Should rape suspects receive anonymity too? {Innocent Until Proven Guilty]

Hotair ^ | 06/22/2014 | Jazz Shaw

[SeekAndFind]

Glenn Reynolds highlights a rather touchy story from across the pond, where Peter Lloyd, writing for the Telegraph, points out that the assumptions of both innocence and privacy are handled rather unequally in sexual assault cases. The primary case under discussion involves the handling of laws in the UK, but parallel debates are taking place in the United States today. Lloyd speaks rather passionately about what happened to Oxford University Union President Ben Sullivan following what turned out to be two unfounded rape allegations.

After five weeks of public humiliation, finger-pointing and gender bias – both on campus and in the media – police confirmed that he won’t face a single charge over two unfounded rape allegations.

Not one. Nothing. Nadda.

But, like countless men all over the world – including Paul Weller, Amy Winehouse’s ex-boyfriend Reg Traviss, Nigel Evans MP, William Roache and Craig Charles – Sullivan’s life has already been affected by a system that considers men’s innocence a bonus, not a baseline.

What a joke.

In a damning example of everyday sexism, Sarah Pine, President for Women at Oxford University Student Union, spearheaded a character assassination against the innocent 21 year-old, before the accusations against him had time to be considered.

While providing some historical background and analysis, Lloyd asks the central question in the debate:

So much for innocent until proven guilty.

[wastedyears]

This is why marriage is mostly a joke today.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

I agree we seem to have gone overboard to the female’s position.

In 90% of cases, this isn’t a problem.

However I believe there is a segment of America’s criminal caseload which is driven by the female.

This is a big problem. How to advocate strongly for the females in the 90% where they have actually been victimized, without allowing the additional 10% to (completely) victimize males.

I am completely making up the percentages, but I’m just trying to make a point.

Sure the situation if overwhelmingly that females are victimized by males, and should strongly protect females.

But there is that segment of America which is just simply full of baloney. That cannot be ignored.

That segment, can cause great damage.

[piytar]

All men are rapists and are guilty. /feminazis and wrt college students the fedgov

[Chode]

make false rape charges punishable by the SAME sentence as real rape and watch the accusations fall...

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

I remember when the VICTIMS of rape had their names, and addresses published in the local papers. If a reporter had a camera she also had a photo published.

I believe this was stopped sometime back in the 1960s.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Somebody get Hillary's opinion on this. It's something that she's actually had experience with.

Unlike everything else that she does.

[sagar]

“I remember when the VICTIMS of rape had their names, and addresses published in the local papers. “

I also propose that three male eye witnesses must be present.

[MD Expat in PA]

I remember when the VICTIMS of rape had their names, and addresses published in the local papers. If a reporter had a camera she also had a photo published. I believe this was stopped sometime back in the 1960s.

A woman (or man or minor child for that matter) who is the victim of rape (and by that I mean “rape-rape”, i.e. a violent attack and sexual assault as opposed to a drunken, half passed out gal who has morning after regrets because she had sex with some guy she realized the morning after that she shouldn’t have) must be traumatized beyond belief. One of the reasons from what I understand and recall for not publishing the names of rape victims, was to encourage rape victims to contact the police. A lot of women were in fear of reporting an actual rape because of their name and personal information being made public and the consequences of that, the fear that they would be victimized again, by another rapist or that people would look at her not as a victim but some sort of harlot.

In days gone by there was a lot of stigma attached to rape, meaning that “she musta been asking for it”, which was and is not always the case.

OTOH, when a false accusation of rape is made, I think the person making the false accusation deserves to have her name and picture published and the person falsely accused should be fully exonerated not only in a court of law but also in the same press that published his name and not buried in the back pages.

[publius911]

Should rape suspects receive anonymity too?

*Gasp*
You mean they don't?

My take on this subject is that false accusation of rape outnumber false denials of rape 10 to 1.
So, what's the question again?

[grundle]

Yes, they should be anonymous until proven guilty.