Gang rape at Cornell Uni + If car theft was treated like rape...

[Toffeefudgecaramel]

In the US they have university police who investigate crimes. In the case of this gang rape in a fraternity house, very serious allegations were only investigated internally, and punishments handed down included "writing essays".
It seems that the actual police only became involved much later.
In the UK, universities are under pressure to deal with incidents of sexual assault "in-house", but arguably they should only be handled by experts within the criminal justice system.

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Details emerge in case of former Cornell student alleging gang rape by fraternity members - CBS News

Yes, this too. I'm again suprised that people on here keep talking as if a woman having a threesome makes it really hard to know if she consented to the subsequent men.

It seems common sense to me that she could have consented to the threesome but not subsequent men. It's certainly more common for women to agree to those than to sex with 7 men.

A parallel could be drawn to consent to different acts. A woman could consent to intercourse but then refuse oral or anal with the same person. Consent to one thing doesn't equal to all, necessarily.

I agree that we can't be sure what happened yet & the info out there is very conflicted. I do have issues with some stuff earlier on this thread but I don't have a firm opinion on what happened yet myself.

It doesn’t mean that she DID consent; it means that legally she COULD consent; where most places an incapacitated woman CANNOT consent, full.stop.

That’s the oldest truck in the patriarchy playbook—if they’ll basically imply consent by blaming you for hat you wore, they’ll grab onto a threesome like a bone (Jane Doe says she said no to to the threesome anyway).

I saw on Facebook that Matthew Ingalls (guy 1) moved to Dubai this week. I can only find it reported in the Daily Mail, where it says that one of Matthew’s neighbours has said that he moved there.

I agree. That’s what reminded me of the Ched Evans case here.

Can we all agree that it's entirely different if she (i) didn't say no but then claimed her non-refusal (I won't call it consent) was obviously due to her intoxication and thus invalid and (ii) DID say no to anything at anytime, in which case everything that was done to her after that point was clearly and unambiguously rape? I had read (I) but some pps here seem to have read (ii).

Even in the first instance it might not be "rape" (the law is an ass) but is still clearly wrong.

Imagine if I or another woman seduced a man, had sex, persuaded him to do drugs which he did willingly. And then while he was incapacitated/not fully aware of what was going on, invited some friends via text to come and rifle through his pockets etc. Not only would taking his money, jewelry, car keys etc without his explicit consent be seen as theft under most laws. I also think that I, in that case, would be party to the crime as well (even if I did not take anything). I have no idea whether it is technically illegal under NY law to tell other people that there is someone in this or that location with lots of money in their pockets when I know that person is incapacitated and vulnerable to robbery and then post 😂 style emojis when people joked about free money upstairs! Especially when I helped to get them to that incapacitated state. But I don't think it is a morally justifiable thing to do and I don't think the men defending the Cornell men would think so either. In that case it would also, surely, be immoral for a woman to do drugs with a man, have sex with him and then tell her male friends there was free ass upstairs. The fact he willingly did the drugs does not make that OK even if he didn't explicitly object to having his money stolen or having other people have sex with him.

That's the same scenario you outline but with the roles effectively reversed. What happened was wrong, even with the best possible interpretation of what happened that night, regardless of the law.

I think case (i) is definitely wrong, but not necessarily rape.

It is not entirely different. If a person cannot consent because they are drunk, or because they are 12 years old, they cannot consent.

Another question is the culpability of an offender who is themselves drunk, or 12 years old.

A supplementary question is how society can help protect drunks, or 12 year olds, from their own destructive or self destructive impulses.

(i) is still not consent though. Lack of “no” is not consent. Even if intoxicated. I think people are getting muddled up on the intoxicated consent law. Intoxication consent law in NY means she STILL has to say “yes”.

An intoxicated “yes” in NY is consent.
An intoxicated “lack of no” in NY is not consent.
Outside of NY, an intoxicated “yes” is not consent.
Outside of NY, an intoxicated “lack of no” is not consent.

Lack of “yes” is rape.

This case has exposed/highlighted aspects of American law that I find fairly horrible, including the NY definition of consent and the lack of a universal sub judice rule.

So soon after Christa Pike's botched execution. Interesting country, much more foreign than we imagine.

As demonstrated also by the fraternity system which has never seemed a great way to deal with the transition from adolescence to early adulthood.

I deliberately refused to call it consent because she was intoxicated and I don't consider it ethically possible to call anything consent in this situation but this is what the DA claimed "On the contrary, Jane Doe’s statement described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual". If true, unfortunately it sounds a lot like she did say yes.

"I deliberately refused to call it consent because she was intoxicated and I don't consider it ethically possible to call anything consent in this situation but this is what the DA claimed "

Because she was intoxicated and on drugs? Or had impaired judgement?

This does not mean she was not capable of consent as she did not consent to some activities such as the proposed foursome or any activity at all with particular boys and these "No's" were respected. Only 4 of the 7 had sexual contact.

A pp pointed out parallels to the ched Evans case . The woman in that case was heavily intoxicated and he was found guilty of rape on the basis she was incapable of giving consent. Ultimately he had his conviction overturned because the defence established she had given him particularly instructions or preferences which proved consent in her inebriated state.

Chef Evans was not found not guilty because:
"The defence established she had given him particularly instructions or preferences which proved consent in her inebriated state"

He was found not guilty because evidence was (controversially) allowed that at other occasions with other men she had given them instructions/expressed preferences that were apparently similar enough to what happened with Evans that the defence were able to case enough reasonable doubt on whether she could have consented with him.

That seems like nitpicking but it's actually quite different to what you said. And you have shown a bit of a habit on this thread of changing reported aspects of both alleged rape cases in subtle but important ways so as to case doubt. In a way that goes beyond different opinions of the same facts to making up facts. It does feel a bit like you have an agenda...

in the Ched Evans case the other footballer (who was acquitted) also invited several other men to come to where he was with the victim. Evans had sex with her, other footballers watched through a window and filmed.

this is how the retrial and quashing of Evans’ conviction unfolded - I believe it was a travesty founded on rape myths

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/oct/14/campaigners-fear-evans-case-will-stop-women-reporting

"He was found not guilty because evidence was (controversially) allowed that at other occasions with other men she had given them instructions/expressed preferences that were apparently similar enough to what happened with Evans that the defence were able to case enough reasonable doubt on whether she could have consented with him."

So your argument is that she was able to give him specific instructions on HOW she wanted him to have sex with her but this doesn't indicate consent?

The fact that was there was corroboration from other men as to the nature and specificity of those instructions he testified he had been given in his retrial supported that they had come from her

The men conveniently only decided to say this after they were approached by Evans’ expensive legal team. They’d both given statements at the time of the original trial but for some reason didn’t mention this “corroborating” language. Not that it’s any sort of fucking proof she was consenting anyway, she was very drunk and multiple men took advantage of her.

It appears that she changed her statements a lot after her initial statements too.

Or possibly that her initial statement was mistranscribed on top of all the rest of the confusion?

Yes, possibly. But then equally possible that the men's statements were mistranscribed.

Weirdly, that is not what she said.

Apologies if this has been posted somewhere and missed, but I found this article in the Washington Post today interesting and thought you lot might too.

archive.ph/UesMH#selection-827.94-831.27

Power to that headmaster's elbow, say I. Maybe one or two of the boys he was talking to will be the one or two who are brave enough to say "No!" about something that is gravely wrong.