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
    11·
    10 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·
      10 months ago

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

      • TWeaK@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        10 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.