{"id":2171,"date":"2006-03-17T15:39:15","date_gmt":"2006-03-17T22:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=2171"},"modified":"2006-03-17T15:39:15","modified_gmt":"2006-03-17T22:39:15","slug":"oc-rapists-sentenced-to-six-years-in-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=2171","title":{"rendered":"OC Rapists Sentenced to Six Years In Prison"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Maia noted in an earlier post<\/a>, The OC Rapists have been sentenced to six years each in prison – although in practice, they could all be on the streets again in just two years.<\/p>\n

As most “Alas” readers know, the three boys videotaped themselves gang-raping their classmate Jane Doe over and over (including rape with a pool cue and a lit cigarette), and then spent years legally harassing and smearing Jane Doe in every way they could. Pinko Feminist Hellcat, who has done extraordinary work covering this case, has posted a must-read review of the harassment the victim was subjected to<\/a>. The extent of the harassment and game-playing is unbeleivable, and evil. It wasn’t just the predictable “she’s a slut” attacks during the trial, but also paying jurors from the first trial to try and change the minds of jurors from the retrail (is that legal?), and recruiting several of Jane Doe’s “friends” to tell stories about her which were later proved to be lies. When Jane Doe moved to a new school, under an assumed name, to try and start over, the defense’s private detectives stood in the parking lot of her new school screaming her real name at her. Everyone has a right to a defense in court, but what happened to Jane Doe wasn’t a legitimate defense; it was revenge against an uppity girl for refusing to stay in her place.<\/p>\n

So, about that sentencing:<\/p>\n

From the LA Times<\/em>:<\/a><\/p>\n

Haidl and Nachreiner apologized to the victim. Spann said nothing.<\/p>\n

Judge Francisco Brise\u00c3\u00b1o said minors and first-time offenders usually are not sent to prison, but in this case the defendants had degraded the victim … laughing and mocking her as she lay unconscious on a pool table … and were slow to show contrition.<\/p>\n

“Their personal remorse for the victim, prior to today, was expressed in guarded fashion and at times seemed outweighed by personal self-pity,” the judge said. He said he also considered that the defendants would be “marked” for life, owing to media coverage and the requirement that they register as sex offenders after their release.<\/p>\n

The defendants also were each sentenced to three years’ parole after their prison terms. Because of time already spent in jail, and with credit for good behavior, Haidl could be freed in 21 months and the others a few months later.<\/p><\/div>\n

21 months<\/em>. From Jane Doe’s statement<\/a>:<\/p>\n

In my heart I knew I had to see it with my own eyes, to be able to know exactly what these three men did to me, so I chose to watch it. I remember my mouth started burning while I was watching the video because it was so dry from hanging open in disbelief. I cannot and don’t think I will ever be able to describe what I felt while watching that video. I remember asking myself, “When did I become a piece of meat and not a human being to these men? How could any sane human do these things they did?” They did things not even savage animals would do. They violated me in every way possible.<\/p>\n

As I watched that video, I remember feeling two distinct feelings. I remember becoming furious at the animals that were attacking me because no human could do such a thing. And I remember feeling my soul and inner being completely deteriorating. I was empty. They had now taken every last bit of who I was and no longer felt human. I was like a lifeless and feelingless doll that these men thought they could use and abuse in any way they wished.<\/p>\n

A part of me died that day, a part that I don’t know if I’ll ever get back. The part that was lost as I watched three men I called my friends and trusted completely, abuse, assault and torture me. All the while they laughed and rooted each other on and smiled like it was the best day of their life. <\/p><\/div>\n

One of the defendant’s attorneys, Al Stokke, responded to this by saying that the rape wasn’t so bad, since Jane Doe was unconscious at the time. “She couldn’t have felt it happen. She only knows it happened because of the videotape.”<\/p>\n

I don’t think 21 months is enough. I don’t think six years would be enough. I’m not even sure what “enough” would be.<\/p>\n

Despite the videotape, it took four years and two trials (the first jury hung 11-1 in favor of “not guilty”) to achieve a conviction. And it’s only because of the unbelievable, stunning determination of Jane Doe that the conviction happened; nearly anyone else would have folded and stopped pursuing charges under the onslaught of the defense harassment. Certainly, if Jane Doe had decided to give up, who could possibly have blamed her, under the circumstances?<\/p>\n

The problem is not only that rape convictions are difficult to get in a system of “innocent until proven guilty.” The problem is not only with the rules of evidence and legal procedure. The problem is that, regardless of the level of evidence, rape convictions are too difficult to get in a society in which a defense attorney can claim that raping an unconscious woman with a snapple bottle and a lit cigarette is harmless and still anticipate being taken seriously by the judge.<\/p>\n

Changing the laws is important work, and I admire the feminists who have led reforms of sexual assault laws for the last three decades. But study after study has shown that reforming rape law hasn’t led to more convictions, or to a greater likelihood of conviction. Changing the law isn’t going to bring about more rape convictions, because the law isn’t a computer program; it’s a guidebook for how various human beings involved in the system should act. And humans have agency, and can choose to “bend” the law.<\/p>\n

Two years is nowhere near enough, but it is almost a miracle that the OC rapists are being punished at all. Even faced with overwhelming evidence, and even with a prosecutor willing to pursue the case, the defense still went far beyond the bounds of decency in attacking the victim. The judge refused to reign in the defense. The first jury was one vote away from finding the videotaped rapists “not guilty.”<\/p>\n

Consider as well, that Jane Doe’s case could easily have been classified by “unfounded” – or simply let drop entirely – if the cops who initially took up the case (after someone turned in the videotape, mistaking it for a videotape of sex with a corpse) had taken the perspective of the boys. Or the case could have wound up with a prosecutor who would have decided that the odds of a guilty verdict were too low, or who decided this was just a case of a drunk slutty girl and boys being boys.<\/p>\n

As all this illustrates, at every step of the way, in our system, there are actors who can bend the law to prevent rapists from being punished – especially if those rapists are rich, fresh-faced, white boys. Even in a case where the evidence seems overwhelming, some of these actors will try to find ways to let rapists off – and in many cases, they’ll succeed. As long as human actors implement the law, legal reforms will be very limited in their effect.<\/p>\n

Real reductions of rape – and increases in the likelihood of convictions – may be accompanied <\/em>by legal reforms, but they won’t be caused <\/em>by legal reforms. It’s only by a massive alternation in how our society thinks of rape at every level – so that “boys will be boys” and “the slut defense” is understood by the average person, the average judge, and the average juror as not merely wrong but also repugnant – that real change will happen.<\/p>\n

Comments on this thread are reserved for feminist and pro-feminist posters only<\/strong>. If you don’t think you’d fit into Ampersand’s conception of “feminist or pro-feminist,” please don’t post on this thread.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Maia noted in an earlier post, The OC Rapists have been sentenced to six years each in prison – although in practice, they could all be on the streets again in just two years. As most “Alas” readers know, … 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-2171","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\/2171","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=2171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2171\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}