Ruth Coppinger holds up thong in Dail

brooke 2

bubblypop wrote: »

The only reason underwear should be used as evidence in a rape or sexual assault trial is as forensic evidence.
That's it.
No other reason.

Absolutely!!!!!

PlaneSpeeking

wexie wrote: »

The point is that wearing a thong isn't materially relevant evidence of intent or consent.

Perhaps not, but if the accuser denied she had any intention of having sex that night and went out wearing the old grey ones, and she had in fact gone out on the pull, picked up the victim and then regretted it in the sober light of day - then yeah, the fact she lied is fair game.

xi5yvm0owc1s2b

wexie wrote: »

The point is that wearing a thong isn't materially relevant evidence of intent or consent.

In which case the introduction of sexy underwear as evidence should have no impact on the jury, right?

seamus

Atlas Rotten Machinist wrote: »

Laws that would curtail the kind of evidence or arguments that lawyers could present when defending their clients?

No, thanks. Everyone in Ireland has the constitutional right to a fair trial, and a trial is not fair if materially relevant evidence or arguments cannot be presented.

Sure, but how is it a fair trial when materially irrelevant evidence and arguments can be used to smear either the defendant or the complainant?

The guarantee of a "fair trial" requires safeguards to be put in place to ensure that a trial isn't turned into a farce. Juries are human and therefore cannot be trusted to competently sort the wheat from the chaff. Basic standards of what can and cannot be presented must exist.

In fact, we already have these. They just need to be improved.

astrofool

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

wearing a thong does not indicate intent. that is the issue.

No, the issue is that what you wear can indicate intent when combined with other factors, but that by itself, in isolation, it does not imply any intent.

Triceratops Ballet

retro:electro wrote: »

But feminists don’t wear lacy thongs? Clearly they hate men so much that I’m sure they fashion some chastity belt repellent type knicker, maybe made out some kind of renewable fabric and tie dyed

lol feminists don't need a chastity belt, the blue hair, hairy legs and pits are enough to keep all the men away

ohnonotgmail

PlaneSpeeking wrote: »

Perhaps not, but if the accuser denied she had any intention of having sex that night and went out wearing the old grey ones, and she had in fact gone out on the pull, picked up the victim and then regretted it in the sober light of day - then yeah, the fact she lied is fair game.

wearing a thong is not evidence of any intention to have sex either. It is also not evidence of any intention to have sex with a particular individual. you really do paint an awful picture of women.

Hurrache

PlaneSpeeking wrote: »

Perhaps not, but if the accuser denied she had any intention of having sex that night and went out wearing the old grey ones, and she had in fact gone out on the pull, picked up the victim and then regretted it in the sober light of day - then yeah, the fact she lied is fair game.

<snip>
So you think underwear is evidence of lying?

Triceratops Ballet

astrofool wrote: »

No, the issue is that what you wear can indicate intent when combined with other factors, but that by itself, in isolation, it does not imply any intent.

when combined with what other factors??

ohnonotgmail

astrofool wrote: »

No, the issue is that what you wear can indicate intent when combined with other factors, but that by itself, in isolation, it does not imply any intent.

if there are other factors then what underwear a woman is wearing is irrelevant. choice of underwear is not an indication of intent. at all. in no way. not sure i can put it any clearer than that.

Grayson

PlaneSpeeking wrote: »

Can you really not see the slippery slope that would become ?

The Government telling a private citizen what they can and can't say in court merely because some feminists have their lacy thongs in a twist ?

They can, but they absolutely should not.

I can't believe you're actually using a slippery slope argument and you're even calling it that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

This is about a fair trial.

You do realise that there's already rules about what can be included in a trial. There's plenty of things that can't be said. A famous one is hearsay. Another is that you normally can't mention previous convictions because the fact that someone did something wrong once in the past doesn't mean that they did it again.
There's loads of rules about the types of arguments and evidence that can/can't be presented

SusieBlue

PlaneSpeeking wrote: »

Perhaps not, but if the accuser denied she had any intention of having sex that night and went out wearing the old grey ones, and she had in fact gone out on the pull, picked up the victim and then regretted it in the sober light of day - then yeah, the fact she lied is fair game.

That's an awful lot of presumptions for one post.
We should stick to the facts.
The facts are that the defense barrister used the fact that the victim was wearing a lacy thong to support her claim that she was intending to have sex with someone that night.
Do you think this is acceptable?
If you were sexually assaulted, do you think its fair game to have your choice of underwear analysed in court?

blue note

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

so if she was wearing them and then claimed she was raped that would make the man guilty?

Of course on it's own it wouldn't. But if the prosecution point to enough things that would indicate she did not consent (including disproving a defences assertion that she was intending to have sex with the defendant), then the cumulative evidence would give the jury enough to find the man guilty. Including yes, her underwear suggesting that she had no intentions of having sex. She might have changed her mind etc, but yes, it could be evidence.

mordeith

sbsquarepants wrote: »

I haven't worn underwear since I was about 12 or 13. Doesn't mean I go out every night hoping to get bummed by sailors, I just don't like underwear!

In fairness it is difficult to find square underwear.

brooke 2

boardise wrote: »

Ruth Coppinger's latest hit ...'A Thong For Ireland'

'A pair of thongs'. :D:D

SusieBlue

astrofool wrote: »

No, the issue is that what you wear can indicate intent when combined with other factors, but that by itself, in isolation, it does not imply any intent.

Ok, what factors are necessary to prove a woman was out looking for the ride and wasn't raped?

Is there a checklist? Maybe a short skirt, lacy knickers, red lipstick?
If you have all 3 does that mean you must be up for it? That you have "intent", and that you can't change your mind and say No?

Slippery slope indeed.

vonlars

PlaneSpeeking wrote: »

Can you really not see the slippery slope that would become ?

The Government telling a private citizen what they can and can't say in court merely because some feminists have their lacy thongs in a twist ?

They can, but they absolutely should not.

This may come as a surprise to you but there's already a whole section of law called the Law of Evidence that already governs what people can and can't say in court ....

Grayson

astrofool wrote: »

No, the issue is that what you wear can indicate intent when combined with other factors, but that by itself, in isolation, it does not imply any intent.

not a thong. Fair enough if you're wearing a balaclava and you're standing in a bank with it over your face, but wearing a thong doesn't imply anything. Plenty of women wear thongs and they're not looking for sex. The underwear is incidental to the whole issue.

retro:electro

SusieBlue wrote: »

Ok, what factors are necessary to prove a woman was out looking for the ride and wasn't raped?

Is there a checklist? Maybe a short skirt, lacy knickers, red lipstick?
If you have all 3 does that mean you must be up for it? That you have "intent", and that you can't change your mind and say No?

Slippery slope indeed.

Can’t believe no one assessed whether or not she was wearing red lippy. Clearly that means we love giving blow jobs.

tritium

Grayson wrote: »

Literally no-one is saying that. Read the posts. It's about the legal definition. Legally he wasn't found innocent. The jury don't say that he didn't do it, they say that they don't have enough evidence to convict. That goes for every single criminal case, for every crime, that goes before a jury in Ireland.

You say you're concerned that people are saying there's not enough evidence to conflict the guilty bastard when no-ones saying that at all. However it is worrying that despite the posts being quite clear in what they're saying, you read what you want into them.

You misunderstand how the system works. The concept of finding someone innocent simply doesn’t exist, regardless of the evidence. The defendant starts out with the presumption of innocence. The only way that changes is if they’re found guilty. Otherwise they continue to be presumed innocent.

There is no concept of “not proven” in Irish law, unlike say Scotland. Personally I think that’s a good thing, though others may disagree.

xi5yvm0owc1s2b

astrofool wrote: »

No, the issue is that what you wear can indicate intent when combined with other factors, but that by itself, in isolation, it does not imply any intent.

I'd be fairly certain that the girl's underwear was only part of the case presented by the defense. But if it supported or added credence to other parts of the defense's case, then of course it should have been admissible as evidence.

RWCNT

PlaneSpeeking wrote: »

Ah welcome, to the "I don't like what someone is saying so I'll throw in a strawman argument or accuse them of lying"

Definitely out now, the toxic feminism is becoming very cloying.

A strawman argument is when you attempt to appear that you're refuting an argument when actually refuting an argument not made in the first place. Like you do pretty often when bringing up this loon you supposedly work with in threads about feminism/PC culture. So, no, I'm not strawmaning. I also didn't accuse you of lying, Whether your colleague exists or not makes absolutely no difference.

Grayson

SusieBlue wrote: »

If you were sexually assaulted, do you think its fair game to have your choice of underwear analysed in court?

M'Lud, she was wearing a thong and therefore it could not have been rape. She was obviously gagging for it. Need I mention the short skirt?

That sort of argument is just ridiculous.

AndrewJRenko

PlaneSpeeking wrote: »

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

No misunderstanding

Less than 2%

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/north-s-justice-system-failing-sexual-violence-victims-report-finds-1.3696246

Still garbage. 2% of REPORTED rapes led to a conviction.

Did it enter your thoughts that perhaps, just perhaps the other 98% of REPORTS were just that ?

So just to be absolutely clear, your personal view is that 98% of the woman that report rape to the police are just making it up?

tritium

SusieBlue wrote: »

Ok, what factors are necessary to prove a woman was out looking for the ride and wasn't raped?

Is there a checklist? Maybe a short skirt, lacy knickers, red lipstick?
If you have all 3 does that mean you must be up for it? That you have "intent", and that you can't change your mind and say No?

Slippery slope indeed.

I assume that equally, for example, WhatsApp messages from the defendant should be excluded if they don’t indicate that a rape took place? Boasting about sex after all equally doesn’t indicate wrongdoing and it’s possible to be crude but not a criminal.

Of course following that route to its conclusion most cases really would come down to he said/ she said. I’m not sure that would actually help in terms of the right outcome from a trial

retro:electro

Atlas Rotten Machinist wrote: »

I'd be fairly certain that the girl's underwear was only part of the case presented by the defense. But if it supported or added credence to other parts of the defense's case, then of course it should have been admissible as evidence.

But what could the design of your knicker du jour imply about the sexual intentions of the girl in question? Really? No one disputes that items of clothing have to be submitted for evidence, but when you go down the road of saying someone’s knickers implied not only intent, but consent .. that’s when it becomes very dangerous and damaging to every single person who tries to prosecute a rape.

SusieBlue

tritium wrote: »

I assume that equally, for example, WhatsApp messages from the defendant should be excluded if they don’t indicate that a rape took place? Boasting about sex after all equally doesn’t indicate wrongdoing and it’s possible to be crude but not a criminal.

Of course following that route to its conclusion most cases really would come down to he said/ she said. I’m not sure that would actually help in terms of the right outcome from a trial

I'm not going down that rabbit hole with you, whatsapp messages have zero relevance in this case.

astrofool

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

if there are other factors then what underwear a woman is wearing is irrelevant. choice of underwear is not an indication of intent. at all. in no way. not sure i can put it any clearer than that.

What you seem to be arguing is that there is no meaning at all to what underwear someone chooses, despite the fact that different underwear styles are specifically marketed for different intents, the fact that there's a billion dollar industry built on top of this is now irrelevant.

And again, this does not mean that the choice of specific clothing has a specific intent for the person wearing it, but that different clothing styles are generally intended for different purposes, if you want to deny that any clothing is intended for anything, then fine, argue that.

Had I been on the jury, in this case, I wouldn't have put any weight on the choice of clothing, given the person's young age, and group of friends, this is something they likely wear all the time, without any specific intent with regard meeting up with someone (but it probably was intended to make them look and feel good), but that there could be other cases where it is relevant.

Grayson

tritium wrote: »

I assume that equally, for example, WhatsApp messages from the defendant should be excluded if they don’t indicate that a rape took place? Boasting about sex after all equally doesn’t indicate wrongdoing and it’s possible to be crude but not a criminal.

Of course following that route to its conclusion most cases really would come down to he said/ she said. I’m not sure that would actually help in terms of the right outcome from a trial

Boasting about sex would indicate that intercourse actually occurred although it wouldn't indicate the legality. Whatsapp messages may indicate the defendants attitude towards women.They may even be used by the defense.

I realise you're trying to get this away from the case at hand and over to the belfast case, they are two separate cases.

The bolded bit is a slippery slope argument. For what's wrong with that type of argument, I refer you back a page or two to the link I put up about slippery slope arguments.

None of what you posted addresses the fact that whether someone wears a thong is not an indication that they consented to sex. Likewise for example wearing a short skirt is not an indication that someone consented to sex.

If there's any other evidence that shows that someone consented then it should be presented to the court. But choice of underwear doesn't prove it or even bolster any other evidence unless it's directly refereed to elsewhere.

Triceratops Ballet

astrofool wrote:

but that there could be other cases where it is relevant.

Can you give an example of a case where someone's choice of underwear might be relevant?