hypothetical court question

sifreak21

Valued Senior Member
if rape charges are brought up on Person X. and person Z is the one charging..

if person Zs alligations are a lie and everyone that knows both people knows its a lie. when cort is over and person X wins.. what can they do to get back at person Z for destroying there life?

purgery?
defamation of character?
 
if rape charges are brought up on Person X. and person Z is the one charging..

if person Zs alligations are a lie and everyone that knows both people knows its a lie. when cort is over and person X wins.. what can they do to get back at person Z for destroying there life?

purgery?
defamation of character?

They should hire an attorney and sue the other person in a civil court. An attorney would know what exactly to sue for because, in this case, there's allot going on .
 
Wasn't that the basic premise of Wild Things?
Sam Lombardo (Dillon) is a happy, sexually promiscuous high school guidance counselor in Blue Bay, Florida. That is, until the wealthy and popular Kelly Van Ryan (Richards) accuses him of raping her one day after she had washed his truck.
Lombardo is put on trial, where Bowden badgers Suzie, who admits that she and Kelly had made the whole thing up to get revenge on Lombardo. The Van Ryans are humiliated by the scandal, and Lombardo and Bowden negotiate a hefty settlement: 8.5 million dollars.
 
As I said there's many things to consider and exactly what the best one is would be up to a attorney to give you what they think would be the way to go. I really do not think, without more information, that anyone can tell you exactly what they should sue for unless they have allot more information than you give.
 
if rape charges are brought up on Person X. and person Z is the one charging..

if person Zs alligations are a lie and everyone that knows both people knows its a lie. when cort is over and person X wins.. what can they do to get back at person Z for destroying there life?

purgery?
defamation of character?

The problem is being found "not guilty" isn't the same as proving she lied.

Your claim that "everyone knows its a lie" is also a somewhat unlikely scenario because if that were the case it's unlikely the DA would have brought charges to begin with and thus the woman has on her side that she provided enough supporting evidence that the State was willing to try you.

Arthur
 
The problem is being found "not guilty" isn't the same as proving she lied.

Your claim that "everyone knows its a lie" is also a somewhat unlikely scenario because if that were the case it's unlikely the DA would have brought charges to begin with and thus the woman has on her side that she provided enough supporting evidence that the State was willing to try you.

Arthur
If your the da and domes comes to u saying there daughter was rapped what would u do?

Ohh and to add there are 10 ppl on prosacutors side 9 are all based oh heresay
 
if rape charges are brought up on Person X. and person Z is the one charging..

Here in the United States, in a criminal proceeding, Z would be the alleged victim and probably a complaining witness. But the party filing charges against X and bringing the case to court would be the state, in most cases through the agency of a local district attorney's office. The criminal complaint would read, 'The people of the state of California, vs. X'

if person Zs alligations are a lie and everyone that knows both people knows its a lie.

The prosecutors would be unlikely to bring a case to trial if the evidence didn't make a conviction highly probable. They have tremendous caseloads and court proceedings cost the taxpayers a lot of money. So if a case was highly doubtful from the very first, prosecutors would probably just dismiss it "FOJ", in the "furtherance of justice". That happens with a significant percentage of the cases that prosecutors receive. That's one reason why prosecutors typically win an extremely high percentage of cases that they do actually bring to trial. Defence attorneys usually have most success plea-bargaining, since they don't typically win at trial, and they know it. But prosecutors will often accept a guilty plea to a lesser charge in order to avoid the time and expense.

when cort is over and person X wins.. what can they do to get back at person Z for destroying there life?

Criminal suspects can't sue crime victims for reporting crimes.

If the complaining witness testified under oath, whether in court or in pre-trial declarations, and if it subsequently becomes obvious that the testimony was a knowing lie, then the CW might conceivably be charged with the crime of perjury. That doesn't usually happen though.
 
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Here in the United States, in a criminal proceeding, Z would be the alleged victim and probably a complaining witness. But the party filing charges against X and bringing the case to court would be the state, in most cases through the agency of a local district attorney's office. The criminal complaint would read, 'The people of the state of California, vs. X'



The prosecutors would be unlikely to bring a case to trial if the evidence didn't make a conviction highly probable. They have tremendous caseloads and court proceedings cost the taxpayers a lot of money. So if a case was highly doubtful from the very first, prosecutors would probably just dismiss it "FOJ", in the "furtherance of justice". That happens with a significant percentage of the cases that prosecutors receive. That's one reason why prosecutors typically win an extremely high percentage of cases that they do actually bring to trial. Defence attorneys usually have most success plea-bargaining, since they don't typically win at trial, and they know it. But prosecutors will often accept a guilty plea to a lesser charge in order to avoid the time and expense.



Criminal suspects can't sue crime victims for reporting crimes.

If the complaining witness testified under oath, whether in court or in pre-trial declarations, and if it subsequently becomes obvious that the testimony was a knowing lie, then the CW might conceivably be charged with the crime of perjury. That doesn't usually happen though.

ty.. and yes in this case the case was a lie and of the 10 prosecution witnesses 9 are heresay. and they all contridicted one another and werent even close to there origonal testamonies at the evidence trial
 
Criminal suspects can't sue crime victims for reporting crimes. If the complaining witness testified under oath, whether in court or in pre-trial declarations, and if it subsequently becomes obvious that the testimony was a knowing lie, then the CW might conceivably be charged with the crime of perjury. That doesn't usually happen though.
It would be much more reasonable to file a civil suit for slander, defamation of character, that sort of thing. Anyone can file a civil suit and the court would have to present good reason for refusing to take it to trial.

In contrast, perjury is a crime that must be tried in a criminal court, not a civil court. The decision to prosecute that crime is made by the district attorney, who has enormous discretion in deciding which cases to pursue. If he decides not to take this one you have no practical way to get around him unless Bill Gates will loan you his lawyers.

Furthermore, in a criminal trial the jury must rule unanimously in your favor before the defendant would be convicted. In a civil trial only a majority of the jurors need to be convinced that you're right. If it's merely 7-5, you win!

But bear in mind that the outcome of a civil suit is measured strictly in dollars. If you win, the jury will award you a settlement which they think is fair compensation for the harm you suffer. They cannot and will not put the defendant in jail or add her name to some sort of "public menace" watch list.

Which brings me to my final point. The best way to win a civil suit is to prove that the defendant's wrongful actions had a negative economic impact on your life. Your boss fired you, with no income you couldn't pay your mortgage so your house was foreclosed, that sort of thing.

All the records from the criminal trial will be available as evidence so you'd better make sure there's nothing in there that casts your own character and reputation in a bad light, and makes the defendant look like a poor sad lady who went through a terrible ordeal and simply made an honest mistake.

Juries can and do award "punitive damages" for suffering and inconvenience, but you need a really good attorney to win that case. You have to prove that the defendant caused you some sort of harm that isn't obvious from a quick review of your bank statements. The defendant will have her own lawyer who will have you examined by psychiatrists and social workers to determine just how badly you've been harmed. They'll put your wife and children on the witness stand. They'll have some sneaky photographer produce photos of you on a happy family picnic, playing Frisbee with your dog. Or worse yet they'll get people who don't like you to testify that you've always been a depressed loser whom no one wanted to associate with, so nothing was changed by the defendant's actions.

Your lawyer will do the same to the defendant. These cases get really ugly.

And very expensive. Unless the outcome is obvious, your attorney probably won't want to take your case on a contingency basis, merely taking a huge portion of the settlement money. He'll probably want to collect at least part of his fee and expenses up front.

-----------------

There's a case in the Washington Post of a man who has spent 25 years (IIRC) in prison for rape--his entire adult life since he was busted as a teenager. Courts are slowly going through this huge backlog of convictions, using modern DNA analysis to reexamine the evidence. In his case it was found that he was wrongly identified, and he was released. (This gets way more complicated; he was convicted of another rape for which there was no DNA evidence, and the governor had to decide that he should be exonerated of that one too. And the man who was guilty is already serving life in prison and refused to testify.)

What a horrible thing to happen, right? Wait a minute, think about the rape victim, who in this case did not lie. She really thought he was the attacker, since he looks somewhat similar to the real guy.

She feels so guilty for what she did to this poor fellow, she can hardly live with herself. Talk about going through hell twice over the same thing.
 
rape among adults/strangers is much easier to handle but when it's among family members or close associations it is more difficult.

this is because of the usual power disparity. there were so many cases of children or young people who were intimidated, guilt-trips or even brainwashed into not standing up for their rights until they got older.

unfortunately, that is how perpetrators take advantage of younger people and those they can control. they intimidate them which is easy to do since they are younger so that by the time they have the courage, the physical evidence is gone. perpetrators know this and are counting on it. victims are usually bombarded by massive pressure by those around them to not break up the family, not embarass them, keep up the status quo, personal shame etc.

so unfortunately, there will be innocent people who will lose in these cases among the ones who are accused falsely as well as those who get away with their crimes because physical evidence is lost.

people who knowingly falsely accuse another of a heinous crime like rape are making things difficult for real victims. but it does make more clear that hard evidence is required or should be required to convict.

as far as ruining reputation, as others said you can sue but also it's against the law to fire someone based on hearsay. if they really believe it's a lie and they are innocent, then they should appeal until they are cleared. they should not be convicted on hearsay even if they may or may not be guilty.

or you can move to a new area and start over.
 
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