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Speak Up! - View Question #310 |
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Question: What happens if a girl wants sex but when they get caught and sent to court the girl says the guy raped her?
Answer: Whenever you are accused of crime, the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you have actually committed the crime. This means bringing evidence, including potentially the statement of the victim, in front of a jury. The government will need to build a case that convinces the jury that you did, in fact, commit the crime.
When a person is saying that she has not consented to sex, the government would be required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she did not consent to have sex. The government's case will hinge on whether the victim provides believable testimony to convince the jury that she did not consent.
Typically, prosecutors are sensitive to trying to build a case out of the testimony of ONLY the victim. It is very hard to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt when it is based only on the statement of the victim. Usually more evidence will be needed to convince a jury, especially if the victim is a young girl.
Prosecutors also do not want to have a situation of 'He said, she said' in which two people simply contradict each other. This would almost never be enough, without more evidence, to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt.
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| 11 thru 15 of 16 comments |
On 02/16/03
Phil from MI said:
I see a lot of girls posting about how they see it, but they're only defending themselves currently. Think about it from our point of view, or better yet, a judges. Say a guy has sex with a girl consentually (and at age 16 or over) and she decides that she doesn't want to seem "slutty" or just feels bad about it, so she decides to press charges on the guy. If you're the judge or part of the jury and you hear a Girl say she was raped and guy say it was consentual, honestly, who would you believe? It happens a lot, folks, so be careful who you sleep with!
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On 01/31/03
katie from OH said:
that's completely bull. They don't always believe the girl. I was raped and told the truth and the guy and two other ppl lied to cover up the story. So all of them had their story. Which was lies but had a better flow to it...so the story they made up was easier to believe. i told the truth. The man was 22 years old, mexican. That happened a day before new years eve. So no, the cops don't always believe the girls. Instead they were yelling at me saying "Y OU HAVE TO COME CLEAN. COME CLEAN!!" and I was like ..I am! and i was bawling...and they were like "stop with the crying 'act' we're not u
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On 08/09/02
Jesse from OR said:
Chuck, you need to do some research. There are virtually no men in jail based on false rape accusations based on any study that I've seen. It is almost impossible for a woman to succeed in convicting a man for rape. Only a very few women ever report the crime (statistics very from 1 in 3 to 1 in 10 although the actual numbers are likely to be far lower) and of those reported only about 14% - 16% are ever convicted and sentenced to jail time. Or, as this breakdown shows more clearly:
72% of rapes/sexual assaults are not reported to the police. Those rapists, of course, never serve a day
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On 08/06/02
Cassie from GA said:
This is very not true my friend is serving prison time right now for having sex with a girl and when her parents found out they threatened to ground her and so she said he raped her. They went to court totally based on her word they convicted him and he has been in PRISON for 4 years now and the girl has tried to contact him. The law states that a girl cannot consent because she is 16 or whatever she knew exactly what she was doing she just got caught !!!!
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On 08/01/02
jen from WI said:
I have a friend that is the same case but she has the best reputation in my school and the guy is known for sleeping with everyone her story totally made sense and he was just fumbling around not knowing what to say. She had to get her classes changed because she was so afriad of him adventually she moved because of the stress of him threating her so its not always that they believe the female its just normally it is the female telling the truth but sometimes not always.
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