough for me to ask him to give you a hand.

You seem to be suggesting that women do this, and the only reason I don't know it, is that there is no video evidence. This seems highly dubious. A minimum basis to make such a claim would be first showing that it is fairly common for rape victims to say that they never consented-- you understand, I hope, that it is a given, in the case of the accused rapist being a person who is not known to the victim, that I'm going to believe the woman, that she didn't consent? So that leaves only date rapes.

Again, I think my previous #2 will explain most of the cases, that the woman did not actually say she was willing to have sex, but this interpretation was drawn by the man, from other "evidence," like that she seemed to be enjoying herself as they were kissing, or that she was dressed provocatively, she'd come into his apartment, maybe even into the bedroom, and had rubbed up against his groin, on the dance floor, etc. It just does not seem credible to me, that we have an epidemic of men getting clear verbal permission to have sex, from women who then deny this, in court. If she had actually consented, then I'm sure in nearly all cases, the woman will admit this but maintain that she later on, told the man to stop, yet he'd ignored her, and continued anyway. I mean, this is just a common understanding of what it feels like for a man to be aroused. When that testosterone is pumping, you don't want to stop.

But there is no such obvious motivation I can fathom, on the other side, for women to risk fabricating a rape charge, other than for a small number, on occasions when they had believed they had a relationship with the man, and it turned out afterwards, that he'd only wanted to have sex with her. In these cases, I am sympathetic to the man, and do not make any apologies for the woman's actions. But why should I believe that this is common? Your perspective seems to be that if I haven't seen evidence of this, I should assume that it is only because women are not compelled to allow their sexual encounters to be filmed. Rather, I feel it incumbent on you to offer at least something to suggest that this is occurring more than just in a few random cases.

When it does, as I earlier argued, I think the police, prosecutor, or jury, if it gets that far, figure out that something is not right with the story. That is what happened with some college girl, in a case that was highly publicized, a while back, but which I still recall. Yes, the school jumped the gun, I think, and immediately expelled the young men. But criminal investigations and court cases take time, and proceed in a very deliberate manner, which usually I think will expose the faker. These college boys were never tried-- the case was dropped.

I did have my suspicions that Mike Tyson got a bum rap. But rather than expecting every woman to welcome a video recorder into her sex life, the guy who is concerned about this could always just try to not treat women they have sex with, like dirt; or, they could be very upfront, at the start, that all they want is to have some good sex, with no strings attached. They could also make an effort to see that their partner was having her needs met, as well as was he. Again, though, I'm not saying that just because a guy chooses to mislead women, or is a selfish or lousy lover, that he deserves to be accused and prosecuted and convicted of rape. I'm just offering some common sense recommendations to the person who feels this is a likely possibility of occurring, in their particular case.

 

I know what you'd said, and I don't deny that, on occasion, this happens. I think, though, that at some point in the long process from police investigation to preparation with the state's attorney, to eventual trial, to verdict, most of these cases crap out. Either the woman decides to drop it, or the police investigation leaves a lot of questions, or the prosecutor decides that there is insufficient evidence, or that she is a lousy (read: dishonest) witness, or the jury doesn't buy her story. I'm not saying that it never happens, that this type of malicious prosecution leads to a conviction of an innocent man, but I think this must be rare, and unfortunately, our justice system will never be perfect. If you have a suggestion to improve it, I'm all ears. However, I won't think it reasonable, if you say that women should be required to allow all their lovemaking sessions to be videotaped.

More often, I am confident, cases of date rape unfold as a woman who does a certain amount of foreplay, then decides to draw the line, but the guy will have none of that. He will feel that if she had "teased" him, then she had no right to pull the plug, after getting him all heated up. That is, among the men who are not too much in their own heads to even be cognizant of a woman wanting them to stop.

Sorry, Kaz, you are uninformed, if you don't realize that some men are just creeps, who will force themselves on women, given the opportunity. We are, overall, the bigger & stronger sex. So we are the ones who more often use our physical dominance to exploit the more vulnerable sex. It is ridiculous, to believe otherwise: that males are all perfect gentlemen, never pushing our physical advantage, to get what we want.

I am sure that most women have felt disappointed by some sexual encounter, yet it does not normally lead them to accuse anyone of rape. Doing something like that, would be "psychologically difficult," for anyone who was:
1) an adult; 2) not a sociopath.

If she is unhappy enough about something, to call it rape, in most cases it is because that is what it was: the man was doing something she'd found very unpleasant (e.g., anal penetration) which she'd told him to stop doing, but he'd continued anyway.

Proof of this theory? When this happens, with a long term lover, it could be due to the man feeling that he was entitled to sex, whenever he wanted it, even when the woman told him, she did not then want to have sex. In fact, didn't you one time have a thread, postulating that women owed their husbands sex, whether or not they were in the mood?

 

These cases gain too much momentum. I think probably sometimes the woman would prefer to drop it, but at that point it's too late. There's no way to drop it without admitting she lied and risking punishment herself.

I think you are being naive in just hoping the system will somehow sort itself out. Even if, let's say, 90% of these cases did "crap out", that remaining 10% would still represent a lot of cases.

Remember, in many of these cases the woman does feel legitimately aggrieved and sexually violated. So it's not hard for her to testify on the witness stand and send the man to prison. Sometimes all those tears, which convince everyone else in the courtroom, could actually be due to her inner guilt about what she knows she is doing, the fear she has for herself, wanting to back out but knowing it is too late, and of course combined with the shame of having to talk about herself as a sexual victim, especially when certain key parts of her story about how she was allegedly violated may be true.

What's the implication you are trying to make with that statement? That some men should be thrown under the bus for the sake of giving justice to other women who were legitimately wronged?
Make a clear logical argument please.

 

You can read this story: Take a look what a false rape accusation can be do

Or this one: Wife makes man's life hell by falsely accusing him of domestic violence (He wasn't accused of rape, but still similar sort of situation)

 

You are having unrealistic expectations on guys.
So apparently you feel if a guy does anything less than honorable concerning having casual sex with women, you believe they should not be entitled to any benefit of the doubt if a woman decides to accuse him?
Guys will mislead women all the time to get in bed with them.
Many of these guys may deceive women to get them in bed and take out their sexual urges, but that does not mean they would ever resort to something like rape.

I think a similar situation may have been true for Harvey Weinstein. The evidence seems to point towards Weinstein pushing young actresses into having sex with him, knowing they were too afraid of losing their acting roles to say no. While that is awful sexual misconduct and reprehensible, it does fall far short of actual rape.
It is possible some of the women (the initial first two or three women who began the accusations) may have lied and falsely accused him of rape because they knew there was no other legal way to punish him for what he did to them. (After they found out years later they were not the only ones and he had done it to many other women)

 

And what is your basis, for even making a ballpark estimate, of how many cases we are really talking about? As I'd said, I feel this extreme reaction must be fairly rare. And, in most cases, the pretense is discovered before trial. What is even the conviction rate, in rape trials?

<Google Snip>

If there is a prosecution, there is a 58% chance of conviction. If there is a felony conviction, there is a 69% chance the convict will spend time in jail. So even in the 39% of attacks that are reported to police, there is only a 16.3% chance the rapist will end up in prison.
https://cmsac.org › facts-and-statist...
Facts and Statistics - Central MN Sexual Assault Center
<End Snip>

So, it looks to me, that even in genuine rapes-- which no doubt, represent the vast, vast majority of accusations-- the rapist often walks, due to "reasonable doubt." Therefore your scenario, of juries convicting men, based on merely some tears from the accuser, is clearly out of synch with the reality: