Assange - reply to Valhalla (first draft)
Feb. 8th, 2011 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bemused_leftistHopefully it's late enough at night that I'll get this post in decent shape before third parties see it. ;-)
ETA: Valhalla, do you have an updated list of the actual charges the Swedish authorities gave out? I'm remembering one several weeks ago.
Valhalla, my cites are scattered through my earlier posts with titles beginning 'Assange', most of which are in this list:
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=site:bemused-leftist.livejournal.com+Assange
Before digging for them (or verifying quotes), I'd like to clarify some things I didn't want to go into detail about at Crawdad.
Yes, there are actions that both US laws and Swedish laws consider criminal but do not call 'rape'. It may also be that US and Swedish laws draw the line of 'rape' vs 'molestation etc' at different places.
My main point is that iirc the Swedish police charges show a charge of rape ("less serious" grade) of Miss W, based on her sleeping state. But their charge concerning Miss A is not rape at all, but 'molestation.'
Thus the often quoted phrases from Miss A about 'holding her down' and 'held her arm when she tried to reach for a condom' etc, though they may suggest our sense of 'rape' when taken out of context and juxtaposed -- apparently did NOT add up to 'rape' by Swedish law standards. Ie whatever they add up to was something LESS important than initiating sex with the sleeping Miss W.
Iirc one molestation charge re Miss A was that he once, wearing a shirt but no pants, approached her and 'rubbed against' her. I don't think either country would call that 'rape.'
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Valhalla said at Crawdad Hole:
I think your information that the Miss A’s circumstances are something “that most US states would not call ‘rape’* at all” is probably about 30 years out of date. The Swedish statutes are pretty unremarkable in comparison with the U.S. counterparts.
CA, for instance, stats here.
Sec 261 (a) Rape is an act of sexual intercourse accomplished …under any of the following circumstances:
(4) Where a person is at the time unconscious of the nature of the act, and this is known to the accused. As used in this paragraph, “unconscious of the nature of the act” means incapable of resisting
because the victim meets one of the following conditions:
(A) Was unconscious or asleep.
…
(a) Except as provided in subdivision (c), rape, as defined in Section 261 or 262, is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for three, six, or eight years.
I picked CA law bc it tends to be one of the model code states (and I’m too lazy to do a survey of the other 49). But virtually all states’ sexual assault laws turn on consent, not whether the perpetrator beat the crap out of the victim.
* one thing that is quite unfortunate is that ‘rape’ is a term with both a very specific legal definition within most jurisdiction’s statutues but also a more generalized term used to apply to sexual assault. Many are using the two different types of meaning interchangeably, usually depending on whether it supports or detracts from their admiration or dislike of Assange. The idea that the Swedish statutes “”that most US states would not call ‘rape’* at all” is extremely misleading, because the states that would not consider Assange’s alleged actions ‘rape’ obscures the fact that nearly all those states would consider them criminal (and a felony crime at that) just under a different term (whether molestation, coercion, sexual assault of x degree, etc.).
ETA: Valhalla, do you have an updated list of the actual charges the Swedish authorities gave out? I'm remembering one several weeks ago.
Valhalla, my cites are scattered through my earlier posts with titles beginning 'Assange', most of which are in this list:
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=site:bemused-leftist.livejournal.com+Assange
Before digging for them (or verifying quotes), I'd like to clarify some things I didn't want to go into detail about at Crawdad.
Yes, there are actions that both US laws and Swedish laws consider criminal but do not call 'rape'. It may also be that US and Swedish laws draw the line of 'rape' vs 'molestation etc' at different places.
My main point is that iirc the Swedish police charges show a charge of rape ("less serious" grade) of Miss W, based on her sleeping state. But their charge concerning Miss A is not rape at all, but 'molestation.'
Thus the often quoted phrases from Miss A about 'holding her down' and 'held her arm when she tried to reach for a condom' etc, though they may suggest our sense of 'rape' when taken out of context and juxtaposed -- apparently did NOT add up to 'rape' by Swedish law standards. Ie whatever they add up to was something LESS important than initiating sex with the sleeping Miss W.
Iirc one molestation charge re Miss A was that he once, wearing a shirt but no pants, approached her and 'rubbed against' her. I don't think either country would call that 'rape.'
------------
Valhalla said at Crawdad Hole:
I think your information that the Miss A’s circumstances are something “that most US states would not call ‘rape’* at all” is probably about 30 years out of date. The Swedish statutes are pretty unremarkable in comparison with the U.S. counterparts.
CA, for instance, stats here.
Sec 261 (a) Rape is an act of sexual intercourse accomplished …under any of the following circumstances:
(4) Where a person is at the time unconscious of the nature of the act, and this is known to the accused. As used in this paragraph, “unconscious of the nature of the act” means incapable of resisting
because the victim meets one of the following conditions:
(A) Was unconscious or asleep.
…
(a) Except as provided in subdivision (c), rape, as defined in Section 261 or 262, is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for three, six, or eight years.
I picked CA law bc it tends to be one of the model code states (and I’m too lazy to do a survey of the other 49). But virtually all states’ sexual assault laws turn on consent, not whether the perpetrator beat the crap out of the victim.
* one thing that is quite unfortunate is that ‘rape’ is a term with both a very specific legal definition within most jurisdiction’s statutues but also a more generalized term used to apply to sexual assault. Many are using the two different types of meaning interchangeably, usually depending on whether it supports or detracts from their admiration or dislike of Assange. The idea that the Swedish statutes “”that most US states would not call ‘rape’* at all” is extremely misleading, because the states that would not consider Assange’s alleged actions ‘rape’ obscures the fact that nearly all those states would consider them criminal (and a felony crime at that) just under a different term (whether molestation, coercion, sexual assault of x degree, etc.).
