"This case is unsafe to further prosecute; dismissed!"

That, more or less was the language used by a judge in Barbados over twenty years ago.

One of my former students had gone off to Uni, and became involved with a somewhat older student. The relationship broke up, and she filed a rape charge -- which was of course plastered all over the media. I attended, as someone from "home."

While in the waiting room, I saw an old family friend. What are you doing here? Traffic. You? Here to give moral support to a student on a dubious rape charge. But, the law forces this.

(Sitting just across from me was a young lady in somewhat provocative clothing.)

I went in, and watched. To my shock, the complainant was the same young lady. 

As the case played out, it turned out there was a study session in rented lodgings that got a bit steamy. Then, it emerged that there were several other people in the same house, so that had there been a cry for help, it would have been quite obvious.

That's when the judge stopped the case as unsafe to further pursue.

Lynching protest in India

This comes to mind as I see the current "accusation is proof" thrust. That's a recipe for lynch mobs, kangaroo courts and media lynchings. There is a REASON why due process is due process.

We have to stop the mad march over the cliff:

 

Anyway, as in too much of our region we do not get a balanced picture on international issues, let me clip Michele Malkin's sobering warning:

I have a message for virtue-signaling men who’ve rushed to embrace #MeToo operatives hurling uncorroborated sexual assault allegations into the chaotic court of public opinion.

Stuff it . . . .

Ivy League pooh-bah Simon Hedlin asserted: “Accusers go public not because of any supposed benefits but despite the immense costs.” He argued: “When somebody is credibly accused of sexual misconduct, the default should be to believe the accuser.”

That is a dumb and dangerous default. The costly toll of “believing women,” instead of believing evidence, can be seen in the hundreds and hundreds of cases recorded by the University of Michigan Law School’s National Registry of Exonerations involving innocent men falsely accused of rape and rape/murders.

One of those men whose plight I’ve reported on for CRTV and my syndicated column, former Fort Worth police officer Brian Franklin, spent 21 years in prison of a life sentence after he was convicted of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl in 1995 who had committed perjury on the stand. Franklin vigilantly maintained his innocence, studied law in the prison library and won a reversal of his conviction in 2016. The jury took less than two hours to acquit him. But his name is still not clear. He recently submitted a 200-page application for a pardon for innocence and cannot do what he wants to do – return to law enforcement – unless the members of the Texas board of pardons and paroles (along with Texas constitutional conservatives who pay lip service to truth, justice and due process) do the right thing.

In Philadelphia, Anthony Wright also served more than two decades behind bars like Franklin. He was convicted in 1993 for a brutal rape and murder of an elderly woman. It was a female prosecutor, Bridget Kirn, who “failed to alert the Court or the jury to what she personally knew was the falsity of (police detectives’) testimony, or otherwise honor her ethical duty to correct it,” according to Wright’s lawyers with the Innocence Project. They have filed a lawsuit directly aimed at the prosecutor this week to hold her accountable for her criminal falsehoods.

And just this week, Oregonian Joshua Horner, serving a 50-year sentence for sexual abuse of a young girl, was exonerated after a dog that the accuser had claimed he shot dead was found alive. There had been no DNA, no corroborating witnesses and no other forensic evidence – just the word of girl whose contradictions and memory problems were explained away as “post-traumatic stress” while an innocent man nearly drowned.

The idea that all women and girls must be telling the truth at all times about sexual assault allegations because they “have nothing to gain” is perilously detached from reality. Retired NYPD special victim squad detective John Savino, forensic scientist and criminal profiler of the Forensic Criminology Institute Brent Turvey, and forensic psychologist Aurelio Coronado Mares detail the myriad “prosocial” and “antisocial” lies people tell in their textbook, “False Allegations: Investigative and Forensic Issues in Fraudulent Reports of Crime.”

“Prosocial deceptions” involve specific motives beneficial to both the deceiver and the deceived, including the incentives to “preserve the dignity of others,” to gain “financial benefit” for another; to protect a relationship; “ego-boosting or image protection (of others);” and “protecting others from harm or consequence.

“Antisocial” lies involve selfish motives to “further a personal agenda at some cost to others,” including “self-deception and rationalization to protect or boost self-esteem;” “enhance status or perception in the eyes of others;” “garner sympathy;” “avoid social stigma;” “conceal inadequacy, error, and culpability;” “avoid consequence;” and for “personal and/or material gain.”

Let me repeat the themes of my work in this area for the past two years to counter the “Believe Women” baloney:

The role of the press should be verification, not validation.

Rape is a devastating crime. So is lying about it.

It’s not victim blaming to get to the bottom of the truth. It’s liar-shaming.

Don’t believe a gender. Believe evidence.

It is time to return to sanity and soundness. We are not ultimately able to deliver justice, that remains with God the Just One. But here and now we may bear and have a duty to wield the sword of the state in honest and competent defence of the civil peace of justice. Where, mistakes can be made, with horrific consequences.

Under such circumstances, no sane community will yield privilege to any class of witnesses or accusers. No one, but God, is unfailingly right or true. So, we must ever apply reasonable tests and give the benefit of the doubt to the reasonably potentially innocent.

That's why the standard of proof in criminal court is, evidence and argument beyond reasonable doubt, i.e. moral certainty. To convict, evidence must meet the standard that a reasonable, unbiased person would be irresponsible not to convict.

And in a day of media lynch mobs ever willing to swarm down, assassinate character, destroy reputation and livelihood of those they hate on the flimsiest excuse, editors bear a double responsibility not to turn the court of public opinion into a kangaroo court. END

Spotting Narcissists, psycho-paths and socio-paths (for psychological self-defence 101)

Ran across a very interesting vid on narcissists, socio-paths and psycho-paths:



Highly relevant as we see power games playing out locally and splashed across world news coverage. Where, only a fool would say he may be psycho, but he is our psycho.

A dead-conscience is just that, utterly numb to moral regulation of thought, speech and life. 

That means, no binding sense of honour, duty, loyalty, value, prizing the civil peace of justice. Utterly untrustworthy.

Normies are simply targets and toys. Targets, if you are in his way. Toys, if he can manipulate to get what he wants. Then, when he is finished, what's left after he peeled and ate the banana is of no more use than the skin we discard. Except, it gives psychos some level of thrill from seeing and understanding that the discarded toy or shattered target is writhing helplessly in pain. But then the numbness advances like a cancer and he has to kick the cruelty factor up a notch or two to get that level of thrill the next time around. (And yes, this is a sign of an addictive, destructive spiral.)

Resemblance to too many we have to deal with in positions of influence or power is not coincidental.

To be forewarned should be to be forearmed.

If, we are wise. END

PS: The "gaslighting" mind-bending (am I really in contact with reality? I am all fault . . . ) manipulation game: 



(Note: to lie is to speak with disregard to truth, in hope of profiting from what is said or suggested being perceived as true. And, yes, I sense these things are greatly needed just now, with what is going on with local, regional and international agit-prop games. And, don't be so fast to stereotype and scapegoat any one target or group -- especially if the manipulators in the major media have set up a designated hate-target. For, we live in a day where essentially all institutions of influence and power have been warped and even corrupted through the agenda to enable the holocaust of living posterity in the womb. Over the past 40-odd years, the global toll exceeds 800 millions, climbing at another million per WEEK. And of course, that is generally not in the news. No prizes for guessing why.)

PPS: Here is a list from the comment thread:

Noname Phoenix 4 months ago

Here is a list of what Abusers/Narcissists usually do to their targets :

•  Insults their target very often. Then lie when confronted about it, or say it was a joke. 

• When confronted with their behavior, they pretend to be innocent and play the victim. 

• Everything is always your fault, even when it's obviously not. 

• They always have a justification for every bad thing they do. They think they're always right. 

• Very controlling, they tell you how to live, but they can live anyway they want. Very hypocritical. 

• They accuse you of what they're doing to you (RED FLAG!), it's called Projection. 

• Portraying themselves as angels outside, when they are actually demons with their family and especially their target. 

• They want you to fail, while pretending to want you to succeed (they're very convincing). 

• They never say they are sorry for hurting you (RED FLAG!). 

• Poison your favorite activities, they don't want you to be happy or to get pleasure. 

• They also poison other useful activities like important skills which will help you in the future. 

• They DO NOT want you to have skills, they want you to be as weak as possible. 

• They don't teach you anything. 

• Subtly lead a smear campaign against their target, so they isolate it and make sure they don't get help. 

• When you want to leave the relationship with a narcissist, they beg you to stay with them and cry crocodile tears. They are the best actors. 

• Sometimes nice, sometimes cruel. You never know where you stand with them. 

• They pretend to be "victims", and they blame the target for their own behavior. 

• They are incredibly arrogant and sadistic. They see the target as weak, and deserving to suffer. 

• They think they are models to be followed. 

• They are spiritually dead although they might loudly profess some kind of Spiritual Belief.