Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
This is six kinds of awesome.
Federal judges in California ordering thousands of inmates released due to prison overcrowding.
Obama:, “No more pork! But, uh, here’s some federal money targeted for special infrastructure projects in your respective communities.”
Massachusetts supreme court allows sex discrimination suit to go forward alleging that state prosecutors don’t pursue underage female suspects the same way the pursue underage male suspects in statutory rape cases. The case stems from the prosecution of a 14-year-old who had non-forcible sex with two 12-year-olds and an 11-year-old. The boy was prosecuted, the girls weren’t. Here’s an idea: How about you get these kids some counseling and not ruin any of their lives with criminal charges?
This Reddit thread on Charles Platt’s experiment as a Walmart employee is interesting. As you scroll down, notice how quickly the sentiment seems to alternate between “Walmart exploits its workers” and “if Walmart workers are happy with their jobs, it’s because they’re too stupid and uneducated to know better.” For more on Platt’s experiment, check out his guest blogging stint at Boing Boing.
Gene Healy’s writing a regular column for the D.C. Examiner. Sweet.
CLARIFICATION: Via the comments:
The Mass. Supreme Court is allowing discovery of statutory rape statistics so the defendant can make a defense of vindictive prosecution and possibly have the charges dismissed. This is not civil action against the prosecutor.
Noted.
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on Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 at 12:53 pm by Radley Balko
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TheAgitator.com
Re: Mass. court pursuing underage sex.
I agree that there should generally not be any prosecution, male or female, for underage sex.
But if there is, it should be equal.
The law continues to act under the fiction that males are always the instigators, always the predators, and that the females would never assert sexual assault unless it actually happened. (See Duke LaCrosse players)
In many cases you can see the parents of the girls reporting the “crime.” They assume that their girls are pure and were led astray by the beastly boy, and their beliefs are only affirmed by a legal system that only prosecutes boys. If the parents of girls knew that their daughters might also get into trouble, they would be less likely to point the finger at boys unless there was some clear abuse.
(Just as if we saw prosecution of the rich and powerful for drug possession, we might see an end to all this stupidity in that arena)
Radley, why do you hate The Children™?
The Sopranos link just shows how poor the English language is. It only contains curses tied to the act of fornication or its instruments, which makes it so boring. You don’t have to be especially inventive to come with new curses – the Germans, for example, routinely use animals (pigs, dogs) to insult people. A very popular curse in many Slavic languages is “kurva”, which literally means “whore”, and yet is used as a replacement for “fuck” (among other terms). Of course, fornication is still present, but in more original ways, such as the popular Slovak curse “Boha ti jebem”, which literally means “I fuck your god”. Still, the most masterful curse I’ve ever had the privilege of learning is in Hungarian, and in its literal translation it means “I hope a tiger with a striped dicks anally rapes you”.
“if Walmart workers are happy with their jobs, it’s because they’re too stupid and uneducated to know better.”
Too stupid and uneducated to find a job that lets you sit in front of a computer and comment on Reddit all day long maybe.
Walmart thread–Those people kept going on about “if you were starving”, the starving people, “you can grow your own food”, somebody suggested. Now, I could be wrong, but I don’t think starving is the issue here. Walmart isn’t anybody’s alternative to starvation. At least not in this country.
What? You mean actually do something productive and good? Pfffft, we are the government we know best how to destroy people’s lives and have fun doing it.
Now piss off.
I disagree. Consensual sex between underage kids probably usually shouldn’t be prosecuted at all, but if they do, Girls should be prosecuted more aggressively than boys. Way back when I was growing up, there was no end to those who claimed that girls mature faster than boys. If that’s true, then they should be treated as if they are older, and therefore more responsible. Payback time.
I have Boing Boing on my list of daily reads, as their quantity of posts can turn up a couple interesting items a day. But the audience (those who comment, at least) is full of hard-core leftists. It was very interesting to see the reaction to Platt’s guest blogging, especially his posts on climate change. The main site personalities responded with a deluge of “party line” posts, and Platt ended up leaving early. I guess you’d see the same thing if you guest blogged a neocon site and posted that maybe the same restrain they are urging with regards to pushing through the stimulus bill should have been applied when deciding whether to invade Iraq. They are sacred cows for a reason – people get really pissed when you poke them.
When Congress is given a mandate to suddenly spend a shitload of money that they shouldn’t be spending, it’s all pork.
I think that a word besides “rape” should be used for statutory rape. Rape has a pretty clear meaning as an unquestionably horrible and despicable act. To apply it to consenting sex between young teens is a pretty awful thing to do to both teens who have sex and to people who are actually, you know, raped. It is pretty absurd when two parties can mutually (and voluntarily) rape each other.
There may be some need for such laws and age of consent laws, I haven’t really made up my mind on the issue. But, especially when both parties are minors, it damn well should not be called rape.
Walmart was elected to it’s current position by a hell of a lot larger majority of the population than our current president.
Here’s an idea: How about you get these kids some counseling and not ruin any of their lives with criminal charges?
Radley, what makes you think the kids need counseling?
Walmart is an excellent example of libertarian “capture” theory. It is, in many ways, a spectacularly successful corporate welfare queen.
Jozef,
I agree about the weakness of the English language, but fucking disagree with you about fuck. “Fuck” is THE most extraordinary word in the world. It is used globally and can be a verb, adverb, adjective, noun, pronoun, etc…and is easy for even non-native English speakers to conjugate (as my taxi driver this morning demonstrated).
But, I want to thank you for two new insults I just added to my database.
That Sopranos video is easily one of the greatest creations of all time.
Maybe they need some counseling in how not to get caught having sex?
I wonder if the federal judges have maybe considered not throwing everyone caught with a joint into the prison system might, just maybe, you know, help with that overcrowded prison system.
#9 Zeb hits it right on the head. The common connotation of rape is one a violent, forceable sexual encounter. Hence, there are tough laws against rape, sexual offender registries etc. The problem is that these tough laws are applied to cases where the evidence is weak, or the crime is minor/nonexistent.
Rape is unusual in the criminal law: You have a normal human activity that can be criminalized merely on the word of one of the parties, or because the age of the participants, and then there is prosecution. The evidentiary standards are different than for other crimes (very much against the accused), and the consequences severe.
We don’t use these crazy standards elsewhere.
Imagine, going to the mall with the concern that every commercial transaction opened you to a realistic charge of theft or robbery on the word of the cashier, that if the cashier was underage you would automatically be guilty, that different evidentiary standard were applied to you versus the cashier, and that the punishment was many years in jail and a requirment that you never go near any commercial establishment, ever.
I’ll agree that statutory rape laws between minors should be lifted, but if so, I want to reserve the legal right to stomp the shit out of any 14 year old high school boy I catch with my 11 year old daughter.
(yeah, I know that might not be reasonable either, but having daughters does that to you).
I have a son and a daughter. I don’t wish any of them harm. My concern is that the law, in trying to protect my daughter, does great harm to my son.
That said, when he gets to 14 (admittedly, a long time), if he gets caught having sex with an 11 year old he won’t just have the girl’s father to worry about.
Why is the entire issue of rape slanted toward the woman? Why can a woman change her mind after consensual sex and have the man charged with rape? Hell,what happened to the Juvinile justice system? We have 12 and 13 year olds being charged as adults. The entire idea of statutory rape is that someone (not specifically the girl) under the age of concent can’t give permission because they don’t understand the consequences of the act.
#20: Because the law view sex through a very old fashioned mindset. The woman is property, first of her father, then her husband. Hence, a husband cannot be a rapist. Having sex with her degrades the value of that property and is an offense against the male owner. Hence, one old punishment for rape was to force the rapist to marry the victim (if unmarried).
Sure, the law has evolved, but it still retains strong traces of the past. Law has not caught up with the idea of sex as an entirely consensual act between two equal parties.
Rape is unusual in the criminal law: You have a normal human activity that can be criminalized merely on the word of one of the parties…
I don’t really view it as that unusual, particularly considering that–unlike many other “crimes” (generally statutory ones that do not require mens rea, which is basically intent)–it’s an act that most people can intuitively recognize as wrong. That being said, I agree that the double-standards are illogical, particularly with respect to rape shield rules such as Federal Rule of Evidence 412. Just because rape is a rather heinous crime doesn’t mean that the accused deserve less protection; if anything, the emotionally charged nature of such trials suggests the accused is in GREATER need of procedural protections.
As the mother of sons and daughters, I fully agree with the commenters that say the law should apply EQUALLY to the boys as well as the girls. Women wanted equality, and we should get it. Perhaps only then will we see an end to these BS type of cases.
Radley,
A slight correction to the Mass. story. The Mass. Supreme Court is allowing discovery of statutory rape statistics so the defendant can make a defense of vindictive prosecution and possibly have the charges dismissed. This is not civil action against the prosecutor.
There are a few things very wrong with what you just said:
1) Husbands can be charged with rape, and usually are if the DA can make the charges stick.
2) This view has more to do with the Victorian Era view of women as inherently more virtuous than men which puts the assumption on the man as being the “guilty party.”
3) Traditionally, in western society, the family patriarch’s social obligation regarding his daughter’s chastity was part and parcel of his overall obligation to provide for her and protect her until she was married to a man who could assume that obligation. Likewise, at least in theory (often not in practice), he was supposed to punish his sons for doing behavior that would compromise the daughters of other men. It was hardly the sort of arrangement like what you have in the Middle East where women actually are treated like property; a man recently lost his 8 year old daughter in Saudi Arabia because her father made her his wager in a card game.
That sort of real “women-as-property” has never been practiced, classical slavery aside, in Greco-Roman-Germanic civilization.
In Obama’s press conference he mentioned how Republicans are now complaining about spending but sat quiet during the last eight years while the deficit doubled, but if Government spending was able to fix the economy wouldn’t the economy be awesome right now?
Update: “Galveston girl’s police assault trial ends with hung jury”
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6256265.html
One asshole hangs the jury by refusing to acquit- sounds like reverse jury nullification by some badgelicker.
I think a better solution to teenage sex would be for the parent or guardian of either party to ask for essentially a restraining order from the court asking that the two parties not have any (more) sex or whatever and that a violation of that order would involve some sort of serious – though not life ruining – penalty (a hefty fine or a night in police lock-up, let’s say).
There should be some type of legal recourse for parents to protect their kids, and for us as a society to say that teenage sex can be wrong and inappropriate but these criminal sanctions are awful.
Mike T: I was talking about the historic understanding re husband raping wife….it was still good law in some U.S. states in the 20th century.
I disagree that Western society has not viewed women as property. Until the 60s, a married woman (in many US states) could not enter into a contract unless cosigning with the husband, because she was deemed incompetent to sign for both parties. A married man could, however, sign without his wife’s permission.
In the UK until at least victorian era, a father could privately prosecute a man who had consensual sex with, or married, his daughter, unless the man had obtained permission from the father. I would refer you to the cases if I still had my old books.
Similarly, if Elizabeth I had married, there was concern that the husband would become ruler of England under concepts of property.
“One asshole hangs the jury by refusing to acquit- sounds like reverse jury nullification by some badgelicker.”
Is that really “reverse” nullification, or just nullification we don’t like? Heck, is it even nullification? Without asking the juror I don’t think we’d know for sure. I’ve always viewed nullification as a two edged sword, and I think the history of its use in the U.S. is strong evidence of the good and the bad that can come of it.
How about we start with the guys in there for lighting up a joint. Instead of parole how about we just commute their sentences to lighten the load on the parole/judicial system as well.
Heh, whoops. That last one was form. And so was #6, I was just being a smart-ass.
The WalMart thread is depressing. It highlights how ignorant many American’s are about the basics of economics. It’s evident that our new president is. It’s also a cry of ignorance of the moral superiority of transactional freedom over government coercion.
If Obama really wants to turn the economy around with a “stimulus”, I propose that he buy a few million copies of “Eat The Rich” by P.J. O’Rourke and send it to all the government operated schools and see if they can figure it out and maybe teach it to some students. And just maybe he and his cabinet could read it and get an f’ing clue as well.
Consensual sex between 7th graders & 9th graders is not rape. End of discussion. The idea that this should be illegal is straight out of the Victorian era.