How many times have you heard of a woman being sentenced to 20 years in prison because a man falsely accused her of a violent crime (without any physical evidence)?
Bahahahahahaha! I'm a brown dude and I found that pretty freaking hilarious. I just embarrassed myself at the library here.
Imagine knowing that you are innocent...but have spent 4 years in jail and have another 16 years to spend there. Wow, I cant imagine how crappy that must feel. Hope she really gets raped.
You're acting as though this happens -all the time-, which it doesn't. Obviously this woman was in the wrong by a long shot--There's no denying that. Also, do you realize how ridiculous your question is?
I completely agree with this fact.. the problem is this sets precedence for other cases. Things like this happening cause even more women to refuse the attempt at prosecution because they don't believe that they will get someone who will look for all the facts... that's why I get angry. The real cases where men should get prosecuted are much harder to convict when they can bring up things like... well she was drunk... well she was in the wrong place... well she is like this other chick that lied and was desperate for attention. They cause doubt and because of it criminals get off and less people report the crime. That's why I get pissed.
That is the point of having a trial. Nothing I've read here indicates that he wasn't granted a fair trial based on the evidence presented, with one exception. That the main witness was lying doesn't go to the system unless the prosecutor knew that the witncess was lying and proceeded with the trial anyway. Yes we don't have the facts but I don't think it can implied at all from the article there was no evidence. The article specifically talks about wounds on the woman and it sounds like those wounds played a part in the trial. The one exception that I noted above is in regar to a fair trial is what sort of tests were done on the wounds. It sounds like that part of the argument for exoneration was that the DNA on the wounds wasn't the DNA of the man who was convicted. That said without sitting in the trial seeing the evidence presented to the jury and the defense offered I don't think we can assume at all that he was assumed guilty. For all we know if we were there in the jury we might fully agree with the conviction. I don't think anyone is contending that in this case the bigger harm is to this particular women but that a woman recanting a rape accusation makes it less likely that women who actually are raped will be believed. This woman isn't a victim but her actions have potentially victimized other women.
As I mentioned earlier it doesn't sound like this man was convicted solely on the word of the woman as their appears to be other evidence, evidence that as it happens was also wrong. Legally my understanding is that prosecutors have to exercise due-dilligence and fact-finding and failure to do so is grounds for overturning a conviction and possible prosecutorial misconduct. Speaking in general, not to you Fryball, I am glad to see that people are arguing for more skepticism and dedication to due process. Too often people complain about people getting off on technicalities and making sure rights are granted to suspects forgetting that there is a reason for those technicalities and rights, to protect against things like convicting people on snap judgements. Pardon me while I continue on my soap box. This is why I personally oppose the death penalty since as this case shows people are wrongfully convicted and imagine if this had been a capital case, not complete out of the realm of possibility since rape used to be a capital crime and there are calls to make it one again, and this guy had been executed.
This is the same BS that people spout all the time - the idea that DAs are interested in winning at all costs. That makes no sense, no DA wants to send an innocent person to jail. It's not a feather in someone's cap to send an innocent person to jail. While it would be great for there to be a mountain of evidence in every case (like they have in every tv show), it's not realistic. Often the only evidence is testimony (which by the way IS evidence). It may not be ideal, but what alternative would you put forward? If someone is raped or has some other heinous crime committed against them and you believe them, you believe them beyond a reasonable doubt - we should say, since there is no way of verifying (or "checking the facts") that this happened to you, we're not going to charge the guy? The best example of this is when children are molested or raped. Many will go years before making outcry about it (and psychologists will tell you that is normal). After years have passed, ways of "checking the facts" as you put it - disappear. This story is a travesty. It is terrible that this happened to an innocent man, but to say that DAs are more interested in results than the truth is naive.
That's seriously ****ed up. As for the story? **** happens. Making some sort of grandiose and all-encompassing statement about supposed biases granted the female gender based off of these events is idiotic; and probably says more about your own bias than the justice system.
Of course, we can't argue about what we don't know. All we do know is the limited info from the article. Woman claimed she was raped when she wasn't. Some other witnesses claimed something, though certainly not that they say man raping woman. Woman had some cuts...four years ago...which could have been tested for DNA at any point, and when they finally were, in no way pointed to man being guilty. Granted, a bunch of other things could have been pointed out at the trial. Though one would think if something big happened at the trial, it would have been noted in the article. This isn't a case of the DNA results being wrong. It's ultimately a case of lack of evidence. As little as we know about what happened in the courtroom, we can be certain of that. Because, again, short of something like DNA evidence being wrong, multiple eye witnesses saying they saw the man do it, someone being framed, etc....all of which, mind you, likely would have been described in the story...there MUST be a lack of evidence, because the guy didn't do it. Which leaves us with the conclusion, he was assumed guilty. His DA was tasked with proving he didn't do it, as opposed to the prosecutor being tasked with proving he did. Who knows what I would have thought if I was on the jury. I have been on juries before, though, and have always and consistently been cognizant of the fact that it needs to be proven to me, via the evidence, that whatever is being argued happened. Being presented with information that I must then make a jump to say, I THINK this happened, isn't good enough. Actually, the contention is: "The damage she did to women as a whole is just as bad as the four years the man served in prison for a crime he didn't commit." Which seems off-base to me. Frankly, I don't even understand how her actions may have possibly victimized other women? In what way are raped people worse off now that this story has come out?
This article makes the DA's office look pretty bad. Note that it was from August of last year and the woman fessed up to her lying that March. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/12/nyregion/12dna.html
That sucks. Chick should get 4 years herself. And man, we've all been burned by women before....but some of y'all really haven't recovered, eh?
Those of you claiming it was assumed guilty until proven innocent missed this part, methinks. I'm trying to figure out why more charges of perjury than just what Peguero received weren't doled out, unless the witnesses didn't testify to seeing any actual rape at all. In that case, then yes, this was a ridiculous case and any jurors that convicted this guy should be ashamed of themselves. I don't care how incompetent his attorney might have been, if there is no DNA evidence and no eye witness testimony other than the victim then you shouldn't convict the guy, even if he looks like the most demented rapist you have ever seen. Does that mean some rapists will get away with their crime? Yes, but I don't agree with EVER putting someone away based on he said/she said proof. However, if the other witnesses that the article mentioned DID claim to have witnessed a rape by the defendant, then their ass should be going to jail along with Peguero because they lied too.
I agree with this and like you have assumed (could be wrong) that it wasn't testimony that in any way indicated a rape definitely occurred - rather just testimony that they were together, or were in the car by themselves, etc. The link bobrek provided notes what some of the other testimony was (parking garage attendant as example), none of which was damning. I'll happily change my position if it turns out there were other eyewitnesses saying they witnessed the rape happen.
