| Blog and Media Roundup - Thursday, Decmeber 17, 2015; News Roundup | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 17 2015, 05:16 AM (127 Views) | |
| abb | Dec 17 2015, 05:16 AM Post #1 |
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http://www.salon.com/2015/12/16/they_charged_a_rape_victim_for_lying_chilling_case_deserves_same_attention_as_rolling_stone_scandal/ They charged a rape victim for “lying”: Chilling case deserves same attention as Rolling Stone scandal Amanda Marcotte 12/16/15 Last year, a scandal getting nationwide attention erupted when it was discovered that one of the victims in a Rolling Stone exposé about a rape at the University of Virginia, a woman who claimed she was brutally gang-raped at a frat party, was probably lying about most or even all of her story. The woman in question had gone out of her way to avoid accusing anyone of this possibly fake crime, even going so far as to refuse to name the ring leader in the alleged attack off the record to the journalist interviewing her. But the whole thing kicked off a nationwide hysteria about false rape accusations anyway, a hysteria that was only checked by the cold bath in reality that are the Bill Cosby allegations, which reminded everyone that, by and large, most rape accusers are telling the truth. On Wednesday, T. Christian Miller of Pro Publica and Ken Armstrong of The Marshall Project published an brutal exposé of a false accusation, titled “An Unbelievable Story of Rape.” The piece details a false accusation far more horrifying than the one turned up by the Rolling Stone scandal. Unlike the UVA case, the victim of this false accusation in Lynnwood, Washington was actually named and turned over to the police to be charged. A ruined reputation, public humiliation, and estrangement from family members all followed this false accusation. Authorities very nearly kicked the victim from her home. Yes, “her.” Because the victim of this bona fide, filed with the authorities, false accusation was, in fact, a woman. And she wasn’t accused of rape, but of filing a false police report after she was raped. And no, it’s not an “alleged” rape. Despite years of being branded as a liar, the victim, who goes by the name of “Marie” in this story, finally saw her rapist arrested and found guilty of his crime, after pictures of himself raping her were discovered in his home. It’s a story of a false accusation that is far more chilling and shocking than the story of a troubled college girl misleading a journalist. As Miller and Armstrong carefully lay out, the victim, Marie, was subjected to a lengthy rape by a stranger who broke into her house, delighted in terrifying her for hours, and then tried to make her forgive him for it before he left. But even though there was physical evidence of the rape, the police were so eager to believe the “hysterical women make stuff up for attention” myth that they bullied Marie for hours until she gave in and told them what they wanted to hear, that she made it all up. Then they charged her for a crime for reporting her rape —which really did happen —in the first place. The short answer for why all this happened is sexism. The longer answer is a depressing, and depressingly predictable, laundry list of everything feminists have been telling us for decades about why people don’t believe rape victims. Marie’s two foster mothers, women who should have been there for her, fell for the trap of believing that victims have to act a certain way — sobbing all the time, looking properly forlorn and helpless — to be believed. “I’m a big ‘Law & Order’ fan,” one foster mother explained, confirmed every feminist’s worst fears about how that show distorts the issue of rape. The police, in turn, fell victim to every stupid misogynist stereotype that holds that women are “crazy” and that the female need for attention is so all-encompassing that they will endure the horror show that is a rape investigation, complete with a humiliating rape examination at the local ER, to get that precious, precious attention. And everyone, including the housing authorities that helped Marie get her apartment, fell victim to ugly stereotypes about people on public assistance (Marie had grown up in foster care and was living in a subsidized apartment): That they are untrustworthy, greedy, shallow people with no sense of proportion. At one point, one officer mentions that he got a tip that “Marie was unhappy with her apartment” and had made up a rape in a bid to get a new one. A million right-wing digs about welfare cheats clearly helped lead to this moment. Marie was even forced to lie, by claiming she lied, in front of her fellow adult children of foster care in order to keep her apartment. There’s a whole cottage industry of anti-feminist pundits out there who make it their life’s work to push the myth that women routinely lie about being raped, to get attention or to conceal consensual sexual activity. They champion poorly researched studies claiming that false rape reports are common, even going so far as to argue that half of rape reports are lies and trying to cast doubt even on claims for which there is no evidence of lying. Reliable research, meanwhile, suggests that false reports are only 2-8 percent of reports. An even smaller percentage are actual accusations, as many false reporters carefully avoid naming names. All these efforts to push the myth that false rape reports are common clearly paid off, as Marie’s disturbing story shows. And not just with this one victim who was strong-armed into “admitting” she lied when she did not. “In the five years from 2008 to 2012, the department determined that 10 of 47 rapes reported to Lynnwood police were unfounded — 21.3 percent,” Miller and Armstrong write. “That’s five times the national average of 4.3 percent for agencies covering similar-sized populations during that same period.” How many other victims are out there, branded as liars, just because the cops would rather believe that women are hysterical rather than that rape is a crime that happens as much as it does? To be clear, no one is saying that we should simply convict men, without evidence of rape. But, as Stacy Galbraith, the detective who helped break this case, explained, you should take the time to listen to victims. “A lot of times people say, ‘Believe your victim, believe your victim,’” Galbraith told Miller and Armstrong. “But I don’t think that that’s the right standpoint. I think it’s listen to your victim. And then corroborate or refute based on how things go.” Unfortunately, as this story shows, that’s often not how it goes. Victims often find, instead, that people, even friends and family, are so intent on discrediting you that you never even have a chance to make your case. Somehow I fear that this story, which has a real victim and real consequences, will not get nearly as much national attention as was paid to the story of the Rolling Stone getting snookered by a fabulist at UVA. The very real struggles that rape victims have being believed isn’t as enticing a story as the baseless fears so many men have about false accusations. Like the police who ganged up on Marie, it is still easier for many of us to believe that women make all this up rather than this is a thing that is actually happening. |
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| abb | Dec 17 2015, 05:19 AM Post #2 |
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http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2015/12/coalition_to_end_rape_culture_1.html Coalition to End Rape Culture upset with UMass police for sexual assualt notification email Diane Lederman | dlederman@repub.com By Diane Lederman | dlederman@repub.com on December 16, 2015 at 10:32 AM, updated December 16, 2015 at 4:48 PM AMHERST – Members of the Coalition to End Rape Culture on Campus are upset with the way police handled an assault notification last week, calling it "inappropriate and unnecessarily graphic." The coalition, which is pushing for the university to adopt a Survivor's Bill of Rights, was referring to a Dec. 11 mass email about a sexual assault near the Studio Arts Building. "In addition to not providing a warning about the content enclosed in this mass email, the inclusion of lurid details is entirely insensitive to survivors of sexual assault on this campus - as well as invasive on behalf of the survivor that shared their story," according to the Facebook posting. The coalition said the safety tips included "perpetuate a culture of victim blaming. Instead of reminding the student body about the academic and legal consequences for perpetrators of sexual assault, the email placed responsibility for preventing an assault on those at risk. "The safety tips included also fail to account for routes on campus that may be inaccessible or poorly lit, with no alternative routes available for students to take. According to the police notification, students were warned to let a friend or roommate know where they will be and when they will return and to avoid walking alone at night. Students were advised to use the Walking Escort Service if they feel unsafe and to use only well-lit routes, to walk near the curb and avoid passing close to shrubs, dark doorways, and other hiding places." The CERC posting also wrote that the resources listed for survivors did not mention any non-police, confidential, or trauma-informed resources such as the Title IX website, the Center for Women and Community, or CERC, among others. "Many of these resources exist specifically to educate support, and empower survivors of sexual assault, and none of them were included. "This is not the first time we've had this conversation, and it certainly won't be the last. Sexual assault is a problem here. The fact that survivors don't know where to turn is a problem here. "The environment that promotes and normalizes sexual violence at an institutional level is a problem here. "But change isn't made unless people hold each other accountable, own up to their mistakes, and work together." "We always welcome feedback from the community as part of our ongoing efforts to improve the university's support services for victims/survivors of sexual assault," UMass spokesman Daniel J. Fitzgibbons said in an email. "This is exceedingly critical work and the community plays an important role by providing comments and suggestions about those services and how they are provided." The coalition has been pushing the university to adopt the bill of rights since last March and held a rally on campus earlier this month to gain support and present petitions to Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy. Member Priya Ghosh also spoke to the Board of Trustees last week. They said the bill is needed because more has to be done for victims, including financial help, reimbursement for students forced to withdraw from classes after an attack and contraception following an attack as well. They say that sexual violence on campus is a problem and goes unpunished. The adminstiration has agreed to provide financial support but students said that has not happened. "UMass has a shared governance system for decision-making on policies impacting students, so any proposals have to be reviewed across campus and must be consistent with state and federal laws," UMass spokesman Edward Blaguszewski wrote in an email following the rally. He said Enku Gelaye, vice chancellor for student affairs and campus life, and Debora Ferreira, executive director, Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity, have been meeting with members of CERC about the bill and Ferreira said it will be adopted by the university and become part of its campus equity resolution complaint process, now being updated. "The university is diligently working to support victims/survivors of sexual violence," he wrote. |
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| Sydney Carton | Dec 17 2015, 01:55 PM Post #3 |
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I just caught this horror story in yesterday's Miami Post.Tommy Zeigler and the Fairbanks Four are far from the only ones suffering fake snitch evidence. But the sheer chutzpah of this one transcends anything I have ever previously read. Fred Grimm: Jailhouse snitch’s “right to privacy” beats First Amendment Judge ordered newspaper to cleanse website of jailhouse telephone transcripts Jailhouse snitch listed as prosecution witness in 23 cases Snitch testimony key to 15 percent of Florida’s wrongful convictions By Fred Grimm fgrimm@miamiherald.com The theoretical privacy rights of a jailbird would seem a tenuous basis for a judge to toss the First Amendment and order a Florida newspaper to censor its own website. But on Nov. 30, Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Jack Schramm Cox ordered the Palm Beach Post to remove transcripts of a convicted murderer’s jailhouse phone calls from the newspaper’s website and to delete any excepts from previously posted stories. The judge’s order blocked public access to the troubling discourse of convicted killer Frederick “Rock” Cobia, one of South Florida’s most infamous jailhouse informants. Maybe that’s exactly why Cobia’s utterances were erased from a public forum. They revealed the judicial system’s unseemly dependence on the snitch system. Cobia, 43, copped to a second-degree murder deal three years ago despite brutally beating, then shooting, a South Bay man over a piddling amount of marijuana. Prosecutors have delayed his sentencing. For good reason. According to the Palm Beach Post, Cobia has been listed as a prosecution witness in 23 cases. He has already provided key testimony in two murder convictions, claiming that the defendants — conveniently placed in his cell by jailers — had told him damning details about the crime. He’s set to offer similar testimony in three upcoming murder trials, including the case that prompted this imbroglio two months ago when defendant Jamal Smith’s assistant public defender filed a complaint that Cobia was bartering his testimony for a light sentence and very special treatment from his jailers. The lawyer included transcripts of the jailhouse telephone conversations, which were culled by the Palm Beach Post for an Oct. 15 story about mounting complaints from defense attorneys about prosecutors’ use of this serial snitch. Cobia had bragged on the phone about his special accommodations in the jail, his flat-screen television, his private shower. About his access to detectives. He boasted how, posing as a jailhouse lawyer, he had elicited confessions from more than 60 inmates. He talked about the sweetheart sentence he had been promised in return for his testimony. Two weeks later, Judge Cox confounded the legal community and acted on a complaint from Cobia’s lawyer that the Post had violated the prisoner’s supposed privacy rights. He ordered the website cleansed of those tawdry transcripts. The newspaper appealed, noting that the Florida Supreme Court has ruled in three separate cases that inmates have no right to privacy when talking on jailhouse phones. Nor, the lawyers argued, did the judge’s decision conform with U.S. Supreme Court’s warning that censorship can be abided only “in rare and exceptional cases.” Beyond the constitutional issues, the Cobia case offers disturbing insight into how prosecutors turn to snitches to bolster shaky cases. In 2012, the Florida Innocence Project reported that jailhouse informants “with incentives to testify” had provided key testimony in more than 15 percent of wrongful convictions — including 45 percent of the murder cases — later overturned through DNA testing. Frederick Cobia’s jailhouse phone conversations further illustrate how snitches have warped the judicial system in Florida. Or they would, if Judge Cox hadn’t turned censor. Edited by Sydney Carton, Dec 17 2015, 01:59 PM.
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| Quasimodo | Dec 17 2015, 02:49 PM Post #4 |
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A world most of us would have been unaware of not too long ago; and which we would have been incredulous about had we been told... Edited by Quasimodo, Dec 17 2015, 02:49 PM.
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| abb | Dec 17 2015, 03:33 PM Post #5 |
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http://postoncourts.blog.palmbeachpost.com/2015/12/17/pbc-judge-charges-defense-attorney-with-criminal-contempt-in-snitch-case/ PBC judge charges defense attorney with criminal contempt in snitch case December 17, 2015 | Filed in: murder, Judge Jack Cox, 15th Circuit. Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Jack Cox on Thursday charged Assistant Public Defender Elizabeth Ramsey with criminal contempt for allegedly violating his order not to publish transcripts of recorded jail phone conversations of notorious jailhouse snitch Frederick Cobia. The unusual move came as jury selection was about to start in the murder trial of Ramsey’s client, Jamal Smith. More than 30 assistant public defenders and defense attorneys filled the courtroom in anticipation of a decision by Cox. Cox based his ruling on court papers filed Friday by attorney Valerie Masters, who represents Cobia. Masters claimed Ramsey violated Cox’s Dec. 1 court order by filing in court records a transcript of a deposition she took of Cobia in October. While Cox’s order was aimed at The Palm Beach Post, it prohibits anyone else from publishing transcripts of Cobia’s recorded phone calls — even in court files. ADVERTISING While Ramsey is charged with a misdemeanor that carries a maximum six-month jail sentence, in his two-page order Cox said he won’t send the veteran defense attorney to jail. “No bail is required in this case and the defendant is allowed to remain at liberty,” he wrote. A preliminary hearing on the charges will be held Tuesday. His order threw Smith’s looming murder trial into question. Over Ramsey’s objections, Cox ordered attorney Ruth Martinez-Estes to meet with Smith to discuss his options. Even Martinez-Estes expressed reluctance to intervene, explaining she wasn’t familiar with the case. Nonetheless, Cox ordered her to meet with Smith to help him decide whether he wants to continue to be represented by Ramsey. Smith is charged with murder in connection with the 2011 fatal shooting of Kemar Clayton, 24, in the parking lot of a shopping center on State Road 7 near Wellington. Check back for further updates. |
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| abb | Dec 17 2015, 10:27 PM Post #6 |
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http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/ed-dept.-just-got-more-money-to-combat-campus-sexual-assault/article/2578657 Ed Dept. just got more money to combat campus sexual assault By Ashe Schow (@AsheSchow) • 12/17/15 5:47 PM The Education Department's Office for Civil Rights just received a 7 percent increase in its budget in the recently passed omnibus spending bill. The House version of the bill includes a $7 million increase in funding for OCR, while the bill before the Senate includes a $6 million increase. Last year, OCR's budget was $100 million. OCR had sought an additional $30 million in funding in part to help ease the burden of campus sexual assault investigations. OCR is currently investigating more than 150 schools for alleged violations of the anti-discrimination law known as Title IX. This is thanks in part to the office's 2011 "Dear Colleague" letter that forced schools to adjudicate sexual assault accusations under Title IX. In April 2015, former OCR attorney Hans Bader wrote a letter to the editors of the Chronicle of Higher Education suggesting OCR should have its budget cut, not increased. Bader quoted a letter from two members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights who noted OCR's overreach into the bedrooms of college students in America. "Though OCR may claim to be under-funded, its resources are stretched thin largely because it has so often chosen to address violations it has made up out of thin air," members Gail Heriot and Peter Kirsanow wrote. "Increasing OCR's budget would in effect reward the agency for frequently over-stepping the law. It also would provide OCR with additional resources to undertake more ill-considered initiatives for which it lacks authority." Indeed, OCR's "Dear Colleague" letter — which did not go through a proper review process — put an additional burden on the office, not Congress. The office took on additional responsibility without going through proper channels, and now wants more money for it. Under OCR's letter, schools must spend money and resources adjudicating felonies using untrained or barely trained administrators posing as investigator, judge, jury and appellate court. Accused students are forced to come up with evidence to prove a crime didn't occur, while accusers merely have to tell their story. Accusers have the entire Title IX office behind them without any additional expense, while the accused must pay out of pocket to speak to a lawyer (who can't represent them in the hearing) or struggle to find a campus administrator willing to support them. Schools were "strongly discouraged" by OCR from allowing the accused to cross-examine an accuser. The accused is often disallowed from providing evidence in their defense such as text messages or Facebook posts and are essentially treated as guilty-until-proven-innocent. Now OCR will get a little more money to devote to these unfair and unconstitutional processes. But campus sexual assault is not the only problem facing OCR. As Power Line's Paul Mirengoff points out, OCR is involved in other areas of school life that are hurting students in what should have been easily foreseen consequences. For one thing, schools are now, thanks to OCR, required to institute racial quotas when it comes to disciplining students. OCR determined that regardless of the merits of each example of discipline, schools needed to punish black and white students at the same rate. This stems from a misreading of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race but does not require policy changes if there is a disparate impact. (Besides, OCR is only using disparate impact as a means to an end when it comes to racial discipline, ignoring the disparate impact on male students from having their constitutional rights trampled once accused of sexual assault.) Mirengoff also brings up OCR's response to bullying and how the office converts "ordinary incidents of schoolyard bullying into violations of federal law." In Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled that one incident of bullying is not enough to warrant federal liability of a school. Seven million dollars – or $6 million – might not be a huge increase in the grand scheme of things, but it's a reward to an office that has eviscerated the due process rights of students across the country. |
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