I always enjoy the lengthy and informative posts at Judging Crimes. In this case, there is a post about the continued failings of rape law and cultural perspectives about rape law. Here is a portion of the very detailed post:
Liberal Slate has come out foursquare in favor of a return to the pre-1960s doctrine that rape convictions should never be based on the woman's testimony alone, since women are such lying sluts. (See post 280 and post 290.)
A Nebraska judge made national news by prohibiting the victim of a rape from using her own words to tell the jury about what happened to her, on the ground that allowing the female to speak for herself might encourage the jury to convict the male defendant.
In my own New Mexico, a liberal legislature in 1975 removed "absence of consent" from the rape statute, so that any sexual penetration accomplished by force or coercion was criminal. The idea back then was that in sex crimes, as with all other crimes, the only thing that counted was what the perpetrator did. But in 2005, the Supreme Court rewrote its uniform jury instructions to reinsert (so to speak) that element, so that today, as 50 years ago, rape is lawful unless the prosecution can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the victim isn't a slut who was practically begging for it.
It may still be possible to believe the criminal justice system is not being transformed into an institutionalized backlash against the women's movement. It requires a lot of faith, though. Such unshakeable faith can be heartbreaking when manifested by, say, a 4-year-old cancer victim. It's a little less touching when encountered in an otherwise-healthy adult.
Jacobsen rarely pulls any punches in his analysis and he is at his sharp-tongued best in the rest of the post, so go read the whole thing.
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