A reader revives the thread with an upsetting story:
My daughter was falsely accuse of raping her girlfriend in October of this year. I know she was falsely accused because the girl who accused her said things happened in my home while I was supervising the girls. The girl who accused my daughter has an active fantasy life and had published a story online about being raped in exactly the way she claimed my daughter had raped her almost a year before they met. When the police asked me about what happened, I explained that it could not possibly have happened because my wife and I were supervising the girls the entire time my daughter’s friend visited.
Our exculpatory testimony was ignored. My daughter’s denials were ignored.
She was pulled out of school without the opportunity to talk to her parents and processed at the district court. She was not placed at an alternative school until almost two months had passed. She was placed on electronic monitoring prior to trial. During that monitoring period (October 24 – January 22), she was not permitted to leave the house, even to exercise.
I was ordered to pay for a court-appointed attorney or find one for my daughter. We ended up paying almost $10,000 in attorney fees to defend my daughter. We intended to contest the matter in court but eventually had to take a plea deal because we ran out of money. My daughter’s guilt or innocence wasn’t really important because our justice system decides guilt or innocence based on your ability to pay.
I don’t doubt that rape happens far more often than false rape accusations. To believe that rape is so uniquely damaging that it is always worse than a false rape accusation is to place an inordinate amount of faith in our legal system. Considering how many innocent men have been sent to death row enjoying far greater legal protections than common defendants, it’s hard to understand how anyone could have that much faith in our legal system. Justice may be blind, but she is somehow able to tell how much you’ve got in your pockets.
The Dish 