When it comes to crimes and criminals, the general public can be really quite forgiving most of the time. Penn State students, for example, see very little wrong with underage drinking and minor drug law infractions. However, when it comes to sexual crimes, the same forgiving public becomes one of a damning force.
One needs to simply watch the Law and Order: Special Victims Unit introduction to understand the public's view: "'In the criminal justice system, sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the special victims unit.''
That's why a time.com article posted Monday caught my eye. Rather, the headline, "Putting the Term 'Rape' on Trial" caught my eye.
The case in question was a "he said, she said" argument over consent to sexual intercourse. Because the jury's task was not to establish if intercourse occurred, the defense attorney asked the judge to ban the term "rape" from being used in court, according to the time.com article.
It stated the ban brought protest from the rape victim advocacy group Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment, which in turn led the judge to declare a mistrial because of the excessive publicity.
Mistrials have got to be frustrating to victims in any case, but especially when the mistrial follows your being censored, it must be painstakingly frustrating. The victim said she found it extremely difficult to explain what happened the night of the alleged incident without using the banned word.
At the same time, though, Nebraska law says "evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed," according to the article. And it would be foolish to say that the word "rape" does not make even the purest juror judgmental.
That's what they said. But just because the case occurred 1,200 miles away doesn't mean it is all that distant from State College. What do you think?