Testimony - even from the victim - is in fact evidence. Most jurisdictions do not require any corroborating evidence for rape cases, and rape is the only charge that has historically carried that caveat (
Source). Now, that doesn't mean that the victim's testimony alone is always enough to convince a prosecutor to bring the case, let alone convince the jury, but further corroborating evidence is not
required. The people who she says were there say that they don't remember, not that it didn't happen. Not surprising for a drunken party 35 years ago that she can't remember the date of. It doesn't help her case, but it doesn't really hurt it ether.
Last time I checked, the numbers looked something like this...
Out of 100 rape reports to the police, 5-6 end in a conviction, 9-10 end up either disproven and dropped or end in acquittal...the rest never even make it to trial.
So while the legal standard for a rape charge is the victim's testimony....that's what lawyers call "paper law". It's not the standard they use in real life.
The reason why is rather obvious...eyewitness testimony is the worst type of evidence, and if the victim's testimony is evidence...then so is the accused's testimony.
Typically parents aren't asking about the event 35 years later though.
That's my point. Ford can vividly recall a short trip to Safeway weeks after....but surprisingly few details of the incident in question.
She would have people believe that at 14, she and a friend went to an unknown house, on an unknown day, for reasons unknown....to hang out with a group of older guys who she barely knows, who had already been drinking heavily in the afternoon. She then goes to use the upstairs bathroom...not the downstairs one...where she was followed by two if the guys, who forced her into the bedroom with alerting anyone downstairs, and then attempted to rape her, despite only knowing her for a couple of hours....which they found hilarious. Oh, and the radio was on upstairs blaring music....despite no one being up there.
People are calling this
credible. I'm curious what kind of story they wouldn't find credible....would it need to involve hypnosis? Alien abduction?
Possibly. Not sure how that's relevant though.
Relevant? I thought we were just discussing whatever comes to mind....
If we limited the discussion to just the relevant aspects, then Kavanaugh's teenage drinking habits, his views of girls, his yearbook, devil's triangle, boofing, and the other allegations wouldn't be part of the conversation.
Perhaps she didn't bring a change of underwear with her? With regards to comfort, I'm not a woman, so I can't speak from personal experience, but I've seen plenty of women walking around with bikini tops under their clothes all day at amusement parks and music festivals, so I can't imagine that it's that uncomfortable.
Given this is the early 80s, and she's from sn upper class conservative family....I'd put all my money on her wearing a 1piece.
Maybe it was occupied? Maybe someone had puked in there or taken an especially nasty dump and it smelled bad? Maybe there wasn't a downstairs bathroom? Plenty of plausible reasons. And as for why two guys intent on rape would follow a girl to a place where she's isolated and potentially has removed articles of clothing, I'll let you answer that.
Isolated? Someone interrupted this "rape" by jumping on the bed. This is possibly the most casual rapist ever.
As for those excuses for not using the downstairs bathroom....I've got another one...
Perhaps she didn't actually need to use the bathroom.
Even if this is the case, it's still a crime (no means no, not "you get five more minutes") and it means Kavanaugh has lied under oath. He claims to have never met Ford, not know who she is, and never have committed any sort of sexual act with her.
If it was indeed Kavanaugh, and it was actually attempted rape....yeah, it's still a crime.
Those are pretty big "ifs" though.
Two drunk guys who have a history of rude and crude behavior
Irrelevant.
and who have the views of women that Judge and Kavanaugh appeared to have during their high school days (based on the yearbook notes)
Irrelevant.
assaulting a girl doesn't sound that far-fetched to me.
If that's all it takes, then I'd guess you'd believe that somewheres between 70-90% of guys at that school would assault women if we dug into their past enough.
This is rather weak. Questions like "do you know this person?" are ambiguous...so his answers are likewise ambiguous.
I'll be honest with you here....I'm not wild about looking into a whole other accusation that doesn't have anything to do with this one.
Was this brought up before Ford's allegations?
On the drinking age stuff, he was 17 when this occurred, so even had he not been aware that the drinking age had been raised to 21, it still would have been illegal.
Totally agree...but it doesn't really worry me that a judge might have had some drinks in his late teens.
Universal healthcare (not that the current healthcare system is "racist"), tax reform (mainly getting rid of the massive tax cut that the wealthy received), and the environment. The student loan debt crisis, police accountability, and justice for immigrants are also big themes.
Must be hard to find candidates...I could onky find 7 who were running on the environment. I think tax reform is big on the list though. Here's the thing....
Voters Don't Care Very Much About Issues Liberals Care About a Lot
Rape allegations don't seem to have affected Trump very much. Or Clinton. Powerful individuals tend to do ok as long as the allegations are relatively unfounded. He might lose out on some opportunities (Kavanaugh's class at Harvard that he was going to teach next year has apparently been cancelled), but that's a far cry from "ruining his life and destroying his career."
You linked to articles claiming that he shouldn't be a judge at all....let alone part of the SCOTUS.
What's odd though is you just called these allegations "relatively unfounded ". Is that what you think?
