'12-year-old negligent and responsible for own rape'

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LKL
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07 Nov 2012, 2:28 am

They may be trying to avoid paying damages, but it's still disgusting.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/1 ... ?mobile=nc



Jacoby
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07 Nov 2012, 4:14 am

Ya, I would want them to explain what they mean by that. Only thing that makes any sense is them meaning that it is an issue between her and her abusers and that the school system isn't liable. It's phrased pretty badly if it's that, dunno what to say if it's not.



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07 Nov 2012, 5:16 am

Jacoby wrote:
Ya, I would want them to explain what they mean by that. Only thing that makes any sense is them meaning that it is an issue between her and her abusers and that the school system isn't liable. It's phrased pretty badly if it's that, dunno what to say if it's not.


If you read their response to her lawsuit (clicky) they make nine "separate and distinct affirmative defenses," three of which directly blame her. They meant exactly what they said, though I expect they'll try to weasel out of it by claiming that the wording was poor.


The school district says "at this point in the proceedings we have an obligation not to waive any potential legal lines of defense.”

Um, I think blaming someone for their own childhood abuse is a line of defense that can safely be abandoned. Do they really think that's going to help their case?


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09 Nov 2012, 2:45 pm

Yeah, that's sick. It sounds like a bunch of lawyers up to their usual tricks, though I don't see how any jury or judge would buy this nonsense.



KagamineLen
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09 Nov 2012, 6:25 pm

Heh, my mother often told me that I was responsible for all of the physical and sexual abuse that happened to me when I was a child.

Now she claims that she never said those things, and that she "did not realize how bad things actually were" for me.

Anybody who tells a child that they deserve to be abused should be placed on the same kind of registration that sex offenders have to live with. And the same kind of "no contact with minors" boundaries. Sadly, I believe that the staff at that school would have said that child deserved it even if there were no minors around. They certainly had no trouble telling me I deserved it when I was being abused by other pupils and often the staff themselves when I was in the public education system.

Things like this happen all the time, and the problem is, most people don't care.



techstepgenr8tion
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10 Nov 2012, 12:10 am

That doesn't sound far from Jerry Sandusky's logic "What!? No! I'm perfectly normal! They came on to ME!".

Heh, ask a scary person about their logic and you'll get a scary answer I suppose.



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10 Nov 2012, 11:47 am

LKL wrote:
They may be trying to avoid paying damages, but it's still disgusting.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/1 ... ?mobile=nc

Whatever differences of opinion we have, this is just awful. I don't mean to be insensitive, but I am a little bit concerned as to whether the district really is at fault here. One guy committed suicide over this, and another teacher is behind bars. Was it individual teachers that abused this girl, or did the whole district abuse her? If the district was aware of it and just looked the other way as long as nobody was running their mouths, and then just passed the trash when things looked iffy, then I could see how they were at fault. Maybe if other victims of this dead guy were receiving compensation from the district, I could see that. I could be more wholeheartedly sympathetic to her cause. Otherwise it just looks like another person reaching for money.

But, I mean, come on... The courts will decide that, I guess. The lawyers ought to know better than to use "blame the victim" language in their defense. I don't see how the district is going to weasel out of paying SOME damages. Saying it's the victim's own fault isn't going to reduce damages. If anything, the judge will stick it to 'em for their lawyers being idiots.

===

Playing devil's advocate here, but is there ever a legit "blame the victim" scenario? I can't think of any intelligent examples at the moment... Something like a neighbor builds a fire in his backyard, maybe burning leaves or a bonfire, or something. The girl next door decides it will be fun to play in it and ends up getting 3rd degree burns, lung damage from smoke inhalation, etc. Is it fair to sue the guy just for building a fire? Or is it the burn victim's fault for being stupid?

No one in his right mind, myself included, will ever argue that having sex with someone without their consent is OK. However, a young woman has some degree of manipulating her odds. Does she dress provocatively and go to parties where she KNOWS there will be alcohol, drugs, and guys with too much blood in their testosterone system? I'd say she has more of a likelihood of her clothes just falling off and passing out on someone else's bed than, say, someone who dresses conservatively and prefers nice, quiet evenings at home with a glass of wine and a good book.

Similarly, everyone who lives in Greenville, MS, knows that unless you're a drug dealer, a prostitute, a gang member, or you're going to eat at Doe's (preferably before sunset), you have no business hanging out on Nelson Street. No, it's not your fault if you get robbed or shot. But you're not going to win any points with cops or judges for being an idiot! If a white person wants to avoid racial tension after dark, he stays south of US 82.

I know comparing abusive teachers to frat parties is apples/oranges, but defense is claiming the girl was "negligent," which is why they are going to fail. Negligence defenses don't work for frat parties, and they certainly aren't going to work here.

But what I can't understand is why with so many women teachers going to jail for messing with male underage students haven't succeeded in a variation of the negligence defense, especially when we're talking about young, green, attractive women teachers. As a male teacher right out of college, I took assignments where the dating pool was narrow if not non-existent. I can't even begin to imagine the psychology of a woman who goes from an overabundance of male attention to none at all. Being horrendously teased by horny male students can't help matters. So...the teacher just "happens" to need to run out to her car during her planning period, the student just "happens" to be taking a shortcut through the parking lot on his way to weight-lifting. Nobody will ever know. Not until the sex tape ends up on YouTube, anyway, and it will be his parents who bring charges.

Y'know, seduction is sometimes used as part of a rape accusation. In the olden days, young teachers running one-room schools on the frontier were often rape victims. Why is it so different now? Maybe the girl has no business teaching if she lacks the maturity to avoid that kind of manipulation. But rape is rape, and it makes no difference if it is through seduction or brute force.

I honestly don't think it works the other way, i.e. 12-year-old girls don't rape grown men.

But let's (for the sake of argument) turn this back around on the victim. If it is well-known among students that a certain male teacher is a horn-dog and a young girl KNOWINGLY and willfully puts herself in a position to be "exploited" (note the use of scare quotes here), I'd say the district has a good case for accusing the victim of negligence.



LKL
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11 Nov 2012, 6:28 pm

Angel Rho, a TWELVE year old girl could walk into the teacher's lounge stark naked and drunk, and plaster herself to a male teacher who's the only other person there, and it STILL wouldn't be her fault if she was raped. She was TWELVE.



AngelRho
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13 Nov 2012, 11:03 am

LKL wrote:
Angel Rho, a TWELVE year old girl could walk into the teacher's lounge stark naked and drunk, and plaster herself to a male teacher who's the only other person there, and it STILL wouldn't be her fault if she was raped. She was TWELVE.


[CAUTION: Devil's advocate alert]

But we don't know any extenuating circumstances. Why is she naked? Why is she drunk? Is it her fault for being either? It's possible. Did she know there might be one or more teachers in the teacher's lounge? Well, it IS the teacher's lounge, after all. It stands to reason there very likely could be at least one teacher in there. And there's a 50/50 chance that the teacher is male--you only get two options here. And how do you know it's rape? It could be consensual. And don't pull "can't legally consent" on me. I don't care what the law says. 12-year-olds are capable of "wanting it." I was 12 once, and I wasn't a year or two older than that when I discovered that there were girls roughly that age who already knew what dry-humping is and one or two who had already started having sex. It's a friggin miracle I was still a virgin at 19. Like it or not, consensual sex does happen at pre-teen and early teen years. And I don't buy for one second that they all care whether they are being "used" by someone in a position of trust, because "using" and "being used" is a two-way street.

Now, assuming that same drunk, naked 12-year-old walked into a teacher's lounge and a crusty, old, Coach Hardon happens to be in there and he DOES rape her, i.e. non-consentual sex, then no, it's not her fault for getting raped. But it IS her fault for being stupid, i.e. getting drunk, running around naked, and going inside a teacher's lounge where students aren't ever allowed. It was her poor judgment and poor choices that put her in that position in the first place.

That's assuming the middle school football team didn't kidnap her, force her to drink and strip, and chase her through the school only to have her duck in the lounge to hide or get help, only to be taken advantage of by Coach Hardon.

But if that's not what's going on, if this is something analogous to frat-party antics, and if the girl makes herself vulnerable by making stupid choices, she is negligent. She's spitting into the wind. If you run out into a busy street, you don't get to sue someone when they run over you with a car.

People who commit rape deserve to be brought to justice. Coach Hardon is going to lose his teaching creds, lose his career, lose any hope of functioning in society for being a pedophile, and spend a significant amount of time in prison. It doesn't matter if she consented or not (realistically). I don't dispute that, nor do I dispute that victims of rape deserve justice. Neither am I in favor of a "blame the victim" mentality.

But there is another side to all this, and that is the side of the accused and anything or anyone associated with him. On the one hand, the accused has the right to due process. The accusations could be false, after all, and what REALLY happened was the coach said something she didn't like at P.E.--something like "you MUST wear shoes to play dodgeball." I dunno. So she chugs some vodka, strips, attacks the coach in the teacher's lounge, and when the principal rushes in to see what the ruckus is all about, she points and says "HE made me do it!! !" The guy gets fired on the spot, and if there's a case in court it's going to be her word against his, and who do you think the judge is going to believe?

10 years later and the same girl is .02 away from graduating from college with honors, so it pisses her off. She thinks about it and decides maybe she can recoup on her student loans a little, so she sues the school district for damages. All this when the wrongdoing was entirely on her part.

Purely hypothetical, I know, but not unrealistic. So I think we have to be careful how we pursue sensitive matters of seeking justice for rape when there is so much room to unfairly manipulate the system.

Back in the real world, this person was abused by two teachers, not the entire school and not the administration. Her case is against those who did her harm. One of her bullies is dead and the other will never have a normal life. I feel for her and recognize what happened to her was awful and perhaps she can't live a normal life because of it. But you punish the guilty, not the innocent, and I don't see how there is anything left to be done. With all due respect to this woman and all she went through, this lawsuit reeks of frivolity. She thinks she has someone by the balls, so she's going to play this for all it's worth. And I'm not sure why. Is it just the money? Revenge motive? Closure? Just because she can? I've never been raped, and I'm not a woman, so I can't speak for a female rape victim. But I just don't see how any of this is really going to make her feel any better. Unless she comes to terms with what happened spiritually and emotionally, and for all I know she already has, she'll never "get over it" if that's even possible. I don't know what more there can be done or what more there SHOULD be done. I don't see how making an entire district responsible for what two individuals did is going to solve anything. I'm sure the details are probably more convoluted than what we get from the article, which seems more commentary than informative, but just based on what I've read so far that's all I have for you.



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13 Nov 2012, 1:53 pm

AngelRho, extenuating circumstances are completely and utterly irrelevant in this case, there is no such thing. An adult having sex with an underage minor is illegal regardless of consent. That's what separates statutory rape from normal rape. If an adult has sex with a minor, the minor cannot be responsible full stop, there are no extenuating circumstances that can change that.



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13 Nov 2012, 3:06 pm

Jono wrote:
AngelRho, extenuating circumstances are completely and utterly irrelevant in this case, there is no such thing. An adult having sex with an underage minor is illegal regardless of consent. That's what separates statutory rape from normal rape. If an adult has sex with a minor, the minor cannot be responsible full stop, there are no extenuating circumstances that can change that.

I don't care one bit about the legal ramifications of underage sex for the purpose of this discussion. Is the girl negligent or not? This isn't unlike a teenager playing Russian roulette, surviving a point-blank gunshot wound to the head, and then suing a weapons manufacturer to recover medical costs.

I wouldn't dare say that a rape victim, underaged or not, is "asking for it" or otherwise at fault for what a rapist, adult or not, does against the victim's will. What I AM saying is that if you want to get treated like a stupid person, do what stupid people do. If you want to get treated like smart people, do what smart people do. Smart people avoid bad situations in which there is a greater likelihood for being abused. Stupid people run straight into the fire, dance in it, get 3rd degree burns, and then complain about how it's someone else's fault that they get hurt. Stupid people jump out in front of speeding 18-wheelers and freight trains and whine about why those kinds of vehicles don't have better braking systems to stop sooner just in case stupid people jump out in front of them. Stupid people take the cinnamon challenge and can't figure out why stuff like THIS happens. And stupid people mix sedatives and alcohol at parties and can't figure out why they miss a period a couple of weeks later.

Smart people sacrifice their social lives so they can hold down jobs, pay for their own educations, and maintain high grades. They hear all the time about stupid people and the trouble they get into, so they avoid stupid stuff like the plague. And while that doesn't mean that there's 0% chance of them being sexually assaulted, they aren't going out and throwing themselves under busses.

Even a 12-year-old can figure out how to avoid dangerous situations or encourage dangerous situations. I'm not saying the girl in the OP threw herself under a bus or anything. I'm not saying anything makes what happened to that girl "right." What I AM saying is that it doesn't make sense to me how a person can set herself up in dangerous circumstances and then go whine about how she "didn't ask for it." I'll grant that no one "asks for it." But come on...certain people aren't doing themselves any favors. It's difficult to be sympathetic when things like that happen.



Last edited by AngelRho on 13 Nov 2012, 3:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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13 Nov 2012, 3:07 pm

AngelRho did bring some excellent points, and it would be a shame to have them dismissed so easily. To bring a less emotionally-charged example to discussion, let's assume there is a city, and there is a part of that city with high rates of crime after 8:pm. A man wants to go home and there are two paths; one that takes him through the previously mentioned part of the city, or another one that requires taking a bus but is much safer. The man takes the first path, with full knowledge of it's danger, and is promptly beaten up by a mugger, who then strips him of his valuables. Is the mugger fully responsable, or is there some fault lying on the guy as well?


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13 Nov 2012, 3:22 pm

Shatbat wrote:
Is the mugger fully responsable, or is there some fault lying on the guy as well?

Exactly. No, you can't blame the victim here, either. But he took a risk and has to live with what happened to him.

There is an amusing TV show called "Bait Car." I remember one suspect telling the cops "You KNEW there were car thieves in this hood and you parked a car here, anyway? This is ENTRAPMENT!" What did we learn here, folks? STOP BREAKING THE LAW!! !

lol

There are just certain places in big cities where you do NOT park a white Escalade with the keys still in the switch. Cops KNOW this and use it against criminals. Girls who expose themselves to people they know want to exploit them have no authority or defense against attackers. So unless you WANT boys to pay the wrong kind of attention to you, it's just best to guard your appearance and behavior, otherwise be exceptionally keen of your surroundings and make sure you know what's in your cup before you take a drink.



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13 Nov 2012, 4:16 pm

KagamineLen wrote:
Heh, my mother often told me that I was responsible for all of the physical and sexual abuse that happened to me when I was a child.

Now she claims that she never said those things, and that she "did not realize how bad things actually were" for me.

Anybody who tells a child that they deserve to be abused should be placed on the same kind of registration that sex offenders have to live with. And the same kind of "no contact with minors" boundaries. Sadly, I believe that the staff at that school would have said that child deserved it even if there were no minors around. They certainly had no trouble telling me I deserved it when I was being abused by other pupils and often the staff themselves when I was in the public education system.

Things like this happen all the time, and the problem is, most people don't care.


Awful. I'm very sorry you too had to go through it. It sickens me everytime we read about a child victimized by a predator.
As far as the article goes, it angers me greatly. It is bad enough we feel like it was our fault (like I was for a long time when it happen to me) to have them come out and blame the victim is just off the charts and we wonder why many of us stay silent.



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14 Nov 2012, 2:28 am

Shatbat wrote:
AngelRho did bring some excellent points, and it would be a shame to have them dismissed so easily. To bring a less emotionally-charged example to discussion, let's assume there is a city, and there is a part of that city with high rates of crime after 8:pm. A man wants to go home and there are two paths; one that takes him through the previously mentioned part of the city, or another one that requires taking a bus but is much safer. The man takes the first path, with full knowledge of it's danger, and is promptly beaten up by a mugger, who then strips him of his valuables. Is the mugger fully responsable, or is there some fault lying on the guy as well?

How about if the 'man' is a twelve-year-old boy?



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14 Nov 2012, 7:38 am

LKL wrote:
Shatbat wrote:
AngelRho did bring some excellent points, and it would be a shame to have them dismissed so easily. To bring a less emotionally-charged example to discussion, let's assume there is a city, and there is a part of that city with high rates of crime after 8:pm. A man wants to go home and there are two paths; one that takes him through the previously mentioned part of the city, or another one that requires taking a bus but is much safer. The man takes the first path, with full knowledge of it's danger, and is promptly beaten up by a mugger, who then strips him of his valuables. Is the mugger fully responsable, or is there some fault lying on the guy as well?

How about if the 'man' is a twelve-year-old boy?

Does the boy have a choice? It really doesn't make a difference what the age is. If there is no choice but to go through a dangerous route, then you can't claim negligence. If there IS a choice, then a person has to accept the risks and possible consequences. Bad things don't ALWAYS happen to people who set themselves up for it, whether knowingly or unknowingly. Even people in dangerous neighborhoods recognize that messing with a 12 year old kid is messed up, and it's likely that sooner or later a policeman will come by and offer the kid a ride. It all really depends on the circumstances. It's not different if it's an older adult. If I go for a walk down Nelson Street, there's not guarantee I'm going to get robbed or shot. But I'm certainly going to get some funny looks.

How about this: Can we accept the fact that schools, no matter how well intentioned, no matter how stringent the interview process, no matter how many background checks, are all going to let some perverts slip through the cracks in their hiring? And can we accept that as parents and even as school admins that we should teach kids how to look out for Crazy? And can we accept that it's unfair to blame an entire school district for what Crazy does when nobody else is looking? The only thing we can hold a district accountable for is if they KNOW they hire Crazy OR they figure it out later and don't do anything about it.

And we also have to accept that Crazy will also be at least one student in every classroom, Crazy is a moving target, and Crazy will say anything for any reason or no reason at all. And though we have to listen to kids and take them seriously when it comes to Mr. or Ms. Crazy, we still have to make sure the kid we're dealing with isn't lil' Suzy "Hates PE Coach" Crazy.