Saturday, October 18, 2014

How Would This Have Been Handled By The University's Sexual Kangaroo Court?

I would never say that law enforcement gets it right all the time, but they have a much greater opportunity to arrive at a just conclusion than a university does:
On Friday, a rape charge against UC Berkeley student {name removed by request, see update below} was dismissed after prosecutors concluded that {name removed by request, see update below} was innocent of committing the crime.

{name removed by request, see update below}, 20, was charged with rape by use of drugs last week after an alleged sexual assault Sept. 27 was reported. The woman whom {name removed by request, see update below} was charged with assaulting, identified in court documents only as “Jane Doe,” was “prevented from resisting by an intoxicating, anesthetic, and controlled substance,” according to the court documents.

But after reviewing the evidence provided by Berkeley Police Department and interviewing Jane Doe, district attorney spokesperson Teresa Drenick said, the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office determined that {name removed by request, see update below} didn’t commit any sexual assault Sept. 27 and motioned to dismiss the charges.  (boldface mine--Darren)
Let's not forget that while the accuser's name has been kept private, Mr. {name removed by request, see update below} was already tried and convicted in the court of public opinion at Berkeley.  The comments on the linked article are evidence enough that these types of proceedings rightly fall under law enforcement and not in universities.

Update, 10/24/18:  This morning I woke up to an email from the wrongly-accused individual above, asking me to remove this post.  He's trying to get all references to his name and this particular instance removed from the internet.  Good luck with that, but I'll do my part to help out by removing his name from this post.  He replied with thanks.

6 comments:

maxutils said...

I'm a bit iffy on this one. I'm sure that the University would have completely hammered him... but this decline to prosecute smells bad. In the article, there is no reason given that charges were dropped ... so, if I had to guess? He probably did commit rape, and there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute. He may be totally innocent ... but this doesn't seem to be the case I would want to hitch my horse to.

maxutils said...

As an aside ... you might find the cover story in this week's Sac News&Review both an interesting and infuriating read. It concerns UCD's 'rape problem'.

Darren said...

Without evidence, all you have is an opinion.

maxutils said...

That was kind of my point. I'd like to see the evidence, or lack thereof.

Darren said...

I'm sure that if you head over to the Berkeley PD or to the Alameda County DA's office they'll be happy to share the evidence with you and explain their findings.

I'm equally sure that a university-run kangaroo court would be entirely uninterested in *any* evidence except that presented by the so-called victim who, if *evidence* is to be believed, is pretty much a liar.

maxutils said...

Why would the police give me evidence from a case where they elected not to name the victim, if she was that, and which they apparently neglected to give to the media? I'm not doubting that this was a false or inflated claim ... I'd just like to know why there was a decline to prosecute.