We need to stop awarding money to rape victims

We need to STOP awarding money to women just because a man was convicted of raping her.

"But why, oh why, should we do that??? They were raped!" some of you dim-headed people will ask.

Because sometimes a man is convicted based on nothing other than the alleged victim's testimony.
That's okay.
But we shouldn't be giving women loads of money when they say they were raped by some man.

In the legal world, this concept may appear a little strange. Normally the required burden of evidence in a criminal case is much higher than it is in a civil suit.
So there's an automatic mentality of thinking, okay, once a man has been convicted in a criminal case, the civil case should be a no-brainer.

But a person with common sense needs to stand up and say no, no, no.

The last thing we want to do is to incentivize women to falsely accuse a man of rape.

Look, I'm not completely against the idea of awarding a woman money because she was raped, but we shouldn't give her money because she, and other women who stand to potentially get lots of money from it, claim they were raped.

Too many innocent men have been wrongly convicted of rape because of this system, because the system creates an incentive for women to lie. What could be more of an incentive than lots of money? In the case of accused persons who are rich and famous, sometimes millions of dollars.

If you want to convict a person of rape because a woman claims he raped her, fine.
But make sure she knew well in advance that she is not going to have any chance of being awarded lots of money from him just because she accused him.

Very often the accused in these situations, when they are wealthy people, will make a settlement with the alleged victim before it goes to civil court. This does not mean the accused is guilty!
The man's lawyer tells him it is a better idea to make a settlement, rather than risk losing and the potential of the man being ordered to pay out millions, not to mention all the huge legal costs that will accrue if the lawsuit continues. The man who is accused of rape is basically paying the woman to end the lawsuit.

A lot of people are not aware of the ridiculous award amounts juries can sometimes hand out. The system is broken, and the lawsuit almost works like a lottery system, some lucky victim being awarded millions she does not deserve. I mean, let's suppose the man did actually rape her. A woman doesn't deserve millions of dollars because she was raped by a wealthy man. Yet she has a good chance of being awarded it by the courts.

The court itself might never actually end up awarding any money, but the very existence of the system itself, and the likely process that could potentially play out, is responsible for these women getting money.

A woman can oftentimes coerce money out of a man or organization just by the threat of a lawsuit. It oftentimes never even goes all the way through court, for a judge or jury to hear and decide.
This has to stop.

I presented a story in this forum, in the past, about a drug addict who sued the drug rehab facility she was in because she claims another man who had checked himself into the facility for alcohol treatment raped her, and that the facility was supposedly responsible because they were negligent allowing it to happen. The facility gave her a big settlement.
But the man was gone. It wouldn't be until years later that he was actually brought to trial for rape. The DA, after the civil suit, had pushed the woman into testifying so they could bring the case against the man. What could the woman do at this point? She had already accused a man of rape and gotten a lot of money from it. Was she going to admit she had lied? Was she going to now refuse to testify against her alleged rapist? How would that make her look?
The man ended up being convicted on nothing more than her testimony.

This has to stop. The law and court procedures for awarding rape victims money need to change.

 

Tell you what - if you get raped, then get back to us. Until then, your opinion isn't worth the pixels to women who have been raped.

 

So you think if a woman claims a man raped her, and we can't find anything else to disprove it, the man should automatically have to give the woman lots and lots of money.
In other words, the burden is on the man to prove he is innocent if a woman accuses him.
You not only want to put him in prison but take lots of money from him - That is if he is a man who has lots of money to take!

 

Its so rare than an OP on this forum can leave me speechless anymore, I have read some of the dumbest notions, here at Political Forum. 'Just because a man is convicted of rape?' I just don't know where to begin with this. To convict of a criminal charge requires an evidentiary burden of 'beyond a reasonable doubt' There is a defense council in the courtroom choosing whether this is going to a jury or a judge, helping to pick the jury empaneled, provided discovery and a witness list well in advance, and capable of cross examining the state's witnesses, with access to expert testimony that is exculpatory, and provided plenty of opportunity to move to suppress prejudicial testimony, or evidence, to dismiss or reduce the charges, change the venue, strike a prior conviction, or to strike testimony, to examine police files, object to testimony as hearsay. Even the jury instruction process is a matter for defense counsel to be heard on. There will often be conflicting versions of jury instructions offered to the court defining the elements of the crime and the definition of the standard or burden.
A rape case is not substantially different than any other serious crime. The burden to be met is the same one in a fraud case, a murder case, a child abuse case, a larceny case, a murder case, an arson case and a bribery or extortion case. If the evidence and testimony is compelling enough that all 12 jurors are convinced, then a conviction based on reasonable doubt is presumed, whether the author of the OP, believes it or not. Of course the convicted perpetrator should be held financially liable for costs accrued to the system and the defendant. Its self-evident.

'Just because a man is convicted of rape', is a fine reason for him to do time in prison, be put on a sex offender list, and be fined lots and lots and lots of money

If defense council is unhappy with the rulings or the penalty, they have plenty of opportunity to appeal.

 

Wow, I can't even believe what I just read!

Are you unaware of medical and mental damages that are done to a rape victims?! Pain and suffering? Paying court costs? While I agree that rape has become politicized and women falsely accusing men of rape is horrible and a crime in itself, you're taking it to EXTREMES horrible extremes! I also believe false allegations should be prosecuted, but that's another issue entirely... (defamation of character, slander, perjury, etc) and the person wrongly accused should get money for court costs and damages if that is the case.

However we have trials for a reason, and if a man is convicted (not an easy conviction as one would think) he should absolutely have to pay for damages as well as pain and suffering! You think it's a reward?! You clearly know nothing about what rape does to a victim, trust me while money can help with the financial burden believe me the mental damage done is something money cannot buy! It is a traumatic thing that scars a victim FOREVER! Trust me, sir it is no f**king reward and don't even get me started on the trial process that women have to go through and what emotional trauma that causes.

 

Why do we have civil suits for accusations of crime? Shouldn't it be a criminal case?

 

Wow! When did the American justice system change?

I thought it was “innocent until proven guilty”

 

No the burden would be on a lawyer to prove innocence of his/her client to a jury....that is what defense attorneys are paid to do...

 

It depends, the accuser and the attorney usually take it to civil court to prove the defendant is liable for the damages. The accuser and attorney have the right to decide the direction of the case, including evidence presented and damages asked for. The purpose of a civil case is to determine whether it is more likely than not that the defendant is liable for damages, and the accuser only needs to prove it is 51 percent or more likely that the defendant is the cause of the damage. In a civil case involving sexual assault, instead of suing for “sexual assault,” the accuser sues formally for charges such as Assault, Battery, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, etc...

A criminal sexual assault case is handled as a crime against the state and brought to court by the state rather than by the accuser. Therefore, the accuser doesn’t have a say in the direction of the case, but only appears as a witness for the prosecution. The accuser can’t veto anything the prosecution decides, for example, and doesn’t control whether a settlement is requested or received.

The primary purpose of a criminal sexual assault case is to determine the guilt or innocence of the defendant of a particular crime, and the prosecution must prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the defendant is guilty. The defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

A sexual assault defendant in criminal court can be ordered to pay the accuser, but only to compensate for financial costs incurred by the accuser. If a defendant is found guilty, outcomes can include incarceration or probation.

 

Who is awarded victims money "just" because they were raped? The only example you quoted involved an institution being sued for failing it's duty of care - that wouldn't be "just" because the woman was (allegedly) raped there.

I challenge you to find any rape conviction where the only evidence presented by the prosecution was the victims testimony. Note that news reports of court cases (especially in biased publications) isn't evidence of everything presented in court. You'd need to reference the full case records to establish your assertion.

That sounds like a more general issue with the state of the US civil law system. There are specific complications around criminal cases of rape but I don't think that should be conflated too much with the issues of the civil system.

 

You may not be aware of this, but many men have been convicted based on nothing other than the testimony of the woman who claims she was raped. Sometimes more than one woman who claims they were raped.

Now, please use some logic here. The reason your thinking is flawed is because you are using fragmented logic.

Your generic "men are only convicted if there's strong evidence" will not stand.
I'm going to accuse of you of intellectual self-dishonesty if you will refuse to connect the dots.

Now, if everyone agreed that a man cannot be convicted based entirely on the testimony of a woman (or women) who stand to benefit, then (in that hypothetical situation) there would not be an issue here.
But everyone does not agree on that. So therein lies the problem.

 

It happens all the time. You are expressing profound ignorance about the legal system if you are asking that question.

Just look at the latest news story with Weinstein. His insurance company settled with the alleged victims and payed out $25 million so it would not go to civil court.
(This is a separate matter from his conviction in criminal court)

 

No not ignorant all, he is absolutely correct you're stating "just because a victim was raped," no its medical costs, emotional damages, lost wages, pain and suffering, court costs....you clearly know nothing about what actually happens to rape victims...

If someone is convicted of the crime they are liable for damages! How is this concept so difficult for you to grasp?

Lets flip the tables, lets say you are falsely accused of rape. As a result, you lose your job, your reputation is ruined, you paid court costs, etc...and you take the accuser to court would you not want the accuser to pay for damages done to you?

 

What are you even talking about? Your comments are about a different separate topic from what my comment was referring to.

I was stating he was expressing "profound ignorance" because he was questioning whether anyone gets money because they were raped.

I don't know, maybe there is a genuine misunderstanding here, and the two (or three) of us are reading different meanings out of the same words.

Can we all agree that the civil court system in the US allows alleged rape victims to file lawsuits against the alleged perpetrators, and this whole lawsuit system is a separate process/system from conviction in a criminal court?

I just linked to one such story in the opening post. (see the blue underlined link)

It's pretty long, so many people may not want to read it.​

 

I am saying that the burden of evidence to secure a criminal conviction should be different than that in a civil lawsuit.

Just because they are convicted in a criminal court of the crime, does not then mean the jury should automatically assume they are guilty when deciding whether to award money to the victim. It's a separate jury that would decide how much money to award for damages.

But the problem is that the going "standard of wisdom" in legal circles is that conviction in a criminal court pretty much automatically sets a higher bar than in civil court, and that in the civil court they should automatically assume the man committed the alleged act because he had been convicted in criminal court.

Does that make sense to you?

Please think about this before you respond.

 

The whole problem is how you define "proven".

The devil is in the details.
I'm saying there should be a different type of burden of evidence for criminal cases versus civil cases, and that the burden of evidence in a criminal case is [or should not be] always higher in every way than a civil case.

The plain simple reality is that men do sometimes get convicted based only the testimony of the alleged victim.
We should not give these alleged victims money because of this.

That's like paying them huge amounts of money because they claimed something, with no other evidence or testimony from someone else who's not incentivized to make a false claim.

 

We need to write it into the law and make absolutely clear that the accuser has absolutely no chance of collecting any money just because she accused the man.
That way we can avoid the accused paying out a settlement because they are scared of where the case could go.

Even if it's a group of women who are all alleging the man raped them. That should not set a high enough bar of evidence to make the man pay money to them.

How can we really believe any of them if they all stand to potentially be awarded lots of money from it?

 

It's obvious you did not listen to a single point I was making.

Let me try it again.

The reality is that men can get convicted based on nothing other than the testimony of women who claim they were raped. Now, you can agree or disagree with whether that should be, but that is how it works and what happens.

So setting that aside for a moment, I am saying that should not be enough burden of evidence to make the man have to pay money to them.

Do you understand?

One could make an argument that they should be convicted in criminal court, but still make the argument that there is not adequate enough evidence that they should have to pay money.

Even though it's usually the other way around, and usually the evidence to send them to prison has to be stronger than the level of evidence required to make them pay money.

 

Basically the accuser has two separate opportunities to go after the accused: once in criminal court and once in civil court.
She can try to get him sent to prison in one court, and then in a separate court she can try to get him to have to pay money to her. Two separate juries.

In some legal jurisdictions in the US they have passed laws that an alleged rapist has to be convicted in criminal court before they can be subject to civil court.
That of course obviously creates a very clear incentive for a woman trying to get money to give a false testimony in the criminal case. Then she knows that she has to get the man convicted and sent to prison for her to later have a chance of getting any money.

 

You want another case, see here:



An Australian (New South Wales) woman, Sarah-Jane Parkinson, accused her boyfriend, Dan Jones, of rape and then tried to set things up to make it look like he was violating the restraining order and was abusing her. She was having an affair with another man, and when the current boyfriend threatened to leave her, she wanted to send her former boyfriend off to jail so she could take over the house and live with her new boyfriend.
The innocent man spent 5 months in a maximum security prison, before a detective was able to piece things together and determine that the woman had been lying.
The woman ended up only being sentenced to 3 years.

 

In our OP you stated:

Convicted means the person is guilty of rape! Now you're talking about settlements meaning it hasn't been taken to trial so there isn't a conviction. Make up your mind, as these are two separate issues. Do you think if a man is CONVICTED of rape that he should have to pay for the damages done to the victim? Yes or No? Pretty simple question really....

Settlements are often reached because the victim doesn't want to go through the emotional trauma of a trial as well, is it also a system that is abused to collect money yes sadly. Are you aware of what the defense lawyers put a rape victim through? Ever been to an actual rape case?

Another aspect is if the defendant has more money than the accuser, they could tie them up in a TON of legal fees they simply know their victim cannot pay and they simply can afford better representation than the alleged victim. I agree this has been abused but there is a flip side. What a rape victim goes through in the actual trial is TRAUMATIZING to the extent a lot of women are scared to even report it!

Fyi not a single person in this post has agreed with you so maybe you're just doing a bad job proving your point. Provide evidence that someone was convicted solely off testimony, do you have actual case reports? Not YouTube videos, thats one sided testimony of what happened.

Bull! I am not saying that never happens but it's rare! There has to be evidence, in civil it has to be provable by 51% or more and in criminal "beyond a reasonable doubt." No judicial system is perfect by any means, but no I am sorry.

If they are convicted, they could also appeal you do realize this? If someone was just convicted on a woman's verbal accusation that defendant has a crappy lawyer!

To not think a woman should receive money for being raped is insane! You don't think damages have been done to be given compensation?!

 

If that's what you think, then you fail to understand the whole point of my thread.

It's that sort of simple-minded mentality you are expressing right there that is the root of the problem, and leads to these big potential problems. That is, of women being incentivized to lie, and innocent men getting convicted because the woman wanted an easy route getting lots of money.

 

If they were convicted in the eyes of the law that person is guilty! What exactly is your point then because you're explaining it pretty poorly. Nobody else I guess has grasped it either as nobody so far agrees with you...

Also are you unaware of an appellate court?

 

That is besides the point. And don't you realize the lawsuit could take place and the monetary damages awarded before the appeal ever takes place?

 

It seems you are being hard-headed and refusing to listen to what I am saying.

I've explained it plenty, and if you still don't get it, I don't know what else to say.

STOP GIVING WOMEN MONEY WHEN THE ONLY EVIDENCE IS THE TESTIMONY OF ALLEGED RAPE VICTIMS THEMSELVES WHO STAND TO GET A LOT OF MONEY FROM THE ACCUSED WEALTHY MAN.

Write this into the law and let's be clear about it, so there won't be this monetary incentive for women to get a man convicted.