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 Peregrine wrote:
Innocent until proven guilty only applies in court. As individuals not acting as representatives of the state we have every right to look at the evidence so far and conclude that the is pretty clearly guilty and treat him as such.

Do you understand why innocent before proven guilty applies? Because precisely your sort of attitude leads easily to permanent damage to lives of people accused _even when they are innocent_.

Treating accused as guilty before proven like you results in lives ruined. Not even in theory but in practice. Are you willing to pay up for those you accuse falsely?

 Ouze wrote:
Yeah I've definitely on the side of no statute of limitations for some crimes, and sexual assault seems like a no-brainer to me, especially given how we now understand that there are a variety of compelling reasons victims do not come forward right away.

 cuda1179 wrote:
I REALLY don't want statutes of limitations to be lifted. I want these women to have justice, but not at the expense of due process and the rights of the accused to have a fair trial. For example, in the Cosby case, I think the guy is a total POS, and likely did it. However, if I was on a jury I'd probably vote not guilty based on the time it took to come forward. Speaking as a someone who was also victimized, I sympathize, but prosecution must happen in a timely manner.

16 states in the US already have no SOL for rape or sexual assault. 27 states extend the SOL if DNA comes forward. Some of the states that do have a SOL extend it out as far as 30 years. This isn't a particularly new or extreme idea, and I'd like to see it streamlined across the rest of the country.

I live on the Iowa/Illinois border, and I can't see the sense that if a child is molested and doesn't come forward for 4 years, the perpetrator will be prosecuted here, but would be free to molest again if they live 5 miles away across the river.

I don't think it's about letting a child molester go free, I think it's about the probability of getting a conviction. I've always thought of statute of limitations as prosecutors telling victims Don't bring me a case I can't make/win. Coming forward years later when the case is essentially one person's word against another's without the hope of physical evidence or third party witnesses or other corroborating evidence being gathered isn't going to lead to convictions. The police are a reactionary force, if you wait too long to report a crime to them then it may be too late for them to convict the perpetrator. I can see how this puts more onus on the victim to speak up which certainly isn't easy but it's due to necessity and not done for nefarious purposes. That said, I don't know what the correct timeframe is for SOL and I think it should be as long as is practical. Unfortunately with horrific crimes like child molestation and rape, the longer the crime goes unreported the greater the probability of the perpetrator victimizing more people.


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 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Good gods... does nobody remember Stanford White, or the Fatty Arbuckle case?

This is not a new story, it is the same story, over, and over, and over again.

The Auld Grump

Very true. Industries that are built on an exploitative business model, like the entertainment industry (movies, music, sports etc) are going to exploit people. Studio executives, coaches, managers, producers etc. are gatekeepers standing between the talent and their goals and that creates an unbalanced relationship that is rife with exploitation and predation. These scandals are all too common because we've set up a power structure that makes them inevitable.

We need media trials so we do not look Soft on Crime !

tneva82 wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Innocent until proven guilty only applies in court. As individuals not acting as representatives of the state we have every right to look at the evidence so far and conclude that the is pretty clearly guilty and treat him as such.

Do you understand why innocent before proven guilty applies? Because precisely your sort of attitude leads easily to permanent damage to lives of people accused _even when they are innocent_.

Treating accused as guilty before proven like you results in lives ruined. Not even in theory but in practice. Are you willing to pay up for those you accuse falsely?

Weinstein's thirty years as a rapist has been an open secret for about as long as it has been going on. People have known about it, people have talked about it but no one has actually done anything until now, when there was an opportunity to kick him out and take over his position in his company. This isn't the right case to be very insistent about him being innocent until proven guilty.

There's also the inertia of the unofficial "this is how you make it in Hollywood" rule, as well as the widespread understanding of sex with a major power imbalance being inherently non-consensual is a relatively new thing.

tneva82 wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Innocent until proven guilty only applies in court. As individuals not acting as representatives of the state we have every right to look at the evidence so far and conclude that the is pretty clearly guilty and treat him as such.

Do you understand why innocent before proven guilty applies? Because precisely your sort of attitude leads easily to permanent damage to lives of people accused _even when they are innocent_.

Treating accused as guilty before proven like you results in lives ruined. Not even in theory but in practice. Are you willing to pay up for those you accuse falsely?

Well, he has already said he needs help and therapy. So he has pretty much admitted to all of these terrible things.

Can we judge him now? Asking for a friend.

I never heard anyone say he threatened them just bribe them....

The one girl I seen said she did things for a job and money..... Doesn't that just mean she is just a prostitute.

Peregrine wrote:It makes sense because we really don't want to make a habit of digging up old cases from decades ago

We do that for lots of crimes. Murder generally has no statue of limitations. Various kinds of fraud or conspiracy also generally have no limitations. If someone comes forward and says "LordofHats killed Fred" in 1965, there's nothing usually stopping the cops from looking into it. Notably, many states have limitations for sexual assault and rape, but place no limitations on such if a minor was involved. If you stole public money or headed a pyramid scheme, murdered someone, robbed a bank, or raped a kid we'll hunt you to the ends of the Earth, but if you dragged your secretary into the closet and ripped her clothes off eleven years ago your fine because the statute of limitations is 10 years? If anything the way statue of limitations plays out says more about society than the crimes.

Either the evidence exists or it doesn't, but that's a separate matter. I'm purely talking about the logic behind statues of limitation. Schrodinger's cat is incapable of harming you until you open the figurative box to know if it is actually there or not. The logic is that no one should have the threat of unfiled charges hanging over their head (which is totally fair I'm not disagreeing with that), but if there's no accusations or police investigation, there is no threat so why do we start the clock on when a crime, that may or may have never happened, is said to have occurred instead of when a report is filed or an accusation made?



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Prestor Jon wrote:
That said, I don't know what the correct timeframe is for SOL and I think it should be as long as is practical. Unfortunately with horrific crimes like child molestation and rape, the longer the crime goes unreported the greater the probability of the perpetrator victimizing more people.

The statues actually vary pretty wildly. You could almost make a bingo board for for how many years a limitation is, say a crime, throw a dart and you'll probably be right somewhere.

 sebster wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Why do we focus on asking why victims didn't come forward when there must be scores of others that know. Words like 'open secret' are used because you have other people in film crews and production, with that many projects it defies belief that it wasn't known to go on by a significant number of people. People who know what it means when he 'invites women to his room' and the manner of what goes on but look the other way.

It's the victim who has to come forward. If a third party sees something happen, it is not their place to make a public declaration when the victim hasn't yet made the choice to make it public. That is the victim's choice. Certainly if the victim goes public then the third party has a responsibility to provide whatever evidence he has, but it isn't up to him to decide for the victim that it should be made public.

It's everyone's duty to report a criminal offence, especially when the victim is too scared to speak out. Otherwise you contribute to the silence and climate of fear.

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2017/10/12/seth-macfarlane-weinstein-joke-2013/


joke was from back in 2013

http://popbitch.com/2017/10/inches-for-inches/

worth a read

 reds8n wrote:


http://popbitch.com/2017/10/inches-for-inches/

worth a read

This article talks about some serious allegations and rumours about the utterly brilliant Louis CK that I didn't know. Feth me, man. Everyone's a monster.

 feeder wrote:

 reds8n wrote:


http://popbitch.com/2017/10/inches-for-inches/

worth a read

This article talks about some serious allegations and rumours about the utterly brilliant Louis CK that I didn't know. Feth me, man. Everyone's a monster.

Yeah, I read an article awhile back where Tig Notaro brings it up. She talks about how he is an "Executive Producer" on her new show but wants everyone to know he does absolutely nothing on it and has nothing to do with it. Partially because of all of this.

Indeed.

The rumours have been doing the rounds for a while now..

... I certainly hope they aren't true, for all concerned.

But I'm not really sure what one is supposed to do in those sort of situations.

There's very few really famous celebrities that one doesn't hear rumours about.

A rumour won't stand up in a court of law.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
A rumour won't stand up in a court of law.

Unfortunately, absent evidence (a la Monica's dress) or corroborating witnesses, the court of law cannot handle this kind of crime. She says yes, he says no, now what? flip a coin, one that is weighted by how successful each lawyer is at smearing the character of the opposing party?

 feeder wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
A rumour won't stand up in a court of law.

Unfortunately, absent evidence (a la Monica's dress) or corroborating witnesses, the court of law cannot handle this kind of crime. She says yes, he says no, now what? flip a coin, one that is weighted by how successful each lawyer is at smearing the character of the opposing party?

I appreciate how difficult these types of cases can be for our courts, and I don't want to downplay it.

However, the backbone of Western Civilization is that if a person is accused of a crime, then it has to be proved beyond all reasonable doubt that they are guilty, before you take their liberty away from them and throw them in jail.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 feeder wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
A rumour won't stand up in a court of law.

Unfortunately, absent evidence (a la Monica's dress) or corroborating witnesses, the court of law cannot handle this kind of crime. She says yes, he says no, now what? flip a coin, one that is weighted by how successful each lawyer is at smearing the character of the opposing party?

I appreciate how difficult these types of cases can be for our courts, and I don't want to downplay it.

However, the backbone of Western Civilization is that if a person is accused of a crime, then it has to be proved beyond all reasonable doubt that they are guilty, before you take their liberty away from them and throw them in jail.

Agree 100%.

I do not necessarily think Woody Allen should be in jail. I do, however think he is a fething creep and I cannot enjoy his movies anymore because of that.

While its not the same as seeing your perp go to jail... it's often times easier to litigate in civil court.

Weinstein isn't poor...

He also owns much of his company...

Not to mention the fact that he had his minions help him put these women in compromising positions. If that could be proven, that blows the barn door wide open for liabilities.

tneva82 wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Innocent until proven guilty only applies in court. As individuals not acting as representatives of the state we have every right to look at the evidence so far and conclude that the is pretty clearly guilty and treat him as such.

Do you understand why innocent before proven guilty applies? Because precisely your sort of attitude leads easily to permanent damage to lives of people accused _even when they are innocent_.

Treating accused as guilty before proven like you results in lives ruined. Not even in theory but in practice. Are you willing to pay up for those you accuse falsely?

This was an open secret in Hollywierd...

I take it you haven't herd the infamous hotel room tapes, yet....

Grab the popcorn and watch the flakes turn on each other as they pick the bones clean after he is put away...

There will probably be three or four more guest stars to the show eating it by the end of the situation. I'm sure we will also see a dress, or movie, or hidden camera action as well, mysteriously volunteered by some honest upstanding paparazzi.

BOW CHICKA BOW WOW!!!

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
A rumour won't stand up in a court of law.

In celebrity cases like this, the court of public opinion might be the only real option a lot of the victims have. And it may be the only power they hold over the perpetrator.

People in power know that the victim won't speak out because they can ruin their career. The victim has to decide "is this worth it, who will believe me, will anything happen to him or will it all happen to me". There doesn't even have to be a legal threat of libel or anything like that for the victim. They know the "cost" of coming forward comes from simply being outcast from the industry.

So will the court of public opinion do the same to perpetrators? Will they have to decide "there will be no legal ramifications here, but who will believe her, who will believe me, is this worth it" and even if nothing ever happens to them in a court of law, could the threat of simply being outcast from the industry cause enough of a deterrent?

This, of course, depends on a culture change that includes all of us. Studios, actors, producers, advertisers, all need to be willing to stand up and say "feth the awards, I don't care how it will help my career, I won't work with this person anymore". People need to be willing to no longer go to any movies involving them.

Seems NBC had no taste for breaking this story; https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nbc-harvey-weinstein_us_59de5688e4b0eb18af059685

Within a couple of days we've got from insinuations against the media that they were part of the cover up because they hadn't reported on Weinstein in the past, and now people are attacking the media for trying and convicting the guy before he's had his day in court. This is fething ridiculous.

Why are people shopping around to blame the victims, or the media, or the Democrats, and even Obama? What in the feth is going on? Where did this fething nonsense start, and where will it end? Harvey Weinstein is a sexual predator, and he should be condemned, and anyone who acted to cover up his crime should be just as roundly condemned. That's the list of actual, real villains in this. But a person is not a villain if they learn something horrible happened to a victim, see that victim is remaining silent, and don't go make the decision to make that victim's suffering public. A person is not a villain if they received a story on this, but decided a single anonymous source wasn't sufficient to accuse someone of a crime in a newspaper article. A person is not a villain if they took money from a donor who turned out to be a villain. And no, the media are not now villains because they are reporting on this now with an assumption that the dozens of women who've come forward probably aren't all lying.

Rosebuddy wrote:
That Hollywood is run by rapist men is obvious.

Jesus Christ calm down. There's an issue in Hollywood but your post asserts all men in power in the studios are rapists and that's more than irresponsible, it's actually pretty ridiculous.


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 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
I couldn't give two hoots for Weinstein, but what annoys the hell out of me is the trial by media.

We have such a thing as innocent until proven guilty, in the Western world. Give the man a chance to defend himself in a court of law before we start passing judgement.

This is a nonsense standard that people like to claim, but no-one actually lives by. Afterall, in 1995 OJ Simpson had been accused of murder and found not guilty. By your standard you would have been fine introducing him to your daughter, and happy when it started to lead to a relationship between the two.

It is essential that the courts maintain innocent until proven guilty. That is a key element of the rule of law. But it's an absolute nonsense to demand every individual acts completely neutral until the court case is heard. Human beings don't function like that and should not function like that.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Seems NBC had no taste for breaking this story; https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nbc-harvey-weinstein_us_59de5688e4b0eb18af059685

You know I've never really liked NBC (in so far as I can "like" any TV news). I don't really know why I don't like them and never have, but I don't and never have and now I feel justified in that sentiment

This is TMZ... so not sure if accurate... if it is... hooboy.

...
The contract says as long as Weinstein pays, it constitutes a "cure" for the misconduct and no further action can be taken. Translation -- Weinstein could be sued over and over and as long as he wrote a check, he keeps his job.
....

Sure...we'll keep ya, as long as you paid us back for settling harrasment cases.

Seriously??

OgreChubbs wrote:
I never heard anyone say he threatened them just bribe them....

The one girl I seen said she did things for a job and money..... Doesn't that just mean she is just a prostitute.

No, feth that. Bad take. Really horrible, awful take. He didn't just bribe them. He didn't just walk up to random girls and say he'd put them in a movie if they screwed him. If he did that it would be close to the prostitution claim you made. But it isn't what Weinstein did. What he did was give the pretense of a normal employment relationship, used that to lure the girls in to places where they were very vulnerable, and then used his position of power to assert pressure on them to submit to various sex acts. If they went to speak out afterwards they were threatened with being shut out of Hollywood, denied an ability to earn a living in their profession of choice. This was likely not just a threat, but something Weinstein did to several girls.


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 Howard A Treesong wrote:
It's everyone's duty to report a criminal offence, especially when the victim is too scared to speak out. Otherwise you contribute to the silence and climate of fear.

If a victim is working through the issue in their way, and you take it on yourself to ignore their wishes and do what you think is best for them, you're an donkey-cave. This doesn't mean you accept a culture of silence, but there's way to fight that without removing women's right to make her own choices.

OgreChubbs wrote:
I never heard anyone say he threatened them just bribe them....

The one girl I seen said she did things for a job and money..... Doesn't that just mean she is just a prostitute.

Your opinions are consistently garbage and you should be ashamed for expressing them in a public forum.

 sebster wrote:

OgreChubbs wrote:
I never heard anyone say he threatened them just bribe them....

The one girl I seen said she did things for a job and money..... Doesn't that just mean she is just a prostitute.

No, feth that. Bad take. Really horrible, awful take. He didn't just bribe them. He didn't just walk up to random girls and say he'd put them in a movie if they screwed him. If he did that it would be close to the prostitution claim you made. But it isn't what Weinstein did. What he did was give the pretense of a normal employment relationship, used that to lure the girls in to places where they were very vulnerable, and then used his position of power to assert pressure on them to submit to various sex acts. If they went to speak out afterwards they were threatened with being shut out of Hollywood, denied an ability to earn a living in their profession of choice. This was likely not just a threat, but something Weinstein did to several girls.


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 Howard A Treesong wrote:
It's everyone's duty to report a criminal offence, especially when the victim is too scared to speak out. Otherwise you contribute to the silence and climate of fear.

If a victim is working through the issue in their way, and you take it on yourself to ignore their wishes and do what you think is best for them, you're an donkey-cave. This doesn't mean you accept a culture of silence, but there's way to fight that without removing women's right to make her own choices.

A bystanders role isn't to protect the victim, it's to protect the community.

Had a bystander spoken up about it, it could have prevented more victims.

A predator never stops at just one.

 djones520 wrote:
A predator never stops at just one.

If only! I mean, the second one wasn't terrible, but once they started the crossovers with Aliens.... eeeek.

 Ouze wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
A predator never stops at just one.

If only! I mean, the second one wasn't terrible, but once they started the crossovers with Aliens.... eeeek.

This is a serious thread. How dare you make me chuckle!

 djones520 wrote:
A bystanders role isn't to protect the victim, it's to protect the community.

Had a bystander spoken up about it, it could have prevented more victims.

A predator never stops at just one.

I agree that it is good to break cultures of silence and stop similar things happening to other people, but the fact remains you have no right to choose to make the crime public when the victim is not choosing to do that right now. "Hey everyone, Judy is keeping it quiet but she got raped" is an obvious dick move.