Tag Archives: Marriage

News

Woman recants rape charge after man spends 2 years in jail

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Political Map of Canada

Story from Calgary, Alberta, the most conservative province in Canada.

Excerpt:

Charges against a Calgary man accused of raping a woman over a 10-hour period nearly two years ago have been unexpectedly stayed.

Crown prosecutor Karuna Ramakrishnan issued the stay after the 44-year-old complainant, who recanted her story under cross-examination by defence lawyer Rebecca Snukal on Wednesday, failed to show up in court on Friday for further questioning.

She had been ordered to do so by Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Sandy Park, so Ramakrishnan could reconsider her position.

John Francis Dionne, 43, had faced charges of sexual assault causing bodily harm, kidnapping, assault causing bodily harm and uttering death threats in connection with the alleged incident on Oct. 28, 2008.

His first trial ended in a mistrial in June, because of an issue with one of the jurors, and was rescheduled for this week.

The woman initially outlined in detail what she says occurred during the ordeal, but when cross-examined, she couldn’t remember specific details.

Then, when asked why she would accept a ride from the man she claimed had raped her for 10 hours she became frustrated and denied it even happened.

“I’m lying about everything,” she told Snukal.

“Hurry along because I’m lying about everything. He’s not a rapist . . . so there, that’s it. End of it . . . he didn’t rape me.

“Let Mr. John Francis go free. He’s not a rapist. It’s over. That’s all I have to say. Let him out.”

Dionne, who had been in custody since his arrest, was to be released some time later on Friday.

Her name has not been released – but his name was released. His life is therefore ruined. And she will probably not be charged, since it is very rare that women are charged for making false accusations. The man spent 2 years of his life in jail. Was there any evidence? She says she was lying about EVERYTHING. How could there be any evidence? And yet he spent two years in jail.

What effect will this have on men? What should men believe about women when things like this happen? What does this tell us about the court system?

Why do women make false accusations of rape?

One recent study listed three reasons why women invent false rape accusations.

Excerpt:

A study of rape allegations in Indiana over a nine-year period revealed that over 40% were shown to be false — not merely unproven. According to the author, “These false allegations appear to serve three major functions for the complainants: providing an alibi, seeking revenge, and obtaining sympathy and attention. False rape allegations are not the consequence of a gender-linked aberration, as frequently claimed, but reflect impulsive and desperate efforts to cope with personal and social stress situations.” ( Kanin EJ. Arch Sex Behav. 1994 Feb;23(1):81-92 False rape allegations. )

In 1985, a study of 556 rape allegations found that 27% accusers recanted when faced with a polygraph (which can be ordered in the military), and independent evaluation showed a false accusation rate of 60%. (McDowell, Charles P., Ph.D. “False Allegations.” Forensic Science Digest, (publication of the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations), Vol. 11, No. 4 (December 1985), p. 64.)

And this also happens in divorce trials in order to get custody.

False accusations in divorce trials

Consider this article from Touchstone magazine, by Stephen Baskerville.

Excerpt:

Today it is not clear that we have learned anything from these miscarriages of justice. If anything, the hysteria has been institutionalized in the divorce courts, where false allegations have become routine.

What is ironic about these witch-hunts is the fact that it is easily demonstrable that the child abuse epidemic—which is very real—is almost entirely the creation of feminism and the welfare bureaucracies themselves. It is well established by scholars that an intact family is the safest place for women and children and that very little abuse takes place in married families. Child abuse overwhelmingly occurs in single-parent homes, homes from which the father has been removed. Domestic violence, too, is far more likely during or after the breakup of a marriage than among married couples.

Yet patently false accusations of both child abuse and domestic violence are rampant in divorce courts, almost always for purposes of breaking up families, securing child custody, and eliminating fathers. “With child abuse and spouse abuse you don’t have to prove anything,” the leader of a legal seminar tells divorcing mothers, according to the Chicago Tribune. “You just have to accuse.”

Among scholars and legal practitioners it is common knowledge that patently trumped-up accusations are routinely used, and virtually never punished, in divorce and custody proceedings. Elaine Epstein, president of the Massachusetts Women’s Bar Association, writes that “allegations of abuse are now used for tactical advantage” in custody cases. The Illinois Bar Journal describes how abuse accusations readily “become part of the gamesmanship of divorce.” The UMKC Law Review reports on a survey of judges and attorneys revealing that disregard for due process and allegations of domestic violence are used as a “litigation strategy.” In the Yale Law Review, Jeannie Suk calls domestic violence accusations a system of “state-imposed de facto divorce” and documents how courts use unsupported accusations to justify evicting Americans from their homes and children.

The multi-billion dollar abuse industry has become “an area of law mired in intellectual dishonesty and injustice” writes David Heleniak in the Rutgers Law Review. Domestic violence has become “a backwater of tautological pseudo-theory,” write Donald Dutton and Kenneth Corvo in the scholarly journal Aggression and Violent Behavior. “No other area of established social welfare, criminal justice, public health, or behavioral intervention has such weak evidence in support of mandated practice.”

If we care about justice for all, then we have to care about this, too.

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Commentary

What is the “root cause” of poverty and inequalities of wealth?

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The Heritage Foundation explains – it’s not what you think.

Excerpt:

New data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau show the largest increase in poverty in U.S. recorded history. Under President Obama’s watch, an additional 3.7 million Americans fell into poverty in 2009.

Buried in the Census report are startling figures revealing the principal cause of child poverty: the collapse of marriage. Single mother families are almost five times more likely to be poor than are married couples with children; overall, nearly 70 percent of poor families with children are headed by single parents.

The big secret in the Census report is that marriage is America’s number-one weapon against child poverty. But marriage has been rapidly declining in our society as the number of women who have children without being married has skyrocketed.

Historically, unwed childbearing was rare. In 1964, when the federal government launched its War on Poverty, 6.8 percent of births were to single mothers. Today, the unwed birth rate has soared to 40 percent: four of every 10 births are to a single mother. For Hispanics and African Americans, it’s significantly higher.

This trend is extremely detrimental for society. When compared to children raised by married parents, children raised by single parents are more likely to have emotional and behavioral problems; be physically abused; smoke, drink, and use drugs; be aggressive; engage in violent delinquent and criminal behavior; have poor school performance; and drop out of school.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, nearly all unwed fathers are employed, and most earn enough to lift mother and child from poverty. Tragically, however, few unwed parents marry.

Many commentators will say teen pregnancy accounts for most single motherhood, but this is false. Less than 8 percent of new single moms are under 18. In fact, most unwed births are to young adult women in their 20s. The majority of unwed moms don’t have much education; most end up on welfare.

If Americans are serious about reducing poverty and getting control of federal welfare spending, we must strengthen marriage. We can do this in several ways, beginning with reducing anti-marriage penalties currently in welfare programs and providing factual information to low-income communities about the benefits of marriage.

Do you know who is pretty good on this issue? Maggie Gallagher, that’s who. She knows everything about why people should get married.

Excerpt:

5. YOU WILL EARN MORE MONEY. Men today tend to think of marriage as a consumption item—a financial burden. But a broad and deep body of scientific literature suggests that for men especially, marriage is a productive institution—as important as education in boosting a man’s earnings. In fact, getting a wife may increase an American male’s salary by about as much as a college education. Married men make, by some estimates, as much as 40 percent more money than comparable single guys, even after controlling for education and job history. The longer a man stays married, the higher the marriage premium he receives. Wives’ earnings also benefit from marriage, but they decline when motherhood enters the picture. Childless white wives get a marriage wage premium of 4 percent, and black wives earn 10 percent more than comparable single women.

6. DID I MENTION YOU’LL GET MUCH RICHER? Married people not only make more money, they manage money better and build more wealth together than either would alone. At identical income levels, for example, married people are less likely to report “economic hardship” or trouble paying basic bills. The longer you stay married, the more assets you build; by contrast, length of cohabitation has no relationship to wealth accumulation. On the verge of retirement, the average married couple has accumulated assets worth about $410,000, compared with $167,000 for the never-married and $154,000 for the divorced. Couples who stayed married in one study saw their assets increase twice as fast as those who had remained divorced over a five-year period.

Yet another reason for fiscal conservatives to take social conservatives seriously. Marriage makes people more independent, and that means smaller government, lower taxes, and more liberty. What we need to do is block feminists from undermining marriage to serve their gender-neutral ideology, and stop socialists from undermining marriage with the welfare programs which incentivize single motherhood.

News

Is lenience towards women increasing domestic violence against men?

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First of all, let’s see what’s happening with domestic violence rates.

Excerpt:

Data from Home Office statistical bulletins and the British Crime Survey show that men made up about 40% of domestic violence victims each year between 2004-05 and 2008-09, the last year for which figures are available. In 2006-07 men made up 43.4% of all those who had suffered partner abuse in the previous year, which rose to 45.5% in 2007-08 but fell to 37.7% in 2008-09.

Similar or slightly larger numbers of men were subjected to severe force in an incident with their partner, according to the same documents. The figure stood at 48.6% in 2006-07, 48.3% the next year and 37.5% in 2008-09, Home Office statistics show.

The 2008-09 bulletin states: “More than one in four women (28%) and around one in six men (16%) had experienced domestic abuse since the age of 16. These figures are equivalent to an estimated 4.5 million female victims of domestic abuse and 2.6 million male victims.”

In addition, “6% of women and 4% of men reported having experienced domestic abuse in the past year, equivalent to an estimated one million female victims of domestic abuse and 600,000 male victims”.

Here’s a typical case: (from the same article)

Ian McNicholl, 47, has painful memories to remind him of the terror he endured when he found himself a male victim of domestic violence.

His then fiancee, Michelle Williamson, punched him in the face several times, stubbed out cigarettes on his body, lashed him with a vacuum cleaner tube, hit him with a metal bar and a hammer and even poured boiling water on to his lap. That at 6ft he was almost a foot taller than her made no difference. He still has burn marks on his left shoulder from when she used steam from an iron on him. Williamson, 35, is now serving a seven-year jail sentence for causing both actual and grievous bodily harm.

During the trial last year McNicholl told the court that, during more than a year of attacks and intimidation, he had lost his job, home and self-respect. He had been too scared to go to the police and had considered suicide. She was only arrested after two neighbours saw her punch him.

Sentencing her at Grimsby crown court last year, judge John Reddihough told Williamson: “Over the period of time you were with him you destroyed him mentally and seriously harmed him physically, leaving him with both physical and mental scars.”

Why is this happening? Well, even women who seem to be nice on the surface can turn violent when they placed under stress (like from work or pregnancy or their periods) that they are not prepared for, and when they perceive that there is no cost to becoming violent with a man. This is especially problematic when the man has no leverage in the relationship to negotiate with because of anti-male bias in social programs, police and courts. How is a man supposed to negotiate with someone who holds all the cards? She can just do whatever she wants, and the whole system is rigged against him.

Look at this news story.

Excerpt:

Judges have been told to treat female criminals more leniently than men when deciding sentences.

New guidelines declare that women suffer disadvantages and courts should ‘bear these matters in mind’.

The rules say women criminals often have poor mental health or are poorly educated, have not committed violence and have children to look after.

‘Women’s experiences as victims, witnesses and offenders are in many respects different to those of men,’ according to the Equal Treatment Bench Book.

‘These differences highlight the importance of the need for sentencers to bear these matters in mind when sentencing.’

The controversial advice comes from the Judicial Studies Board, which is responsible for training the judiciary.

[…]The Bench Book tells judges that the problem ‘consists mainly of violence by men against women’. It adds ‘the reality is that some of the most physically violent incidents are committed by men on female partners’.

The document also suggests that aggression against men by women is rare, saying that ‘men and partners in same-sex relationships might also be victims of domestic violence’.

[…]Updated guidance on how to sentence female criminals was distributed in April in a new section on ‘gender equality’.

It told judges: ‘Women remain disadvantaged in many public and private areas of their life; they are under-represented in the judiciary, Parliament and senior positions
across a range of jobs; and there is still a substantial pay gap between men and women.’

On women accused of crime, the guidance quoted Judge Baroness Hale, the only woman among the 11 at the Supreme Court, who describes herself as a ‘soft-line feminist’.

She said: ‘It is now well recognised that a misplaced conception of equality has resulted in some very unequal treatment for women and girls.’

The rules were prepared by a team headed by High Court judge Dame Laura Cox.

She wrote: ‘It is hardly revolutionary that judges should know of the matters central to the lives of those who attend courts and to aim to provide judges with that knowledge.’

And you can can easily see this in the divorce courts of Western nations where men are regularly taken to the cleaners. (Women get custody 90% of the time, 70% of all divorces are initiated by women, with 80% of them for no other reason than insufficient happiness – despite the fact that they made a vow to love that man forever). When you total up the costs of the marital home and property, alimony and child support, it really is prohibitive. The risks are too high!

And in more extreme cases you get things like this case.

Excerpt:

Three Missouri women convicted of murdering their husbands years ago learned today that they will be released from prison on parole because of claims of spousal abuse.

Vicky Williams, 55, and Roberta Carlene Borden, 65, will be released on Oct. 15, according to their lawyers and relatives. Ruby Jamerson, 57, will be released in 2013. All were serving life sentences from cases that date to the 1970s or 1980s.

[…]Borden was convicted in 1978 of conspiring with her lover to shoot her husband, Delbert, as he lounged in a chair in his Springfield, Mo., home. Jamerson was accused of hiring two teen boys in 1988 to stab her husband, Horace, to death in their north St. Louis County home. Williams was convicted of hiring someone to shoot her husband, Gilbert Lee, as he made his rounds as a security guard in a Chesterfield industrial park in 1979.

Lawyers for the three women later claimed that they had suffered years of mental and physical abuse, including vicious beatings. (See the attached link for more details on the cases.)

Many relatives of the slain spouses have disputed the claims of abuse and argued that the women were only conning their way to freedom.

The problem is that these charges of abuse are used regularly in divorce courts to tilt the table against the man – the charges of abuse are used to get custody of the children, but they never go to trial. The warrants for restraining orders are sworn out before the charges of abuse can be investigated, and custody rights are granted. Later on, the charges are dropped. But the damage has already been done – the woman has already been granted sole custody. Similarly, there is not history of abuse in many battered wife cases – the lawyers make them up after the fact to get their clients released. Sometimes, after only a few months in jail for murdering their husbands! And they get custody of their children after a few more months. Or sometimes women just take men to court to have their daughters groundings overturned. And the courts do it.

Men understand these things, and it causes them to stay clear of relationships with women that are regulated by the state. So, you may get a lot of men hooking up with women for sex, but men will not marry women and take the chance of coming under the authority of judges who think that women are always victims and should never be blamed or held accountable – even if they make false rape accusations or kill their husbands (that they freely chose to marry!). Some women believe that violence against men is justified because they have been indoctrinated to perceive themselves as victims. The victim attitude allows them to blame men for invented wrongs even when women themselves are the aggressors. And this is why men don’t commit to marriage anymore. It’s not cowardice. It’s that women have priced themselves out of the commitment market.

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