Here, Wonketteers, let us blog at you about a very, very sad story made EVEN SADDER by the geniuses serving on the Connecticut State Supreme Court. See, back in 2008, a man from Bridgeport, Connecticut, was found guilty of sexually assaulting a 26-year old woman with cerebral palsy who can’t speak and has very little body movement. But was it LEGITIMATE RAPE? No. No it was not, and the Supreme Court overturned his conviction because the victim did not “scream,” nor did she “bite” or “kick” her assailant. Nor was she considered legally unconscious, which would have spared her the burden of managing to bite, kick, or scream in spite of her substantial physical disabilities. But there is a bright side, dear readers, because this young lady will surely be relieved to discover that she was not legitimately raped!
I know something about CT. The crookedest meanest little place where they practice eminent domain on your wee little seacoasty home and send you to prison for putting your homeless 5 year old into the *wrong* school and the Mayor of Waterbury himself is in prison for 37 years for being rapey with children. I forget is that legitimate or not? This story is more than it looks like. They have an excuse for whatever ails you. And Lieberman.
Theoretically, law exists to codify and depersonalize the methodology of achieving justice, and since nothing is perfect, there are always plenty of examples where the mechanism of law does not result in justice. Some examples, like this one, suck even worse than others.
A question for the wonkelawyers: I was under the impression that the notion of "case law" was supposed to be sort of an incremental autocorrection process for imperfectly written laws. For example, if a particularly unusual case would be decided, marginally, one way under a literal interpretation of the written law, but such a decision would obviously conflict with legislative intent (or perhaps common sense), the decision could be made the other way, and this would then be a precedent that would clarify that particular "loophole".
Now, it appears to me that this is a case where the trial court decided that such a clarification was justified (root word: "justice"), but the appeals court and now the CT Supremes disagreed (barely).
If (and that's a big if) this is sort of the situation, my questions would be "What judicial good did the majority think they were protecting by interpreting the written law in favor of the now-exonerated rapist? How does this decision advance the cause of justice?" There are documented cases of what we might call retroactively-non-consensual sex. While I'm sure they are vastly outnumbered by the cases of actual-non-consensual sex, it is still a valid concern to try not to convict people in error.
But this case here? This is so far into the loophole, it has pulled the loophole in after it. The majority Justices have lost sight of the meaning of their own fucking titles.
The majority on this "court" deserves a punishment suggested by Hunter Thompson for lawyers using smartass tricks to get rapists off: they should be publicly buggered by several large perverts in the town square. (I think the word "pervert" is allowable here, because a person of either gender would have to be pretty damned twisted to want to have sex with these scum.)
This is good news for the Federalist Society.
9PM.
I mean Eastern time.
Connecticut's different. Heck, in Connecticut you can serve on the Supreme Court!
(My apologies to real three-year-olds, who would not actually have issued such an insane opinion.)
I know something about CT. The crookedest meanest little place where they practice eminent domain on your wee little seacoasty home and send you to prison for putting your homeless 5 year old into the *wrong* school and the Mayor of Waterbury himself is in prison for 37 years for being rapey with children. I forget is that legitimate or not? This story is more than it looks like. They have an excuse for whatever ails you. And Lieberman.
a little beatrix kiddo action wouldn't go amiss right about now.
Shitty laws.
If a three-year-old signed a contract you wouldn't be able to legally enforce it.
Theoretically, law exists to codify and depersonalize the methodology of achieving justice, and since nothing is perfect, there are always plenty of examples where the mechanism of law does not result in justice. Some examples, like this one, suck even worse than others.
A question for the wonkelawyers: I was under the impression that the notion of "case law" was supposed to be sort of an incremental autocorrection process for imperfectly written laws. For example, if a particularly unusual case would be decided, marginally, one way under a literal interpretation of the written law, but such a decision would obviously conflict with legislative intent (or perhaps common sense), the decision could be made the other way, and this would then be a precedent that would clarify that particular "loophole".
Now, it appears to me that this is a case where the trial court decided that such a clarification was justified (root word: "justice"), but the appeals court and now the CT Supremes disagreed (barely).
If (and that's a big if) this is sort of the situation, my questions would be "What judicial good did the majority think they were protecting by interpreting the written law in favor of the now-exonerated rapist? How does this decision advance the cause of justice?" There are documented cases of what we might call retroactively-non-consensual sex. While I'm sure they are vastly outnumbered by the cases of actual-non-consensual sex, it is still a valid concern to try not to convict people in error.
But this case here? This is so far into the loophole, it has pulled the loophole in after it. The majority Justices have lost sight of the meaning of their own fucking titles.
The majority on this "court" deserves a punishment suggested by Hunter Thompson for lawyers using smartass tricks to get rapists off: they should be publicly buggered by several large perverts in the town square. (I think the word "pervert" is allowable here, because a person of either gender would have to be pretty damned twisted to want to have sex with these scum.)
Just when the "Love for Levon" concert had given me a little faith in humanity, you go and erase it all again. Thanks!
Sick fuckers. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Fuck them. Fuck them all. And I most definitely do NOT mean in a good way.