Read the commenting rules carefully because they will be enforced!
So District Judge Jeffre Cheuvront will not allow the word "rape"?? I wonder what he would call it if HE was forced to go through that? Hmmmm, we have so not come a long way.
A rape by any other name is STILL a rape...
Imagine this scenario:
1) In a trial for a home break-in that occurred at 12 noon, the victim is placed on the stand. The prosecutor asks the victim what happened. The victim says "My home was burglarized".
2) Defense objects and requests to talk to the judge at sidebar, out of hearing of the jury. "Your honor, according to our statute, burglary can only happen at night. This is a trial for violations of the "home invasion" statute as well as common-law burglary. Describing my clients alleged behavior as a burglary is unfairly prejudicial and has no probative value, so I move to strike. It is inappropriate for a witness to make a conclusion of law on the stand. We understand that she feels that she was burglarized, but that doesn't make it so." Judge asks the Prosecutor to rephrase the question and directs the witness not to use the word "burglar".
3) The defendant gets upset and insists on using the word "burglar" to describe the defendant. The jury is compromised and the judge has to toss the case.
The whole point is that the witness does not get decide what rape is, or what assault is. Most judges would not let a witness make any sort of legal conclusion, such as "I was assaulted" or "I was burglarized" or "I was raped" or "defendant broke criminal statute section 1395(d)".
I'm sorry for many women's experiences with horrific rapes. However, we have been treating rape as a special crime for far too long, with special rules of evidence and too many innocent people have gone to jail because we haven't afforded them the same rights as other defendants.
I women knows if she has given consent or hasn't..if she hasn't it is RAPE and when asking a witness to tell her story, she should not be limited to the words that can and cannot be used.
They allowed the defendant to use the word "consensual" yet that too is up to the jury to decide.
Since when do the defendants have more rights than the victims.
Sorry, your argument holds no water... a statement is just that a statement from an alleged victim and it is up to the jury to hear the WHOLE truth and decide for themselves on issues of credibility.
Maybe someone should teach this judge what rape is. His wife, daughter, etc... Then put them on the stand with the same restrictions.
This was a farce of justice and this animal will do it again.
"Since when do the defendants have more rights than the victims.. "
Since forever...and nothing has apparently changed.
And yes - absolutely agree with Katie about "farce of justice and this animal WILL do it again."
I noticed this:
There wasn't a third trial scheduled because prosecutors dismissed the case because of the judges orders on what words could be used and limits on evidence, including prior rape allegations against the defendant.
There were PRIOR rape allegations against this creep on top of it and it wasn't allowed as evidence of prior inclinations?
Ubu, you're a moron for not having read the article completely--or maybe you were hoping no one would catch that little tidbit.
Susan, yes a woman knows if she's said yes or not--EXCEPT in the case of a date rape drug. Based on the possibility this guy has prior rape allegations, it's entirely possible he used a date rape drug on her. That would explain her lack of recollection of leaving the bar.
Political correctness has gone too far when this is allowed in our court rooms--but then again, judges legislating like this from the bench need to be expelled from the bench.
The question is: Who was the attorney representing the defendant? The failure of the Massachusetts judiciary to exercise sound judgment is not exclusive to decisions involving sexual deviants and predators. MA judges are hand picked and promoted by their cronies (lawyers!) as most likely to do for their cronies once they are on the bench. Once appointed, they are on the bench for life - with no periodic reviews and no accountability to the public. (MA is only 1 of 3 states using this dangerous system) The state is known to be riddled with judges who do what their (lawyer) buddies want them to do. Case fixing, through these types of antics, and unfortunately, much worse, have recently become common place.
There are plenty of judges on the bench who have sexual fetishes of their own, and to them, rape is no big deal. MA is famous for those judges too. What this judge did is wrong. He was esssentialy advocating for the defendant from the bench with morepower than the defendant's own attorney. That's wrong. And the pervert WILL strike again. (And by that I mean the judge and the defendant!!!)
The government memo that sanitized our vocabulary to exclude "jihadist," "Muslim terrorist," "mujahedeen," etc., was the first major strike against properly identifying the Islamist threat and keeping the American public in the dark. If you can't adequately describe a threat, how can you effectively fight it?
Now, we have a case of rape by a serial Muslim rapist, Pamir Safi. The Islamists and their hired hands (their attorneys) have managed to strip a rape victim of the right to a fair trial by denying her the use of proper descriptive language for the alleged crime.
Rape of kafir (non-Muslim) women is perfectly allowable in both the Koran and the Sunna. Mohammed, the "ideal man," raped many non-Muslim women whom he took as slaves and concubines. The rape of infidel women is in full accordance with Islamic law.
There has been an epidemic of Muslim rapes in Europe, which has a larger Muslim population than the U.S. See this article: http://frontpagemag.com/Articles...D5-
0165A3654A0F
It's truly astonishing that this was allowed in the State of Oregon!
Janet Levy, Writer
American Thinker
FrontPage Magazine
www.womenagainstshariah.com
@Susan:
"Since when do the defendants have more rights than the victims?"
Since the founding of our republic. There is a right to a fair trial, assistance of counsel, and a presumption of innocence.
Criminal trials, contrary to popular belief, are NOT prosecuted by an individual, but by the State. Committing a rape, burglary, arson...is a crime against the the sovereign (the people of the State). Personal victimizations are handled in civil courts. In fact, evidence of prior unconvicted acts of rape are allowed in some states for civil trials.
I agree that victims should be protected. But they should not be protected at the expense of denying a defendant a fair trial.
@MissBeth:
In most trials, evidence of prior criminal conduct is inadmissible as evidence to prove a crime (but can be introduced to impeach character under certain circumstances). In some states, in criminal trials, evidence of prior criminal CONVICTIONS for rape are allowed, but evidence of similar acts (ie arrests) are not.
"Ubu, you're a moron..." -- Resorting to an ad hominem attack is not very logical (or ladylike for that matter). I was merely trying to argue by analogy.
Commenting by HaloScan
