A federal judge has gone to great lengths to make clear Trump really did rape E. Jean Carroll
A federal judge has gone to great lengths to make clear Trump really did rape E. Jean Carroll
Why state-level legal minutiae impacts what words are used to describe the former president's criminal conduct.
District Judge Lewis Kaplan has said it multiple times: Donald Trump raped E. Jean Carroll in 1996. Kaplan wrote it in May 2023, when he presided over one of the trials against Trump. And he reminded jurors of the rape this week, during the latest proceedings in the multi-layered, winding rape and defamation cases brought against Trump by Carroll.
Did she call him the rapist Donald J Trump? The same Donald Trump who raped E Jean Carroll? The woman who was raped by Donald Trump? The same rapist who also raped his wife? The same rapist Donald J Trump who described sexually assaulting woman on a radio show? The same rapist who spied on nude underage girls at his pageant? Because Donald Trump is a rapist as a matter of legal fact.
A rapist who is not only sickeningly still walking free, but is the frontrunner for the Nazi party.
I'd say that it's a new low for the Nazi party, but we all know it's not.
The thing is, when you allow the single opposing party in our system to run against a literal Nazi party, no one wins. Except the wealthy of course.
Trump and his lawyers have been really pissing off both the judge and the jury with how unseriously they're treating the proceedings. They're gonna take two hours (an absurdly short time for a jury) and write a check for $15mil, I bet.
So when is somebody going to sentence this shit weasel?
Rape has a statute of limitations. Even if he came forward and said flat out that he raped her, he can’t be charged criminally for it. He can be charged civilly though, which is why he keeps claiming it never happened.
So has reality.
Is this the best our country can do? Two dinosaurs who act inappropriately around women and children?
I think you are (intentionally?) confusing the large gap and missing the nuance between raping, potentially even worse things as we’ve recently got more proof of, and acting goofy and awkward with greetings or whatever. Both can be described inappropriate, sure, but you have to realize there’s a long way between rape, pedophilia, and awkward greetings with kisses to forehead or whatever.
Fun fact: the UK defines rape as "penetration with his penis", so, in the UK and legally speaking, a woman can't rape a man.
Instead, it would be sexual assault, which has the same sentencing range. However, we all know that female rape against males is not prosecuted as harshly, if at all.
Not that women have better luck in court, mind. It's all messed up, and it's not like locking someone up actually stops them from doing it again as soon as they get out. Detention is not an effective deterrent - the most effective deterrent is the certainty of being caught. After that, rehabilitation is needed. But hey, private prisons need bums in cells.
That fact is not fun nor is it relevant.
Not fun, sure, but how is the legal definition of "rape" of a prominent jurisdiction not relevant - especially in a discussion about how Federal laws says rape is any penetration of the vagina, but the New York state definition require a penis - just like UK law?!
NY law is closer to UK law than US federal law. That's the subtext of what I said. You have just jumped on a bandwagon here, and haven't contributed anything of any significance.
Booooo to you.
I'm trying to highlight shit that is wrong in the world. You're just trying to say I'm wrong because I'm talking about things that are wrong.
Colloquially, we still call them rapists, even if the legal term is different. Similarly, we don’t call people common assaulted, even if that’s the legal term. They are attackers, etc.
"Colloquial rape", unfortunately, doesn't cut the mustard in a legal setting. This is, apparently, a particularly relevant subject when discussing rape law in NY.
This also actually points to something I've used as a challenge for people who are hard lined right/vs/wrong:
If someone robs a bank, but they aren't caught, are they still a bank robber?