Stanford rapist only gets 3 months

[emzie]

I never liked the intoxication excuse for either side. What if both parties are intoxicated? Could both therefore accuse the other of rape because they were too drunk to give consent? Does it turn into a pissing match of "who had a higher blood-alcohol volume"? Would someone just drink more before doing something shady as a defense against the "too intoxicated for consent" under such a scenario?

Two people get really drunk. One murders the other. What's the legal culpability?

 

[Lexicus]

I can't really continue the debate and stay within the forum rules. I find the rape apologetics to be entirely disgusting. The comparison of rape victims with someone who "made a poor choice to approach someone brandishing a weapon" is so utterly ridiculous and offensive there is no point in responding.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Two people get really drunk. One murders the other. What's the legal culpability?

No disingenuous analogies. In your scenario both claiming murder isn't even possible.

Nobody is being a rape apologist here. It'd be better not to label people. In the first place, the comparison was between drinking to the point of blacking out and approaching someone brandishing a weapon. Strawmanning in anger isn't going to help anything.

 

[Vectors]

That's a fair case to make TBH. If a person can state consent or initiate it (and he/she does so) they can and should be held accountable to their choices. Putting the burden on someone else who took their words/actions in good faith is nonsense. That's especially true if both parties are drunk.

If you don't set that standard, the situation I presented above is extremely problematic. If you do set that standard, you have a clear point where someone shouldn't be messed with. Or maybe give the poor fool some water and send them home with their DD. I'd prefer to avoid a walking time bomb of vomit, property damage, or inadvertent self-harm lol.

If one person acts upon a passive receiver by what means could the passive receiver be guilty of rape?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If one person acts upon a passive receiver by what means could the passive receiver be guilty of rape?

A person that states consent, initiates sex, or is actively engaging in it (IE performing acts themselves) is not a "passive receiver".

The case of a passive receiver stops being grey area, and a person capable of giving consent being a passive receiver (IE no significant reaction either way, no physical initiation, etc) is implausible. The victim in OP case was not a "passive receiver", but a victim of sexual assault/attempted rape.

What's allegedly happening in your case, a person capable of giving consent or rejecting the person is instead choosing to do or say absolutely nothing? I'm not grasping what a "passive receiver" that isn't too intoxicated (or for some other reason) to give consent looks like. Sounds like a crime to me, and is not what I was giving a hypothetical on happening.

Edit:

Let's not forget:

1. I have stated multiple times in this thread that I felt the sentence was too light. However, I don't expect what I feel to be a reliable measure of outcome optimization and don't trust others to be markedly better without evidence.

2. I have also stated that judge discretion of sentencing is extremely bias-prone and that, knowing this and having solid statistical evidence for it, we should have an evidence-based sentencing framework sentence consistently. This will likely be rejected, because people/firms with power will resist it.

 

[cardgame]

Two people get really drunk. One murders the other. What's the legal culpability?

Are you rejecting women's agency? If a man can have sex and be responsible for it when drunk, so can a woman.

 

[BvBPL]

2. I have also stated that judge discretion of sentencing is extremely bias-prone and that, knowing this and having solid statistical evidence for it, we should have an evidence-based sentencing framework sentence consistently. This will likely be rejected, because people/firms with power will resist it.

Turner's sentence was based upon such a framework.

 

[Vectors]

Turner's sentence was based upon such a framework.

this would be the framework that says 24, 36 or 48 months?

 

[emzie]

Are you rejecting women's agency? If a man can have sex and be responsible for it when drunk, so can a woman.

Who brought gender into it? If you are the type of person who is likely to lose control of your inhibitions and take advantage of someone, you still chose to become drunk, knowing that about yourself.

Person A chose to drink to the point they could not stop another person from sexually assaulting them.

Person B chose to drink to the point where they sexually assaulted another person.

Yes, person A did a stupid thing, not that they drank too much, but that they trusted someone they should not have trusted. That is a mistake that anyone can make and I'm not going to judge it more than I would judge any human for failing. This whole line of victim blaming is basically pointing at someone and saying "s/he is a person with flaws!" as if that makes you superior for knowing not to drink too much in a circumstance you have hindsight knowledge of.

 

[Camikaze]

Two people get really drunk. One murders the other. What's the legal culpability?

Manslaughter. The defence of intoxication applies. Murder is a crime involving 'specific intent'.

Most definitions of sexual assault will encompass an objective standard which does not require the formation of a specific intent. Thus, the question of whether or not the person had the capacity to form, and actually did form, that specific intent, is not going to be relevant if that objective standard is met.

The operation of intoxication as a mitigating factor in sentencing is an entirely separate issue, of course.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Turner's sentence was based upon such a framework.

It was also subject to a tremendous amount of "discretion", which has a long history of being applied unevenly.

Yes, person A did a stupid thing, not that they drank too much

Drinking that much is stupid in a vacuum, regardless of consequences or trust. That's an important point and people should not hide from it or cast it aside. Regardless of having flaws or not, the person is knowingly adding a drug that will make more flaws, including to judgment. Doing it with people you don't trust is worse though.

None of it should reduce the burden of responsibility on the person who is the actual criminal. If you pin down the application of justice here, it is possible to acknowledge person A did something stupid without bleed-off loss of responsibility or consequences for B. B's consequences should not depend on whether A had alcohol, regardless of A doing something stupid or intelligent.

The operation of intoxication as a mitigating factor in sentencing is an entirely separate issue, of course.

Lest we see people taking shots before going on to commit crimes (amusing to picture, very much the opposite in practice), people need to be held accountable for their choices, even if those choices have an extra step in their causal chain. Intoxication should not shed responsibility.

 

[BvBPL]

It was also subject to a tremendous amount of "discretion", which has a long history of being applied unevenly.

Discretion on the part of whom? The judge didn't come up with sentence on his own, it was suggested by the probation department based upon a sentencing calculus using statistical analysis.

 

[Camikaze]

Lest we see people taking shots before going on to commit crimes (amusing to picture, very much the opposite in practice), people need to be held accountable for their choices, even if those choices have an extra step in their causal chain. Intoxication should not shed responsibility.

I'm not necessarily sure how what you said relates the part of my post that you specifically quotes, but I think it's key to consciously remember that responsibility for actions is only half the picture, when you consider crimes are made up of both actus reus and mens rea elements. If you're just looking at the act itself, then how someone has arrived at that act is definitely irrelevant. But when criminal responsibility is predicated on the formation of a particular state of mind, then the manner in which that state of mind is formed does seem quite important. If we take the example of someone whose intoxication is not self-induced, it would seem pretty uncontroversial that if such a person commits an act which would otherwise be a crime, but fails to form the requisite state of mind because of their intoxication, they should not be convicted of that crime. Consider then, the position of someone whose intoxication is self-induced.

The difference between those two scenarios is the choice to become drunk. In both cases the requisite state of mind has not been formed as a product of intoxication; it's just that the inebriation was voluntary in only one case. In most jurisdictions, drunkenness or public drunkenness is no longer a crime, and where it is, the penalty is generally quite minor. It would seem strange for the operative factor causing one person to be guilty but another person to be not guilty, to be something which is either not illegal, or only subject to a small penalty. In other words, if you were to punish the self-induced drunk but not the involuntary drunk, it would be the choice to become drunk that would be punished, not anything subsequent to that choice.

To look at it another way, it's clear that if someone is completely sober, but fails to form the requisite state of mind necessary to trigger criminal responsibility, then they are not guilty. It's hard to see, then, why it should be the case that if someone is drunk, criminal responsibility should be triggered even though they have failed to form the requisite the state of mind. True it might be that, had the person not been drunk, they may in the situation have either formed the state of mind or not committed the act, but that hypothetical doesn't change the reality of the lack of formation of the requisite state of mind.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

That's a fair case to make TBH. If a person can state consent or initiate it (and he/she does so) they can and should be held accountable to their choices. Putting the burden on someone else who took their words/actions in good faith is nonsense. That's especially true if both parties are drunk.

I agree that it's a fair case to make. I was just surprised at the person who was making it based on previous exchanges.

 

[emzie]

The legal system is set up in a way that short of physical trauma, a positive test for a drug unknowingly consumed, or witnesses, it's a he-said-she-said story. The idea that drunken sex (where you act in good faith) is going to get put on the sex offender registry is a red herring.

 

[Flying Pig]

Yes, it ought to be mentioned that the conviction rate for rape, even when it does get to court, is still shockingly low. It's not as if juries are going out to label rape in every conceivable case - the opposite is actually true, that they usually seem to take far more convincing than they should.

 

[Traitorfish]

Two people get really drunk. One murders the other. What's the legal culpability?

This sounds like one of those headlines that starts with "Russian man"...

 

[Manfred Belheim]

The legal system is set up in a way that short of physical trauma, a positive test for a drug unknowingly consumed, or witnesses, it's a he-said-she-said story. The idea that drunken sex (where you act in good faith) is going to get put on the sex offender registry is a red herring.

Tell that to Ched Evans

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm not necessarily sure how what you said relates the part of my post that you specifically quotes, but I think it's key to consciously remember that responsibility for actions is only half the picture, when you consider crimes are made up of both actus reus and mens rea elements. If you're just looking at the act itself, then how someone has arrived at that act is definitely irrelevant. But when criminal responsibility is predicated on the formation of a particular state of mind, then the manner in which that state of mind is formed does seem quite important. If we take the example of someone whose intoxication is not self-induced, it would seem pretty uncontroversial that if such a person commits an act which would otherwise be a crime, but fails to form the requisite state of mind because of their intoxication, they should not be convicted of that crime. Consider then, the position of someone whose intoxication is self-induced.

The difference between those two scenarios is the choice to become drunk. In both cases the requisite state of mind has not been formed as a product of intoxication; it's just that the inebriation was voluntary in only one case. In most jurisdictions, drunkenness or public drunkenness is no longer a crime, and where it is, the penalty is generally quite minor. It would seem strange for the operative factor causing one person to be guilty but another person to be not guilty, to be something which is either not illegal, or only subject to a small penalty. In other words, if you were to punish the self-induced drunk but not the involuntary drunk, it would be the choice to become drunk that would be punished, not anything subsequent to that choice.

To look at it another way, it's clear that if someone is completely sober, but fails to form the requisite state of mind necessary to trigger criminal responsibility, then they are not guilty. It's hard to see, then, why it should be the case that if someone is drunk, criminal responsibility should be triggered even though they have failed to form the requisite the state of mind. True it might be that, had the person not been drunk, they may in the situation have either formed the state of mind or not committed the act, but that hypothetical doesn't change the reality of the lack of formation of the requisite state of mind.

There are some flaws in the legal system, if a person can induce intoxication and commit a crime that would be punished more severely if they didn't do that.

Intoxication is not something that should typically be used to demonstrate an inability to form criminal state of mind. I'd imagine most serious criminal acts (aside from attempting to drive) would be constrained by the drug's impact on the body if it puts a person down enough to be incapable of forming a criminal state of mind.

One way or another, accountability for the criminal action has to be there.

 

[ori]

German criminal law gets around this by allowing intoxication as a reason for not being criminally responsible for an act (if highly intoxicated) or having a reduced responsibility leading to reduced sentencing - but then instating both planned and negligent intoxication leading to committing a criminal act as a crime itself which caries sentences up to five years imprisonment.