to think "being drunk" is no defence for raping someone

[SmashingNarcissistsMirrors]

i'm absolutely shocked by this case where a man has been acquited of raping a woman because he was so drunk he thought she was his girlfriend and didn't realise he was in the wrong bedroom.

this is so so wrong. how many men will now use "being drunk" as a defence?

not only this but according to the article the girlfriend had earlier said she was too ill for sex. plus the victims phone was found dismantled in the mans sock when he was arrested.

how can this happen?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1363964/Haydor-Khan-cleared-rape-said-thought-I-BRUNETTE-girlfriend.html

"MQ you have a touching faith in the good will of juries re: rape victims."

No I don't.
I've continually said throughout that the law is not the problem nor the way in which the legal system views the seperate offences, the problem is the juries attitudes to rape.

"But nothing inside the courtroom counteracts them, so maintaining formal impartiality merely perpetuates those attitudes inside court too."

This may very well be true, but once again what can the courts or the legal system do?

Well, the courts and the legal system could make a declaration that it will not perpetuate injustice and do something to make its space a place where those attitudes aren't perpetuated.

what would that even entail? and in what capacity would they do that?
the courts are there to enforce the law as it stands.

Well I've said one thing which I think would help - training days for anyone connected with the court process to educate them about the reality of rape.

Including juries? TBH I think unless the training days were very vague and broad it would prejudice a jury. And if they were broad and vague they would probably be pretty ineffective.
We'll just have to agree to disagree I suppose. I think the problems lie within soceity and are being brought to the courts rather than the courts influencing soceital attitudes.

In what way would it prejudice a jury?

And why is the fact that juries are already actually prejudiced, less of a problem than potentially prejudicing them?

As I say if done right it could work. But my worry would be that even the act of putting a jury into a seminar/lecture/training day set to dispel rape myths and educate them on the gulf between rape claims/reported rapes/ prosecuted rapes and convictions may put them in a position where by they would feel obliged to convict and that if they found the man not-guilty that they were somehow adding to the problem.
Statistics mean nothing to the individual so my worry would be that a course which had the goal of increasing rape convictions may unduly influence the jury to convict out of a sense of obligation to the process rather than based on the evidence in the case.

The reason why the prejudices they bring in would be less of an issue for me (with regards to the responsibility of the courts) has a few facets.
Firstly it is because their prejudices will be of their own making. An accused person is to be judged by their peers and their peers/the man on the clapham omnibus is a fallible human with idiosyncracies and prejudices. The court can do nothing about this, if they start to attempt to influence of change the way the jury thinks then it is no longer a seemingly objective jury.
secondly, although this is largely tied to my first point, I doubt such a practice would be accepted by the European courts, I'd wager that it would be found to infringe upon the accuseds rights to due process and a fair trial. This in turn could lead to those found guilty in trials which adopted such a process having their convictions overturned at the ECJ level.
Thirldy both barristers can strike a number of potential jurors without having to give reason, this can be used to weed out those with prejudices.

But my main reason is as I have stated throughout. The personal opinions of the jurors and the baggage which they bring has nothing to do with the courts or legal system and if they started to try and influence the jurors in any way then they would lose their veil of impartiality in my opinion.
The Judge is their to be the adjudicator of law, the jury is their as the finders of fact and those roles should not have the lines between them blurred.

I think education and governmental campaigns to dispel myths would be far more effective and less problematic with regards to those who are convicted appealing their convictions on the basis of not receiving a fair trial or having their presumption of innnocence infringed upon.

MQ anyone who knows about rape, has had the veil of impartiality lifted a long time ago.

There is no impartiality about rape and the courts. We know that the justice system ensures that rapists walk free with very few exceptions.

I've got no worries about potential problems. All my worries are about actual ones.

As I said earlier I don't think we'll ever find common ground on this so we'll have to agree to disagree.