Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site rayssd.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!rayssd!hxe From: hxe@rayssd.UUCP (Heather Emanuel) Newsgroups: net.women Subject: Re: Re: ``they'' vs *US* Message-ID: <773@rayssd.UUCP> Date: Thu, 30-May-85 12:49:39 EDT Article-I.D.: rayssd.773 Posted: Thu May 30 12:49:39 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 31-May-85 06:08:19 EDT References: <186@timeinc.UUCP> <442@sftri.UUCP> <198@timeinc.UUCP> Organization: Raytheon Co., Portsmouth RI Lines: 63 > >The second case here still happens all too often, with the judge now > >musing about questions like "Did she ask for it?". > > Really??? Mark, this might be another one of those myths that > somebody was talking about becoming inherent in this group. When, in > the last *ten* years have you ever heard of a case where a judge would > even consider this type of foolishness?? Last year, when I was on Jury Duty. > That sort of backwardness with todays watchful media eye would have > made the papers, wouldn't it?? Maybe I read the wrong papers....I haven't > noticed it in the NY Times, or the Wall Street Journal. Haven't seen > it in NOW Newletter or Ms. Mag. Where are you pulling these stats from? > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ > Ross M. Greenberg @ Time Inc, New York > --------->{ihnp4 | vax135}!timeinc!greenber<--------- My personal experience. (Of course, I'm not Mark.) Granted, it is not always the Judge who asks these questions; it is often the jury or the public. The effect is the same. Two examples: 1. My stint on jury duty included an attempted rape case. I heard all the testimony, etc., because I was originally chosen for the jury, but disallowed at the end (long story, legal mumbo jumbo). Given all the facts of the case I and the other two jurors who were chosen as alternates and thus not voting members of the jury were absolutely convinced that the boy was guilty. The voting members of the jury, who were mostly older women who had no real contact with the outside world on a regular basis (long hours of talking in the jury room while waiting established this point), plus a few young men, decided that, although the girl had screamed and called for help for over 15 minutes (witnesses for that), the boy was not guilty of attempted rape because the girl had "probably said 'yes' and then changed her mind." The charge was "attempted rape" only because the neighbors who listened to her screaming finally decided to call the police and the boy was interrupted. Even the Judge (later, in a private conversation) expressed shock that the jury let the boy (18 years old) off without even opting for a lesser charge. So it wasn't the judge, but the result was the same. [A related flame - if every professional who is called for jury duty gets out of it because we have the wherewithal to do so, then juries are made up of people with nothing else to do, something I find terrifying if I'm ever up in front of one.] 2. Not that I ever want to discuss this again, but the Big Dan's gang rape case in New Bedford Massachusetts, in which a woman was raped by 4 men and "fondled" by 2 more for two hours in a bar, surrounded by a crowd of cheering onlookers, was a hotbed of "what was she doing in that bar in the first place?" crap. In fact, there were marches where thousands of people marched *in support* of the *rapists*!!!!! The men were convicted, but given reduced sentences due, I'm sure, to the public pressure. That case was two years ago, well within your ten-year time limit. -- --Heather Emanuel {allegra, decvax!brunix, linus, ccice5} rayssd!hxe -------------------------------------------------------------------- I don't think my company *has* an opinion, so the ones in this article are obviously my own. -------------------------------------------------------------------- "Ain't life a brook... Sometimes I feel just like a polished stone" -Ferron