AIBU to feel unsettled after jury service in a sex crime case?

I do agree, but only partly @BigFatLiar . The lass in my story was entirely engaged in a casual hook up that evening. The video proves it. but in the morning with her flatmates asking questions, and her official boyfriend arriving at 11:00, she decided to say rape. It's a classic "he said, she said" situation. There was no suggestion of violence or coercion at any point of the narrative, and rather than prosecuting for rape, she disappeared off the police radar. Subjecting a 21 year old to almost 2 years of acute fear of prosecution for an act of intercourse that was just casual sex seems a bit hard.

Most victims are innocent. Doesn't mean you simply lock up some random person and call it justice. That may sound OK until you're the random being locked up. It would make the polices job easier though if they didn't have to prove they had arrested the correct person.

If the evidence and arguements are in the defendants favour then that's how it is.

Innocent until proven guilty. Everyone is entitled to a defense.

I think the onus is on the judge to explain to the jury their duty. This didn't happen in the case my OH was on and in the first jury session the foewoman declared he must be guilty as the police wouldn't have arrested him if he didn't do it. Others thought he probably did it as he 'looked the sort'. OH says there was no real evidence but they still found the defendant guilty by majority. So really it all depends on who you get on the jury, the majority in his jury took the view he may have so that was good enough.

It is very important. If this lad wants a serious relationship and there's a shadow against his name

I don't disagree with the broad thought on this topic, because I believe rape and sexual assaults are heinous crimes that should be prosecuted. But I also know, from a relative's experience, that communities sometimes judge automatic guilt upon accusation.

A friend's son was accused of rape after a consensual hook up, because her "real" boyfriend was arriving at 10 am next morning, when the truth was that she was out clubbing, and drunk, and was escorted home. And in the morning her flatmates decided she must have been raped. Intercourse happened, without any shadow of doubt.

But the young man involved was hauled into a police station, charged with rape, vilified around the small university town, left his degree course, and was not told anything about the police investigations for 18 months, during which the senior policeman retired. It took the lad's mother 18 months later to ring the duty solicitor to ask what was happening, to be told "we dropped it; no further action as the complainant never returned to finish her statement".

That lad is never going to trust a woman, ever again.

Because one innocent man is more important than 9 raped, innocent women getting justice? The original saying is too simplistic, it ignores the victims, who are also innocent, and the potential future victims that have been created by letting guilty men walk.

The assumption in U.K. Courts is “innocent until proven guilty” and IMO that’s how it should be.
If you start by assuming all defendants are guilty we’ll
a) need a lot more prison soace
b) have a lot more costly retrials when people appeal

I haven’t read the full thread but I’ve had a similar experience to the OP and felt the same, it felt like justice wasn’t exactly served.

The law on rape contains so many nuances that I found myself thinking that the judge or a small group of experts would be better equipped to give a verdict than a randomly selected group of lay people with no knowledge of the law and very different ideas about consent.

I don’t know who those experts would be but we have magistrates for less serious offences who might be better equipped to actually judge the evidence presented.

Am in a similar situation to OP and I'm so grateful for this quote that so accurately sums up what I've really struggled with.

I had no idea that the wording of the charge would hinge on whether the defendant believed the complainant consented. And to me it makes a mockery of the whole thing. Of course the defendant can say he thought she consented; even if she said an outright no (and there are all sorts of reasons why that wouldn't happen anyway), he could say that was part of their routine, or something to that effect.

@Overrunwithlego put it far more eloquently with the Boris example too.

I'm really struggling to get my head round this and the bind it leaves juries in with regard to the law. I'm currently still feeling quite upset by the whole thing.

There are some campaigns running on this, but I'm not sure how effective they have been. Both seem a little diluted with other matters too, but I'm absolutely appalled and feel the need to do something.

Apologies for waffling, I'm quite shaken, TBH.

https://righttoequality.org/campaign/affirmative-consent/

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/nov/19/sexual-offences-review-says-consent-must-be-communicated-through-words-or-actions

Very well said! (Much better than I did, haha). I completely agree.

There needs to be some sort of change, whatever it is, to better enable rapists to be convicted. As it is, so few rapes even get reported because it's so well-known that it's usually pretty pointless taking it to court, and so it's a crime that in actual, real world terms, is mostly decriminalised.

In most cases, it's an agreed fact that a crime has been committed, and the prosecutor's job is to prove that it was the defendant, and not somebody else, that did it. If ten innocent men are convicted, then ten guilty men are still out there, posing a risk to the public, and the police aren't even looking for them. Also, such a system would disincentivise the police to do a good job of collecting the evidence.

The problem with (some) SA cases (and the Lucy Letby case, for example) is that it's not an agreed fact, at the start of the trial, that a crime has been committed at all. I don't see how reversing the onus of proof would help, though.

I am instinctively very wary of getting rid of the idea of beyond reasonable doubt, or watering it down. However there needs to be a better argument than the "better that 10 guilty men walk free than one innocent man goes to prison" because

1. As has been pointed out the origin of that quote is "than one innocent man hangs" the punishment in mind was much more final
2. More than murder and other crimes rapists tend to be repeat offenders. 1/4 women will be raped over their lifetime. Far less than 1/4 men will commit rape (I hope!) So the rapists that aren't out there are committing many crimes each.

If every rapist not caught rapes 10 women on average (a reasonable estimate) then the actual quote should be "better 100 men/women/children are raped than 1 innocent man goes to prison". Which no longer sounds so reasonable.

There has already been a push to end the right to trial by jury for crimes like rape which is wrong in my opinion and doesn't solve the problem. I don't want to degrade the rights people have to things like innocent until proven guilty etc. But ultimately the situation as is is broken and if it's handwaved away it will gester and cause resentment and probably the wrong solutions being found because it's quite destabilising to society to have a serious crime apparently going unpunished.

And no one can ever be un-raped, un-abused, or un-murdered by a man who was guilty of a crime, but walked free because the evidence didn't quite reach the threshold – even though everyone knew he likely did it, and in fact perhaps afterwards, they might discover he'd been convicted of a similar crime previously, which couldn't be disclosed.

Given far more criminals walk free to hurt others again than innocent people are locked up, the harm is far greater to society to let multiple guilty men go free to sexually abuse more children (for instance) than to lock up a man who didn't deserve it.

And as I said, given the odds you're far more likely to have your life destroyed by the freed man than to be the innocent man yourself.

At least in cases where little evidence of a crime is possible (such as rape) I think a defendant's previous convictions should be introduced, and perhaps 'reasonable doubt' relaxed to something more similar to civil cases.

I suppose the only thing would be to get rid of compensation, if one went down that path for the justice system. I'm not suggesting that would be better in practice, but I can certainly see the appeal in theory. Logically speaking, it seems more sensible.

I know someone who was accused of rape last year. It didn’t even get to court. For what it’s worth I don’t feel strongly he was guilty but I don’t feel strongly he wasn’t. I was the first person when he told who asked straight away, “did you?” And then I asked (apparently more questions than the police!) if he had continued sex with this person if they had in any way told him no or to stop. He said not. But the police had so little evidence that they dropped the case. I think rape is probably the easiest crime to commit in all honesty. If my DH during sex when I asked him to stop didn’t he’d be raping me, I don’t doubt a second even if I went to the police anything would be done.

Given that nobody can ever be returned time that they lost to false imprisonment - I think the original saying (“better that 9 guilty men go free than 1 innocent man be jailed”) is better.

It aways sounds good in reverse till you’re the one in jail losing 10 years of your life for a crime you did not commit. But more sensibly an accusation should have to be proven.

I think the official term for that is “jury nullification”.

You are right, but you can't get compensation from the state for a rapist walking free, whereas you will get compensation for a miscarriage of justice. Putting the morality of it aside, it would be uneconomical and extremely expensive if the system were to change.

I’ve been on a jury for sex crimes. The behavior of the defence was fucking sickening. Made up all sorts of disgraceful fanciful shit to provide doubt. I know that’s his job, but can’t imagine how anyone can sleep at night having devised such packs of fiction to ensure that a rapist can carry on raping. Great job.

The prosecutor was silly - despite being experienced, must have thought the case was a slam dunk and was lazy.

The attacker got off most of the charges. I don’t have any trust in any state systems. Our society is gross. I retreat to my own house and garden and keep away from people as much as I can.

Watching a victim shaking behind a curtain whilst a creepy motherfucker sits as though he’s done nothing. Just sick. No point in reporting sex crimes.

In the past eg in France the king could send you a 'lettre de cachet' and lock you up for life with no trial, evidence, appeal. (Knowing this you can begin to understand why they had a revolution.)

Thanks

I think balance of probabilities for rape cases makes more sense. It is awful how hard it is to convict. It’s not even a case of better ten men go free, than one innocent not - that figure is hugely magnified for rape. Huge numbers already go free without ever facing a police officer, let alone a court.

OP, it sounds really harrowing. I hope you find some support. Thank you for serving.

It’s really difficult in crimes
of consent because the baseline is that consent was given (innocent until proven guilty) and in reality it’s the prosecution’s job to prove it wasn’t given. And how is a person to do that without evidence stronger enough to overturn a presumption of innocence? It would take CCTV footage, horrific physical evidence (and even then not necessarily), secret recordings, a third party witness willing to speak up, or an inability to consent (minor, profound disability, lack of consciousness etc).

But I don’t k ow what the alternative could be. We must all be presumed innocent, the burden of proof should always be on the accuser. Perhaps the threshold should be lower in these cases, balance of probabilities rather than beyond reasonable doubt…but in light of the penalties at stake I’m not sure that’s right either.

It’s why, partly, so many cases are never reported or investigated properly, let alone come to trial let alone result in conviction.