Posted on 07/13/2007 7:49:43 AM PDT by BGHater
Before a jury was even seated, a judge declared a mistrial Thursday in a sex-assault case where he had barred the words "rape" and "victim," among others.
Judge Jeffre Cheuvront of Lancaster County District Court said protests and other publicity surrounding the rape case against Pamir Safi, 33, would have made it too difficult for jurors to ignore everything they heard before the trial, which had been expected to begin next week.
A jury was in the process of being selected when Cheuvront declared a mistrial.
Safi is accused of raping Tory Bowen in 2004. He said they had consensual sex, but she said she was too drunk to agree to sex and that he knew it.
Cheuvront barred attorneys and witnesses from using words including "rape," "victim," "assailant" and "sexual-assault kit," and ordered witnesses to sign papers saying they wouldn't use the words. Words such as "sex" and "intercourse" were allowed.
State law allows judges to bar words or phrases that could prejudice or mislead a jury.
Bowen, 24, was fighting the ban, arguing that it hurt her testimony because she had to pause and make sure her words wouldn't violate the ban. She said: "I want the freedom to be able to point [to Safi] in court and say, 'That man raped me.' "
The Associated Press usually does not identify accusers in sex-assault cases, but Bowen has allowed her name to be used publicly because of the issue over the judge's language restrictions.
In a written explanation of his ruling, Cheuvront said Bowen and her friends drummed up pretrial publicity that tainted potential jurors.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
You agree with the judge that the accuser and witnesses cannot use certain words? The judge is a tyrant, and you are nuts. People are entitled to speak freely in court, and judges who restrict that are not fit to serve. People swear to tell the whole truth, and have the right to do so. How can they do it if the judge makes sure that the jury is spoonfed only what the judge want’s them to hear?
I totally agree with you. But lets not forget, the judge also banned the words “assailant” and “sexual assault kit”. Those are totally inapropriate. There’s no question that a sexual encounter occured. A “sexual assault kit”, or mention of one, is not relevant to the case and totally predjudicial.
I’m willing to agree with you that the defendent probably is innocent of rape. But before I said so I would want to hear both sides of the case and any other evidence that the lawyers might present. How else can you decide a case?
If the accuser’s lawyer calls it rape, then the defendent’s lawyer can respond that it’s NOT rape, and explain why.
Most likely it wasn’t rape, but I don’t see how justice can be done if the two sides aren’t allowed to present their cases.
Sounds like the ‘victim’ whipped up a lot publicity, making a fair trial impossible. Bad move on her part if she really was raped; she’s shot her own case in its collective foot if that’s true.
lol, yes, sometimes people tell the truth.
“Where is the evidence that she actually was too drunk. We can’t take her word and put a person away on it.”
Who knows? Thats why they have trials to decide these sort of things. I suspect convicting the guy is going to be difficult since she was admittedly drunk, and drunks aren’t the best witnesses. Still, if what she claims is true, she may have been raped.
No, but we don’t know that she was unconscious. We don’t know what prior relationship they had. We don’t know if they both were drinking or if they had gone to bed together. There are a lot of things that we simply do not know.
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It is not utterly insane. I think the state law forbids the use of prejudicial words, the judge is only following the law.
In this case there is so little evidence, basically only the woman’s word that she was too incapacitated to haver her consent at the time count. In other words the man should have known she was too drunk to really know whether or not she wanted to have sex.
So now will we have a blood alcohol test to see if it is rape or not. The woman made a stupid decision to be drinking to excess in a place where what happened to her happened.
Just because the next day she wishes she hadden’t done the deed does not make it rape. Calling it rape over and over and calling him a rapist over and over again will prejudice the jury.
I would rather have 10 guilty men go free than one innocent man go to jail.
In fact, judges do this sort of thing all the time. One of the major powers they exert is on what evidence may or may not be heard in court. In a recent 2nd amendment case, the judge ruled that the person being prosecuted could not testify because he would claim the defense that the law was unconstitutional.
Whatever it takes to be unable to talk, walk, focus or do any other cognitive tasks, like have sex.
“If he’s responsible while drunk (and he would be held so) why isn’t she, hmmmm ?”
If he was capable of getting an erection and having sex, obviously he wouldn’t have been incapacitated.
So someone rapes your wife.
On the witness stand, she has to say “He jumped out of the bushes and we had intercourse without my permission”
The way these tyrant judges work, the jury will never know why the woman didn’t use the word rape. If the victim doesn’t call it rape, the jury won’t either. This is how you get juries, who after sentencing find out what the truth was, saying “if we knew the facts we would not have voted that way”. Think about all the things that are kept from juries. Someone rapes 12 women, but on trial number 13, the defence is allowed to call the rapist a “honorable and upstanding member of the community”, but the prosecution cannot mention that the guy has a track record.
Look up “fully informed jury” on the internet for an education.
Exactly, and that is unconstitutional and tyrannical of the judge.
“There are a lot of things that we simply do not know.”
I agree. I am not saying she is telling the truth. Only that if she is, then she was probably raped. Thats what they have trials for. For what it’s worth, I doubt the guy will be convicted on the word of a drunk. Presumably there is other evidence or circumstances involved.
i dont know about you, but i think freerepublic was only site not linked.
“If he was capable of getting an erection and having sex, obviously he wouldn’t have been incapacitated.”
Wow, I sure hope he isn’t incapacitated on whiskey!
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