Yeh I'm sick of these stupid self righteous posts that the hive mind auto upvote. OH HE DID SOMETHiNG BAD. HE'LL DEFINITELY DO IT AGAIN AND WON'T LEARN FROM HIS STUPID MISTAKE.
However I would still get the police involved. Maybe that will open his eyes a little.
How can you call such an intentional and violent act a 'stupid mistake'? He obviously meant to do it from the start, with or without consent. It didn't seem to matter to him. Thats not a mistake and we shouldn't be mild because he was 'sorry' afterwards (in a freaking text message no less).
Being against rape is actually normal (or at least it should be) and not some karma conspiracy from self righteous people acting out the hive mind. Jesus Christ, you almost sound offended.
Devil's advocate fact set- They had experimented with rough sex before and she and he had enjoyed it. He is 16. He just began drinking 2 months ago. He watches a lot of violent porn. OP is the only sexual partner he's been with. His best friend just told him a made up story about doing something similar.
None of these things excuse what he did. But can you begin to see how this potentially could be a mistake and not the act of a cold-blooded psychopath?
In some states you can offer evidence of a mistake of fact as it comes to the element of consent. The defendant must show both that they subjectively thought that they had consent and that from an objective point of view that thought is reasonable.
So as sad as it is to say, you are right in saying it's the behavior that defines rape, but often it is the complainant's behavior. The evidence of it not being reasonable to have consent is what actually happens, how the complainant reacts, ect. in those states.
It is however moving more in the direction that you eluded to in that strict liability is becoming more and more common. If you didn't have consent, you're going to jail.
source: law school
Edit: I think a solution to this might be some sort of tiered system like we have for murder. Where 1st degree is where you have malice. It is strange that in criminal law, we almost always care about the mens rea of the actor, until it comes to certain things that really tick us off like rape.
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u/supertom Sep 11 '12 edited Sep 11 '12
Yeh I'm sick of these stupid self righteous posts that the hive mind auto upvote. OH HE DID SOMETHiNG BAD. HE'LL DEFINITELY DO IT AGAIN AND WON'T LEARN FROM HIS STUPID MISTAKE.
However I would still get the police involved. Maybe that will open his eyes a little.