Why state-level legal minutiae impacts what words are used to describe the former president's criminal conduct.

District Judge Lewis Kaplan has said it multiple times: Donald Trump raped E. Jean Carroll in 1996. Kaplan wrote it in May 2023, when he presided over one of the trials against Trump. And he reminded jurors of the rape this week, during the latest proceedings in the multi-layered, winding rape and defamation cases brought against Trump by Carroll.

  • TWeaK@lemm.eeEnglish
    211·
    11 months ago

    “Colloquial rape”, unfortunately, doesn’t cut the mustard in a legal setting. This is, apparently, a particularly relevant subject when discussing rape law in NY.

    This also actually points to something I’ve used as a challenge for people who are hard lined right/vs/wrong:

    If someone robs a bank, but they aren’t caught, are they still a bank robber?

    • hitmyspot
      9·
      11 months ago

      No, of course not. Legally it’s sexual assault. It still meets that criteria from all I’ve seen. We still call female perpetrators rapists, even though without a penis they don’t meet the criteria.

      You’re missing the point. Hes done something the judge considers rape. He’s a rapist. It also didn’t happen in the UK, so even with a penis it wouldn’t meet the criteria.

      However, if it had happened in the UK, he’d still face the same legal repurcussions and everyone would call him a rapist. Legally, though, h d be guilty of sexual assault rather than rape.

      • TWeaK@lemm.eeEnglish
        11·
        11 months ago

        It also didn’t happen in the UK, so even with a penis it wouldn’t meet the criteria.

        No, it happened in NY, which happens to have a somewhat similar legal definition of rape requiring penetration with the penis - per the article.

        He was convicted in NY of sexual assault with his fingers, but the jury stopped short of a rape conviction involving his penis. If the same reasoning had been made in a UK court, then he would have had the same conviction.

        • hitmyspot
          1·
          11 months ago

          No, it was a civil case, not criminal. It was about defamation.

          • TWeaK@lemm.eeEnglish
            2·
            11 months ago

            Yes, a civil case in NY, in which a jury ruled that Trump had committed sexual assault.

            The fun part is that, while sexual assault is a crime and a court has ruled he did that, he’s still not actually convicted of the crime of sexual assault - we can say it’s more than 50% likely he did it, but we can’t quite say it’s more than 99%.

            It’s a bit like OJ Simpson, who got off on the criminal murder charge, but then lost the civil case for killing. Except in this case there was no criminal trial.