Trigger warning for rape. Note: rape apologist bullshit in the comments is NOT ALLOWED.
Slate has a fascinating article about how Virginia has DNA evidence that may prove that dozens of men were convicted of crimes that they did not commit. In September 2004, the governor of Virginia ordered a random audit of 31 criminal cases when a trove of old biological evidence was found; as it happens, those 31 criminal cases included two rapists who didn’t actually commit the rape. In late 2005, the governor, kind of embarrassed by the “shit, we accidentally convicted the wrong people” thing, ordered that every sample obtained between 1973 and 1988 be rechecked.
Virginia’s program is highly mysterious: however, sources suggest that more than seventy people have been proven not to convict the crime they were accused of. However, only a handful of the falsely convicted have received the exonerations they deserve. Two people have been formally exonerated; one man, deceased, has had his name cleared of the rape he didn’t commit; a fourth is currently being processed.
The problem? The Department of Forensic Science was in charge of notifying prosecutors and police. Lawyers who were in charge of notifying the accused people that they were being retested were told not to explain the letter, which was written in legal jargon, so most people had no idea what it meant and were just freaked out that the state was apparently reopening their cases. Jonathan Sheldon, a lawyer, has devoted a lot of effort to getting the seventy names and tracking down people who were exonerated to tell them what’s going on.
What strikes me about this story is the true epidemic of false rape accusations: not people who pretend that consensual sex is rape, nor people who make up that someone had sex with them, but people who were legitimately raped and accused the wrong person. There are lots of reasons why someone might be mistaken about the identity of their rapist: eyewitness evidence is notoriously unreliable. Some circumstances around rapes– from being passed out to being very drunk or high, from the stress of being a rape survivor to being raped by an acquaintance or stranger– may make identification even more difficult.
Not only is this bad from the “an innocent person is imprisoned” point of view, it’s also bad because a rapist has gone free. And since most rapes are committed by repeat rapists, it’s likely the rapist went on to rape again. On a practical level, the misidentification of rapists (along with people who have committed other crimes, such as murder) is much easier to eliminate than other forms of false accusation.
In the United States, The Innocence Project has been working to exonerate people who have been accused of crimes they didn’t commit: over 250 people have been exonerated due to DNA evidence since 1989. Only four of the exonerated people were women, because men are more likely to commit and be convicted for sex crimes or violent crimes. They also lobby for reforms to confession, eyewitness identification, evidence preservation, etc. that can make sure that the mostly men who are accused of crimes they did not commit can get justice.
Have I mentioned how much I fucking love that organization? I fucking love that organization.
Of 287 people found to be factually innocent and exonerated by the work of the Innocence Project, 237 (82.6%) had been convicted of rape, sexual assault, sexual battery or other sex crimes. One of those wrongly convicted of rape was a woman. Of the 287 exonerated, 4 were women.
Call be crazy, but I’m betting more mainstream feminism blogs aren’t going to cover this article. Because it’s about the menz. A quick Google indicates the only thing in VA they’re currently concerned with is the controversy over the abortion bill.
Typical mindset: “Falsely imprisoned? Whatever, I’m sure he’s guilty of something. Look at his long record of prior convictions.” Especially if he’s black.
@L: Well, I can agree that we could focus on cutting sentences for non-violent crimes initially. However, I’m not saying we should just cut sentences for violent offenders full stop. I think we need to reform the very idea of the justice system to focus on societal benefit and the safety of future victims, rather than revenge for past victims. We can quibble about term length, certainly, and I accept your point of view, even if I disagree with it. That said, things like permanent disenfranchisement and employment discrimination need to end.
@Schala:
“It could have been 18 yo to 16 yo consensual sexual contact or rape of an adult.”
Or Public Exposure by some poor guy who went for a leak behind a tree and was seen by peeping kids. He’s now marked as “OMG pedophile rapist” for life because he couldn’t hold it.
@Michael Russell: First ALL eyewitness testimony is questionable. People can easily recall something poorly, and leading questions change what they remember as well. Two, children are especially easily confused, which shouldn’t be surprising its not like we act like children have the mental abilities of adults in any other area. The third area of worry is especially for children is adults influencing a child’s memory. This is possible even with adults, and children are already not at the mental level of an adult, are conditioned to trust adults, and are all in all much more susceptible to influence. Even just… Read more »
“@dancinbojangles: And there is a lot of work to be done that doesn’t involve drastically cutting prison sentences for violent crimes. (Sentences for non-violent crimes should be mostly done away with, imo.) What you’re saying is like “before we can train the lion not to bite your head off, you need to get it used to having your head in its mouth”.” We should: 1) Get rid of long sentences for petty crimes, instead having rehabilitation for first offense violent non-murder crimes, assault crimes and drug or money-related crimes. Rehabilitation including heavy restrictions for a time (being on parole or… Read more »
@dancinbojangles: And there is a lot of work to be done that doesn’t involve drastically cutting prison sentences for violent crimes. (Sentences for non-violent crimes should be mostly done away with, imo.) What you’re saying is like “before we can train the lion not to bite your head off, you need to get it used to having your head in its mouth”.
This is a little absurd. There is forensic evidence that it is reasonable to doubt the courts.
“So… considering that these 214 samples are essentially random, doesn’t this suggest that 1 in 3 rape convictions in Virginia are wrongful convictions? That is horrific.” And doesn’t this proportionality, generally speaking, in itself constitute “reasonable doubt” in the remainder of the mentioned cases? The roughly 600 ones where there was testable DNA but the quality of the samples were not in sufficient condition to yield accurate results? Meaning the convictions of 400 actual rapist and 200 falsely convicted individuals should, by general legal principles, be overturned? Putting a lot (those of them still in jail) of rapists back on… Read more »
Tim Cole was a young African-American army veteran and student at Texas Tech U. who was convicted for raping a fellow student in 1985 and sentenced to 25 years based solely on his identification by the victim, and despite overwhelming evidence that he didn’t do it. He didn’t; but his complete exoneration came too late. Tim, by all accounts exactly the type of male role model the Black community is sorely missing, died in prison in 1999.
@Michael Russell: It’s not just women and children though. ALL eyewitness testimony is unreliable, and women and children’s testimony is no exception. A witness continuing to uphold his statement is not proof that their testimony was accurate. Indeed, there have been cases of DNA evidence exonerating people that eyewitnesses were certain beyond a shadow of doubt were guilty. Certainly, there are sure to be false negatives as well as false positives, and that’s a problem too. However, it’s not the problem that the innocence project addresses.
Sure but representatives of the Innocence Project do not simply rely on DNA evidence for appeals and acquittals – they also claim that women’s and children’s testimony of sexual violence cannot be trusted, and they do so in ways that resonate with long-standing stereotypes of children and women as fantasists, liars, confabulators and so on. The DNA angle provides something of a smokescreen of a set of attitudes about allegations of sexual abuse/rape that I think could do with much more critical scrutiny. The Innocence Project has been involved in overturning the prosecutions of men accused of sexual abuse where… Read more »
@L: I think you’re missing my point a little. I think that our prison system and the harsh punishments we impose on people are major causes of the culture of violence, and do more harm than good in the near-term. Seeing as prison reform is a matter of law, not personal opinion, it’s a huge thing that we can agitate for and which will affect real change. Saying that we should only change prison sentences after changing our culture is kind of like saying that you’ll eat out exclusively until you graduate Le Cordon Bleu, to my mind. @Ally Fogg:… Read more »
@Dancinbojangles: Oh I’m not saying to lay down and take it, just… expect to be mad as hell and putting up a fight 99.99999% of the time, and ushering in any sort of change 0.00001% of the time. If you’re lucky. 😛 (Sad that I consider myself an optimist, huh.) Re: Scandanavia; not fetishizing them (those countries certainly have drawbacks despite all of their many… many advancements), just pointing out that different countries have different cultures and you can’t just do away with that overnight. The best example I can think up for what I’m getting at is the bit… Read more »
The other case mentioned in my first post (the case where the abuse occurred 36 years prior):
http://news.stv.tv/scotland/154316-policeman-charged-with-rape/
http://news.stv.tv/scotland/east-central/260309-police-officer-on-trial-for-rape-of-sisters-36-years-ago/
http://news.stv.tv/scotland/east-central/260469-policeman-on-trial-accused-of-rape/
http://news.stv.tv/scotland/east-central/260890-police-officer-found-guilty-of-raping-young-sisters-when-he-was-14/
http://news.stv.tv/scotland/east-central/265666-policeman-who-raped-two-young-sisters-36-years-ago-jailed/
Now for the question that I’m sure no one wants to hear: If a case like this was a false accusation (I’m not saying it was, though it’s really impossible to know for sure with a total lack of objective evidence), how could one possibly defend against it?
Can I ask a question which may be slightly ignorant and offensive to some? An ill-informed British perspective, with apologies Looking at the Slate article, the main guy featured in the piece is black. I’d be really interested to know what percentage of the guys we’re talking about here are also black. Bearing in mind Virginia’s reputation and history, how likely is it that these appalling statistics can be explained by racism? ie, how often in recent decades was there a report of a rape, and the police reaction was just to grab some random black guy, cook up some… Read more »
@Lamech: Nice, I especially like the separating forensics from the police idea.
@schadrach: You see that a lot, especially among certain feminist blogs. There’s one on the blogroll here in particular I got a dose of irony out of when they went on about the Innocence Project and the great work it does, given they’ve outright stated their firm belief in the whole accusation = guilt thing, while making any mention of any counterexample a bannable offense. Not going to name names. It’s kind of sad I instantly thought of at least three candidates. I found two articles on Feministe. One was on the Duke Lacrosse case, and the blogger refused to… Read more »
@dancinbojangles:”Well yeah, but I was kind of looking for something more specific along the lines of @Druk’s link.” Well for starters we need to have a half decent system for compensating people who are falsely accused of crimes. If they spent time in jail that needs to be paid for. If they hired a lawyer that needs to be paid for. If they lost their job due to not being able to make it to work that needs to be paid for. This whole thing where people are acquitted but went bankrupt in the process is just silly. If the… Read more »
What strikes me about this story is the true epidemic of false rape accusations: not people who pretend that consensual sex is rape, nor people who make up that someone had sex with them, but people who were legitimately raped and accused the wrong person. We do not know that. Many rape cases do not have any DNA evidence to test, so there would be nothing to find five or ten years later to exonerate an innocent man. That is part of the problem. The cases where there is no evidence or the evidence was conveniently lost or destroyed, innocent men will… Read more »
@Schala: Look at California trying to justify a sexist measure to get women out of prison, based on them ostensibly being primary caregivers of children (they changed the wording to that to appear less sexist, they still only want it to apply to women). Or the UK having a Baroness saying that women’s prisons are useless, we should have reform centers for women, let’s convert women’s prisons into men’s prisons, (and the subtext is that men can’t be reformed). Didn’t that one originally apply to “mothers” until they realized that it would be thrown out as an equal protection failure… Read more »
@Lamech: Well yeah, but I was kind of looking for something more specific along the lines of @Druk’s link.
@dancinbojangles: “Still, I don’t want to neglect any real change we can make by pining uselessly for some imagined revolution. Anyone have any ideas that might help work within the system to prevent such issues? Because I’m at a loss.” Well you see we’re in this thing called a democracy (if you are not in a democracy I recommend overthrow and starting a democracy, assuming you can do so safely)… @L: “Also, you’re right… there’d be a huge call to action if it were a women’s issue, but you honestly think it would change anything?” I recall mentioned somewhere a… Read more »
@L: Dang, and I thought I was being cynical! Yes, actually. I do think, despite what people may believe, that calls to action and, more importantly, sustained actual action do make a difference. Moreover, I think the notion that “we can’t change anything, so why bother” is a dangerous attitude and a self-fulfilling prophecy. We might not be able to make the world perfect overnight, but don’t pretend that societal change cannot happen, never happens, or is somehow precluded due to some vague notion of society’s modern nature. Giving up and laying down may be easier, and activism may be… Read more »