Regarding reasonable doubt:
She says __________ happened and he did it. He says I didn't do it. Nobody else provides any testimony that they saw him do it. There is no video/DNA evidence that he did it.
That's plenty of reasonable doubt in my book.
TSJ Thread
She says __________ happened and he did it. He says I didn't do it. Nobody else provides any testimony that they saw him do it. There is no video/DNA evidence that he did it.
That's plenty of reasonable doubt in my book.
Not trying to nitpick your words Gritty but I have a metric ton of doubt about this whole thing, including whether anything happened at all and whether this is just a money grab. I'm not saying it is, but that I cannot come close to your line above.
And then 'blacked out' after? I may get roasted but that sounds mighty convenient. Elephants in the room indeed.
Mine too. Given a reasonable jury, for sure. But......
OrangeBlue98
- Des Moines, IA
If a competent jury is seated, this case will be over quickly.
If it's a jury looking for something, that could be a different story.
That ends the NBA Draft possibility. Now will have to get it dismissed and likely go the 2-way contract route. Even if all resolved favorably, the path to NBA is now noticeably more difficult.
No, it was not new information. See my reply to Fighter:
(From page 5 of report 3 here: https://www.illinoisloyalty.com/attachments/full-tsj-notice-of-removal-pdf.30389/ )
C'mon...calculated risk...cost benefit analysis. Potraying me (or his representation) as careless gamblers would be both inaccurate and unfair. Are you telling me you would have done differently in that situation given what we know (outside looking in)? I'm not an attorney, but do i need to be? Is there a cost outside of attorney's fees for 1 day in court (e.g., admissible evidence that wouldn't have come out during trial and may damage my client) that I'm not considering? If that's the case, I'll plead ignorance and own it...but if I have an opportunity to lift the emotional burden sooner rather than later and and remove the prospect of a much more expensive trial process, isn't that the right move?
Different states have different guidelines on what is non-consent. It doesn't have to be verbal and in some states like California from my understanding, there doesn't have to be any communication whatsoever to stop. The general rule of thumb nowadays is that if one of the people believe they were raped, that is the standard for going forward. And so to answer your question, yes, any willing participant can become an unwilling participant at any time and the other participant must abide immediately with the desires of said other participant. And if they don't immediately stop, even if they didn't know the other person is no longer consenting, then yes, they could be charged after the fact.Please delete if necessary, but I have avoided asking this "Elephant in the Room" question for a while now. However, with a new son who recently turned 4 months old ... I frankly want to prepare him for the world he will grow up in. And, of COURSE, IANAL!With that said, here is my question that I truly am trying to ask in the most respectful and nuanced way possible...
Am I to understand that in the eyes of this Kansas law, a man could have "unspoken consent" to be touching a woman sexually up until a point where she can determine that a successive "next sexual act" was not consensual and have grounds to allege sexual assault? Again, not talking "morally" here ... just legally. I believe in the documents for this case, the alleged victim claimed she had "given" consent for the alleged perpetrator to be touching her buttocks and then the alleged perpetrator apparently interpreted their sexual-in-nature interaction up to that point to be of a nature that he could touch her frontal private parts. And because she was only okay with the former and not the latter, this constituted sexual assault.
I mean, can we be real for a second here? If beginning to put your hands down the front of a woman's pants without formal verbal consent is potentially sexual assault, the vast majority of sexual interaction between men and women the age of TSJ could be considered potential "rape" if the woman retracts consent after the man takes it to that next step. Is a male in that situation just simply and unequivocally risking a VERY dicey situation if he does not obtain verbal consent first? And what if the woman gives verbal consent but later decides she was not okay with it? Is that a "He Said, She Said" case even though his DNA WILL be found? Did he need it in writing??
I know the situation described would be INCREDIBLY rare, and in most cases it is clear if two people are engaging in consensual sexual acts. Maybe the risk is just with a stranger? Because I can guarantee you that most guys I know do not stop and ask, haha. And I have never considered "going with the flow" of the sexual interaction to really be "RAPE." I have avoided asking this to not appear totally delusional or disrespectful toward the sensitivity of the case, but man ... I guess I really don't understand where the legal line here is drawn. Any thoughtful and respectful responses are REALLY appreciated, so thank you!
EDIT: I also want to be VERY CLEAR that I get that the basic objective of these laws is to stop an unambiguously bad thing - for someone to perform a sexual act toward a woman that she did not want. And there should absolutely be rigid laws to stop that. I merely want to understand what the legal expectation of men would be to prevent this type of legal trouble in the rare circumstance where there is a disconnect between parties.
So while this sounds Pollyanna, there is significant risk to having any sort of sexual contact with someone who you aren't in a long-term extremely trusting relationship with where you effectively communicate and set ground rules.
Personally, I think there needs to be an app that allows for secure recording of both parties consent along with the recording of the encounter to a sealed data repository that can only get unlocked after an assault claim. Without it, things are murky.
I'd also like to ask, and maybe this is the part I'm missing... if case dismissal is my interception... what's your touchdown? Trial? Isn't that the next step anyway?
Yeah, that's the problem. From my own personal experience serving as a juror, both times there was at least one juror who was unapologetically racist. A black man just doesn't always get a fair shake in a Kansas courtroom. Personally, unless there is key evidence that is being withheld, I think this is an outrage that they're going to let this go to trial.
It's a pretty well known possible response to not only sexual assaults, but to any traumatic experience.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
But why a money grab on this guy she didn't even know who she was?
Whether she's embellishing the story out of a desire for revenge or attention or whatever is certainly part of the doubt here. Whether she actually ID'ed the right guy also is.
But something happened in that bar.
What I believe, honestly? TSJ was drunk and dancing with multiple girls in a hot, sweaty, cheek-to-jowl college dance area. This was like a Joe's, Station, old Clybourne situation (revealing my age). People who have been there know what it is to be around the basketball team in those scenarios, it's a very specific milieu. This girl caught TSJ's eye, worked up the courage to go over there, and got sort of haphazardly groped and barely even caught his interest, that being what those kinds of interactions in those sorts of spaces are like. She's very young and inexperienced in this world and she (understandably and justifiably!) found the taking liberties-to-sincere engagement ratio of the incident shocking and hurtful.
I believe both of them. She felt physically mistreated by TSJ and yet the incident was not even notable enough for TSJ to remember her with any specificity. You have to understand the world in which this occurred to understand how possible, even likely, that is.
The court of public opinion "is TSJ a good guy", "has Gary Parrish been the real villain here all along", "are Illinois posters heroes of truth and justice" turns entirely on whether TSJ touched this girl inappropriately. It has always seemed likelier than not that he did, but beyond a reasonable doubt is a much higher standard than that, not sure I can get there, especially with the DNA negative.
But for the actual conviction on these charges, you need TSJ to have compelled the victim into his non-consensual sexual gratification through force or fear. Her story accepted as the 100% truth just doesn't get there imho, and if you discount the critical physical descriptions in her story as embellished by like 5% (which seems increasingly reasonable at a minimum) it REALLY doesn't get there.
That reality doesn't make a hero of TSJ nor a monster of the DA, it sends no one home happy, but with the information we now have that's the likeliest version of it in my view. I will be surprised and deeply disappointed if TSJ winds up a convicted felon and registered sex offender and an ex-basketball player, that would not be justice on these facts and I find it highly unlikely that a jury will think differently.
It cuts both ways. I was the juror that hung a jury instead of letting someone off a DUI charge simply because the rest of them were tired of dilberating and wanted to go home. One of the other jurors actually said as we walked in to the jury room that he was voting "Not Guilty" even before we sat down. He was a Twenty Something and he hoped he would be treated the same way if he was ever charged.
It is not easy to get 12 people to see the evidence the same way.
It is not easy to get 12 people to see the evidence the same way.
No physical evidence. A room full of witnesses, but nobody saw what is alleged. Nobody saw her push away, smack him, yell out . . . nothing. The Accuser's explanation is that she "blacked out;" but she admits she was underaged and drinking, facts that the jury will learn. The defendant doesn't recognize the accuser, and I presume at trial he will call the people he was with, and THEY won't recognize her, either.
IAAL, and cannot fathom how with these facts the DA thinks she will prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to 12 jurors. I guess we'll see next month.
IAAL, and cannot fathom how with these facts the DA thinks she will prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to 12 jurors. I guess we'll see next month.
I should know better than to keep replying as I am just providing more rope to those who may brand me a TSJ fanboy at best or a rape apologist at worst (and I am NOT saying that about either Gritty or GMan, who both responded civilly).
But I find your first and third comments above contradictory. She didn't know, but people there should know. It is not some crazy thought to put more credence on your third comment and imagine someone deciding to target a player for a money grab, whether or not they previously knew the person already (your first comment).
And I cannot concede any of your second comment. It could be 100% true that nothing happened (pretty much TSJ's position on the matter) - you (or I) do not know yes or no on that. It could also be 100% true that things played out exactly as the woman said.
But if we do not have reasonable doubt that even something happened in a he-said she-said situation, then just skip the trial and send him off to prison now. I will, however, concede that my feelings are biased, not just because of the Illini connection, but because I find the consequences from an aggravated sexual assault or rape charge a ridiculously harsh potential outcome to a bar grope.
If you understood how truly low an evidentiary threshold probable cause is you wouldn't be outraged. You have to understand that a judge will not consider legal defenses, nor will they weigh the credibility of witnesses if there are conflicts in the testimony. There are varying evidentiary levels of proof. The lowest, used to justify stop and frisk, is a reasonable articulable suspicion. Next comes probable cause, used at prelims and also for issuance of search warrants. Next comes a preponderance of the evidence, used in civil cases, meaning more probably true than not true. Clear and convincing evidence is the next level, and at the top of the pyramid sits the criminal burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. There are essentially only 2 ways to prevail at prelim: demonstrate that the facts, accepted as true, don't meet the legal definition of the offense charged; or demonstrate that the evidence, again taken as true, is absent on one or more necessary elements of the offense.
Loyalty? Good Lord……
Or perhaps there are many, like me, who hope that this is a baseless accusation, or one of mistaken identify that warrants a dropping of charges or a not guilty verdict. All the while interested in following the case without commentary because we don’t pretend to actually know what occurred and it’s too important and life altering to all involved to proclaim injustice based on watching basketball games of the team and players we choose to be a fan of.
I would guess there are many like me that hopes TJ is innocent of what has been charged, but until the alleged victim and TJ have their day in court and due process, I and perhaps many others choose to follow the case and hope justice is actually served.
Loyalty has nothing to do with this.
I'm not surprised at all that he is going to trial. Unfortunately these days, all that is needed is an accusation. There does not need to be any other evidence. Contrary to popular belief, a guy accused of rape in today's environment is guilty until proven innocent. His life is in the hands of the jury. Very sad situation! Be careful out there guys, it can happen to you.
He didn't do it. The girl wanted attention cause she has no life. It shouldn't even go to court.
Chuck Nuggets
Dip your nuggets in my staff source sauce.
This farce has gone on long enough. It is not possible to achieve justice in a case like this. If you happen to arrive at a correct conclusion, it will have been dumb luck. And no one outside of those directly involved will have known if the correct outcome was achieved. That's not what a justice system is for. Beyond a shadow of a doubt. How about an entire forest's worth of shade?
Agreed. I haven’t commented much, if any, on this thread because I have nothing of substance to add.
And that's a big if. The fact that a jury must find "beyond a reasonable doubt" sounds comforting, but I recently watched the O.J. 30 for 30 on Netflix and I'm now scared Sh%!less for TSJ.
Edit: and watching that documentary basically makes me an expert now
The kangaroo court continues.