Bulletin Board v190

Boy reveals parental abuse via Facebook — “Hi, my name is S. and I am 14. Since I was 8, my parents beat me regularly. Whenever there was a family argument that I was not connected to and I made eye-contact with my father, he would get angry and punch me hard, sometimes with a belt.” This post, published Friday night by a 14-year-old-boy from Haifa on the police’s Facebook page, raised suspicions of harsh abuse and led to a police investigation and the subsequent arrest of the child’s parents.

Experts see increase in male sexual assault awareness — A California man who, as a child, was sexually molested by his mother, said the trauma he endured has stayed with him well into his adult life and affected his ability to comprehend his emotions and be intimate with women. The 50-year-old, who asked to remain anonymous, said he only came to the realization that his mother’s behavior was inappropriate with him as a boy, within the last few years. “I still battle with a voice that says I’m a baby,” he said, adding that coping is a continuous struggle.

Female rapists abuse soldier for 4 days — A 25-YEAR-OLD soldier was allegedly kidnapped and detained for four days by suspected female rapists, who are said to have sexually abused him several times before releasing him early this week. Police in Mutare have confirmed the incident, saying they were hunting for the suspected culprits. Manicaland assistant police spokesperson Assistant Inspector Muzondiwa Clean told NewsDay yesterday that on April 19 around midnight at Birchenough Bridge business centre, the unsuspecting soldier boarded the women’s vehicle on his way to Mutare.

False accusations and Title IX

Feminists have a sordid response to false accusations. While some will admit that they occur, most feminists seem opposed to considering them a serious problem. When presented with examples of false accusations resulting in arrests, public humiliation, imprisonment, and even death, many feminists treat those as outliers. Nothing to be concerned with, nothing to focus on. Instead, those feminists accuse advocates for the falsely accused of supporting and excusing rape.

This was the response to men’s rights activists when they opposed a recent change to Title IX that allowed for easier prosecution of students accused of sexual assault. The Obama administration changed the language of the law so that colleges need only rely on a “preponderance of evidence” to expel a student for sexual assault. This is the same standard used in civil court cases, and only requires the accuser to show that it is more likely than not — essentially that it is possible — the accused committed the act.

This set off a wave of complaints about the law violating due process rights. Yet, few of those complaints came from feminists. Feminists tended to support the change as it would result in more punishment for those accused of rape.

However, there is a problem: what if the accusation is false? What if it is malicious? And what if one of those feminists who supports such changes to the law found her son falsely accused of rape? Judith Grossman recently found out the answers to those questions: 

Stop The Abuse: The Innocence Project

Often times people want to help others but do not know how. This cannot be any truer than when it comes to helping abused men and boys. The resources sometimes are not apparent and are often difficult to find. Sometimes the resources are hidden or even barred by other groups who wish to polarize the issue. The intent here is to provide those who wish to help male victims with the opportunity to do so.

Please remember that you do no have to empty your wallets to help. Even a small donation can go a long way. And for those on the other side of the issue, it would go a long way to demonstrating real concern for all victims if you donated as well.

———

The Innocence Project

Mission Statement

The Innocence Project was founded in 1992 by Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University to assist prisoners who could be proven innocent through DNA testing. To date, 266 people in the United States have been exonerated by DNA testing, including 17 who served time on death row. These people served an average of 13 years in prison before exoneration and release.

The Innocence Project’s full-time staff attorneys and Cardozo clinic students provide direct representation or critical assistance in most of these cases. The Innocence Project’s groundbreaking use of DNA technology to free innocent people has provided irrefutable proof that wrongful convictions are not isolated or rare events but instead arise from systemic defects. Now an independent nonprofit organization closely affiliated with Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, the Innocence Project’s mission is nothing less than to free the staggering numbers of innocent people who remain incarcerated and to bring substantive reform to the system responsible for their unjust imprisonment.

Please donate and help make a difference.

Bulletin Board v186

4-year-old Tucson boy in abuse case dies — Jaedyn Minley loved bounce houses, but was terrified of Chuck E Cheese. Jaedyn had a significant collection of little toy cars and the diction of an adult. And on Saturday, after the 4-year-old was declared brain dead, Jaedyn was removed from life support, and his organs were harvested to save the lives of two other children and an adult. “He was the best kid,” Jaedyn’s paternal aunt, Janai Minley, said Monday.

Anti-rape bill is anti-male: Jaya Bachchan — Actor-turned-politician Jaya Bachchan on Thursday said the anti-rape bill is anti-male and that its provisions make men vulnerable to misuse of the law. Participating in a debate in Rajya Sabha on the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2013, Samajwadi Party MP Bachchan said she was not too happy with various aspects of the bill, including punishment for those found stalking women, which can lead to the misuse of the bill. It’s not just men who stalk women.

Barbara Kay: Our male-victimizing myths live on — Twenty years ago Earl Silverman of Calgary, fleeing his home to escape violence from his abusive wife, had no refuge to take shelter in. There were plenty of shelters for women victims of domestic abuse, but for men the only publicly funded services were for anger management. The message was clear to Silverman: “As a victim, I was re-victimized by having these services telling me I wasn’t a victim, but I was a perpetrator.”

Criminal justice system’s ‘dark secret’: Teenagers in solitary confinement — James Stewart, a 17-year-old from Denver who committed suicide while in solitary confinement, had never been to jail before August of 2008. That was when, under the influence of alcohol and marijuana, Stewart had gotten into a head-on car collision, killing a 32-year-old man. Because of the severity of his crime, Stewart was charged with vehicular homicide – and charged as an adult.

Post-Conviction DNA Testing and Wrongful Conviction

Over on Feminist Critics, Clarence linked to a piece The Spearhead featured concerning the wrongful conviction rate in homicide and sexual assault cases. The Post-Conviction DNA Testing and Wrongful Conviction report reviews sexual assault cases from from 1973 to 1987 in Virgina. The report found that between 8 to 15 percent of sexual assault cases resulted in wrongful convictions:

DNA testing produced a determinate outcome for 230 of these cases, in which there were 250 convicted offenders. In 56 of those convictions the convicted offender was eliminated as the source of DNA evidence, and for 38 convictions that elimination supported exoneration. Thus, we find that in Virginia cases resulting in a convicted offender between 1973 and 1987 where evidence was retained in an unbiased sample of 715 homicides and sexual assault convictions—

• The convicted offender is eliminated as a contributor for a probative evidence item in 8 percent (n=56) of convictions.8
• The convicted offender is eliminated as a contributor for a probative evidence item, and that elimination is supportive of exoneration, in 5 percent (n=38) of convictions.

For nonsexual assault homicide cases, a determinate finding about a convicted offender being a source of a DNA profile was reached in only 23 out of 293 convictions (8 percent), making it too rare to make declarative statements about the likelihood of potential wrongful conviction in those homicide convictions.

We find that DNA testing of items in these cases leads to a determinate conclusion in more than half of the sexual assault convictions (including homicides with a sexual assault). Thus, we focus much of our analysis on the sexual assault offenses. We find that in convictions in Virginia between 1973 and 1987 where evidence was retained in a sample of 422 convictions for sexual assault—

• The convicted offender was eliminated as the source of questioned evidence in 40 out of 422 convictions (9 percent).9
• The convicted offender was eliminated as the source of questioned evidence in 33 out of 422 convictions (8 percent) and that elimination was supportive of exoneration.
• The convicted offender was eliminated as the source of questioned evidence in 40 out of 227 convictions (18 percent) where a determination could be made from the DNA analysis.10
• The convicted offender was eliminated as the source of questioned evidence in 33 out of 227 convictions (15 percent) where a determination could be made from the DNA analysis, and that elimination was supportive of exoneration.

The two most important numbers in the bullets above show the rate at which convicted offenders were eliminated as the source of questioned evidence and that elimination was supportive of exoneration. This occurs for 8 percent of all sexual assault convictions in the sample and for 15 percent of all sexual assault convictions where a determinate finding was made. We note again that additional facts about the case not included in the forensic file may ultimately include the convicted offender. However, given that these are sexual assault cases where the profile was determined to be male and excluded the convicted offender, we anticipate this will be relatively rare. (p. 5-6)

Stop The Abuse: The Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted

Often times people want to help others but do not know how. This cannot be any truer than when it comes to helping abused men and boys. The resources sometimes are not apparent and are often difficult to find. Sometimes the resources are hidden or even barred by other groups who wish to polarize the issue. The intent here is to provide those who wish to help male victims with the opportunity to do so. Every month I will post a new link to an organization that provides services for male victims. As the list grows, I will create a page where all the links can be found.

Please remember that you do no have to empty your wallets to help. Even a small donation can go a long way. And for those on the other side of the issue, it would go a long way to demonstrating real concern for all victims if you donated as well.

—–

The Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted

The Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted (AIDWYC) is a Canadian volunteer organization dedicated to preventing and rectifying wrongful convictions.

AIDWYC was founded in 1993. It is the direct successor to the Justice for Guy Paul Morin Committee, a grassroots organization that formed to support Guy Paul Morin immediately following his wrongful conviction in 1992.

When Guy Paul Morin was released on bail in February 1993 pending his appeal, this Committee reconstituted itself as AIDWYC, with the goal of acting in defence of all persons who have been wrongly convicted.

AIDWYC has two broad objectives: first, eradicating the conditions that can cause miscarriages of justice; and second, participating in the review and, where warranted, correction of wrongful convictions.
AIDWYC is a primarily voluntary, non-profit organization. At this time, AIDWYC’s focus is limited to murder convictions only.

Please donate and help make a difference.

Man acquitted after spending 20 years in prison

When I write about false rape allegations, I mention that one of the trickiest aspects is that we do not know how many false allegations make it to trial and result in conviction. If a story and accuser sounds believable, there is a good chance that innocent people will end up in prison. Since many abuse cases involve only witness testimony–typically only the accuser’s testimony–there is little an innocent person can do to prove their innocence.

The naysayers balk at this, but it can happen:

An Edmonton man who has already served “every minute” of an eight-year sentence for sexually assaulting his young stepson has now been acquitted.

In a decision released Monday, the Court of Appeal of Alberta acquitted the 47-year-old man because the boy later recanted and said his biological father forced him to lie during a 1994 custody dispute.

In a special commission hearing held last year, the boy, who was nine at the time and is now an adult, testified that allegations of sexual abuse and rape against his stepfather were completely false.

“It is not the truth,” he said. “The truth is he did not do any of that.”