I feel for the defense lawyers who have to represent rapists and alike
this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2024
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Gisele Pelicot said she was reacting to remarks by Guillaume De Palma – one of the lawyers for the defence – who told the court that "there's rape and there's rape" in a possible attempt to back up some of the men's claim that they assumed they were participating in a libertine couple's sex game.
Don't feel too bad for them now.
Lawyers are legally obligated to be advocates for their clients. They have to pursue arguments which may strength their cases.
This may be their only avenue for a defence strategy.
IDK about "legally obligated", but certainly professionally and ethically obligated.
If someone commits a heinous crime, and you want them to rot in jail for 100 years, then you need them to have the strongest possible defence. Otherwise, they might be able to appeal their conviction, or the family of the accused may feel vindictive.
Basically, if you want justice you need the best possible defence.
If they don't defend their client to the best of their ability, they are guilty of perverting the course of justice. It's a legal obligation.
The reason.... is everything else you wrote.
But which law says that specifically? It’s like people say companies are legally required to make profit for shareholders but can’t ever point to any actual laws
The CEO of a company having a fiduciary obligation to the board and a lawyer to defend their client the best they can aren't "actual laws" where a cop will arrest you. They are rules for the job and if you are not following these rules then you will be fired/lose your license to practice law.
That's probably why there is no law that people point out to you. It's a job requirement.
Exactly my point
Something I’ve learned from watching true crime shows is that it’s really hard to prove lack of consent
IANAL. <-- disclaimer.
Consent is not part of the definition of rape in France.
Currently it is defined as any sexual penetration act perpetrated by « violence, coercion, threat or surprise ». Court have also ruled that trickery falls under "surprise". So I can't tell you I'm a astronaut to get laid either (HIMYM was basically a TV show about a guy in a suit raping women). This was ruled during a case where a serial rapist used a model's picture on dating apps to invite woman to have sex in the dark with a blindfold at his place. Turned out he was a 60y old average dude and not Chris Hemsworth and the charge were initially dropped before reaching our higher level of court. (Yes that case was fucked up on too many level...)
There's currently a long standing debate in France, which predate that trial, to include consent as part of the legal definition and a commission has been mandated earlier in the year to study the issue. It's probably not going to happen for a while since we have other political issue at the moment and the right wingers currently clinging to power aren't exactly feminists.
The pro argument are relatively simple to imagine. Rape is when someone does sex stuff you don't want. So it seems to make perfect sense. That's what the Belgian law has and what the EU is pushing.
From what I understand from the people against it, it is more technical. In our legal system, you need to prove that a crime has been committed (innocent until proven guilty) but somehow they think it would shift to burden of proof to the defense because the only way to include it in our legal system would be to assume "non consent" by default and the accused would then have to prove consent.
The other anti argument is that absence of consent is impossible to prove and that the current definition is build to cover the case of non consent with provable definition.
There are probably as many lawyers on both side of the argument and as I said, I am not one of them, law is complicated I'm not qualified to have an opinion on what would be better.
Either way I'm just not really sure adding consent would change most of the outcomes as the main issue to convict is usually the lack of proof and witnesses and most cases ending up deadlocked by a "he said - she said" scenario.
From a purely legal standpoint "consent" isn't required in that case. It falls under "surprise".
Thank you for that explanation! I learned a few things about rape laws in France. What I knew before pertained to US and UK law.
While I can believe that some of the men were of the impression that it was part of a roleplay of some sort if told so by the husband, the simple thing is that she did not consent. It's rape.
There is no situation in which the decision of consent can be transferred to anyone else.
I was talking to my wife about this yesterday, and ultimately this is a kink that’s dicey as fuck. There’s no way to play it 100% without running the risk of rape.
I mean, if you’re a guy who gets off on women being asleep/passed out when you have sex with them, knowing that they’ve given express consent kinda kills the vibe. But you can’t expect to have sex with someone who hasn’t given you express consent.
So in the end I fall down on having zero sympathy for the guys who claim they thought she was in on it. She’s either told you it’s cool or she hasn’t.
Initially I figured that the story was that the guys were made to believe that it was her fantasy, not theirs, simply because I find it unlikely that he'd be capable of even finding 50 guys with that kind of fantasy.
I have personal no experience in this, but I suppose that's the purpose of "safe words", which will allow someone to participate in that kind of roleplay featuring imaginary non consencual sex until someone yells "Oklahoma".
Anyway, with it happening in some small village, I can imagine how they could be oblivious to any proper way of doing that sort of kink, but it can never remove their own responsibility of not having concent.
Put in a more straightforward way: I can not allow you to punch your friend in the balls. Only your friend can allow that. Regardless of how many times I tell you it's okay, it's just not okay, until he allows it himself, which has nothing to do with what I said.
This case is heartbreaking.
He confessed! Shame on those lawyers for this trash narrative.
No adult would blow up their whole life at the age of 71 if this was consensual.
Mme. Pelicot is a hero to women.
Off topic and pedantic question. I'm not a native english speaker so, please don't take this in any other way.
In the last sentence you said "hero to women". Is that the correct usage? Or should it be " heroine to women"?
In English hero is mixed and heroine is exclusively feminine.
I tried to find "usage" stats on the word, but all I got was listings for substance abuse helpline. :D
Good conversation on the topic here
Basically, it is becoming more common in English writing to use the masculine “hero” as gender neutral when the figure is a famous and/or historical figure.
If it is a fictional character, “heroine” is still widely used.
There’s been a wider trend of using gender neutral terms in the language. “They” as a replacement for “he” or “she”, for example, used to be improper but is now quite widely accepted and not only when speaking about a non-binary person.
"they" has always been proper, it just used to be incorrectly taught agaist like split infinitives and ending a sentence with a proposition.
Wikipedia dates its first usge as over 500 years ago, and complaints less than 300.
*preposition. Many people end sentences with proposition ;-)
Take that one up with my English professors in University.
Just because your English professors taught at a university, does not mean they are the final authoritative word on how the English language is spoken.
That's kind of the point: there isn't an authority on English. The closest we come is a bunch of English elites making up informal rules on grammar, spelling, and pronunciation and judging everyone else for not using their version. ... And a bunch of try-hards who enforce their arbitrary and often nonsensical 'rules '.
If it parses, it rolls.