Von Pearson Update

[VFL-82-JP]

We're "finding truth" on here? When do we start? :gone:

A few of us are trying. Others, not so much.

 

[flatiron]

Beyond reasonable doubt is the burden of proof at trial, not the burden of proof to get to trial. That would be probable cause. You don't need to be sure you will prevail at trial in order to prosecute somebody. (As a practical matter, you probably should have somewhat more confidence than mere probable cause, but that's another issue.)

But a prosecutor isn't likely to take a case to trial, even if it meets the probable cause standard, if they don't believe the allegations can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Their resources aren't infinite and they do have to make judgment calls on whether or not to proceed with a case, even there is probable cause or a preponderance of evidence that a crime did in fact occur.

 

[drylo]

But a prosecutor isn't likely to take a case to trial, even if it meets the probable cause standard, if they don't believe the allegations can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Their resources aren't infinite and they do have to make judgment calls on whether or not to proceed with a case, even there is probable cause or a preponderance of evidence that a crime did in fact occur.

Sure, but probable cause is supposed to approximate that standard (i.e., believing that the allegations can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt). I deleted my parenthetical upon further reflection, because I think it was ill-advised.

 

[butchna]

I'd also like people to not defame the accuser or the accused, because neither deserves it

No argument with that...seemed a little more slanted against the accused when I picked up.

 

[KBVol]

But a prosecutor isn't likely to take a case to trial, even if it meets the probable cause standard, if they don't believe the allegations can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Their resources aren't infinite and they do have to make judgment calls on whether or not to proceed with a case, even there is probable cause or a preponderance of evidence that a crime did in fact occur.

Tell that to the Baltimore prosecutor.

 

[drylo]

Wrong. No prosecutor takes a case forward unless it can be won. Which means the burden of proof, for that prosecutor, from the minute s/he takes the case and begins to pursue it, is "beyond reasonable doubt."

And now we come down to the true main reason 29 of those 32 cases on that chart go nowhere. Because most rapes come down to "he said, she said," and that is almost never sufficient to meet the "beyond reasonable doubt" requirement of a criminal court.

So, if that's all the prosecutor has, no independent witness or video evidence, the prosecutor will likely not pursue the case, or the sheriff/police chief won't forward it. And so 32 turn into 7 turn into 3, just that fast.

Fair enough, although the 32 is whittled to 3 by police. And if there is not even probable cause, how can you presume that the accused is guilty? That makes no sense. That's my whole point. The police find no probable cause in over 90% of rape cases.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

Sure, but probable cause is supposed to approximate that standard (i.e., believing that the allegations can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt). I deleted my parenthetical upon further reflection, because I think it was ill-advised.

Are you asserting that "probable cause" is supposed to "approximate" "beyond reasonable doubt"? If so, I think you may want to delete that post, because it also seems ill advised.

 

[drylo]

Are you asserting that "probable cause" is supposed to "approximate" "beyond reasonable doubt"? If so, I think you may want to delete that post, because it also seems ill advised.

No. I even added a parenthetical to explain. Probable cause is supposed to approximate "believing that the allegations can [not "will"] be proven beyond a reasonable doubt."

 

[VFL-82-JP]

That's my whole point. The police find no probable cause in over 90% of rape cases.

Ok let's look at your "whole point" again:

The police never even heard about 68% of the cases. Remember? The victims never reported those attacks. So how did the police "find no probable cause" in them?

So now your "over 90%" (93% to be exact) is whittled down to 25%.

And you have no idea whether the police found probable cause to believe an attack occurred in those 25% of cases or not. All you know is, they didn't arrest anyone. In some cases, could be because they could never find the guy. Doesn't mean they wouldn't have had probable cause to arrest him if they could've found him. Right? And who knows how many of the 25 cases were guy-not-found versus evidence-too-weak?

So your entire point, all 68% + 25% = 93% of it ... is based on logical fallacies.

[the other 7% were referred to prosecutors, so they all clearly met what the police believed would be, not only probable cause, but beyond reasonable doubt burden of proof).

 

[drylo]

Ok let's look at your "whole point" again:

The police never even heard about 68% of the cases. Remember? The victims never reported those attacks. So how did the police "find no probable cause" in them?

So now your over 90% (93% to be exact) is whittled down to 25%.

And you have no idea whether the police found probable cause to believe an attack occurred in those 25% of cases or not. All you know is, they didn't arrest anyone. Could be because they could never find the guy. Doesn't mean they wouldn't have had probable cause to arrest him if they could've found him? Right?

So your entire point, all 68% + 25% = 93% of it ... is based on logical fallacies.

[the other 7% were referred to prosecutors, so they all clearly met what the police believed would be, not only probably cause, but beyond reasonable doubt burden of proof).

3 (not 7) of the 32 are referred to prosecutors. My statement is that in 90% of rape cases that they investigate, police find no probable cause to prosecute the accused. Period. That is not debatable.

As for the other 68... We literally have zero information. All we know is that some people said in a survey that they were raped, and the government extrapolated that out to be this 68 number. I think anybody who has ever taken a survey would agree that survey responses are less credible than police reports. Accordingly, we would expect that if the police investigated these claims, they would find probable cause in an even lower percentage than in the cases where there are police reports, but ultimately, we have no way of knowing because, again, we have literally no information about these claims. This is why I based my main point on the statistics that are objectively verifiable--namely, actual reported crime statistics--and those statistics say that the police find probable cause in less than 10% of alleged rapes.

 

[Purplehaze26]

Oh my gawddd!!

:bad::bad::bad::bad::bad::bad::bad::bad:

 

[VFL-82-JP]

3 (not 7) of the 32 are referred to prosecutors. My statement is that in 90% of rape cases that they investigate, police find no probable cause to prosecute the accused. Period. That is not debatable.

No, it's not debatable. Because it's wrong. The chart states that 90% (of those 32 cases) are never prosecuted. Which is a very different thing than cops not finding probable cause.

Let's isolate one hypothetical case out of those 32. Woman is on a subway platform late at night, waiting for a train. She appears to be alone on the platform. Man rushes up, forces himself upon her, then runs off when the train's light signals its imminent arrival. This is all caught on video by a security camera.

Police investigate, but never find the dude. Image is too grainy, he's wearing a hoodie, victim didn't get a good look at his face, he can't be ID'd.

Is this a credible case? Is there probable cause, if the guy can be found? Absolutely yes, to both those questions. But no arrest ever comes. One of the 32.

Now, how many of the 32--more accurately, how many of the 25 that are reported but no arrest ever made--how many of them are cases like this, where the perp was never found?

Answer: You don't know. I don't know. Could be the majority of those 25 cases. Could be a minority of them. We simply don't know.

So your conclusion, that "police find no probable cause" (or "no credible evidence" which was your earlier claim) is clearly a logical fallacy.

Not making sense to you yet?

 

[drylo]

No, it's not debatable. Because it's wrong. The chart states that 90% (of those 32 cases) are never prosecuted. Which is a very different thing than cops not finding probable cause.

Let's isolate one hypothetical case out of those 32. Woman is on a subway platform late at night, waiting for a train. She appears to be alone on the platform. Man rushes up, forces himself upon her, then runs off when the train's light signals its imminent arrival. This is all caught on video camera.

Police investigate, but never find the dude. Image is too grainy, he's wearing a hoodie, victim didn't get a good look at his face, he can't be ID'd.

Is this a credible case? Is there probable cause, if the guy can be found? Absolutely yes, to both those questions. But no arrest ever comes. One of the 32.

Now, how many of the 32--more accurately, how many of the 25 that are reported but no arrest ever made--how many of them are cases like this, where the perp was never found?

Answer: You don't know. I don't know. Could be the majority of those 25 cases. Could be a minority of them. We simply don't know.

So your conclusion, that "police find no probable cause" (or "no credible evidence" which was your earlier claim) is clearly a logical fallacy.

Not making sense to you yet?

Credible evidence is a proxy for probable cause. Generally if there is credible evidence, there is probable cause. And generally if there is probable cause, the accused is prosecuted.

I acknowledge that in some small number of rape cases, the perp may be hard to identify. But don't kid yourself--and more importantly, don't try to mislead the rest of us--this is rare in this day and age. First of all, everybody acknowledges how rare stranger rape is, and second, DNA. I mean, your suggestion that the reason over 90% of rape complaints aren't prosecuted is because in over 90% of rape complaints, the accused cannot be identified is absolutely crazy. Like, complete and utter nonsense.

But either way, anytime we are talking about a particular person (e.g., Von) being accused of rape, that clearly isn't the scenario.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

I acknowledge that in some small number of rape cases, the perp may be hard to identify. But don't kid yourself--and more importantly, don't try to mislead the rest of us--this is rare in this day and age.

So you acknowledge your logic is faulty, that you're wrong. But counter-argue that you're only a little wrong, and mostly right. And your proof is, "come on, we all know this to be true."

Am I following you accurately?

What % of rape and sexual assault victims know their assailant? Do you know?

I do. Estimates vary, and change significantly with demographics, but somewhere around two-thirds is a reasonable center of mass.

Which means about one-third of rape and sexual assault victims do not know the attacker.

One third of the 32 cases that get reported to the police = 11 cases. And if you think about it, that's probably low-balling the #...it stands to reason that a woman would be MORE likely to report an assault by a stranger than by someone she knows (whether because of some perverted sense of allegiance, or fear of reprisal, or family castigation, or for whatever reason). So at least 11 and probably more of the 25 cases that are reported to police but do not lead to arrest and prosecution are potentially not prosecuted because the cops could not find the attacker.

That's almost half of those 25 cases, Drylo, more if the theory about victims reporting strangers more readily than friends/family/acquaintances bears true.

So...not that rare. Right?

 

[drylo]

So you acknowledge your logic is faulty, that you're wrong. But counter-argue that you're only a little wrong, and mostly right. And your proof is, "come on, we all know this to be true."

Am I following you accurately?

What % of rape and sexual assault victims know their assailant? Do you know?

I do. Estimates vary, and change significantly with demographics, but somewhere around two-thirds is a reasonable center of mass.

Which means about one-third of rape and sexual assault victims do not know the attacker.

One third of the 32 cases that get reported to the police = 11 cases. And if you think about it, that's probably low-balling the #...it stands to reason that a woman would be MORE likely to report an assault by a stranger than by someone she knows (whether because of some perverted sense of allegiance, or fear of reprisal, or family castigation, or for whatever reason). So at least 11 and probably more of the 25 cases that do not lead to arrest are potentially not prosecuted because the cops could not find the attacker.

That's almost half of those 25 cases, Drylo, more if the theory about victims reporting strangers more readily than friends/family/acquaintances bears true.

So...not that rare. Right?

Even if 11 of the 29 rape complaints were stranger rape AND the stranger couldn't be identified in ALL of those cases (which is a ridiculous assumption), that means that police investigations find probable cause in only 3 out of 21 (14%) accusations of acquaintance rape. 14% is more than 9%, but still--using your assumptions, 86% of acquaintance rape accusations are determined by police investigations to lack credibility.

I'm glad that we have finally arrived at a figure we can agree on.

 

[crusse10]

so 86% of rape by a person the victim knows isn't rapey enough?

 

[VFL-82-JP]

Even if 11 of the 29 rape complaints were stranger rape AND the stranger couldn't be identified in ALL of those cases (which is a ridiculous assumption), that means that police investigations find probable cause in only 3 out of 21 (14%) accusations of acquaintance rape. 14% is more than 9%, but still--using your assumptions, 86% of acquaintance rape accusations are determined by police investigations to lack credibility.

Good, you're with me on that 11. Though it could easily be a higher number, we'll stick with 11.

And no, you made the "probable cause" vs. "beyond reasonable doubt" mistake again. Remember, the police arrested 7 of those 21 alleged assailants. That means they had probable cause (the burden of proof for an arrest in the US) in 7 cases, not 3. They couldn't see a way for the DA to get to the "beyond reasonable doubt" level in the 4 cases that didn't get referred.

So now we know the police did find probable cause in 7 of the 21 remaining cases (or they wouldn't have arrested suspects). What we don't know is why they didn't arrest the other 14.

So, finally ... 14 cases in which it seems likely that the police could not find probable cause to arrest the named assailant. That's 14 cases out of the 32 that the police were made aware of. 14/32 = 44%. Not 90%. And not 86%

If you had said at the outset that the study you quoted showed police did not find 44% of all rape accusations credible to a "probable cause" burden of proof, I would not have taken exception with your argument (after I ran the numbers a bit to see how you got there).

But you claimed it said 90% were not credible. And that's an entirely different animal.

You were wrong then. I think you're much closer to truth--or at least an accurate reading of the study you linked--now.

 

[drylo]

Even if 11 of the 29 rape complaints were stranger rape AND the stranger couldn't be identified in ALL of those cases (which is a ridiculous assumption), that means that police investigations find probable cause in only 3 out of 21 (14%) accusations of acquaintance rape. 14% is more than 9%, but still--using your assumptions, 86% of acquaintance rape accusations are determined by police investigations to lack credibility.

I'm glad that we have finally arrived at a figure we can agree on.

By the way, I think it is infinitely more likely that those convictions are often stranger rape convictions. And if even one of those convictions is a stranger rape conviction (if, say, one stranger can be identified), then we are back under 10% again in terms of acquaintance rape accusations being credible.

 

[butchna]

so 86% of rape by a person the victim knows isn't rapey enough?

No...rape is wrong 100% of the time it actually happens...which isn't a 100% scenario.

 

[drylo]

so 86% of rape by a person the victim knows isn't rapey enough?

You're reading that backwards.

 

[drylo]

Good, you're with me on that 11. Though it could easily be a higher number, we'll stick with 11.

And no, you made the "probable cause" vs. "beyond reasonable doubt" mistake again. Remember, the police arrested 7 of those 21 alleged assailants. That means they had probable cause (the burden of proof for an arrest in the US) in 7 cases, not 3. They couldn't see a way for the DA to get to the "beyond reasonable doubt" level in the 4 cases that didn't get referred.

So now we know the police did find probable cause in 7 of the 21 remaining cases (or they wouldn't have arrested suspects). What we don't know is why they didn't arrest the other 14.

So, finally ... 14 cases in which it seems likely that the police could not find probable cause to arrest the named assailant. That's 14 cases out of the 32 that the police were made aware of. 14/32 = 44%. Not 90%. And not 86%

If you had said at the outset that the study you quoted showed police did not find 44% of all rape accusations credible to a "probable cause" burden of proof, I would not have taken exception with your argument (after I ran the numbers a bit to see how you got there).

But you claimed it said 90% were not credible. And that's an entirely different animal.

You were wrong then. I think you're much closer to truth--or at least an accurate reading of the study you linked--now.

Dude, an arrest can be made (based on probable cause or exigent circumstances or whatever) and yet the accused could ultimately be cleared because of a lack of probable cause. It isn't a hard scenario to imagine--for instance, exculpatory evidence can come to light, or the accuser can otherwise be determined to be not credible. Thus, an arrest can be made in the same case that is ultimately not referred to prosecutors because there is no (or is no longer, after an investigation, any) probable cause.

And yes, the standard to prosecute is probable cause. Stop arguing with me about that--because you are just plain wrong.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

So, finally ... 14 cases in which it seems likely that the police could not find probable cause to arrest the named assailant. That's 14 cases out of the 32 that the police were made aware of. 14/32 = 44%. Not 90%. And not 86%.

By the way, it's quite likely that the majority, if not all, of those 14 cases came down to "he said, she said," with no other compelling evidence or independent witnesses. That's far from saying some or even the majority of those attacks didn't happen, only that the police knew there was nowhere they could take the case without more. To color them as false accusations would be disingenuous and wrong.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

And yes, the standard to prosecute is probable cause. Stop arguing with me about that--because you are just plain wrong.

"In a criminal trial the burden of proof required of the prosecutor is to prove the guilt of the accused 'beyond a reasonable doubt....'

Legal Dictionary | Law.com

 

[drylo]

By the way, it's quite likely that the majority, if not all, of those 14 cases came down to "he said, she said," with no other compelling evidence or independent witnesses. That's far from saying some or even the majority of those attacks didn't happen, only that the police knew there was nowhere they could take the case without more. To color them as false accusations would be disingenuous and wrong.

Certainly not "all."

And to color them as actual rapes would be disingenuous and wrong, but that's not stopping you.

 

[drylo]

Legal Dictionary | Law.com

Yeah, "IN" a criminal trial.

Read up, buddy: Preliminary Hearing