Obviously none of you are victims of sexual assault.

If accusing an innocent is anything like filing a false report, she'd just get probation if she went to ISU.

No, but falsely accusing anyone (if that's what happened) of anything should never, under any circumstances, be acceptable.

Yes, being a victim of sexual assault should give you carte blanche to imprison innocent people for 22 years.

It turns out that he's not guilty and she is -- of perjury at the very least.

To reiterate:
I'm NOT saying she should have carte blanche. I'm NOT saying she shouldn't have to have some type of punitive measures for wrongly indentifying that man but for the love of all things holy she was RAPED. Until you have had that happen to you, you cannot even begin to comprehend the affect it has on someone's psyche. Do you think after the trial she went back to being a happy, normal teenager? I highly doubt that. That shit stays with you for the Rest Of Your Life. Neither of those two people will ever have their lives back the way it was before the incident.

Obviously, I'm coming at this from an emotional angle as a woman and you're coming at this from an analytical angle as men. We will not agree on this issue.

I think that because of the lack of details, it's really difficult to say who's at fault here. As stated, it was probably not simply one woman's testimony that put this guy behind bars but a combination of many things. As ISUKappa said, there are a number of factors at play here and it was a failure of the justice system as a whole, not just due to one woman. That doesn't excuse what happened, and I think there should definitely be an investigation into how this man was wrongfully arrested and how we can prevent mistakes like this in the future . . . but comments like "she owes him a freebie" are tasteless at best and insensitive and damaging at worst.

I dunno, if a man was beaten with a lead pipe and cripled, we would still think it was bad that he Identified the wrong person and helped put him behind bars for 22 years.

We are not arguing a double standard.

So her discomfort and issues at the time somehow excuse this?

-Rudey

No. Please re-read what I have posted.

We are human, we make mistakes. Horrible mistakes sometimes. We're not perfect. Making a mistake such as wrongly identifying an attacker and putting him away in jail is not excusable but unfortunately, the world isn't as black and white and cut and dry as you seem to be making it. Emotions are involved, lives are involved. You're making it sound as if this woman connived to get this man in prison. We don't know what really happened at those trials, we probably never will. We don't know what other factors are involved, what kind of evidence there was, how good the lawyers were at spinning their stories to sway the judge and jury.

C'mon people, I watch Law and Order. I know how this shit goes down! ;)

Rudey - Her discomfort and issues are with her forever. As are the man's memories of 22 years in prison. They are not the same, neither can be compared as worse than the other, but they are both permanent markers on their lives.

I'm under the impression that this woman (girl since she was 17) was truly raped and testified that she truly believed this man was the rapist. Does anyone have information that contradicts that? Unfortunately, sometimes eyewitnesses make mistakes without malice toward the accused. DNA was not a factor at the time 22 years ago so her eyewitness testimony was crucial.

That said, I feel very sorry for this man who lost 22 years of his life in prison. Nothing can compensate him for that, but some money might help.

So tomorrow this man rapes the woman. Will you defend it in some sense by saying his emotions were involved and all that good stuff? I mean it seems that if we use this logic a vicious cycle occurs where people do awful things to each other over and over and it won't stop because emotions are involved, etc.

-Rudey

I don't think that anyone in this thread has said that what has happened was okay. I don't think anyone has said that there shouldn't be some kind of investigation into this case so we can see how to avoid it in the future. I don't think anyone has said that there shouldn't be some kind of investigation into the case to see whether or not this woman deserves punishment.

What we're saying is that it is an unavoidable fact that mistakes happen. And sometimes they are really shitty mistakes that end up with people being wrongfully imprisoned for 22 years or more. This is by no means the only case out there -- rape or not -- where this has happened. Chances are that it is not 100 percent this woman's fault that the man ended up in jail. Like I said earlier, unless this woman conspired to get this man convicted and knowingly lied about it, it was a failure of the justice system as a whole, not just her own fault.

And we're also saying that comments like James' -- which he somehow seems to pull out of his ass in every thread about rape despite being told repeatedly that they are not only offensive but legitimately harmful, since they are exactly the reason why most rapes are never reported -- are less than helpful.

Got it, so girl is traumatized = excuses her of any kind of responsibility in this.

How about the trauma of 22 years in jail? 22 years is a long damned part of your life to lose. Without her testimony, do you think this guy would be behind bars? Without her swearing to something she wasn't sure about, would he have lost 22 years of her life?

I think she bears some grave responsibility in this and if this gentleman is to be awarded any kind of compensation, a good chunk needs to come from her.

OMFG. Have you even read anything we've posted? Seriously.

I think the big issue is still this idea of the Freebie, James claimed this woman owes the newly-innocent man.

Yes, the woman made a very bad mistake.
Yes, there could be a civil/criminal lawsuit brought against her.
But she does not ever, even for a minute deserve to be raped. A freebie, regardless of what you call it, is rape. No one deserves to be sexually assulted, and that is at least what I find most offensive in this whole thing.

To neglect the insensitivity of that statement on a public board where I know we have women who have been sexually assulted is outragous.

Talk about how she deserves to be punished if you must, but pull yourselves above the bar of decency that ever victim of sexual assault deserves.