Reply to Elem teacher found not guilty on 18 counts

Forum Index » MD Public Schools other than MCPS

Reply to "Elem teacher found not guilty on 18 counts"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]I don’t know anything about this case but as a former prosecutor who attended national trainings on the prosecution of sexual assault crimes I have a few observations to share.

First, these cases have the lowest prosecution rate of any types of crimes, and of the very small percentage of cases that ever see the inside of a courtroom, they have the lowest conviction rate by far - far lower than all other types of crimes.

The system handles such cases poorly from the start in many cases, and sadly while they may not admit it, most jurors being inherent biases to the jury panel when it comes to sexual crimes, and having a much higher propensity to disbelieve victims including child victims.

I would not be in the least surprised to hear that the assaults were alleged to have occurred in front of a classroom full of students - for many such offenders the thrill of getting away with sexual assaults in front of an unwitting audience is part of the sick thrill of the crime. Noteworthy are the multiple cases I’ve seen and some which have been in the public eye of physicians who sexually molested child patients while their parents were in the exam room. Of course this can happen - a student behind the desk with a teacher can be groped in criminal ways without other students knowing what it is that is happening just a few feet away from them.

Yes sometimes the state overreaches and sometimes it goes on witch hunts - the daycare cases of the 80s are an excellent example of that phenomenon but they also led to all jurisdictions developing forensic interviewing of kids in order to avoid repeats of such practices. I don’t know what happened here, but I do know that the inconsistencies that are common in the testimonies of sexual assault victims especially of tender age are often misunderstood by jurors who lack life experience of the kind. It is critical in such cases to have an expert witness who can testify about how the trauma of sexual abuse, especially by a trusted mentor, can disrupt a victim’s perceptions and memory formation.

I hope the jury got it right here. I feel for the victims who were victimized either by the offender, by the system, or both. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics