Posted on 12/13/2012 10:44:13 PM PST by Arthurio
SANTA ANA, Calif. A Southern California judge is being publicly admonished for saying a rape victim didn't put up a fight during her assault and that if someone doesn't want sexual intercourse, the body "will not permit that to happen."
The California Commission on Judicial Performance issued a report Thursday saying Superior Court Judge Derek Johnson's comments were inappropriate and a breach of judicial ethics.
Johnson is a former prosecutor in the Orange County district attorney's sex crimes unit. He issued an apology saying he was frustrated with a prosecutor during an argument in 2008 over the sentencing in the case before him compared to other more aggravated cases.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.msn.com ...
Well, if one were to be absolutely unwilling to permit sexual penetration it could be prevented as long as the victim were conscious. The advice to rape victims not to fight or resist has created an impression of inevitability. The advice was not intended to prevent rape it was intended to prevent greater bodily harm and murder.
On what do you possibly base that massive lump of misinformation?
The judge was making no such size-related claim.
The judge was making no such size-related claim.
We actually know what the state’s commission on judicial performance concluded from a formal investigation—this is not just the musing of some reporter.
If a woman isn’t concerned about injury or death at the hands of an enraged potential rapist she can certainly resist and prevent penetration as long as she is conscious. There is no lump of misinformation there, let alone a massive one.
You are very, very wrong.
I am not speaking of anything defensive pertaining to sexual organs themselves. Maybe that’s the source of your befuddlement. If a woman is determined not to be sexually penetrated by a male sexual organ she’s not going to be penetrated, so long as she’s conscious. Passivity is not a given. Women have been being encouraged to cooperate and not resist or even yell for help for decades, in the hopes of avoiding further injury or death at the hands of a rapist. This does not mean rape is physically unavoidable if the fear of other potential consequences does not override.
No, the befuddlement is on your side.
I don’t know what would possibly lead you to such a conclusion—but I don’t know what makes Akin, Mourdock, or this judge tick either.
Whatever. You’re just as bad as they are in diametrical opposition. Magical springloading or something.
Actually I do not know what any state commission on judicial performance concluded. Nor do I know what the judge actually said beyond a fraction of a sentence. Nor do I know myriad other details about the particular case. I am not in the position of any formal investigation to the trial. I am only shown enough to paint the judge a a fool, without making much of a case for it.
As for whether or not the judge is really a fool...I have no idea. All I had to go on was this article.
s Johnson was sentencing a convicted rapist to six years in prison instead of 16 years as a prosecutor requested, the judge said: Im not a gynecologist, but I can tell you something if someone doesnt want to have sexual intercourse, the body shuts down. The body will not permit that to happen unless a lot of damage is inflicted, and we heard nothing about that in this case. That tells me that the victim in this case, although she wasnt necessarily willing, she didnt put up a fight. And to treat this case like the rape cases that we all hear about is an insult to victims of rape. I think its an insult. I think it trivializes a rape.
Ok, so the judge wants to give the guy 6 years instead of 16 because he surmised that the rape was not violent enough to warrant 16 because of the lack of physical evidence of a violent struggle.
That is quite different then saying a victims body can prevent rape. The reporter is the idiot.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.