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My judgement stinks?

A

Anonymous

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This is an icky subject but a week ago a man I've known all my life was sentenced to 9 years for rape.
He's - let's call him J - been a lifelong friend of my brothers but unlike them, J is quiet and placid. In fact, it came out after the trial that J had no previous convictions for anything. I think of all the times a dozen of these yobs would hole up at my parents house, J would be the one reasonable person there whilst everyone else ran riot.

I know many of J's former girlfriends, all of whom attest to his nice personality and their shock at his being accused and found guilty of such a horrendous crime.

Now don't get me wrong. I wasn't at the scene of crime and I have no right to decide what did or didn't happen. But I've found my faith in human nature severely rocked. And ultimately, my faith in my own judgement.

Has anyone else got it so wrong?
 
Frightening. Your judgement may not have been entirely wrong,
however. This character seems to have been shrewd enough
to have confined his wrong-doing to some private sphere. He may
have posed no threat to friends.

I can't think of anything quite so shocking which has happened to me
though I have been gobstruck by some of the double lives lived by
people I thought I had known extremely well. :eek:
 
A guy who I used to know through work and had quite often found helpful was convicted of sexually abusing his thirteen year old step-daughter.
What can you do but stop and think "I should have spotted something"? But then again I didn't know him as well you knew, or at least thought you knew, this J and there were a hell of a lot more people who had known the guy for years who had never suspected anything.

The trouble with rape is it's a very difficult crime to prove and if J is as sensitive as you make him sound then maybe he was too in shock and denial to put up much of a fight. It's all subjective to interpretation I'm afraid.
No means no, of course it does, but changing your mind after the event is like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Plus a thousand other cliches.
 
Hayzee Comet said:
Has anyone else got it so wrong?
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Did you definitely get it wrong? Could the court have got it wrong? The latter would sadly not be so unusual.

Have you asked J directly if he really did it?
 
Hayzee Comet said:
This is an icky subject but a week ago a man I've known all my life was sentenced to 9 years for rape.
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As others have pointed out his sentence doesn't mean he is guilty. The question, i suppose, is do you think that if he is indeed guilty should it necessarily alter your relationship and feelings towards him? If my best friend was a murderer i wouldn't be pleased but could he remain my best friend?

:confused:
hope you can sort your thoughts out,
'tis very tricky.
 
Don't beat yourself up about it. Maybe you were right, and he's been wrongly convicted. Maybe he did do it, but he managed to keep it from everyone who knew him. You'll only ever know for sure if he (or the victim) confesses (he to the crime, the victim to having concocted the story).

The situation is eerily reminiscent of a situation I kept alluding to in the Whinge thread. A close friend of the family was accused of a similar crime, and much of the evidence seems to point to him being guilty. (He's not here to clear it up anymore, either.) This was a person we, and many other people who knew him, trusted and had nothing but admiration for. The problem was he was able to conceal any of his nefarious doings from even those closest to him (like his family).

The other problem is that this type of crime brings out the worst in everybody. It is certainly one of the worst things that someone can do, but the emotions it brings out in the rest of us tends to make it difficult to sort out the facts from the stories. If you believe much of the media, being accused of any type of sexual offence ought to be a capital crime.

Finally, I would not recommend asking this person if he did it or not, unless you are prepared to find out he did. That's not to say he must have, but rather if you only want to hear that he's innocent, you may be very unhappy with his answer. (The Yithian makes a very valid point.)
 
Some good points. I must say, mine and my family's first reaction was to say "He can't be guilty"

Then I thought of people like Primrose Shipman, who in my mind is in bizarre denial about her husband's wrong doings. Ditto all those mothers of teenage tearaways who believe that butter wouldn't melt in their children's mouths.
I've always been bewildered at such behaviour and I suppose I wouldn't want to have that head in the sand attitude.

Even if you're innocent, once convicted, the whole world treats you as if you are guilty. In fact, the law seems to demand that you be treated as guilty.
When convicts get out of prison and apply for a job, they'll be asked about previous convictions. There'll be no section on the form for them to explain that they were innocent.

Having once worked in an office where all the women believed that Jodie Fosters character in the The Accused "deserved" to be raped for dancing in a sexy manner, (and recalling all the frustated exchanges I had with those colleagues) I always vowed never to have that same blinkered, pond-life attitude towards a rape victim.

For the time being, J is in prison for a serious offence but he may or may not have done it.
 
As others have pointed out his sentence doesn't mean he is guilty.
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Erm, hello? Does this only apply in rape cases then? Or just to people we don't like to think of as guilty?

Reminds me of my ex mother-in-law, whose brother served time for running over and killing a woman in his car. She maintained that this man was innocent and that the victim must have thrown herself under his car, even though her brother himself admitted the dangerous driving and was deeply penitent.

When prisons were discussed she'd say that inmates weren't entitled to anything but bread and water, bring back the birch, etc...
When I reminded her that her own brother had been in prison she maintained that as he was innocent none of the above applied. :rolleyes:

As J has been found guilty then he has 2 courses of action- he can either knuckle down and serve his time, or launch an appeal. Time will tell.

If a good friend of mine were found guilty of rape by a jury of his peers I'd drop him like a brick.

Family is different- I'd stand by them. With family guilt or innocence wouldn't matter.
 
escargot said:
Erm, hello? Does this only apply in rape cases then? Or just to people we don't like to think of as guilty?
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I think the point is that it applies to the legal system: The legal system is fallible and makes mistakes, both small and large ones. Therefore it's (unfortunately) not enough to say "well, he was found guilty so he must have done it". One has to make up one's own mind. It just isn't realistic to have blind faith in the court/criminal justic system (despite it being likely that the vast majority of trials are correctly resolved, innocent or guilty).
 
escargot said:
Erm, hello? Does this only apply in rape cases then? Or just to people we don't like to think of as guilty?
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No and No.
 
Example A.
John Leslie. Although cleared of all charges and found innocent how many people are sat there still thinking "He's guilty" simple because he's famous and they don't like him?
 
Whether found guilty or not guilty, that is how the system works, and it's the system we're all born into. I see stuff like this in work every day; oh butter wouldn't melt in his mouth etc. But more often than not, those opinions are completely personal, and people deulde themselves as to someone's true nature.

Like the previous post, someone mentioned John Leslie. Now, he has been found not guilty, because of what appears to be either a) a witness withdrawing their evidence or b) the witness having been discovered to make false accusations in the past. However, think of the average Sun reader (of which there are unfortunately too many). To them, the abiding image of the whole hoo haa will be that picture of John Leslie published in some tabloids looking really sinister, rubbing his hands together. The general consensus seems to be, "..well, he's gotten away with it this time..", just because he's not one of these lovely stars who is boy-sweet and kissing babies all the time.

Trust me on this. Everybody has two sides, and this is usually revealed in serious court cases. 98% of the time, the Courts will get it right. If your friend has fallen into the other 2%, then he and yourself have my sympathies, and there's also a good chance that the Appeals Court would free him. The Appeals Court is far more objective, and I sometimes wish that the Crown Court was remodelled on it, getting rid of juries for a start.. but that's another debate entirely..
 
We live in a boom time for rape - and for rapists

This happens to be on the Guardian site.

We are living in a boom time for rape. Last year women reported 27% more rapes than in the year before. At the same time, convictions have plummeted to a record-breaking low: only 5.8% of reported rapes end with a conviction, down from 7.5% in 1999 and 33% in 1977. Not just a boom time for rape, then - also a boom time for rapists. There has never been a better time to rape and get away with it.
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This bit worries me a lot-

rapists are turning away from stranger rape (harder to get away with) and instead befriending their victims before the assault
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By definition, the perpetrator of a crime committed in this way has basic social skills and can communicate with women- in other words, butter wouldn't melt.:rolleyes:
 
I read somewhere that the increase in the amounts that women are drinking these days is a big contributing factor. Women are getting absolutely paralytic and then someone takes advantage. Unfortunately they're so out-of-it they can't always recall if they consented or not.
Also, I think in one of the US states, they've changed the law such that if a woman changes her mind during sex, and the man doesn't stop, that's rape. How do you prove that?
 
Dark Detective said:
Also, I think in one of the US states, they've changed the law such that if a woman changes her mind during sex, and the man doesn't stop, that's rape. How do you prove that?
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Well, as far as I'm concerned, no means no, even if you're just about to whitewash the walls. It'd be a hard thing to do in the heat if the moment, but hey, sometimes, that's life.

It's better to come away with your integrity intact than some false notion that your manhood has been defiled by a simple withdrawl.
 
Hayzee Comet said:
I know many of J's former girlfriends, all of whom attest to his nice personality and their shock at his being accused and found guilty of such a horrendous crime.

Now don't get me wrong. I wasn't at the scene of crime and I have no right to decide what did or didn't happen. But I've found my faith in human nature severely rocked. And ultimately, my faith in my own judgement.

Has anyone else got it so wrong?
Click to expand...

A couple of years ago, it was splashed all over the papers that an old teacher of mine from school had murdered his wife. This was all the more shocking because said person had always been a good teacher, and very good natured with his students - what shocked me, having already taken on board all these motherly lectures, is how quickly many of my classmates forgot he'd been their favourite teacher and were badmouthing him all over the place with barely concealed glee.

Obviously, he did a horrible thing, but that doesn't make him a horrible person. It doesn't mean that his every smile or joke had an ulterior motive, or that he never was actually nice. Every person in the world has the potential to do terrible, terrible things, and there's no knowing how you'd behave yourself in a certain situation if you never have the misfortune to be in it. At the end of the day, it's just people. There's no secret sign they have on them that you should have seen. It's just that everybody screws up, and sometimes some people screw up in a really spectacular way.

Obviously, I'm not condoning what this guy did (if he did it), or what anyone has done, but there's no reason to lose your faith in human nature. If you want my advice, I'd say remember this guy's good points whenever you think of him - there's plenty of other people who'll be happy to villify him totally, but you needn't join in. Judge-not-lest-ye-be-judged etc. And no need to worry about human nature, it remains the same whether you have faith in it or not ;)
 
escargot said:
If a good friend of mine were found guilty of rape by a jury of his peers I'd drop him like a brick.
Click to expand...

Just briefly re-read the thread. To be honest the situation could be far trickier than your example suggests. The serious dilemma arises when your friend isfound guilty and yet assures you that he is innocent. If this was the case i'd never drop them. These are the situations where friendship becomes really most important.

Regardless, (IMO) one terrible act does not in itself make someone a terrible person. A life should not be defined or forfitted by one act.
 
Depends on the act, the people involved and the circumstances leading up to it all.
We weren't present and shouldn't judge somebody without all of the evidence and even if we had all of the evidence it is still very much down to individual perception which can be manipulated quite easily.
Having said that, it's much more true that humans are highly judgmental of eachother as a lot of the threads and behaviour on this board sometimes demonstrates so well.
 
I'm assuming it must have been a "serious" rape if he got 9 years. More than just a "getting carried away and being selfish" rape, but a real "violent hate crime" type rape. Possibly.

And yes, I know all rape is bad, but the courts do tend to think like this.
 
I stand by what I said.

No 'dilemma' about it at all- every rapist denies what he's done. Most believe they are telling the truth too.
 
I'm assuming it must have been a "serious" rape if he got 9 years. More than just a "getting carried away and being selfish" rape, but a real "violent hate crime" type rape. Possibly.
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Obviously I don't want to go into too much detail but it was one of those "grey area" attacks, where both parties had limited capacity for knowing what they were doing. This case has sprung many surprises on many people, not least the length of the sentence. In some ways it was almost as if the case were a civil rather than a criminal one. J wasn't even remanded in custody. I don't know if that's a usual practise for such a crime but it amazed me.
Leaving aside J's guilt or innocence, I wonder how many possible sex offenders are given bail?
 
Hayzee Comet said:
Leaving aside J's guilt or innocence, I wonder how many possible sex offenders are given bail?
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I'm open to correction here but are the criteria for bail primarily a)Is the defendant a risk to the public and b) Is the offender likely to abscond.

If i'm correct could his release be an indication of the Judge's/CPS's feelings towards the case? Perhaps this is more common than i believed - anyone know?
 
more relevant to earlier postings really:
This weekend I saw a tabloid paper with John Leslie on the front, and him giving his story about how marvellous it is to be pronounced innocent = on the front of a paper that, no doubt, utterly slagged him off and assumed he was as guilty as sin not so many weeks ago. Let's hope the readers of the paper aren't as stupid as the producers of it would like to think.

Also, on the subject of 'knowing someone', I was drawn into a programme last week about a man who had killed his entire family. Without fail all the friends and neighbours said what a lovely kind quiet man he was, and that there was nothing untoward going on in the family, etc etc etc. As the programme (and the police enquiry) progressed, it made you very aware just how little you know about what goes on behind other people's closed doors. "But I was her best friend, we knew everything about each other. She would have told me." Unfortunately not.

So 'J' may or may not have committed the rape = but you certainly can't blame yourself for not seeing into the future.
 
Look at it this way - if the conviction is quashed on appeal, are you going to turn 180 degrees?

I'm not sure if a court finding should so easily over-rule anything you known yourself. Courts make some funny decisions (OJ? Guildford 4?) and unless you know the evidence rather than the verdict you can't have any confidence.
 
A few years ago one of my best and oldest work friends suddenly left without giving any notice and his immediate work colleagues were very tight lipped about the reasons.
He was a Scoutmaster and had been charged with sexually assaulting one of his scouts on a camping trip. A crime which he admitted. The problem for me was that all the time I knew him(nearly ten years) he had been a scoutmaster. I keep on wondering whether he'd been doing this kind of thing all the time I'd known him.

He'd never really had any girlfriends in that time so I had merely assumed he was gay. Turned out to be a lot more sinister than that.

As a misjudgement of character, I place this fairly high up the list.
 
I may be setting myself up for a world of hurt here...

But I think a certain percentage of claims of rape are patently false.

Hold, on, wait a second.

I'll relate an experience. I was at a party, and a women whom I had a passing acquaintance with was a little tipsy.

She was all over Mister Y, and in the end they ended up having sex.

Flash forward a week. This women is now claiming she was raped. She believed there was no way she could have willingly consented with this person, although I myself and others witnessed it... even the beginning of the act.

I'm not going to go into details, but there was NO WAY it could have been rape. Just trust me here, as basically a lot of people witnessed the act.

She even went so far as to report it to police.

While definately there are cases of rape, and they are not that rare, I also believe there are cases such as those above, and have run into several like the one I mentioned. Hell the women mentioned even believed, as far as I can tell, she had been raped.

As well, the onus seems to be upon the rapist to prove he is innocent, rather then the reverse. Often it comes down to his word versus her's.

Not to mention all the insane laws such as, if two drunk people have consentual sex, the man can be charged with rape even if he was as drunk as the women, and it was consentual at the time.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a mysogynyst, nor am I of the attitude of "blaming the woman"...

But a certain percentage of what are deemed rapes seem to be more revisionist history.

And please, I am NOT condoning rape nor trying to blame the victim. If a man rapes a women, he should be punished to the full extent of the law. Yet witnessing the above mentioned happenings, and hearing your opinion of the convicted in your original post, is there any chance this could have happened?
 
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