On Jury Nullification and Rape

Regardless of the personal repugnance we may feel for any crime, including rape, we must remember that without an overarching concern for justice, laws invariably become nothing more than the instruments of tyranny. Unfortunately, where it concerns the crime of rape, that tyranny has been upon us for quite some time.

With the epidemic of false rape reports, poor and sometimes corrupt police work, prosecutors blind with power and ambition, and an unconscionable but successful feminist campaign to define rape in the most ludicrous terms possible, we have created a monstrous system of abject injustice, with rights of the accused routinely ground to dust in the name of convictions, and to our national disgrace, in the name of sexual politics.

It seems every day there is a news story about a man freed from prison after being falsely convicted.

While the laudable efforts to free the innocent must continue, it is clearly time to seek to understand how we got to such rampant injustice, and what we can do about it. And that begins with a candid examination of what happens in a rape prosecution, from beginning to end. It all starts with a police report; a compliant filed by a private citizen alleging that a rape has occurred. And that is where we encounter the first of many problems.

Former Colorado prosecutor Craig Silverman once opined, “For sixteen years I was a kick ass prosecutor who made the most of my reputation [by] vigorously prosecuting rapists. I was amazed to see all the false rape allegations made to the Denver Police Department. A command officer in the Denver Police Sex Assault Unity recently told me he put the false rape numbers at approximately 45%.”

Just recently the Orlando PD made the public proclamation that false rape allegations have become an epidemic. Last June the Baltimore Sun reported that police claimed that more than 30% of rape accusations were deemed unfounded. Louisville and Pittsburgh reported similar numbers.

A longitudinal study conducted by Professor Eugene Kanin concluded that over a period of nine years, 41% of rape allegations studied were fraudulent, concocted by the alleged victim to either create an alibi, seek attention and sympathy, or to seek revenge.

And there is the McDowell Study cited by Warren Farrell in The Myth of Male Power, which concluded that of 1,218 reported rapes on Air Force Bases around the world, 45% were discovered to be fraudulent.

This 45% of cases are not ones that could not be proven or for which a suspect could not be apprehended, but cases that were proven to be fabricated by the person filing the complaint. 27% of the false claims were admitted after the accusers were asked to take a polygraph test, or having just failed one.

While arrests for making false allegations appear to be on the increase, the norm has been to treat the criminality of the reports as a mental health issue. Crystal Gayle Mangum, the notorious liar in the Duke Rape Case, was referred to counseling, as was Danmell Ndonye, the woman who falsely accused five men in the Hofstra Case of gang raping her in a men’s room at a school dorm.

The police themselves add to the problem. In the Orlando, Florida story, the NBC News affiliate reported statements by police that that they do not want to arrest these women. In fact, they only seemed to notice the problem when it got so out of hand that it was causing a stress on resources within the police department. They also noted the deleterious effect on the “real victims” of rape, but did not utter a word about the men at risk for being wrongly placed behind bars as a result of the allegations.

And where the police leave off, the prosecutors go into overdrive.

Mike Nifong, the supposedly “rogue” prosecutor who pursued the Duke rape suspects long after there was abundant evidence to exonerate them, has become the poster boy for false rape culture.
Nifong, while getting massive amounts of coverage from the media, was hardly the exception, and not even the most extreme. Mary N. Kellett, a prosecutor in Bar Harbor Maine, is making a career of rape cases. She is averaging one indictment a week, from a population of less than 60,000.

Her most notable case so far has been against Vladek Filler, who was convicted of raping his wife, with no forensic evidence, and only her word that the rape occurred. The conviction was overturned due to prosecutorial misconduct and Kellett is appealing the case to the Maine Supreme Court.

The chronology of this story is lengthy and the details somewhat complicated, but have a look, and a good listen, to the following recording of police interaction with Filler’s wife. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsKIcQhjaJg

This is what passes for a credible complainant in a modern rape case. This is the compelling reason to put a man behind bars. Kellett is clearly a prosecutor out of control, but she is nonetheless still serving as an Assistant District Attorney, and rumor has it she has ambitions to run for the District Attorney when her boss retires.

The Innocence Project gives a detailed breakdown of the factors that play into bad convictions, both from police and prosecutors. Key factors range from coercion of defendants, to knowing use of false testimony (suborning perjury) and a host of other unscrupulous tactics.

In light of what is going on in our legal system, Kellett is no more a “rogue” than Mike Nifong.
It is the system that is rogue; Kellett and Niphong were/are just an unusually visible parts of it.
Even given the rampancy of false allegations and misconduct by law enforcement and prosecutors, this is still not justification for looking the other way when a crime is committed. Liars, whether shedding fake tears or wearing uniforms or arguing before a jury, cannot be allowed to so subvert justice that we abandon the law itself. For it is the law, when justly and rightly applied, that gives us the checks and balances to overcome those who abuse the system.

Enter, however, Rape Shield Laws; the final nail in the coffin that holds the remains of our presumed innocence and right to a fair trial.
It would seem reasonable, until you go back and review the information provided by The Innocence Project and consider what this type of system does with these kinds of laws.

It is clearly the presumption of guilt, legitimized by the same court that is supposed to protect the presumption of innocence.

Police are not going to help. They are a fundamental part of the problem.
Prosecutors? Who, Mary Kellett? No…

So, what do you do within the system when the system is the problem?
--- MUCH MORE AT LINK-- http://www.avoiceformen.com/2010/08/01/on-jury-nullification-and-rape/