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Sexual Assault Tag

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 12, 2016 8 Comments
Something maddening is happening in the European and Nordic countries which have opened their doors to millions of refugees from Muslim countries. Women of the host countries were sexually assaulted in numerous cities during holiday celebrations by refugees and it's being ignored in some cases and even covered up in others. In Sweden, these attacks have allegedly been going on for months. The Times of Israel reports:
Swedish police take flak for covering up refugee sex attacks Swedish police were criticized on Monday after admitting they failed to release information about alleged sexual assaults against women by young immigrants at a Stockholm summer music festival over the past two years. There were 38 reports of rape and sexual assault filed after the We Are Sthlm festival, which uses the postal abbreviation for Stockholm, in 2014 and 2015, according to police.

Posted by Amy Miller on November 02, 2014 12 Comments
In Washington State, the burden of proof of consent in a sexual assault case has traditionally fallen not on the alleged rape victim, but on the accused. A recent decision by the Washington Supreme Court, however, has changed the standard, and given hope to due process advocates:
The court in its 6-3 ruling reversed earlier decisions that forced an alleged rapist to establish a preponderance of evidence that a victim consented to sex. The court said such a burden violated constitutionally protected rights and also wrongly interpreted precedent set by the U.S. Supreme Court. "When a defense necessarily negates an element of the crime charged, the State may not shift the burden of proving that defense onto the defendant," the ruling said. "Requiring a defendant to do more than raise a reasonable doubt is inconsistent with due process principles," Justice Debra Stephens wrote, adding that doing so raises "a very real possibility of wrongful convictions."
The media has predictably framed this ruling as one that "could make it more difficult for rape victims to get justice":
"There's another person whose rights need to be taken into consideration, and that's the victim." Six of the nine justices agreed to reduce the rape defendant's burden, saying that 25 years of earlier rulings were incorrect and harmful to the constitutional presumption of innocence. "The prosecutors are going to have to spend much more time describing to the jury and presenting evidence to the jury regarding how the victim responded to those threats, what their body language is, what kind of noises they made, how quickly did they capitulate to the demand that they say that they wanted it." When we talked with YWCA sex assault victim advocate Emily Cordo, she was fearful of the ruling's impact, because now prosecutors will have to prove forcible rape victims did not consent. "Victims have to worry about whether they're going to be treated with respect, and whether they're going to be believed." The three justices in the minority agreed, writing that the majority ruling retreats "to the archaic focus on a rape victim's actions."
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