{"id":2025,"date":"2005-12-22T15:26:22","date_gmt":"2005-12-22T22:26:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/12\/22\/another-update-on-the-guilty-of-insufficiently-traumatized-behavior-case\/"},"modified":"2005-12-22T15:26:22","modified_gmt":"2005-12-22T22:26:22","slug":"another-update-on-the-guilty-of-insufficiently-traumatized-behavior-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=2025","title":{"rendered":"Another Update on the "Guilty of Insufficiently Traumatized Behavior" Case"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Previous posts on this topic here <\/a>and here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The Oregonian<\/em> reports<\/a> that Judge Peter Ackerman is feeling a bit defensive:<\/p>\n

BEAVERTON — A municipal judge on Monday delayed sentencing a woman convicted of filing a false rape report until after her appeal is heard in Washington County Circuit Court.<\/p>\n

But Judge Peter Ackerman took the opportunity to defend his conviction of the woman and criticize media attention surrounding the case.<\/p>\n

“I’m a little disgusted by the coverage of this case,” Ackerman said during the hearing. “The facts were what the facts were.”<\/p>\n

When Ackerman convicted the woman Dec. 2, he said he relied in part on the testimony of a Beaverton police detective and friends of the girl, who said she did not appear to be traumatized in the days after the incident.<\/p>\n

Advocates for rape victims criticized that reasoning. But Ackerman said Monday that the woman’s lawyer should have offered expert testimony to counter prosecution witnesses.<\/p><\/div>\n

In retrospect, yes, it would have been good if they offered expert testimony (and I bet they will at the new trial). Nonetheless, the lack of expert testimony doesn’t rescue Ackerman’s ruling from being bad logic. The idea that there is a “correct” way that real rape victims must act, and that failure to act that way is proof of a malicioius false accusation, does not pass the smell test.<\/p>\n

Commenting on the expert witness argument, Pinko Feminist Hellcat writes:<\/a><\/p>\n

Did I miss the part of the trial where there were expert witnesses for the prosecution? An ignorant cop, a catty friend, and her dopehead, child-molester dating mother aren’t experts on rape trauma–and as law geeks love to remind us, the burden of proof is on the prosecution.<\/div>\n

It’s good that Ackerman is feeling the heat. Hopefully, he won’t be so quick to rely on stereotypes and false assumptions the next time he rules in a rape-related case – and, even more importantly, let’s hope other judges have heard of the controversy and made a mental note to check unfair assumptions about rape vicitms at the door. If rulings like his were ever to become a norm, it would be stupid for any rape victim to ever come forward to the police.<\/p>\n

Be sure to read this post at Preemptive Karma<\/a> – the blogger actually attended the sentencing hearing. (No sentence will be carried out until after the appeal, however). And this post at Pandagon<\/a>. And this post at The Balancing Act<\/a>. Quote of the day, from Balancing Act:<\/p>\n

If she hasn’t seemed traumatized yet, then I am sure this will knock some sense into her. Mission accomplished?<\/div>\n

Moderation Note<\/strong>: This thread is not intended for discussion of anti-feminist theories that false rape accusations are really very common (use this thread<\/a> for that), or male rape victims, or the trauma of men who are falsely accused, and similar topics. Let’s try not derailing this one.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Previous posts on this topic here and here). The Oregonian reports that Judge Peter Ackerman is feeling a bit defensive: BEAVERTON — A municipal judge on Monday delayed sentencing a woman convicted of filing a false rape report until after … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rape-intimate-violence-related-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2025\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}