Teen Rapists found Guilty

[Joe Guy]

Watch the video below the article for a minute if you want to see one of the idiots...

STEUBENVILLE, Ohio (AP) — Two members of the high school football team that is the pride of Steubenville were found guilty Sunday of raping a drunken 16-year-old girl in a case that bitterly divided the Rust Belt city and led to accusations of a cover-up to protect the community's athletes.

Steubenville High School students Trent Mays and Ma'Lik Richmond were sentence to at least a year in juvenile jail, capping a case that came to light via a barrage of morning-after text messages, social media posts and online photos and video. Mays was sentenced to an additional year in jail on a charge of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material, to be served after his rape sentence is completed.

The two teens broke down in tears after the verdict was read and later apologized to the victim and to the community. Both were emotional as they spoke, and Richmond struggled at times to talk through his sobs.

Mays, 17, and Richmond, 16, were charged with digitally penetrating the West Virginia girl, first in the back seat of a moving car after an alcohol-fueled party on Aug. 11, and then in the basement of a house. They were ordered to avoid contact with the victim until they're 21.

The case roiled the community amid allegations that more students should have been charged and led to questions about the influence of the local football team, a source of a pride in a community of 18,000 that suffered massive job losses with the collapse of the steel industry. Their arms linked, protesters stood outside the courthouse Sunday morning awaiting the verdict, some wearing masks.

The trial opened last week as a contest between prosecutors determined to show the girl was so drunk she couldn't have been a willing participant that night, and defense attorneys soliciting testimony from witnesses that would indicate that the girl, though drunk, knew what she was doing.

The teenage girl testified Saturday that she could not recall what happened the night of the attack but remembered waking up naked in a strange house after drinking at a party. The girl said she recalled drinking, leaving the party holding hands with Mays and throwing up later. When she woke up, she said she discovered her phone, earrings, shoes, and underwear were missing, she testified.

"It was really scary," she said. "I honestly did not know what to think because I could not remember anything."

The girl said she believed she was assaulted when she later read text messages among friends and saw a photo of herself taken that night, along with a video that made fun of her and the alleged attack. She said she suspected she had been drugged because she couldn't explain being as intoxicated as defense witnesses have said she was.

"They treated her like a toy," said special prosecutor Marianne Hemmeter.

Evidence introduced at the trial included graphic text messages sent by numerous students after the night of the party, including by the accuser, containing provocative descriptions of sex acts and obscene language. Lawyers noted during the trial how texts have seemed to replace talking on the phone for contemporary teens. A computer forensic expert called by the state documented tens of thousands of texts found on 17 phones seized during the investigation.

The girl herself recalled being in a car later with Mays and Richmond and asking them what happened.

"They kept telling me I was a hassle and they took care of me," she testified. "I thought I could trust him (Mays) until I saw the pictures and video."

In questioning her account, defense attorneys went after her character and credibility. Two former friends of the girl testified that the accuser had a history of drinking heavily and was known to lie.

"The reality is, she drank, she has a reputation for telling lies," said lawyer Walter Madison, representing Richmond.

The two girls testified they were angry at the accuser because she was drinking heavily at the party and rolling around on the floor. They said they tried unsuccessfully to get her to stop drinking.

The accuser said that she does not remember being photographed as she was carried by Mays and Richmond, an image that stirred up outrage, first locally, then globally, as it spread online. Others have testified the photo was a joke and the girl was conscious when it was taken.

The photograph led to allegations that three other boys, two of them members of Steubenville High's celebrated Big Red team, saw something happening that night and didn't try to stop it but instead recorded it.

The three boys weren't charged, fueling months of online accusations of a cover-up to protect the team, which law enforcement authorities have vehemently denied.

Instead, the teens were granted immunity to testify, and their accounts helped incriminate the defendants. They said the girl was so drunk she didn't seem to know what was happening to her and confirmed she was digitally penetrated in a car and later on a basement floor.

Ohio's attorney general planned to announce later Sunday whether additional charges will be brought against others in the case.

Mays and Richmond were determined to be delinquent, the juvenile equivalent of guilty, Judge Thomas Lipps ruled in the juvenile court trial without a jury.

They can be held until they're 21, and the length of their sentence beyond the minimum one year will be determined by juvenile authorities.

The Associated Press normally doesn't identify minors charged in juvenile court, but Mays and Richmond have been widely identified in news coverage, and their names have been used in open court. The AP also does not generally identify people who say they were victims of sex crimes.

source

[Lord Jim]

I believe I can easily understand why the DA in this case chose not to prosecute any of the witnesses.

First of all obviously no one has a legal obligation to attempt to prevent a crime from being committed. Ohio does have a failure to report law, and it doesn't appear to have an exemption for minors, though I don't know that for an absolute fact. Here's the text of the law:

http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/2921.22

However prosecutions under such laws are relatively rare for a good reason. The standard that the prosecutor must meet is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person charged knew for a fact that c rime was being committed.

This is a very high bar to meet even under the best of circumstances, (it's very difficult to prove what a person "knew" or didn't know and what was going on in their head) and these are far from the best of circumstances for a prosecution on charges like this.

How does a prosecutor go about proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the drunken 16 and 17 year old knuckle heads who saw this girl getting felt up knew for a fact that crime was being committed? Someone can be experiencing an alcoholic black out and not appear anything more than buzzed to others. On top of that, kids that age may not have even been aware that having sex with someone who was intoxicated is a crime, and even if they did, they sure as hell weren't carrying around breathalyzer tests...

If the girl wasn't resisting or protesting, how would teenage witnesses, themselves inebriated, necessarily even know that a crime was being committed?

I think any halfway decent defense attorney would have had a pretty easy time establishing reasonable doubt for any of the teenagers in this case who might have been charged with failing to report this. The DA no doubt understood this, and I believe should be commended for not caving to public pressure, or wasting the city's legal resources prosecuting charges that he knew he most likely couldn't prevail with, and would probably have carried very little punishment even if he could.

[Joe Guy]

If the girl wasn't resisting or protesting, how would teenage witnesses, themselves inebriated, necessarily even know that a crime was being committed?

If you watched/listened to the video the idiot makes it sound as though the victim was unconscious at the time of the rape. The witnesses had to have known something wasn't right. In my opinion they should have been charged, and according to the article they are still considering it.

[Lord Jim]

I had not seen that video before Joe; (I just watched it; well about 8 minutes anyway, it was really turning my stomach) that really is quite disgusting...That one budding Fulbright Scholar really fancies himself quite the comedian, doesn't he?

On it's face anyway, the video is also quite damning. Both Mr. Joker and someone else who can be heard off camera clearly express that they know that what happened was rape. (One person off camera also indicates that he knew what happened was wrong.)

However, I'm unclear about a couple of things regarding this video. Is the girl actually passed out in the room while this moron is doing his stand up routine? Had the assault just concluded there? Or are they yucking it up relating something that had happened earlier?


If this is a video of these chuckle heads talking about this sometime after the events took place, I imagine a defense attorney would say something like, "Look, my client is a prize jerk who seriously needs some help learning to have a better regard for members of the opposite sex. But all this doofus I represent was doing here was engaging in braggartly "bar talk" he didn't really see anything he's talking about here, he's just trying to show off and impress his friends. Being a huge jackass isn't a crime and there isn't anything here than proves more than that."

Maybe there's other evidence, (and testimony available about who saw what.) but this video alone, as damning and offensive as it looks on the surface, if you put it in a context, doesn't look to me by itself to have enough to obtain a conviction. Now, if there's some other evidence that definitely puts these guys in a position where they had to actually have been seeing what was happening, rather than just running their mouths about it, then this video provides excellent evidence that at least two of the mirth makers believed the girl was passed out and had a full understanding that what happened to her was rape.

[Joe Guy]

The rape took place in a car and apparently a video was taken of it but I doubt it is available and I wouldn't want to see it.

This report gives more information -

[Lord Jim]

It seems to me that in the primary case that was just concluded the prosecutors were really lucky to have this huge texting paper trail...

In an earlier time this would have been a much tougher case to prove, since all that would have gone on would have been phone calls that most likely wouldn't have been recorded. With an accuser that can't recall anything and no forensic evidence, (since the girl never went to a doctor after this happened) without the paper trail, the picture and the video (which are, like the texts, things that probably wouldn't even exist if this had happened even just 20 years ago) the case becomes really weak, (it's not even "he said- she said" because she isn't in a position to be able to say what happened.)

Our modern technology and social media culture has a number both pluses and minuses, but one of the huge pluses has got be the great boon it has been for law enforcement....

Whether it's a case like this, or idiots video taping themselves committing crimes, and loading them up to YouTube, or just bystanders who happen to catch a crime on video, the proliferation of phone cameras and social media websites, (as well as the record that texting creates) really have been the police and prosecutor's friend.

[Lord Jim]

That was an interesting piece by Cooper, it helps to fill in some gaps...(I was aware of this story but hadn't been following it closely...)

This is a little confusing; from the article:

The three boys weren't charged, fueling months of online accusations of a cover-up to protect the team, which law enforcement authorities have vehemently denied.

Instead, the teens were granted immunity to testify, and their accounts helped incriminate the defendants. They said the girl was so drunk she didn't seem to know what was happening to her and confirmed she was digitally penetrated in a car and later on a basement floor.

Ohio's attorney general planned to announce later Sunday whether additional charges will be brought against others in the case.

Okay, so it looks like the prosecutor made the decision, (the type of decision that prosecutors make all the time) that in order to get the strongest possible case against the actual perpetrators, (and establish both the details of the attack and state of inebriation of the victim beyond a reasonable doubt) they would grant immunity to the witnesses in exchange for their testimony, (that they wouldn't otherwise have to have given, since they could have claimed their 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination)

That part makes perfect sense. (Obviously you want to make sure that at least the people who actually committed the crime get punished) One can argue I guess whether or not the case could have been made successfully without that testimony, but that's a judgement call.

What I don't understand is this part:

Ohio's attorney general planned to announce later Sunday whether additional charges will be brought against others in the case

I don't know the details of these specific immunity agreements, but as a general rule, this would make it impossible for them to now be charged. Is the Attorney General talking about people other than these three witnesses being charged? (Presumably these three were the ones who had the most direct knowledge of the assault, so the case against anybody else would be weaker) Or is he just engaging in a bit of grandstanding with no real intention of filing additional charges?

It looks like from the Anderson Cooper story that they co-operated fully and testified truthfully, so it doesn't seem like there'd be any grounds for voiding the immunity agreement. If the Attorney General wants say "to hell with he immunity agreement, I'm going to prosecute them anyway" he's going to have all kinds of problems.

[Joe Guy]

After re-reading the article, and knowing the quality of writing on the internet these days, I'm guessing that the reference to charging others in the case was something that should have been edited out and may have come from an earlier version of the story before immunity was granted.

[Lord Jim]

knowing the quality of writing on the internet these days

That's one of my pet peeves...

The quality of writing and editing for on-line articles, even for reputable outfits like AP, (where the article in the OP comes from) or Reuters, is really poor. Inaccuracies, misleading information, contradictions, huge gaps in the pieces that don't answer questions so fundamental to the story that a first year journalism student ought to be able to spot them, are all par for the course. (And of course headlines that don't reflect the content of the article)

I don't know if this sloppiness is a result of the fact that with the internet, you can always go back and correct stuff later, or if it's a function of these companies having fairly low standards for who the hire for their online operations, or just a reflection of how journalistic standards have declined generally.

[Joe Guy]

This doesn't happen on my computer, but quite often on my iPod when I read sfgate.com from the sfgate app, I will see two or more versions of the same article. I can see the progression and see how the original article was edited and evolved.

Sometimes the story changes dramatically and other times I see only spelling corrections and rewording of the original story.

And now - while I've been posting and reading here I heard on the radio that "others may be charged" in the Steubenville rape case. I don't know if that's accurate or if the announcer on the radio is using information from the same AP article.

It's hard to tell what's true and what's not on the internet nowadays...

[Gob]

The young woman has no relatives or friends with baseball bats? Well, has the girl's brothers publically stated they intend to beat these guys to a bloody pulp? Well, have they?

No wonder you have a problem.

[Lord Jim]

Maybe I'm over-thinking this Strop, but I believe I detect a note of sarcasm in your post...

[Scooter]

Why do I suspect this is going to become the new "strapping a baby to one's back"...

[Crackpot]

I suspect you're wrong mostly because it's a fertile playing ground for Rube where Gob rarely says something that stupid. Doubt it will meet more than a one off.

[Gob]

But though Mays apologized quite specifically for taking pictures of the victim and sending them nowhere did he mention or offer an apology for the rape.

In every communication with the victim following the night of 11 -12 August he repeatedly denied raping her.
In fact in an incriminating detail it is an allegation he denies before it is ever made. Again and again his texts show him turning the blame on the victim, hectoring her, pressurizing her not to go to the police and telling her that the rape ‘didn’t happen.’

Standing in court, convicted of that crime and filled with apparent regret, the rape remained a crime for which he does not apologize.

wanker.

[Joe Guy]

Now, in the latest version of the same AP article, the following was added:

"Immediately after the verdict, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said he will convene a grand jury next month to investigate whether anyone else should be charged. Noting that 16 people refused to talk, many of them underage, DeWine said possible offenses to be investigated include failure to report a crime."

It went on to say that coaches are among those that will be investigated.

The thot plickens...

[liberty]

Maybe I'm over-thinking this Strop, but I believe I detect a note of sarcasm in your post...

sarcasm

There was a time in the South when a father or brother would kill over so something like that.

[oldr_n_wsr]

Maybe I'm over-thinking this Strop, but I believe I detect a note of sarcasm in your post...

sarcasm

There was a time in the South when a father or brother would kill over so something like that.

The time is still current for some Long Islanders.

Been watching/listening to this and from what I gather, the DA is now looking for people who may have covered up this crime (those who testified are probably excluded).

My daughter, my kill(s), my jail time.
nuff said.

[Gob]

For those unfamiliar with the case, here’s a short précis. Over the course of a single night last August, Steubenville High School Big Red footballers Mal’ik Richmond and Trent Mays participated in the ritual humiliation and rape of an unconscious 16 year old girl as she was carried from party to party in various states of undress. The girl (who remains unnamed) was digitally penetrated by the pair more than once throughout the evening while onlookers (some of whom were teammates) did nothing to intervene. Instead, the incident was captured in images on mobile phones, which were then uploaded to Instagram and Twitter along with commentary about ‘whores’ and hashtags like #deadgirl. One of these photos shows the girl unconscious and naked in a basement with semen from one of the defendants on her. Another portrays her limp body being carried between two laughing boys. To compound the injury to her dignity is evidence suggesting that, even as the frivolity was winding up and the girl was passed out on the front lawn, someone thought it would be funny to urinate on her.

After waking up naked the next morning with no memory of what happened to her, the girl was left to discover the digital trail of humiliation and abuse that had already begun to be circulated among her peer group. In the days that followed, the cocky entitlement displayed by her abusers in cyber crowing about their conquest gave way to concern and then fear that real consequences would follow. While trying to orchestrate a cover up (seemingly supported by his football coach), Mays complained to the girl via text message that she was going to ruin his football career. These texts and hundreds of others were cited as evidence in a four day trial that resulted in the boys being found delinquent on Sunday (the equivalent of a guilty verdict in a juvenile case). They have been sentenced to a minimum of one year each in a juvenile facility with an additional year given to Mays for the creation and distribution of pornographic content containing a minor.

Despite these horrendous facts, when the verdict was reported on CNN yesterday the discussion once again focused on the least relevant part of any case involving rape and sexual abuse - that being the devastating effect the judicial outcome would have on the perpetrators’ lives.

“What’s the lasting effect though on two young men being found guilty juvenile court of rape essentially?” CNN’s Candy Crowley wondered aloud to CNN legal contributor Paul Callan.

“There’s always that moment of just — lives are destroyed,” he responded. “But in terms of what happens now, the most severe thing with these young men is being labeled as registered sex offenders. That label is now placed on them by Ohio law. That will haunt them for the rest of their lives.”

Hold up. They’re being labeled as registered sex offenders because they ARE sex offenders. This isn’t a case of mistaken identity or a judicial system gone belly up. It’s about two boys (assisted by a much wider group of perpetrators, three of whom sought immunity from prosecution in exchange for testimony) who participated in the dehumanisation of a vulnerable girl by violating her body and then parading it as a cheeky jape for their community to laugh over. So forgive my paddock language, but CNN and its concerned commentators can cry me a fu*king river.

continues here...

see also..







far too many more here...

[Crackpot]

Just what was "ritualistic" about this?