there are too many dickheads in sydney ne?

“Only about 2% of rape accusations are false”

Not according to

http://home.earthlink.net/~jamiranda/whyLieNew.htm

“According to a nine-year study conducted by former Purdue sociologist Eugene J. Kanin, in over 40 percent of the cases reviewed, the complainants eventually admitted that no rape had occurred (Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol. 23, No. 1, 1994). Kanin also studied rape allegations in two large Midwestern universities and found that 50 percent of the allegations were recanted by the accuser.

(Kanin was once well known and lauded by the feminist movement for his groundbreaking research on male sexual aggression.)

Kanin’s findings are hardly unique. In 1985 the Air Force conducted a study of 556 rape accusations. Over one quarter of the accusers admitted, either just before they took a lie detector test of after they had failed it, that no rape occurred. A further investigation by independent reviewers found that 60 percent of the original rape allegations were false.

A Washington Post investigation of rape reports in seven Virginia and Maryland counties in 1990 and 1991 found that nearly one in four were unfounded.

Linda Fairstein, who heads the New York County District Attorney’s Sex Crimes Unit. Fairstein, the author of Sexual Violence: Our War Against Rape, says, “there are about 4,000 reports of rape each year in Manhattan. Of these, about half simply did not happen.

A 1997 Columbia Journalism Review analysis of rape statistics noted that the 2% statistic is often falsely attributed to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and has no clear and credible study to support it. The FBI’s statistic for “unfounded” rape accusations is 9%.”

Your assessment of this being extremely rare, almost irrelevant, is incorrect and dangerous. Your claim that “women don’t do that” is farcical- You have asked every woman in the world whether they have ever done that and they all said no? women are genetically incapable of it? this is meaningless- i may as well say something like “but men don’t rape.” It’s nonsense

quote: “But they should take “I didn’t say no, but it was because I was drunk and couldn’t” or just “I didn’t say no, but I never consented, either” and they don’t. This law will fix that.”

I certainly hope so, and I would never argue against that. Why is it not possible for it to do that WITHOUT opening up a new legal loophole that will hurt innocent people?

Or do you really, truly not care about innocent people so long as they are white males?

Other than the fact that women don’t do that? Only about 2% of rape accusations are false, and those are usually under vastly different circumstances. It could come up under the law but not anymore than it comes up now, which is very, very rarely.

And the situation that you’re suggesting would be laughed out of court regardless. A woman is not going to go into court and say “I said yes, but I was drunk” and expect to get a rape conviction. No prosecutor would actually take that to trial. But they should take “I didn’t say no, but it was because I was drunk and couldn’t” or just “I didn’t say no, but I never consented, either” and they don’t. This law will fix that.

Also, the way that I read that section of the law is like this: a woman is able to consent, but she didn’t. And the fact that she was drunk doesn’t negate the fact that she didn’t consent. The law does not actually say that a woman who did consent couldn’t consent because of intoxication. I imagine that this is a provision for types of men who ask a woman to sleep with them, she says no, he keeps feeding her drinks, she says no, he feeds her more drinks, she says yes. In my book, no, that is not consent. Just like saying “yes” under duress doesn’t count as consent, either.

Any law regarding criminality has the potential to be abused. And there are a hell of a lot more laws that are actually putting innocent people in jail, or people who committed a “crime” that shouldn’t actually be a crime in jail than this. To focus on this one little provision that may or may not be able to be abused, and even if it could probably never would be, is quite ridiculous with all of the other laws on the books that are specifically designed to lock up the poor and people of color. What, as soon as a law might — MIGHT but probably won’t — lock up asshole white guys who try to pester drunk women into sleeping with them, we’re concerned? Sorry, I’m not. Especially because the chances of anyone being wrongfully locked up are very slim to none.

the user Natrap (from viv.id.au/blog/?p=1126) spends quite a few paragraphs analysing the section on intoxication, which seems to be the only part of the law causing any confusion. They point out that

“Section 61HA(6) does appear to allow a jury to find that a person did not consent due to being substantially intoxicated by a drug or alcohol, even if it does not find under section 61HA (4) that the person lacked the capacity (i.e. remained able to choose) or opportunity to consent.”

This seems a little foolish to me. Why use a description like “substantially intoxicated” if that doesn’t negate “capacity to consent?” Isn’t part of the reason for this law to protect those who are unable to consent because of their situation, whether they’re asleep, unconscious, blind drunk, off their face on drugs etc?

According to natrap, a jury can find that someone who is “substantially intoxicated” still has the powers of consent, even though the law states a person can be deemed not to have consented if they are “substantially intoxicated.” So even if you consent, the law can decide that you didn’t.
So if natrap is right and it is possible for the law to decide that you did not consent even if it decides you weren’t unable to, what’s there to stop people who regret the sex they’ve had from deciding they didn’t consent even though they weren’t unable to?

This simply isn’t clear enough. If i was on a jury i’d have no idea what to do with this law.

Obviously they don’t care. Personally, I think that it’s a purposeful misreadig. As the article states, this the same group that says unconsciousness does not negate consent. Obviously rape is not their biggest concern.

And you don’t have to take my word for it. Take the law’s word for it. That’s a good, comprehensive outline with text from the actual bill highlighted, and the full text of the bill is linked to it.

She threw me as well. Unfortunately I assumed she was correct (given that she’s the president of the bar association). You’re explantion is convincing Cara, and i’d like to believe that’s what the law means, since it’s surprising such simple, logical measures haven’t been in place already. I must admit i was not aware that it was possible to argue that “they didn’t say no, (they were too drunk)” as a defence.

If you are correct, then this law is long overdue. (I hope you’ll forgive me for not simply assuming you are correct- such assumptions seem to be fraught with peril, as i already discovered.)

I can only ask why ms Katzmann is the president of the bar association if she is capable of such a misreading?

I don’t think that it automatically does, either, but it can be used as a defense. Right now the law says that in order for a rape to exist, the victim must have said “no.” In many cases, victims do not actually say “no” because they are so drunk/high that they are passed out or don’t understand what’s going on. Under current law (in the U.S. as well as Australia), these cases are often dismissed based off of both the “she was drunk (so she doesn’t remember, must have wanted it, just regretted it in the morning)” defense or the “she didn’t say no” defense.

And I will agree that the article could be written better. It is kind of confusing. And I would never call it anything other than dangerously misleading journalism, because Katzman’s statements are provably incorrect and yet they were printed without any clarification. But I also think that Hatzistergos does properly explain the law in the article, and that I have done a decent job of explaining it clearly here. That’s just my opinion.

I think what also threw me was Ms. Katzmann’s example which, when I read it against the changes being implemented, made no sense on any level. Obviously what she’s saying is incorrect, but on first reading it threw me off. She’s a nutjob.

I only wish there was greater detail on the “objective fault test” to which they refer to. It almost sounds like a checklist and quite formulaic; I truly hope it is effective in determining as accurately as possible the grounds under which consent was or was not given, and not something like “was she being flirtatious,” etc.