Cooper Fleishman hopes 17 year-old sexual assault victim Savanna Dietrich will be shown the same leniency in sentencing for violating a gag order that her attackers were shown in their punishments.
Originally appeared at Hypervocal
This young woman is Savannah Dietrich, a 17-year-old from Louisville, Kentucky. Frustrated with the gag order she faced after the two boys who sexually assaulted her (and took photo evidence, then shared the images with friends) entered a plea deal that amounted to a slap on the wrist, Dietrich violated the court order and spoke openly about the incident, revealing her attackers’ names on Twitter.
She now faces a $500 fine and 180 days’ jail time for holding the court in contempt. Dietrich, not her attackers, will be the one facing severe penalties.
Could she have handled it differently? Yes, she could have petitioned the court to vacate the gag order. She didn’t; perhaps she didn’t know (or care) that she could. What she did was stand up for herself when no one else would stand up for her. She’s now given up her own anonymity, consenting to media coverage and sharing her story publicly. What she did was admirable.
“There you go, lock me up,” she wrote. “I’m at the point that if I have to go to jail for my rights, I will do it.”
She had good reason to be outraged. Her assailants got their plea deal — their sentence is yet to be determined — without her consent. They didn’t need it. The victim in rape and sexual-assault cases is considered a “witness” to the crime. And often, as Dietrich was, they’re silenced.
As Amanda Hess writes in Slate:
Public officials and victim’s advocates have long grappled with the question of why more than one-half of rape victims do not report the crime to police. Rape trials can be long, grueling, humiliating, stigmatizing, alienating, and ultimately difficult to prove. But as Dietrich’s case shows, the criminal justice process can also rob the victim of control over her own narrative.
The two boys were treated kindly by the court because of their age. Why not Dietrich? Will she face the same amnesty for her contempt charge?
As minors, the boys’ criminal records will likely disappear when they become adults. When your identity is protected, the lesson isn’t “don’t rape,” but “don’t get caught.”
Imagine the same boys two years later. They’re college students in Kentucky. The same situation occurs: An underage girl passes out from drinking. They get handsy with her, strip her. It’s for laughs. They take pictures. It was her fault for drinking too much, they say. She should handle her liquor. She’s under 21; she shouldn’t be drinking anyway. She’s paying the price.
School officials don’t know these two boys have a history of assault. Their peers don’t know. Their victims don’t know. They’ve been protected by the law. Their peers only know of a case in which a 17-year-old girl who spoke out against her attackers was given jail time while the anonymous boys who sexually assaulted her escaped with a reduced sentence. They believe the assault must not have been that bad. They believe she had it coming. Why else would the court show leniency toward the attackers and not their victim?
The administration doesn’t quite know how to handle this sexual-assault case, but no one wants to ruin the well-liked attackers’ lives, and there’s a precedent for leniency in Kentucky law. While the attackers are again given slaps on the wrist, the second victim is harassed and humiliated for speaking out against the two boys. Unable to handle the abuse, she eventually transfers.
• Facebook support page for Savannah Dietrich
On Sunday we watched Joe Paterno’s statue fall without much fanfare. Even at Penn State, shaken by the abuses of its top administrators, the scene was calm. “Dozens looked on.”
It was a human-rights victory. It’s chilling to see an unsinkable organization repent for its own hubris. Still, there will be many who won’t find the punishment enough — not when its penalties are focused on the school’s reputation, the tarnished status of the “legacy.” The aftermath and the public’s attention won’t be centered on the victims, it’ll be on reinstating the legendary football program and rebuilding its dominance. It’ll be common knowledge that this above-the-law attitude is what doomed at least 10 children. But everyone loves a comeback, right?
I wish I had a tenth of the bravery Ms. Dietrich has. She’ll find herself smeared in the courts, in the press, in her school, in her community — for refusing to be silenced and paying the price. But her retaliation will make attackers think twice, and her willingness to speak up will give future victims the courage to do the same.
About Cooper Fleishman
This is tragic, but I don’t see the kind of maliciousness with which a lot of prosecutors and/or DA’s go after alleged rapists as in the Duke 3.
In that case there was deliberate with-holding of exculpatory evidence and other issues, that weren’t just quirks of the written laws (surrounding protecting children) but actual illegal activities and malicious destruction of due process rights and horrible injustice.
What seems to be happening here is the court is executing injustice in the name of protecting children. This may not be justice, but it might be adherence to the letter and spirit of the laws in that state–I don’t know.
I think you are leaping to conclusions when you say that Ms Deitrich will be smeared and insulted. Most *female* victims of sexual assault / harassment (alleged or proven ) are supported and generate empathy, not hatred.
Don’t you think it’s much more likely that the two boys will suffer this behavior (not to mention some vigilante justice) and that is what the courts wanted to avoid?
Pictures and details of the attack were posted by the accused attackers how is that not smearing and insulting her. The attackers deserve the same and more!
It seemed to me the article was alluding to public reaction because the author specifically referenced her voluntary removal of her anonymity. It was this I was responding to.
I’m not really sure what your point is.
People do tragic horrible things, but that is individuals actions. This is the necessary cost of living in a free society.
Vengeance isn’t a mandate of the state, and neither should it be. The role of the state is dispensing justice, not vengeance.
That has already been done. The author was alluding to more smearing and insulting for breaking the gag order. That is unlikely to happen, except in response to people like this articles writer, who feels those who break the law should not be punished if they feel justified in breaking that law…
Are there any crimes in which the victims have the right to give or withhold consent for whatever plea deals the prosecution wants to offer? Or crimes in which victims are something other than “witnesses” as far as legal proceedings are concerned?
Good question Marcus
I agree, a good question. I’d be shocked if anyone in this forum could answer it, an I’m sure it varies by crime and of course jurisdiction.
I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t claim 100% certainty on this, but I believe the answer to both my questions is “No”, regardless of crime and jurisdiction, at least in the U.S. (I guess that’s limiting the jurisdiction and applicable laws, but I didn’t intend my questions to have global scope, since this is a U.S. case we’re discussing.)
Imagine the chaos in our justice system if victims (of any crime, not just sexual assault) had veto power over plea bargains. The severity of charges and sentencing would depend on what kind of victim was involved, instead of any consistent standards and practices. With victims who believed that any plea bargain would only be a “slap on the wrist”, overloaded courts would get even more bogged down with cases, since all those non-plea bargained cases would have to go to trial. In cases where the prosecutor wants/needs cooperation from the defendant in order to prosecute even more serious crimes, they wouldn’t have any concessions to offer if a victim objected. In cases with multiple victims, would it be majority rule, or have to be unanimous to approve a plea deal?
Regarding the line about victims as “witnesses”, I think those are scare quotes around “witness”, as if victims should be anything other than that in a legal proceeding. Of course they’re witnesses. It wouldn’t be justice if victims got to be prosecutor, judge, jury, etc. It’s not demeaning or diminishing to treat them as witnesses – that’s what they are for purposes of the legal proceeding, and that’s all they should be.
The girl in this case is extremely sympathetic because of what we’re told happened to her, but from this article, we know practically nothing. Just because she says they’re getting lenient treatment doesn’t mean they are. We don’t know what they’re getting, or what they did to get it. (“They circulated pictures” is not details. For example, pictures of exposed body parts would be very bad, but less bad then pictures of penetrating various orifices while passed out.) Given that the victim and perpetrators are all minors, would it serve the public’s and victim’s interest for their to be no gag orders on such cases so we can all form an opinion about whether the sentence was too lenient given all the gory details we’re privy to? If it’s okay for this girl to violate her gag order, would it be okay for the defendants to do the same if they were the ones who thought they got a raw deal?
I feel terrible for this girl, but I don’t think her defiance of the court should be celebrated. What she did was act on a desire for vengeance, and that’s vigilante justice, not justice. She wants to see her attackers suffer like she did, which is completely understandable for a victim, but that would be an awful basis for criminal justice, which is why victims don’t get to be judge, jury, and executioner. I think the fact that her story has blown up so much now works against her in terms of her chances for leniency, especially if she doesn’t express any remorse to the court, because the court would have to worry that a lenient sentence to unapologetic contempt, in such a public case, would encourage others to do the same. The publicity she sought could backfire.
Read a law blog then:
http://www.volokh.com/2012/07/23/and-whose-fault-was-that-or-ignore-the-streisand-effect-at-your-your-clients-peril/
and more pertinently:
http://www.volokh.com/2012/07/22/the-dark-side-of-privacy/
The contempt motion was already withdrawn.
This is the criminal case. Meaning that the state brought suit, ie US vs xyz. She would have to sue to get that right, or the lawyer bargaining would have to value her opinion or want to negotiate with her about options.
I guess for once I was too brief, because I meant those questions rhetorically since I thought the answer was so obviously “No” to both. Victims don’t get to negotiate pleas bargains, and in a criminal case, “witness” is the only role victims ever have, except maybe “spectator”.
Even if a victim sued, that would be a civil case, not a criminal case, so the victim *still* would have no right to negotiate plea bargains on the criminal side. They would only have a say on settlement deals, which is different from criminal charges and sentencing, but even that presumes they have a strong enough case to make the settlement (or judgment) go their way.
The plaintiff in a criminal case is “The People”, not the victim. It’s not the prosecutor’s job to consult with victims about what charges or deals wold be okay with them.
We don’t know the facts of the case; we don’t even know if she was the victim of an assault or if she is simply claiming to be a victim of an assault. Is there evidence that an assault took place and it isn’t a case of retroactive removal of consent? I don’t know. Considering how heavy handed and gung-ho our society is to prosecute alleged sex offenders, I can’t help but wonder about the strength of the case against those two boys. Do I think this girl should be going to prison? Not really. Do I think it was right of her to disclose the names of those two boys who will now be convicted in the court of public opinion? Absolutely not.
There is evidence, photographs. Also proof that they sent the photos around.
Photographs can’t show that it was assault and not consensual, sorry.
Approximately 2% of sexual assault cases are false reports, but that’s the conclusion your mind automatically grasps at?
Innocent until proven guilty is the basis for the legal system isn’t it? It sounds like Collin is just wanting them to make sure they are guilty before sentencing.
@ raindizzle
From what I understand, most police sources put the percentage of false reports at about 8 – 10 %. Personally, I would suspect that it would be more along the lines of 15%. Mostly because I suspect that when something has a personal connection, there is a greater likelihood to act out. Most rapes are “committed” by people the victim knows. Assuming that they associate with the same group, regretting consensual sex especially if the other party will make it known to mutual friends and it will damage a reputation may motivate a rape accusation to actually save reputation.
5% of men killed are killed by intimates. 4% of men killed are killed by female intimates. You would suspect then that 76% (.95 x .8) of men killed are killed by female non-intimates. That’s not the case so women who kill overwhelmingly kill intimates. That is because the crime has a personal connection. Not that my suspected 15% is even remotely close to a majority.
It’s my understanding that it is not 2% of sexual assault “CASES”, it is 2% of reported sexual assaults, of which only 6% are likewise proven true (making 1/4 of “known” sexual assault outcomes false accusations). The remainder get withdrawn by the alleged victim or don’t produce enough evidence one way or the other to know if they are true, false, improperly identified, whatever.
They plead guilty and are awaiting sentencing…
If there was a plea bargain that is an admission of guilt
Not necessarily. The Innocence Project handles tons of cases where innocent defendants accepted a plea deal because they saw no other way out. I assume the reason the boys took the deal is because of the photos and them sharing the photos with others. Even if they could argue that Dietrich had consented or was faking being passed out, the photos would suggest otherwise. Short of Dietrich contradicting herself, they would lose the case and possibly face more time with a harsher crime. We also are not told whether the state wanted to try them as adults, which might also explain the plea deal.
An admission of something. Did they plead guilty to sexual assault? Maybe they just plead guilty to distributing child pornography or something of that nature. Also, many innocent people take plea bargains in these sorts of situations because your innocence is largely irrelevant when the “judicial” system wants to run you up the flag pole.
That doesn’t follow. It may be no more than an admission that they felt sure they’d be convicted. That is not the same thing as being guilty.
If there’s any lawyers here, feel free to step in with a correction, but I’m pretty sure accepting a plea bargain does mean they’re guilty, at least in a legal sense. They may or may not feel guilty in their heart of hearts, but officially, they’re guilty of whatever charges they pled to. I think pleading guilty to those charges is often a condition of the deal (“You must admit guilt to get this deal”), but even if they’re allowed to plead “No contest”, that still results in a judgment of guilty.
In a non-legal sense, there are plenty of convicted people, in prison or out, who sincerely believe they’re innocent, but legally, it does follow that accepting a plea bargain is the same as being guilty (of whatever charges were part of the deal).
I think Lynn’s post was read as morally guilty, not ruled to be guilty.
Perhaps, which is why I distinguished between the legal and non-legal variety of guilt. Since she was tying the plea bargain to it, I assumed she meant the legal kind of guilt. If not, then the plea bargain is pretty irrelevant to knowing whether the defendants felt any guilt in anything besides a legal sense.
We’re on the same page.
http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Facts_on_PostConviction_DNA_Exonerations.php
“False confessions and incriminating statements lead to wrongful convictions in approximately 27 percent of cases. 28 of the DNA exonerees pled guilty to crimes they did not commit. The Innocence Project encourages police departments to electronically record all custodial interrogations in their entirety in order to prevent coercion and to provide an accurate record of the proceedings.”
I am at work and cannot do lengthy searches, but the idea that a confession (or plea bargain) is proof of guilt is a dangerous one. Our court system encourages plea bargains because trials are long, expensive affairs, and it cannot afford to run one for every accusation. The incentive system is such that it’s usually advantageous to plead because, guilty or no, if you are ruled against you get a much higher sentence. Innocent accused will often go for a plea bargain because they are gambling with their lives, and it pays to lose a little rather than risk everything.
It’s a tough issue to deal with. There’s usually a reason they don’t want the names to be published. I hope she gets off with a lighter sentence but she also needs to follow the law. As tough as it is…it’s not good to break the law. I don’t agree with the boys getting off light either, can that be appealed?
The boys haven’t actually been sentenced yet. In a plea bargain the judge must approve the punishment at a later date, that simply hasn’t happened yet. The judge might throw out the plea bargain if he feels the punishment is too lenient (a judge in New York made headlines recently by declaring a plea bargain in an SEC proceeding against major financial institutions and throwing it out).
The boys are both minors, and there is an idea in this country that crimes committed by minors are treated differently than crimes committed by adults. Juvenile records can be sealed.
Obviously, however, sealing the record doesn’t mean anything if the information in the record is made publicly available: that is what the judge was trying to prevent.
Further, the victim should really play no part in a criminal process; they inherently lack the ability to be objective. We see that on display here, Ms. Dietrich is looking for revenge, not justice. The criminal justice system is about what is best for society, and not about scoring retribution for the victim.
Ms. Dietrich is clearly in the wrong here, and she sends entirely the wrong message to others. Our society works because we all agree to abide by the law. When she willingly broke the law she knew there would be consequences. I hope she serves time.
@ Mike L.
In the case of the boy, who was forcibly stripped by girls and had the video uploaded to Youtube, the victim didn’t have a say either. In fact the mother of the victim decided not to press charges.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/newsdebate/f/t-10233286/p-1/index.html
John,
I appreciate that there is probably disparate treatment between boys and girls on this subject, but honestly I’d feel the same way regardless of genders in a case like this.
The power of the courts is fundamentally mportant to our society. We do not get to abide by the rulings of the courts only when we agree with them.
What bothers me about that case is that whether charges were pressed WAS dependent on the victim (or more specifically, the victims mother’s) wishes. Why?
I’m only speculating, but to bring a case without any cooperation from the victim, the prosecutor has to feel it’s strong enough not to need that cooperation. If the case is too weak without that cooperation, it’s not worth bringing.
It would seem that video would be pretty strong evidence, but if the defense argues that it was all in good fun and the video doesn’t tell the whole story, and there’s no testimony to the contrary, that’s a much harder case to make than it would be with cooperation. Better to invest time and resources on cases they think they can win.
And then you have DA’s like Nefong and Mary Kellett who will stop at nothing, not even prosecutable misconduct, to put men behind bars at an allegation. As well as States with No Drop Prosecution.
My point is, you have here a victim who got drunk and had photo’s taken of her nakid and passed out. Could this too not have been categorized as “all in good fun” and “a prank” as the officers classified the boys assault?
That would be true if there was no audio. The audio shows that the boy didn’t believe it was fun. I think that there is a difference between doing something dumb and doing something malicious, but I don’t think that it absolves someone of responsibility. It’s more a mitigating factor unless the boy actually gives testimony in favor of the girls as a form of retroactive consent, which I don’t think was going to happen either.
That doesn’t change my point, which is that DAs decide whether to bring the case based on whether they think they can win it, so if they think their chances are poor without the victim’s cooperation, they won’t prosecute. My hypothetical about “if the defense argues…” was just that – a hypothetical example, not a claim about the facts of this case.
Btw, video is not always the slam dunk evidence people think it is. Even if it is in this case, I’m skeptical enough because of cases like Rodney King to not just take the interweb’s word for it that there’s only one way to interpret the video in this case. Lawyers are pretty good at getting jurors to see a “slam dunk” video some other way.
That’s my understanding too Marcus.
From what I remember victim non-participation was the charges against Debra Lafavre were dropped.
Yup. She should serve time. All three of them should. They all broke laws, but she has a get out of jail free card.
This story is so sad. This young woman is being victimized twice! I hope the District Attorney catches heat for this.
Something doesn’t sound right. If the boys spread around the pictures, didn’t they already reveal their identities or was it look at these pictures, but they didn’t take credit for taking them? If their identities were known, why would she feel the need to release them? Would simply identifying herself as the victim have violated the gag order?
People have pulled pranks on drunk friends before and photographed it. It’s usually writing on them or putting whipped cream or silly string on them. Would that have been classified as assault, probably? I’ve never heard of it actually getting prosecuted. Is this a prank that just went really bad? My initial reaction is no, but after watching a couple episodes of 1000 ways to die, some friends and I discussed the stupid things we used to do that could have landed us on the show. Like sparring on the edge of the roof of a friend’s house because we thought it would look cool.
We even played some “sexual” pranks on women we knew well. Some of them played “sexual pranks” on us too. We were helping one female friend move out of her apartment. She didn’t pack and so we helped her pack. We started packing the things in her dresser for her. We ran across her collection of toys. We were freaked out and had to get even so when we were giving her a ride to her new apartment (one guy was driving the moving truck), she saw one of her bras draped around the car’s mirror. It remained there much of the way to her new apartment. I’m not going to talk about some of the worse stuff at least not right now, but we also knew her for at least 8 years at the time, which was a huge chunk of our lives then.
If you played “sexual” pranks, you were guilty of assault too, unless the person agreed to it. If everyone’s happy and you all have a general air of jokeyness about it, that’s one thing. But if you take photos of a girl’s naked body parts and circulate them (especially so if she’s a minor) without her consent, that’s a crime. I
These boys took graphic sexualized photos of an underage girl, then shared them. It’s not a joke, no matter how hard you and your friends laughed while doing it.
“These boys took graphic sexualized photos of an underage girl, then shared them. It’s not a joke, no matter how hard you and your friends laughed while doing it.”
We never went as far as to strip someone nor did the boys actually peep. The girls actually may have crossed that line once, but I won’t get into that besides I don’t really remember how much they actually saw and there were no pictures. It also tragically backfired as a couple of the girls eventually married a couple of the guys and there were a few brother s involved. It was a spur of the moment thing I don’t think they really thought through.
I’m not saying that she wasn’t sexually assaulted. I’m pretty sure she was. In my comment I even say that drawing on someone is probably assault, but I don’t know that the boys started out with that intention. That doesn’t excuse it. There is a difference between doing something dumb and doing something malicious. When people make comments like the boys got off light, they are assuming that there are no mitigating factors, which we and quite possibly the victim have no way of knowing.
Ummm. Depends on the nature of the sexual prank on whether it was assault. The two guys weren’t convicted of rape, nor assault. They were convicted of sexual abuse.
Here’s my take.
I think she’s going to have to be found guilty of violating the gag order. We can’t pick and choose which laws we’ll abide by. But I agree here with Cooper in that she should be prosecuted lightly, just as these boys have been.
That being said, I have no doubt that if I were her age I’d have done the same thing. I’d probably do it now if I couldn’t find a legal way around the gag order, and like Savannah I’d do it know that I’d be prosecuted.
“…she should be prosecuted lightly, just as these boys have bee.”
But that’s just it: we do not know that they have been prosecuted lightly!
First, the sentencing hearing has literally not taken place yet, so it is impossible to know what their actual sentences will be. Second, it’s terribly convenient that the boys cannot defend themselves, as doing so would ALSO violate the gag order. Third, even if the initial sentence sounds “light,” if it involves the boys being forced to register as sex offenders, then they have literally received a life sentence: there is no way off the registry once you are on.
It seems highly irresponsible to make value judgments about how “lightly” the boys were prosecuted when we don’t know what their sentence will be, when they are potentially facing life in the sex offender database, and when we only get to hear one side of the story because the other side is abiding by a judge’s order!
They also aren’t considering mitigation or the strength of the case. Besides not knowing what the deal is or whether the judge will accept it, we don’t know how the DA arrived at the decision to enter into a plea deal. There was a rape case at a college. A woman claimed to have been raped by 4 or 5 guys at Hofstra. They had sex with her. I thought the case was open and shut. One guy taped the encounter on a cell phone. She apparently had consensual sex with all of them.
I’m not saying that they’re innocent, but I’ve seen cases where I thought the evidence was open and shut and found out that it wasn’t. I would have never considered that a woman would have consented to sex with multiple men. Didn’t we just see an article on another guy who took a plea deal, Brian Banks?
The fact is we don’t know if the boys are being treated lightly.
If you think it’s what you would do (if you couldn’t find a legal way around the gag order), then my question is, what would you hope the consequences to be to your attackers? And if other victims of all sorts of crimes did the same thing, do you thing that would make our criminal justice system better or worse?
They haven’t been sentenced so how do we know they got of lightly? Gag orders are usually temporary to keep the media back and keep people from harassing anyone in the case.
“They got off lightly”
“What were they sentenced to?”
“Dunno yet”
“Then how do you know they got off lightly?”
On June 26, her attackers plead guilty to first-degree sexual abuse and misdemeanor voyeurism. The sexual abuse alone is a class-d felony which results in this: Class D felony 1-5 years imprisonment; fines of $1,000 to $10,000.
She should have waited, done research, or provided why this was worse than a Class-D.
Just to add: The stipulation for 1st degree sexual abuse is sexual contact with someone who is physically helpless.
“What she did was stand up for herself when no one else would stand up for her.”
I thought the prosecutor brought charges. She has the right to disagree with the prosecutor. She can even violate the gag order if she’s willing to pay the price, which seems to be the case. What she’s not allowed to do is be the judge and jury. What if the DA brought charges and they were acquitted?
“She had good reason to be outraged. Her assailants got their plea deal — their sentence is yet to be determined — without her consent.”
They got a plea deal. I highly doubt that they dictated the terms of the deal. It was most likely a negotiation between their lawyers and the DA.
“As minors, the boys’ criminal records will likely disappear when they become adults. When your identity is protected, the lesson isn’t “don’t rape,” but “don’t get caught.”
I’m confused. If your anonymity is protected after a conviction, how does that leave the message “don’t get caught” instead of “don’t rape” unless part of the punishment is the publicity. If part of the punishment is publicity, then being a rapist must be stigmatizing in society. Why would you then support releasing these boy’s names prior to a conviction even by her? Wouldn’t that amount to punishment before guilt is established? Do you even feel that we need to establish guilt?
“But everyone loves a comeback, right?”
If people can’t be redeemed, why do we have any penalty other than the death penalty? If a robber will always rob, a rapist will always rape, a thief will always steal, why let them out?
Good points.
justice system failed her? maybe, though in this case surely it was “men” that failed her, for assaulting her?
how you deal with this stuff really matters, take a look at this lady http://www.michellefightingback.co.uk raped when she was a teenager in the Midlands. found power and strength from it, does motivational talks, a film called “counting backwards” will be out soon, based n her life story. i doubt the film will be as hard hitting had it just been a lot of ppl bitching online.
also geoff thompson, the guy who whore screenplay for above film. abused as a child, fucked his life up, but somewhere found the strength to write, won a BAFTA, amazing writer, mentor, martial artist, need I go on. Oh, and he also forgave the man who fucked his life up at a young age. forgive isn’t the same as letting someone off by the way, we all have to pay for our deeds. a year after he forgave him, his abuser took his own life. i believe its called karma. their is even a short film, called romans 12:20 (based on the passage of the bible about forgiveness). watch it here https://vimeo.com/10904113
“….though in this case surely it was “men” that failed her, for assaulting her?”
Uh, no. As Jacobtk reminds us, these were boys. Although we generally see girls treated as girls and boys as men by the law when it comes to severity of punishments and prosecutorial zeal, that doesn’t make it right.
Unless of course by ‘men” you really meant “Men”. If that’s the case, that is bigoted and unacceptable.
I may be missing something, but I don’t see what they plead to. And the sentence has yet to be determined, so I have no idea how the claim “they got a slap on the wrist” can be made, nor the claim “As minors, the boys’ criminal records will likely disappear when they become adults.” given there are men who got caught and put on sex offenders registry for having consensual sex at aged 12, and their lives are ruined for life. Sex offenders registry doesn’t get expunged.
What this article tells me is, you feel it’s unacceptable for men to break the law, but when a woman (or girl) feels it is justified, the law should not apply to her. Regardless, being a minor herself, she will not be charged as an adult, and so will not endure the exorbitant sentence you’re assuming. I find it insulting that you would promote the idea of the maximum sentence she could get, with the implication that is what she’ll get, while ignoring the maximum potential sentence the boys could get (given they have not yet been sentenced, they could still get the maximum for their plea, which could still amount to quite some time. I also find it rather annoying that you would object to the laws protecting a minor when rape shield laws are used to protect false accusers in precisely the same way, even more so in fact, given these kids past offenses can be used against them in future crimal trials.
As to your hypothetical furture event, you are making a lot of assumptions in order to make it play out as described. Not least of which is that they will be out in two years.
@Cooper:
Presumably, these boys are actually boys. Legally speaking, minors charged as juveniles cannot have their names released. This is done to protect their record so that after they have served their time and been rehabilitated they will not have those crimes held against them. The record is “expunged” in a public sense, but the court keeps a record of their juvenile offenses, and should they commit further crimes as adults, their past acts as children can be used against them depending on the state.
This policy of not releasing juveniles’ names has been in place for decades and applies in all juvenile cases, so I fail to see how this is an attack against rape victims. You may not like that those who serve their time get a second chance, but that is the law that we have, and unless there is evidence that these boys are a serious threat (which likely would have resulted in them being charged as adults), I do not see why this is a problem. (Oddly enough, none of the articles mention the boys’ ages. That is unusual.)
Is there any indication that Dietrich will actually go to jail? Is there any indication that she will actually have to pay the fine? She faces it, but has any judgment actually been rendered? If not, we ought not jump to conclusions. Likewise, we do not know what the boys face. We all have Dietrich’s comments, and that does not tell us anything. The boys could face real time, but not enough for Dietrich.
I understand what motivated Dietrich, but I do not think it is admirable to put these boys at risk of assault and threats (and trust me, I am not under the impression that anyone supporting Dietrich would care at all what happens to those boys or any other boys whether charged with a crime or not). We have a court system to deal with these matters. At this point, the boys have pled guilty and face sentencing. We do not know what the judge will decide, so perhaps we should wait and see before claiming they are getting a slap on the wrist since that usually does not happen in juvenile cases.
@ Marcus:
Legally, no victim has any say in whether prosecutors accept a plea deal. A district attorney or prosecutor might make their decision after telling the victim, but they do not have to. The victim can always oppose the plea deal, as plenty of them do, but they have no say in whether a plea deal is given or accepted. Dietrich’s complaint, while understandable, is moot.
well said, I believe prosecutors bring charges bases on the weight of evidence, in this case I would believe the evidence included the media mentioned (pictures, videos) if that is the case, a lesser charge of sexual abuse and voyeurism may be all the evidence supported. The reason we have laws is to attempt to respond to crime appropriately otherwise simple accusations or what is described as “the narrative” can lead to lynching based on accusation. It is correct for us to hear a victims impact statement, it contributes to our understanding of how our behaviors can affect another.
I don’t believe in prosecution by public opinion, I’ve watched as juvenile boys are defined as men and then as rapists. The evidence is thrown away and replaced with a “narrative”, we quickly forget that they were charged as juveniles, with sexual abuse. I see no need to replace the law with a narrative that ultimately encrypts a desire for retribution.
I can also appreciate that the judge may have placed the gag in support of the victims concerns about “who would see these pictures”, regardless of the law protecting juveniles. Now it’s only a matter of time before they appear. The “narrative” of the victim requires that the perpetrators be exposed to circumvent a future threat to other women. Is there evidence in this specific case that supports recidivism or is it because they simply exist and are male?
There are studies that address recidivism and rape which is calculated to be approx 17% and declines with age. http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/res/cor/rep/asrcrcm-arscvae-eng.aspx
Mentioned also in the study is three factors that contribute to recidivism
1) deviant sexual interest
2) low self control
3) opportunity
Let’s take the girl’s side here: If you don’t like the finding of a court, you should ignore its ruling and violate a court order. You have the moral right to do so, because you didn’t get the verdict you wanted! I mean, you’re a ‘victim’, and that makes it okay.
Yeah… not really feeling much sympathy for her, sorry.
Or as my grandmother says. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Copy, the thing is that the court had not ruled yet. Just because a plea deal is accepted by prosecutors does not mean the judge will accept it. The judge could easily enforce a harsher sentence that is within the scope of the law as per the charges but worse than what the boys agreed to. If Dietrich had waited until a sentence was given, I would have less of a problem with what she did, although I still would not support it.
So civil disobedience — the act of violating a law to protest something or change things for the better — is not kosher by your argument even though it’s largely the reason African Americans have any ability to participate in modern society at all. That’s what you’re arguing.
It’s no wonder so many people get away with rape and sexual assault with attitudes like yours.
It looks like feminists were unsurprisingly inaccurate in their reporting of this case. It appears that the defense authorities filed a motion of contempt against Dietrich, not the court:
The prosecutors could file the same motion, but that is unlikely.
It is unclear who caused this level of misinformation, whether it was Dietrich or the feminists who reported on this, but this is precisely why people should work within the system until all options have been exhausted.