When court cases rely only on “he said, she said”
In some cases, prosecutors are only able to incarcerate someone for committing a heinous act through the testimony of witnesses. But courts need to tread carefully through such convictions as there are too many known cases of false accusations sending an innocent person to prison.
Several years ago, five female high school students falsely accused a male lifeguard of sexual assault on two occasions. The male student was subjected to incarceration before the girls admitted they had lied.
Apparently, law enforcement thought that the testimonies of five girls was enough to know that the lifeguard was guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt. The parents of the boy were the ones who had to gather the evidence that their son was innocent, which was easily accomplished.
It appears that the five girls suffered no academic or personal consequences for falsely accusing this young man of crimes that he did not commit. This inaction on the part of the local school district and law enforcement only encourages others to seek revenge through false accusations. In today’s society, it is particularly effective if you are a female.
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Of course, if the lifeguard had not been locked up before being found innocent, the MeToo folks, the SJWs, and the Lauren Books of the world would have had the prosecutor and/or police involve with the case fired.
People may not realize this but feminists played as much a rule in our overly punitive system as the conservatives.
As a person who was recently falsely accused of a crime, there is no worse feeling of helplessness than sitting in a jail cell not even knowing why you are there other than the formal charge and you have nothing to do but think about it for days/weeks/month on end.
We seem to have forgotten the very concept of “innocent until proven guilty.” Anyone who’s been locked up can tell you jail is worse than prison because you are more restricted.
I’ve said a million times and will say a million more – Prosecutors and judges only care about convictions, nothing more. Law, truth and justice be damned. DAs just want to maintain their precious 100% conviction rates and many (if not all) judges campaign on sentencing however many criminals whatever number of years during their terms and pledge to increase it.
Both love sex crime in particular because the burden of proof is non-existent. A simple accusation, even a recanted one, is sufficient. In many states, accusers don’t even have to testify in court and if they do, aren’t subjected to any meaningful cross-examination due to rape shield laws that somehow courts interpret as not denying the right to confront one’s accusers.
I don’t see the big deal.
For centuries, juries have relied on testimony of accusers and witnesses, cross-examined by the defense.
Cross-examination can be particularly useful where a witness is “known to lie,” as one poster put it below.
Has something changed?
Is it FAC’s position that abuse cases that rely solely on testimony, should be dropped?
(Can’t wait to make some new friends with this post).
Being older than you, Jacob, I remember the days when schools taught that someone could not be sent to prison only on the testimony of one person. There was no need for an explanation as it was obvious why.
This was all changed in Florida some years ago to help children put people in prison who had truly abused them. It all sounded good on the surface. But as is true of most new laws, because of the constant overreach by law enforcement, courts, and legislators, it entrapped people for whom it was never intended.
I was also taught in school that a spouse could not be forced to testify against his/her husband/wife. This was a no-brainer, too. Now, unlike other criminal cases, a person can be forced to testify in alleged sexual abuse cases against minors.
Yes, for centuries some societies have relied on just the testimony of a witness(es). Think of the women who were burned at the stake in this country because of the “testimony” from some individuals.
Cross-examination is not always going to determine if a witness is lying or not.
Don’t worry, Jacob. You will always be my friend.
Thank you for the powerful and timely Weekly Update addressing these very issues. It happens that you’re not much older than me (don’t tell anybody).
The mere fact that the defense won’t go out for blood on a child victim is a no brained everybody is concerned with not putting them thru no more trauma then they have already allegedly endured so they instead try to use double talk to try to trip them up. Oh but wait now your confusing them as I was told children make mistakes. Like when several of the days she said incidents occurred and I was not even in the state . it was well she don’t have to know the exact dates . or when they ask her 3 times when the last incident occurred it was two weeks ago then changed to a couple of days ago then changed to it was yesterday. When asked why she said it was a couple days ago her answer was oh I forgot .never mind that she was in they’re custody yesterday. But again it was well children make mistakes and can forget but they don’t lie about stuff like this . really ? Cross examination only works if its used correctly the idea is to get at the truth not seeing how well they remember what they are told to say