The Duluth News Tribune has a follow-up to a very disturbing three part story it reported last March. It was a story that furnished a rare, microscopic look at the unfathomable power women have to cause men and boys to be arrested just on their say so whenever they cry "rape." It was a frightening tale about what a 34-year-old woman did to a 17-year-old boy, and one that is sure to get your blood boiling if you care a whit about justice.
The latest follow-up news report tells us that the uncertainty still hangs over the young man's life. The latest story doesn't do an adequate job describing what really happened. It makes it look as if there really may be two sides to the story. There aren't. There is an unsubstantiated and unreliable claim that has destroyed a boy's life on the one side, and a boy's denials on the other. The evidence supporting the accuser's claim makes gossamer look like armor plate. The unreliable accuser is still cloaked in anonymity while the boy's good name has been destroyed. Neither the police nor the Duluth Tribune News should be treating this as a legitimate claim at this stage, and the police ought to come out and say that there is no reliable evidence that young Andrew Lawrence committed a crime, because there isn't. If that sounds too harsh, too anti-"victim," too un-PC, read the latest story and the earlier three-part report yourself, and you decide. Don't trust me. All of the stories are linked below. Based on the information contained in the news reports linked below, the boy is the likely victim here.
All of the dates referenced below refer to 2010. To recap: A 34-year-old woman, who, it turns out, claimed she had been raped some years earlier when she lived in Florida, alleged that on July 20, 2010, two men broke into her home, and that one put a gun to her throat and raped her. Police arrested 17-year-old Andrew Lawrence without bothering to corroborate the alleged victim's story, or his alibi.
Listen to this litany of horrors and tell me whether you think an injustice has been done to a 17-year-old kid. And don't just rely on me: read the three-part horror show linked below.
▲The accuser claimed she would remember forever the horror of her rape -- the day it happened and the events. Yet, in her very first interview with the police, she told them she was raped one week earlier than the day it supposedly happened. Specifically, she told them she was raped on July 13, not July 20.
▲She said she told no one about the alleged rape until July 31 — 11 days later — not even her boyfriend. What prompted her to tell was a supposed nightmare about the assault. She was yelling in her sleep and woke up screaming. Her boyfriend convinced her that it would be safe to go to the police, he said, “to protect others from this.”
▲The woman initially described her attacker as someone with “long, brown, wavy hair (surfer type or moppy),” according to a police report. When he was arrested, Andrew had short brown hair. A photo taken of him earlier that summer showed . . . he had short hair.
▲The woman initially identified someone else as her attacker, saying she was “70 percent sure” that a friend of Andrew’s was the person who attacked her. That person had long, surfer-style hair, and he doesn’t resemble Andrew. 70 percent sure it was someone other than Andrew.
▲Andrew was arrested despite the fact that the woman never identified him in a photo lineup. When she did identify him, it was from at least a half-block away at 8 p.m. She saw him skateboarding outside and said, "That's the guy."
▲Andrew was nervous during a four-hour police interrogation in which a cop with a spotty record yelled and swore at him and accused him of lying. During the interrogation, the police asked Andrew about his whereabouts on July 13, Andrew claims, the day the woman first claimed she was raped. (The police claim that they didn't mention July 13, but won't release the tape of the interview.) Andrew told them his whereabouts in detail for the 13th. The police checked with his mother's partner, who told them a different story. It turns out the police asked the mother's partner about Andrew's whereabouts on July 20.
▲Despite inconsistencies in the woman’s story, police did not interview potential witnesses about the inconsistencies, nor did they perform a background check on the woman, according to reports and interviews.
▲Before they arrested Andrew, police apparently did nothing to corroborate the woman's story. They never interviewed the woman’s boyfriend about the alleged assault to corroborate her story. Police also never questioned her neighbors or a friend the alleged victim said she called the night she was raped.
▲Police waited for more than a week before they bothered to check out Andrew’s alibi after he was arrested. By that point, he had already been released on $2,500 bail. Andrew corrected his initial interview and told police that on the evening of July 20 he played video games with his longtime friend, Steven Brown, who lives across the street from the woman who accused Andrew of rape. Brown, along with his brothers, Daniel and Mark Haworth, confirmed Andrew’s story to both police and the Duluth News Tribune, saying they played a video game with him. After their interviews with Steven Brown and his family about Andrew’s alibi, Superior police did no further investigating, records show.
▲The alleged victim didn’t get a rape exam until four days after she reported the assault, saying that’s when Superior police directed her to do so. That exam, performed 15 days after the alleged rape, found no evidence of an assault.
▲Though the alleged victim said two people were involved in the rape, there’s no indication that police searched for a second suspect. For people concerned about public safety, that seems like a major gaffe, doesn't it?
▲The woman told police and later testified to a judge that she clearly saw her attacker holding a gun. Though police found no gun in Andrew’s possession or at a search of his home, they found a skateboard wrench in his room. An officer wrote: “I believe the wrench could easily be mistaken for a small pistol.” (The fact is, cops could find something that supposedly could be mistaken for a gun in almost anyone's home.)
▲On Oct. 7, police received the DNA report from the Wisconsin Crime Lab. Samples they had taken from the living room where the alleged victim said she was raped showed no match to Andrew. Samples taken from Andrew’s clothes and the wrench that police theorized might have been used as a weapon didn’t contain the alleged victim’s DNA. Results of the rape exam showed no evidence of a sexual assault, according to records, though the exam was taken about three weeks after the assault was alleged to have occurred.
▲After receiving DNA test results that failed to tie Andrew to the crime scene, the district attorney’s office waited two months to drop charges. Two more months of hell for Andrew.
▲In retrospect, the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office charged Andrew with rape based on two pieces of evidence: the woman’s eventual identification of him as the suspect (the identification made from a distance, after she had described someone who didn't look like Andrew, and and after she was initially 70 percent sure it was another young man), and the fact that Andrew’s first account of his whereabouts on the night of the alleged assault (when they asked him about the wrong day) differed from his stepmother’s.
▲Before charges were dropped, the alleged victim was granted a restraining order against Andrew, claiming he repeatedly harassed her and that she feared for her safety. The restraining order is still in effect despite charges being dropped, and it will last for four years, requiring Andrew to vacate any home or building the woman is in. Andrew denies ever harassing the woman. In her request for the order, the woman wrote that she saw Andrew drive by her home on Aug. 2. Records show, however, that Andrew was in jail that day. On Sept. 30, she wrote that she saw Andrew sitting in the back of a vehicle at the Superior library parking lot. Again, a contradiction: One of Andrew's teachers signed a statement saying that he was under her direct supervision at that time. The woman said that her sexual assault advocate, who filled out the restraining order application on her behalf, probably made the mistakes. (Who is Andrew's advocate in all this?) Police records make no note of the discrepancies.
▲Former Duluth Police Lieutenant of Investigations John Hall questioned why police never worked to corroborate the alleged victim’s story by interviewing the woman’s boyfriend or neighbors. Those are “the sorts of things sex crime investigators do routinely,” he said.
▲Andrew's mother's partner, shocked about what happened, rhetorically asked a newspaper reporter: “Does that mean I can say that you came in and touched my breasts, I’m putting you in jail, dammit?” she said. “I don’t know you. But if I said you raped me … all I would have to say is you did it, and not prove anything?”
▲Andrew, who works as a line cook at a local restaurant, said he’s forgiven the woman who accused him of rape, but he is still angry with her and with the police. Since he was arrested, Andrew said he’s dropped about 20 to 25 pounds. Andrew will probably move away. "Even if my name is wiped clean, I think this will always be an area where people see I’ve been charged,” he said. “I just hope it doesn’t give me a bad reputation wherever I go.”
▲The case, which was the only reported home invasion and sexual assault in the city in 2010 is classified as still open. And while Andrew isn’t a suspect, when charges were dropped they were done without prejudice, meaning he could be investigated again.
Links:
-http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/218211/
-http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/193114/publisher_ID/36/
-http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/193191/publisher_ID/36/
-http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/193258/publisher_ID/36/
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Monday, December 26, 2011
Stigler woman accused of falsifying a rape report
A Stigler woman has been charged in Pittsburg County District Court with false reporting of a crime.
Katheryn Marie Louise Clark, 21, is accused of falsely reporting “that she had been raped by her soon to be brother-in-law,” court documents indicate.
On Dec. 16, Pittsburg County Deputy Jack Suter was dispatched to Longtown and took a report from Clark that she had been raped, according to a police affidavit. Clark accused the man of dragging her by the hair and forcibly having sex with her while she was screaming and biting him, according to the affidavit.
A medical rape kit was performed on Clark, according to the affidavit, and the nurse performing the rape kit told authorities that “there was not any evidence of sexual assault.”
Clark was arrested Dec. 17 and on Dec. 19, she was charged with false reporting of a crime. If convicted, Clark faces up to 90 days in jail. She is due back in court Feb. 7 at 9 a.m. to face this charge.
Link:
http://mcalesternews.com/local/x1750825474/Stigler-woman-accused-of-falsifying-a-rape-report
Katheryn Marie Louise Clark, 21, is accused of falsely reporting “that she had been raped by her soon to be brother-in-law,” court documents indicate.
On Dec. 16, Pittsburg County Deputy Jack Suter was dispatched to Longtown and took a report from Clark that she had been raped, according to a police affidavit. Clark accused the man of dragging her by the hair and forcibly having sex with her while she was screaming and biting him, according to the affidavit.
A medical rape kit was performed on Clark, according to the affidavit, and the nurse performing the rape kit told authorities that “there was not any evidence of sexual assault.”
Clark was arrested Dec. 17 and on Dec. 19, she was charged with false reporting of a crime. If convicted, Clark faces up to 90 days in jail. She is due back in court Feb. 7 at 9 a.m. to face this charge.
Link:
http://mcalesternews.com/local/x1750825474/Stigler-woman-accused-of-falsifying-a-rape-report
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Oakham woman to serve probation after false rape claim
A 44-year-old Sunday school teacher from Oakham pleaded guilty yesterday to lying to police, telling them she’d been raped, and she was sentenced to 2 years’ probation.
Christine Drolet went to Spencer Police Detective Michael Shea earlier this year and reported that William Domey, a paramedic who worked with her husband, had raped her.
She went to a hospital for treatment, called police several times to check on the status of the case and never recanted until Detective Shea questioned her version of what had happened, prosecutor Courtney Sans told the judge in Western Worcester District Court yesterday.
Mrs. Drolet, who was estranged from her husband and had been living with Mr. Domey in Spencer, used social networking websites to “have a made-up conversation with herself,” that appeared to involve him, Ms. Sans said.
In one email, she told Mr. Domey she was pregnant and sent an ultrasound image of a fetus that Detective Shea determined was a stock photograph she’d gleaned from the Internet.
In an interview after court, Mr. Domey said Mrs. Drolet told the state Office of Emergency Medical Services that he had raped her and the state looked into revoking his paramedic license. He also said Mrs. Drolet had contacted his ex-wife, who had their custody agreement changed so he could no longer see their children.
Ms. Sans said in court that Mrs. Drolet had “decimated his life” and the false charge was “following him to the point where his livelihood was affected.”
“It’s very hard to unring a bell,” she said.
Mrs. Drolet, Ms. Sans said, formulated the story so her husband would “feel bad for her” and would reconcile, which he did.
Mrs. Drolet’s lawyer, Christopher G. Monroy, said with the exception of this incident, Mrs. Drolet is a model citizen, herself an EMT.
He submitted letters of support from her pastor and friends who said she is a Sunday school teacher at Oakham Congregational Church, a singer in the choir and was a member of the town’s cultural council.
“This is conduct that goes without explanation,” Mr. Monroy said.
Judge Timothy M. Bibaud sentenced Mrs. Drolet to one year concurrent sentences at Framingham state prison on the charges of filing a false crime report, criminal harassment and witness intimidation. She was sentenced to two years on a second witness intimidation charge. All of the sentences were suspended for two years, during which time she will remain on probation.
Mr. Domey said after court that while Mrs. Drolet’s sentence will end in two years, he anticipates having problems for much longer as a result of her actions.
He said he is able to see his children again, but has been turned down for jobs because the emergency medical services community is small, and word of the rape allegation, though false, is still spreading.
As a paramedic for eight years with a total of 20 years in the field, he said, he’s hoping that, with Mrs. Drolet having been sentenced, he’ll be able to find work closer to home. He lives in Western Massachusetts and travels to Boston.
Link:
http://www.telegram.com/article/20111221/NEWS/112219884/1003/NEWS03
Christine Drolet went to Spencer Police Detective Michael Shea earlier this year and reported that William Domey, a paramedic who worked with her husband, had raped her.
She went to a hospital for treatment, called police several times to check on the status of the case and never recanted until Detective Shea questioned her version of what had happened, prosecutor Courtney Sans told the judge in Western Worcester District Court yesterday.
Mrs. Drolet, who was estranged from her husband and had been living with Mr. Domey in Spencer, used social networking websites to “have a made-up conversation with herself,” that appeared to involve him, Ms. Sans said.
In one email, she told Mr. Domey she was pregnant and sent an ultrasound image of a fetus that Detective Shea determined was a stock photograph she’d gleaned from the Internet.
In an interview after court, Mr. Domey said Mrs. Drolet told the state Office of Emergency Medical Services that he had raped her and the state looked into revoking his paramedic license. He also said Mrs. Drolet had contacted his ex-wife, who had their custody agreement changed so he could no longer see their children.
Ms. Sans said in court that Mrs. Drolet had “decimated his life” and the false charge was “following him to the point where his livelihood was affected.”
“It’s very hard to unring a bell,” she said.
Mrs. Drolet, Ms. Sans said, formulated the story so her husband would “feel bad for her” and would reconcile, which he did.
Mrs. Drolet’s lawyer, Christopher G. Monroy, said with the exception of this incident, Mrs. Drolet is a model citizen, herself an EMT.
He submitted letters of support from her pastor and friends who said she is a Sunday school teacher at Oakham Congregational Church, a singer in the choir and was a member of the town’s cultural council.
“This is conduct that goes without explanation,” Mr. Monroy said.
Judge Timothy M. Bibaud sentenced Mrs. Drolet to one year concurrent sentences at Framingham state prison on the charges of filing a false crime report, criminal harassment and witness intimidation. She was sentenced to two years on a second witness intimidation charge. All of the sentences were suspended for two years, during which time she will remain on probation.
Mr. Domey said after court that while Mrs. Drolet’s sentence will end in two years, he anticipates having problems for much longer as a result of her actions.
He said he is able to see his children again, but has been turned down for jobs because the emergency medical services community is small, and word of the rape allegation, though false, is still spreading.
As a paramedic for eight years with a total of 20 years in the field, he said, he’s hoping that, with Mrs. Drolet having been sentenced, he’ll be able to find work closer to home. He lives in Western Massachusetts and travels to Boston.
Link:
http://www.telegram.com/article/20111221/NEWS/112219884/1003/NEWS03
A peaceful world?
Many people around the world are celebrating Christmas this morning. A central wish around this holiday is "peace and good will for all." Why is enduring peace so difficult to achieve? What are the prospects for us in the twenty-first century?
Peace and conflict are related, but they aren't precise opposites. Conflict between individuals and groups can take many forms, and it is possible to manage or resolve conflicts without violence or hatred. This village uses its pasture and forest for gathering; that village begins to encroach with its livestock herd. The two villages have a conflict over the pasture. This conflict may eventually escalate into violence between the villages, with armed groups from each waging small-scale war against the others. But it doesn't have to work out this way. Leaders of the two villages may negotiate a set of land use customs that do something to satisfy the needs and interests of both villages, and they may be successful in getting their constituents to honor those agreements. Or there may be a state capable of establishing and enforcing property rights that are binding on both groups, while permitting each group to pursue its most important life activities. Or, perhaps, the two groups may have normative and religious bonds of solidarity that lead each member of the group to possess a reservoir of good will that makes resort to violence impossible to imagine.
So conflict of interests and wants doesn't necessarily lead to a breaking of the peace. But these conflicts have the potential to do so. And political theorists in the social contract tradition since Hobbes have held that this is the key role of the state -- to establish an acceptable set of rules for property and person that determine clear rights and obligations for everyone, and clear procedures for punishment if rights are violated. Only through a system of law can we avoid the state of nature which is a state of war of all against all.
Other theorists, notably Elinor Ostrom, have argued that populations have solved the problems of conflict over resources in non-state ways, through "common property resource regimes" (Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action
). The conditions under which a CPRR is stable are more complex than those of a state -- essentially, the CPRR needs to be supported by normative and cultural elements that give all participants a reason to honor the rules -- but Ostrom and fellow researchers have documented many successful instances. And, of course, a common property resource regime needs to have some kind of processes for addressing and resolving conflicts among participants -- fishermen who disagree about the catch, water users who disagree about the management of upstream resources.So what are some of the large causes of breakdowns of peace in populations of people?
A key source of sustained violent conflict on a large scale is perceived unresolved injustice. One party or nation blocks access to resources or opportunities to which another party believes it has a moral right; demands are made; the situation persists; and violent acts begin to occur.
Another important source is conflict over access to important natural resources -- water, oil, minerals. Conflicts over resources may occur at the local level, or they may rise to the level of inter-country armed conflict and war.
We can't overlook the religious and ideological origins of much conflict in humanity's history. The prolonged conflict, often violent, between Hindus and Muslims over the Babri Mosque in India is a good example. The site has religious importance for both communities; leaders are able to mobilize their followers in defense of their claims; violence ensues.
So what can humanity do to improve the prospects for peace and good will?
Sustained efforts at conflict resolution are a good place to start. People of good will can often enough find the resources they need to bring down the degree of conflict and hostility between groups, and to find procedures that make resort to violence less likely.
Recognizing and addressing injustices between peoples and nations will help. Justice and peace are intertwined.
Promoting the universality of human needs and the value of inter-group tolerance and respect is a very good step. And spiritual leaders of all faiths are sometimes very committed to this work. (Others are not, of course!)
So, this fine Christmas morning in 2011, let us all work for peace and justice for our grandchildren!
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Merry Christmas, you've been falsely accused
Despite our fondest aspirations, Christmas is marked less by peace on earth and goodwill toward men than by bruised feelings, horn honking, and at least a vague feeling of dread. Both emotions and alcohol tend to flow a little too freely on the run up to the big day, and all our modern day angst is magnified under the Christmas snow globe. In short, it is the perfect season for the nastiest of human dramas, like suicide, assault, and false rape claims. This blog, of course, is dedicated to giving voice to victims of false heinous sex allegations, and we call our holiday offering, "Merry Christmas, you've been falsely accused," only because we couldn't come up with anything better.
Regardless of your troubles this holiday season, they probably can't compare to those of some of the men featured here:
▲On another Christmas Eve not long ago, an innocent man and a woman named Michelle Anne Taruka Grafton, 19, a student, had a brief liaison but spent most of the evening watching television with the man's flatmate. Later, the police came for the man to question him about an alleged rape. Grafton had claimed the man forced into a car, tied her up, and repeatedly raped her. While the police were investigating, and while the innocent man's life was left in a state of terrified anxiety over a pending rape charge, Grafton hopped on a plane and went away on holiday to Australia for a month. When she finally bothered to come back, she admitted her lie. When the story was reported, the newspaper interviewed Director of Rape Prevention Education, Dr Kim McGregor, who said: "We treat people who have made false allegations with compassion because there's always a question mark over other issues being played out."
▲Another Christmas Eve, police were given a false tip that a rapist was hiding in a certain home. The tip was a lie. The police got their signals crossed and broke down the front door. In the confusion that followed, they accidentally gunned down the innocent 84-year-old man who lived in the home with his elderly wife. He, of course, hadn't raped anyone. The wife was taken to the hospital in shock and later died of a heart attack.
▲On another Christmas, John Chalmers, 47, was beaten by a man who was under the wrong-headed belief Mr. Chalmers had raped his sister. Mr. Chalmers suffered brain damage and had to relearn how to do everything.
▲Another Christmas, Northern Ireland footballer Jonny Evans was arrested, held in custody, and accused of raping a woman at a boozy Christmas party his team held at a posh hotel. Jonny was cleared, but it forced him to grow up fast. "It made me a lot more wary of people," Jonmy said. The experience showed him how men can easily become victims of false allegations. Jonny said it was "scary" how anyone could be arrested based solely on someone's false allegation.
▲Another Christmas, Gail McMahon, 25, a mother of four, had gone to a bedroom with a 23-year-old man after asking him for a Christmas kiss. Afterwards, she alleged he seduced and raped her. Eight days later, she withdrew the claim, saying she had done it "for a good laugh and giggle." The judge told McMahon that her false cry of rape led to an innocent man being arrested, interrogated and made to give intimate samples.
▲Another Christmas, Diane Kay Sharping, 44, told police a man attacked and raped her while she was looking at Christmas lights. A university nearby sent out an alert to students. When police questioned Sharping a second time, she admitted that it had not happened.
▲Another Christmas, Sharon Donohue lied that she was raped after she was abducted in a shopping center parking lot where she was doing Christmas shopping.
▲Another year, the best Christmas gift then 25-year-old Andrew Bond got was the surveillance video that proved his rape accuser was a liar. Months earlier, a woman with whom he'd had a one-night stand cried rape, and when police got to her, she was a mess. Her makeup was running, her clothes were dishevelled and her underwear had been ripped to shreds. 'I've been raped,' she said in a voice that reflected her distress. The police came for Andrew at 4:50 a.m. He was arrested, stripped, made to wear a disposable white paper suit - his clothes were taken away for examination - and locked in a cell. "I felt embarrassed and degraded," he said. "All I could think of is: 'Who is going to believe me?' Whenever I read about such cases in the paper I always thought: 'It must be true.' It never crossed my mind that a 'victim' might be lying, until now." Being locked in that cell was very traumatic. "I kept pressing the buzzer and saying 'let me out.' I was very distressed and in tears. I think I was having a breakdown." By now, the police had broken the news to his parents. When he was charged with rape, the young man broke down and cried. Andrew's life was torn to shreds -- he was forced to leave the university where he was studying. He had to sell things to stay afloat financially. For months, the police didn't bother to check CCTV footage taken where Andrew lived. Then, just before Christmas, Andrew himself remembered a video camera in his building. Police watched it. The tape revealed that Andrew was the victim, not a brutal rapist. Andrew was filmed entering the building with a female companion with shoulder-length hair and knee-high boots. They chat and cuddle in the lift on the way to his 11th-floor apartment. About an hour later, the woman leaves the flat. She looks composed and relaxed. She is neither crying nor fleeing in terror. Next we see her getting into the lift. The security camera is behind her. In the reflection of the elevator's metal walls, she can be seen pulling something out of her handbag. She begins to tear at it with her hands. It is a pair of knickers, in fact. The same ones she claimed had been ripped during the struggle. Police dropped the charges against Andrew. The young woman was not charged, and she retained her anonymity. Merry Christmas, Andrew.
▲Melanie Duell called police in the early morning hours one Christmas, claiming she'd been raped. The man she named was arrested and held for ten hours. He was finally cleared weeks later when she admitted he wasn't the man who attacked her. Duell's attorney said Duell was an inadequate and vulnerable young woman who found if difficult to cope and who had been put under pressure by her family at the time. She said Duell did not commit the offence out of revenge or because she was bitter and twisted but added: "I acknowledge this was a grave, grave error of judgment and she knows that."
▲A 21-year-old told police that three men dragged her into a car and one raped her on the back seat one Christmas day. It was a lie.
▲Another year, Jan Falkowski, a 46-year-old successful London psychiatrist, was brought to his knees by Maria Marchese, a deluded stalker who launched a four year hate campaign - with thousands of anonymous texts, phone calls and emails, and dozens of death threats. Finally, she was arrested, but then, the police decided there was not enough evidence to proceed and the case was dropped. Falkowski was furious. At his office Christmas party, it all came to a head. The phone rang. It was her, treatening to kill him. Once again he reported her to the police. That's when she fabricated rape claim against him. She told the police that Falkowski had drugged and raped her years earlier. To support her claim, she produced underwear supposedly soaked in his DNA. Falkowski was arrested, charged with rape, and in accordance with standard practice, suspended from his job while police investigated. Marchese alerted radio and newspapers who headlined the case: "Top doctor charged with rape." Even Falkowski's friends abandoned him. Then, it was discovered that Marchese's underwear sample contained not just his DNA but the DNA of one of Falkowski's women friends whom Falkowski hadn't even met until a year after the rape supposedly occurred. The police realized they'd been conned. Marchese had rifled through Falkowski's dustbins and stolen a used condom.
▲Another Christmas, Austen Donnellan was cleared of raping a fellow undergraduate, with whom he had previously said he was besotted, after a drunken Christmas party. During his trial, Austen told the court that his accuser had kissed him passionately on the dance floor and undressed him when they returned to her room at the halls of her residence. She claimed she was raped. The judge told the jury that a woman who is drunk can still consent unless she was so drunk that couldn't understand what is happening to her. The jury took just 35 minutes to acquit Austen.
On behalf of Steve and Pierce, FRS wishes the community of the wrongly accused and all our readers a very Merry Christmas.
Regardless of your troubles this holiday season, they probably can't compare to those of some of the men featured here:
▲On another Christmas Eve not long ago, an innocent man and a woman named Michelle Anne Taruka Grafton, 19, a student, had a brief liaison but spent most of the evening watching television with the man's flatmate. Later, the police came for the man to question him about an alleged rape. Grafton had claimed the man forced into a car, tied her up, and repeatedly raped her. While the police were investigating, and while the innocent man's life was left in a state of terrified anxiety over a pending rape charge, Grafton hopped on a plane and went away on holiday to Australia for a month. When she finally bothered to come back, she admitted her lie. When the story was reported, the newspaper interviewed Director of Rape Prevention Education, Dr Kim McGregor, who said: "We treat people who have made false allegations with compassion because there's always a question mark over other issues being played out."
▲Another Christmas Eve, police were given a false tip that a rapist was hiding in a certain home. The tip was a lie. The police got their signals crossed and broke down the front door. In the confusion that followed, they accidentally gunned down the innocent 84-year-old man who lived in the home with his elderly wife. He, of course, hadn't raped anyone. The wife was taken to the hospital in shock and later died of a heart attack.
▲On another Christmas, John Chalmers, 47, was beaten by a man who was under the wrong-headed belief Mr. Chalmers had raped his sister. Mr. Chalmers suffered brain damage and had to relearn how to do everything.
▲Another Christmas, Northern Ireland footballer Jonny Evans was arrested, held in custody, and accused of raping a woman at a boozy Christmas party his team held at a posh hotel. Jonny was cleared, but it forced him to grow up fast. "It made me a lot more wary of people," Jonmy said. The experience showed him how men can easily become victims of false allegations. Jonny said it was "scary" how anyone could be arrested based solely on someone's false allegation.
▲Another Christmas, Gail McMahon, 25, a mother of four, had gone to a bedroom with a 23-year-old man after asking him for a Christmas kiss. Afterwards, she alleged he seduced and raped her. Eight days later, she withdrew the claim, saying she had done it "for a good laugh and giggle." The judge told McMahon that her false cry of rape led to an innocent man being arrested, interrogated and made to give intimate samples.
▲Another Christmas, Diane Kay Sharping, 44, told police a man attacked and raped her while she was looking at Christmas lights. A university nearby sent out an alert to students. When police questioned Sharping a second time, she admitted that it had not happened.
▲Another Christmas, Sharon Donohue lied that she was raped after she was abducted in a shopping center parking lot where she was doing Christmas shopping.
▲Another year, the best Christmas gift then 25-year-old Andrew Bond got was the surveillance video that proved his rape accuser was a liar. Months earlier, a woman with whom he'd had a one-night stand cried rape, and when police got to her, she was a mess. Her makeup was running, her clothes were dishevelled and her underwear had been ripped to shreds. 'I've been raped,' she said in a voice that reflected her distress. The police came for Andrew at 4:50 a.m. He was arrested, stripped, made to wear a disposable white paper suit - his clothes were taken away for examination - and locked in a cell. "I felt embarrassed and degraded," he said. "All I could think of is: 'Who is going to believe me?' Whenever I read about such cases in the paper I always thought: 'It must be true.' It never crossed my mind that a 'victim' might be lying, until now." Being locked in that cell was very traumatic. "I kept pressing the buzzer and saying 'let me out.' I was very distressed and in tears. I think I was having a breakdown." By now, the police had broken the news to his parents. When he was charged with rape, the young man broke down and cried. Andrew's life was torn to shreds -- he was forced to leave the university where he was studying. He had to sell things to stay afloat financially. For months, the police didn't bother to check CCTV footage taken where Andrew lived. Then, just before Christmas, Andrew himself remembered a video camera in his building. Police watched it. The tape revealed that Andrew was the victim, not a brutal rapist. Andrew was filmed entering the building with a female companion with shoulder-length hair and knee-high boots. They chat and cuddle in the lift on the way to his 11th-floor apartment. About an hour later, the woman leaves the flat. She looks composed and relaxed. She is neither crying nor fleeing in terror. Next we see her getting into the lift. The security camera is behind her. In the reflection of the elevator's metal walls, she can be seen pulling something out of her handbag. She begins to tear at it with her hands. It is a pair of knickers, in fact. The same ones she claimed had been ripped during the struggle. Police dropped the charges against Andrew. The young woman was not charged, and she retained her anonymity. Merry Christmas, Andrew.
▲Melanie Duell called police in the early morning hours one Christmas, claiming she'd been raped. The man she named was arrested and held for ten hours. He was finally cleared weeks later when she admitted he wasn't the man who attacked her. Duell's attorney said Duell was an inadequate and vulnerable young woman who found if difficult to cope and who had been put under pressure by her family at the time. She said Duell did not commit the offence out of revenge or because she was bitter and twisted but added: "I acknowledge this was a grave, grave error of judgment and she knows that."
▲A 21-year-old told police that three men dragged her into a car and one raped her on the back seat one Christmas day. It was a lie.
▲Another year, Jan Falkowski, a 46-year-old successful London psychiatrist, was brought to his knees by Maria Marchese, a deluded stalker who launched a four year hate campaign - with thousands of anonymous texts, phone calls and emails, and dozens of death threats. Finally, she was arrested, but then, the police decided there was not enough evidence to proceed and the case was dropped. Falkowski was furious. At his office Christmas party, it all came to a head. The phone rang. It was her, treatening to kill him. Once again he reported her to the police. That's when she fabricated rape claim against him. She told the police that Falkowski had drugged and raped her years earlier. To support her claim, she produced underwear supposedly soaked in his DNA. Falkowski was arrested, charged with rape, and in accordance with standard practice, suspended from his job while police investigated. Marchese alerted radio and newspapers who headlined the case: "Top doctor charged with rape." Even Falkowski's friends abandoned him. Then, it was discovered that Marchese's underwear sample contained not just his DNA but the DNA of one of Falkowski's women friends whom Falkowski hadn't even met until a year after the rape supposedly occurred. The police realized they'd been conned. Marchese had rifled through Falkowski's dustbins and stolen a used condom.
▲Another Christmas, Austen Donnellan was cleared of raping a fellow undergraduate, with whom he had previously said he was besotted, after a drunken Christmas party. During his trial, Austen told the court that his accuser had kissed him passionately on the dance floor and undressed him when they returned to her room at the halls of her residence. She claimed she was raped. The judge told the jury that a woman who is drunk can still consent unless she was so drunk that couldn't understand what is happening to her. The jury took just 35 minutes to acquit Austen.
On behalf of Steve and Pierce, FRS wishes the community of the wrongly accused and all our readers a very Merry Christmas.
Friday, December 23, 2011
A pragmatist action theory
A theory of action is one component of a meta-framework for sociology. It is an organized set of ideas about what individuals are doing when they engage in interactions in the world, and what we think at the highest level of generality about why they behave as they do. Individuals within social interactions constitute the social world; they do things; and they do things for reasons that we would like to understand. A theory of action ought to give us a basic vocabulary for describing behavior in the social world. And it ought to provide some framing hypotheses about the causes or motivations of behavior.
An important aspect of action theory is the idea of "intensionality" and mental representation. This is the conception of the individual as possessing consciousness, purposes, and a mental orientation to the world. He or she "understands" the events that surround him/her -- that is, the individual forms a mental representation of the swirling set of actions and events that surround him or her. And the individual places him/herself within this representation by conceptualizing wants, aversions, aspirations, and intentions concerning what might be achieved through intentional behavior.
This description may seem obvious. Or it may seem to reflect a set of assumptions about how to parse the social world that are substantive, consequential, and debatable. They are consequential because they push our sociological researches in a particular direction: who are the actors that make up a social ensemble? What are they doing? Why are they doing these things?
They are debatable because -- as we've seen in discussions of Abbott and Gross previously -- they privilege the actor over the action, the individual over the interaction. They push us in the direction of a social ontology that is individualistic and perhaps reductionist. Abbott proposes, in contrast, that we begin with the interaction, the flow of moves and responses. Tilly suggests that we start with the relationships and turn to the individual actors only later in the analysis. And Gross suggests starting with the creativity inherent in any complex flow of human activities and interactions.
Each of these thinkers point in the direction of a pragmatist theory of action. So what might a pragmatist theory involve?
One avenue for getting a handle on this question is to turn to the work of Hans Joas, who has contributed deeply to the question of how pragmatism intersects with sociology. His article with Jens Beckert in Jonathan Turner's Handbook of Sociological Theory
is a good place to start, since he is specifically concerned there to give an exposition of a theory of action that acknowledges several important sources for such a theory while specifically developing a pragmatist account. (The article covers a lot of the ground presented in Joas's 1997 book, The Creativity of Action
. Also important is his Pragmatism and Social Theory
.)
Joas begins his account by framing the standard assumptions of existing action theory in terms of two poles: action as rational choice (e.g. James Coleman) and action as conformance to a set of prescriptions and norms (e.g. Durkheim, Parsons). He argues for a view that is separate from both of these, under the heading of "creative action".
Joas thinks that this interpretation of action as extended intelligent adaptation to shifting circumstances helps to account for complex social circumstances that rational-actor and normative-actor theories have difficulty with. He illustrates this claim with the extended examples of reciprocity and innovation.
This is a rich and nuanced theory of action, and one that has the potential for offering a basis of a much richer analysis of concrete social circumstances than we currently have. At the same time it should not be thought to be in contradiction to either rational-deliberation or normative-deliberation theories. These creative actors whom Joas describes are purposive in a more diffuse sense, and they are responsive to norms in action. It seems to me that the chief tension Joas offers is between stylized, mono-stranded models of action, and thick theories that incorporate the plain fact of intelligent adaptation and shaping of behavior that occurs in virtually all human activities.
An important aspect of action theory is the idea of "intensionality" and mental representation. This is the conception of the individual as possessing consciousness, purposes, and a mental orientation to the world. He or she "understands" the events that surround him/her -- that is, the individual forms a mental representation of the swirling set of actions and events that surround him or her. And the individual places him/herself within this representation by conceptualizing wants, aversions, aspirations, and intentions concerning what might be achieved through intentional behavior.
This description may seem obvious. Or it may seem to reflect a set of assumptions about how to parse the social world that are substantive, consequential, and debatable. They are consequential because they push our sociological researches in a particular direction: who are the actors that make up a social ensemble? What are they doing? Why are they doing these things?
They are debatable because -- as we've seen in discussions of Abbott and Gross previously -- they privilege the actor over the action, the individual over the interaction. They push us in the direction of a social ontology that is individualistic and perhaps reductionist. Abbott proposes, in contrast, that we begin with the interaction, the flow of moves and responses. Tilly suggests that we start with the relationships and turn to the individual actors only later in the analysis. And Gross suggests starting with the creativity inherent in any complex flow of human activities and interactions.
Each of these thinkers point in the direction of a pragmatist theory of action. So what might a pragmatist theory involve?
One avenue for getting a handle on this question is to turn to the work of Hans Joas, who has contributed deeply to the question of how pragmatism intersects with sociology. His article with Jens Beckert in Jonathan Turner's Handbook of Sociological Theory
is a good place to start, since he is specifically concerned there to give an exposition of a theory of action that acknowledges several important sources for such a theory while specifically developing a pragmatist account. (The article covers a lot of the ground presented in Joas's 1997 book, The Creativity of Action. Also important is his Pragmatism and Social Theory.)Joas begins his account by framing the standard assumptions of existing action theory in terms of two poles: action as rational choice (e.g. James Coleman) and action as conformance to a set of prescriptions and norms (e.g. Durkheim, Parsons). He argues for a view that is separate from both of these, under the heading of "creative action".
However, the alternative that reaches even further beyond the routinized exchanges between rationalist and normativist theories of action seems to us an action-theoretic conceptualization that focuses on the notion of the creativity of human action. Such a theory can be based primarily on the tradition of American pragmatism that originated in philosophy and psychology but also has a significant sociological tradition. (270)Common to both traditional views, Joas argues, is the assumption of purposiveness: that action proceeds to bring about explicit pre-articulated goals subject to antecedently recognized constraints. The pragmatist view of action rejects this separation between goals, action, and outcome, and focuses on the fact that goals and actions themselves are formulated within a dynamic and extended process of thought and movement. (Dewey is the chief source of this view.) Tactics, movements, and responses are creative adaptations to fluidly changing circumstances. The basketball player driving to the basket is looking to score a goal or find an open teammate. But it is the rapid flow of movement, response by other players, and position on the floor that shapes the extended action of "driving for a layup." Likewise, a talented public speaker approaches the podium with a few goals and ideas for the speech. But the actual flow of ideas, words, gestures, and flourishes is the result of the thinking speaker interacting dynamically with the audience. Joas puts his view in these terms:
At the beginning of an action process goals are frequently unspecific and only vaguely understood. They become clearer once the actor has a better understanding of the possible means to achieve the ends; even new goals will arise on the basis of newly available means. (273)
For the theory of creativity of action the significance of the situation is far greater: Action is not only contingent on the structure of the situation but the situation is constitutive of action. (274)So what are the features of the situation that intersect with the thinking actor to create the temporally extended action? Joas refers to corporality and sociality. The body is not simply the instrument of the agent. Rather, the physical features and limitations of the body themselves contribute to the unfolding of the action. (This aspect of the theory has much to do with phenomenology.) And the other persons involved in an action are not simply subjects of manipulation. Their own creativity in movement and action defines the changing parameters of the actor's course of action. (Again, think of the analogy of 10 players in a basketball game.)
Joas thinks that this interpretation of action as extended intelligent adaptation to shifting circumstances helps to account for complex social circumstances that rational-actor and normative-actor theories have difficulty with. He illustrates this claim with the extended examples of reciprocity and innovation.
This is a rich and nuanced theory of action, and one that has the potential for offering a basis of a much richer analysis of concrete social circumstances than we currently have. At the same time it should not be thought to be in contradiction to either rational-deliberation or normative-deliberation theories. These creative actors whom Joas describes are purposive in a more diffuse sense, and they are responsive to norms in action. It seems to me that the chief tension Joas offers is between stylized, mono-stranded models of action, and thick theories that incorporate the plain fact of intelligent adaptation and shaping of behavior that occurs in virtually all human activities.
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