Welcome to Gaia! ::

Yep. I've been hearing lately (not here for the most part. It's on my myspace group. O: ) that rapists are the 'only people given the benefit of the doubt' and 'that's a blatant sexist attack against female rape victims'.

Sorry, but I believe in 'innocent until proven guilty' and the right to a fair, impartial trial. Is that so much to ask, or is it being too lenient on possible rapists?

Everyone deserves a fair trial. This doesn't necessarily mean "innocent until proven guilty", rather that you should be proven to have been either innocent or guilty. (Sorry if that's unwieldy. I can try to explain it if necessary.)

And I've said it before. True justice is never justice to the accuser or victim.

To the places it was said? Sorry, the thread got a little more than out of hand [and I didn't start it. I swear] and the mod saw no other choice than to delete it.

I can, however, link you the group, if you are insterested in that.

That's not that far-fetched. Even someone who's found not guilty of rape is still labelled, and in some instances the verdict doesn't matter.

My folks're both teachers. Years ago, the band teacher at mom's school (dude gave me my first clarinet when I was eight) had a female student accuse him of rape. Before the trial ever came around, his career was over. No district will touch a teacher with that record, regardless of the outcome. I don't even know what became of him, just that he moved away.

My biggest problem with most rape cases is that they often use the woman's sexual history as a way of trying to construe that the rape was, in fact, consensual.


I think that if they basically made it illegal to bring up the victim's sex life or her clothing choices, or other such things (which are often more to humiliate and hurt the victim so that she will withdraw the case), then "innocent until proven guilty" should be upheld.

After all, what if the rapist turned out to be someone else, but the victim had woken up to the accused trying to help her and thought that he'd done it? Or, for example, she could be blackmailed by the rapist into accusing someone else for some other reason.

ETC.

they deserve a fair trial...because they could be innocent...or it could turn out that the women really did consent and is lying..that has happened before.

It's a an unfair fact of life that rape trials are always going to be so hard to prove. It will frequently come down to a he says/she says type deal, and that should NEVER be enough to send someone to prison.
Rape is a terrible, terrible crime, but getting rid of a trial, or even changing the standards isn't the solution. Something terrible happening doesn't give the victim or anyone else the right to be careless, and do something terrible to someone else.