The Stanford Rape Case and Hillary Clinton

The Stanford Rape Case and Hillary Clinton What do Hillary Clinton and the Stanford Rape case have in common? Not much on the surface, but we will see. The Stanford case blew up this past week. Two graduate students saw a man raping a semi-conscious woman by a dumpster. They stopped the assault and restrained the assailant, Brock Turner, who turned out to be a star swimmer on the Stanford Swim Team. Rapes are horrific crimes. I find the word “rape” to be more graphic than “sexual assault.” Yet, accused rapists have a constitutional right to a trial. The defense’s traditional strategy: Put the victim on trial. Blame the victim; attack the victim; enter into evidence her prior sexual history to inflame the jury with her immorality. That’s why states have enacted rape shield laws to at least forestall that line of defense. Some judges still blame the victim. The most notorious recent case was Montana Judge G. Todd Baugh in 2014. A teacher committed statutory rape in 2007 on a 14 year old student. The judge sentenced the defendant to 30 days, saying the victim “was in as much control of the situation as the rapist.” She committed suicide in 2010, and hence could not present her statement to the court. Judge Baugh was sanctioned by the Supreme Court of Montana and retired. A British judge in February 2015 said an 18 year old victim was “extremely foolish” in drinking too much before the rape. At least this judge sentenced the two defendants to nine years imprisonment. Another horrific ruling was in Orange County in on February 3, 2015. Judge M. Marc Kelley sentenced the sodomist of a 3 year old girl to 10 years in jail, 15 years below the state mandated minimum 25 – to - life sentence. The judge said the case was not that of a normal pedophile. Defendant “did not seek out or stalk” the victim, but rather was “inexplicably sexually aroused. but did not appear to consciously intend to harm” the young girl. The defendant was playing video games in the garage when she walked in on him. Judge Kelly survived a recall campaign due to the petitioners’ failure to obtain the requisite signatures. Let us not forget the infamous Italy Supreme Court of Appeals which reversed a rape conviction in 1998 by approving “The Denim Defense.” The opinion, issued in 2009. held a rape victim wearing jeans had consented to the assault. The opinion stated: “It is a fact of common experience that it is nearly impossible to slip off tight jeans, even partly without the active collaboration of the person who is wearing them.” The conclusion was therefore that the victim must have consented since she helped her attacker remove them. The Italian Court of Cessation reversed the Denim Defense in 2008. Judge Aaron Persky issued a stunning sentence in the Stanford case. The semi-comatose woman was tested hours later with a .12 blood alcohol level. The estimate is that she was probably .22 at the time of the attack. She could neither factually nor legally give consent. Alcohol nullifies consent. It is not an aphrodisiac. Voluntary intoxication on the part of the attacker does not nullify intent. Yet, defendant argued that not only did she consent, but that she also experienced an orgasm. He also said he did not notice that she was unresponsive. The jury found him guilty on three felony counts of sexual assault. The Defense asked for a sentence of no jail time; the prosecution requested 6 years while the probation office suggested 6 months. Judge Persky agreed to the six months, which with good behavior in California’s crowded prison system would effectively be three months. The victim read a highly impassioned, resonating letter to the judge in the sentencing hearing. Apparently the judge was more swayed by defendant’s statement which said he was in essence naïve, had come from a small Ohio town, and didn’t know about drugs and alcohol before Stanford. Having taught from 1972-1975 in the very, very small Ohio town of Ada, I can attest that the high school students in rural Ohio four decades ago were quite familiar with drugs and alcohol. In addition, defendant attended high school in Dayton, a major city. Defendant’s father wrote his son’s 20 minute mistake should not destroy his son’s life. The victim’s life is destroyed. She will never be the same. The prosecution presented evidence that defendant used drugs and alcohol in high school, that he repeatedly been engaged in substance abuse at Stanford, and was often highly aggressive towards women. In short, defendant was a rapist and a liar. Judge Persky ignored the prosecution’s evidence. Ironically, Judge Persky was unopposed for reelection, and thus was confirmed for a new term. A recall effort has been mounted to remove him from the Bench. He should simply resign. He has brought great dishonor onto the court and the judicial system. That brings us to Hillary Clinton, presumptive Democratic nominee for the President of the United States. Defense attorneys have a duty is to fully and faithfully represent their client. The 27 year old Hillary Clinton defended an Arkansas rapist in 1975. The victim was 12 years old in the sixth grade. Hillary Clinton did her job, all too well and gleefully. She attacked the 12 year old victim. The case was long forgotten until some recordings surfaced two years ago. An Arkansas reporter interviewed her for over 5 hours in the 1980’s to put together an article on the case. The story never ran and the tapes were sent to archives, from which they were discovered two years ago. Hillary Clinton spoke in her fake Southern accent and recognized her client was guilty. However, she was able to keep the key piece of direct physical evidence out of the trial because of mistakes by the investigators. She got her client to cop a plea for unlawful fondling of a minor. He was sentenced to a year imprisonment, with two months suspended. That’s just doing her job. She bragged about excluding the evidence from the trial. She laughed about it. She laughed. Her memory was a little false. She proudly said: “Oh, he plea bargained. Got him off with time served in the county jail, he’d had been in the county jail for about two months.” She said she had her client take a lie detector test: “He took a lie detector test. I had him take a polygraph, which he passed, which forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs.,” chuckling. Chuckling! This was a forcible rape of a 12 year old, who the defendant had given a combination of whiskey and Coca-Cola to drink. Laughing, chuckling, but the real outrage came in her 1975 court affidavit. She wrote: “I have been informed that the complaint is emotionally unstable with a tendency to seek out older men and engage in fantasizing.” She added: “I have also been informed that she has in the past made false accusations about persons, claiming they had attacked her physical body.” No evidence exists to support these craftily worded statements. The victim simply says “Hillary Clinton put me through Hell.” The victim has faced a life of drugs, addiction, and arrests. The doctors told her after the rape that she probably couldn’t have children. She spent 10 years in therapy and basically subsists on disability assistance. Hillary did her job, all too well. To successfully represent a rapist is to fulfill one’s legal duty. But to laugh about it, chuckle, and fabricate personal lies, is repugnant. To craft false accusations against a 12 year old rape victim is unconscionable! Always remember, Hillary Clinton is for the victims??? What do the Stanford rape case and Hillary Clinton have in common? Abject contempt for the victim!