Via C&L a reminder of Frank Zappa kicking ass for free expression.
Also via C&L, the goverment does a shitting job on Quaker surveillance.
Like government, like GOP, collecting information on voters.
Alito writes thank you notes to Dr. Dobson. In related news, he sends Fuck off card to the women of the US, including a picture of the device he suggests they use for their illegal abortions.
Feministing has a pile of depressing news: the feminization of poverty, the domino states on banning abortion, fathers who rape and impregnate their daughters in Utah have the right to decide whether the young women can get abortions, and a judge tries to force a teenage rape victim to watch her rape - in which while unconscious she is violated and has obscenties written on her body - in court.
Perhaps they could move to Florida, where the founder of Dominos is using his money to create a town where there will be no contraceptives along with other sinful things like porn and abortion. Jebby was there for the ribbong cutting.
The Italian Parliament thinks the Soviet Union was behind the shooting of the Pope.
Well, at least Charlie is still cute.
Posted by binky at March 2, 2006 06:07 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Blogoramaa propos the rape victim, perhaps you'd like to do away with the confrontation clause? the defendant wanted the evidence in, and being as it was pretty bad stuff to watch, there's obviously a reason. if it was a bluff to try to get her to back down it was a ballsy one. but if defense counsel thought it had value to the defense, that's pretty much it for me. a guy convicted of rape spends quite a while in jail carries a scarlet R for the rest of his life. the right to confront one's accuser and present evidence in one's defense is sacrosanct; there's no hardship exception. i'm not unsympathetic, but i'm absolute about due process.
Posted by: moon at March 2, 2006 08:17 PM | PERMALINKThat "Catholic" town thing is really weird - and such an extreme example of the tendency of a lot of people in the world to want to wish those who might be different from them out of the existence (or at least from any existence they'd ever come into contact with - EVER) that I'm having a hard time deciding if it's very disturbing or just really sad and funny.
As to Charlie - at that angle he looks like an ungainly dinosaur to me. But you do tend to see the absolute best in puppies, which is rather sweet.
Posted by: Armand at March 2, 2006 09:19 PM | PERMALINKShe was 16, she was passed out, people were on tape abusing her, and the courts had already ruled the tape child pornography. Did I day that in the tape she was passed out? How was that supposed to do anything?
And as to Charlie, he remind me of a certain Flaquito, the friend of E., in case you hadn't guessed.
Posted by: binky at March 2, 2006 10:24 PM | PERMALINKif the tape's that damning, the defense wouldn't seek to have it displayed. and, like i said, if the ploy were simply an effort to get her to retreat, to drop her charges, to decline to testify, than it was a hell of a bluff because if she didn't than the most inculpatory and inflammatory evidence available would end up before the jury.
here's my simple summary of due process in the criminal context: if the defense thinks it's in their interest, end of story.
next time you're facing 20 or more years in prison, you let me know how interested you are in the traumatizing effect the evidence you want to put on has on the witness / victim.
it's unfortunate the crime was committed. it's unfortunate that the criminal justice system can't just ask some oracle for the truth, receive it, and hand out sentence in a nice sanitary way. but if we don't give every benefit of the doubt to the criminal defendant, we can have no faith in the rectitude of our system. given your usual sympathy for parties with forces arrayed against them, i'm surprised you're not more inclined to make sure beyond a reasonable doubt is a standard with teeth, and that the sixth amendment means what it says:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.there's no corrolary counterprovision regarding the discomfiture of the witness in whose hands the accused's freedom resides. Posted by: moon at March 3, 2006 10:21 AM | PERMALINK
To be confronted by the witnesses. But to force the witness to view a video of the crime perpetrated against her while she was unconscious? She wasn't even a witness to her own rape, she couldn't have identified the men as she was passed out. They made the tape for their own purposes. They weren't going to get anything from having her watch the tape, other than intimidation. If they thought that the tape showed that one person was only peripherally involved, that is part of the defense, and the jury and judge should see the tape. But why the victim?
You might want to read Scott Lemieux.
Posted by: binky at March 3, 2006 10:30 AM | PERMALINKfirst, a side matter: as best i can tell from the chicago tribune, the assailants also were minors at the time of the alleged crime. if you want to buy that it's per se kiddie porn when 16 year olds tape each other having sex with other 16 year olds, go ahead, but i'm not willing to go with you. obviously, if there's a rape involved a crime or crimes have been committed, and the taping of it may go to how calculated the act was or might refute consent. but even then i wouldn't call it kiddie porn under any such law i support.
i also don't believe statutory rape should apply to same-age consensual couplings. that's not what the laws are there to protect, and legislative intent absolutely matters. furthermore, you so determinedly defend the right of minor girls to get pregnant and attend to their own health without requiring the notification of parents or guardians, i would think the problem with same-age kiddie porn allegations, in consensual situations, would be obvious, since its predicated on a basic moral opprobrium of young people having sex.
i see lemieux's argument, and i've looked at his other links. iocaste, however, nails my view. the discretion of the judge to decide whether a given piece of evidence is admissible is sacrosanct. there's a reason for that: trial judge's have all the information, as well as the parties whose demeanors are most revealing of their intent and stratagems, before them, access no reporter, no appellate court, and no blogger can claim.
the defense is consent. the victim claims she can remember nothing. one of the things most if not all state rules of evidence permit is the presentation of evidence to a witness who claims not to remember something to refresh her recollection. furthermore, while the article notes that the tape reveals that the victim was written on and spit on while unconscious, but does not speak clearly to whether she was unconscious during the actual sexual act in question and in fact implies the contrary, which is a prospect with tremendous bearing on the question of consent.
i would have trial judges err on the side of the defense in every case where there is a chance that the evidence will furnish a legitimate basis for acquittal, and nothing i have read on this topic has convinced me that the trial judge couldn't have concluded that this was just such evidence.
i consider it a close case, as these things go, and like everyone else writing about this i recognize my own limitations in relying on other sources. of course, that is one of the premises for the above discussion. like iocaste, if consent were not at issue, or the trial judge declined to admit the evidence and made a cogent showing that what was on the tape was neither probative standing alone nor could possibly accrue to defendant's benefit by presenting it to the victim for purposes of impeaching her testimony, i'd feel differently. and i'm also not a big fan of threatening to jail the poor girl. but if an accuser is unwilling to face probative evidence that a judge in his or her discretion finds may lead to an acquittal, the only proper remedy is dismissal.
Posted by: moon at March 3, 2006 11:07 AM | PERMALINKAs always, you know more about the law than I do. Likewise, I support the Romeo and Juliet type provisions. However, gang raping an unconscious girl, and further defiling her unconscious body doesn't look like statuatory rape. It looks like brutal assault.
Posted by: binky at March 3, 2006 11:14 AM | PERMALINKi'll also note that if the tape shows that she was unconscious while the spitting and graffiti were being done, there's certainly a case for some sort of assault, even aggravated, bar none, and no clear reason why any part of the tape should be presented to the woman where she is clearly unconscious. my defense of the defense's right to the evidence is predicated on the implication that she appears conscious during the alleged sexual assault.
Posted by: moon at March 3, 2006 11:30 AM | PERMALINKRegarding the Utah law, Digby has an excellent post: How the life it's inside of is taken care of --- not so much. That life apparently gave up any claim to being cared for when she allowed her father to rape her.
Posted by: binky at March 3, 2006 01:46 PM | PERMALINKbecause perhaps i should be clear, this sort of thing is unacceptable to me. while i'm more open to notification laws, i've always demanded unrestricted judicial discretion to grant a bypass where the facts of the case warrant it. the utah draft legislation is abhorrent.
Posted by: moon at March 3, 2006 04:02 PM | PERMALINK