Hello Blog, here is my reaction to the trials we just did.
Case 1:
Elyse Roberts vs. the District of Columbia is a civil case about sexual harrasment charges in work place. It was about an alleged case of sexual harrasment where office mates, one male and one female did not get along. The trial took us four days and the outcome was that the District of Columbia was guilty of the sexual harrasment charges in a 10-1 vote. I did not agree with the result of this trial for a few reasons. Yes, it was made clear that Elyse Roberts was a poor lawyer and that she deserved to be transferred. The fact that she was transferred was a remedy to the situation, indirectly. The reason I disagree with the jurors decision was because they based all of their judgments off of the expert witness, and Phd with a background in sexual harrasment in the workplace. The problem with this is that he only talked to just the plaintiff. He never got to hear from key witnesses like Fran Troy or Sandy Yu. Never even got to hear from the accused, Kevin Murphy. I think the fact that our class is a sympathetic one is the reason for this outcome. Our jury was one that sympathized with the victim and I knew this going into the trial because in our last set of cases that had to do with the death penalty it was very rare that our class chose to give someone the death penalty. I think the facts that set everyone over the edge were that he hung up pictures from a swimsuit magazine and wrote Elyse's name on it. Also, that Fran Troy and Sandy Yu did not attempt to do anything besides handle it informally by talking to Kevin. One other thing that made Kevin Murphy look bad was that he was always making jokes with some sort of sexual reference to them, whether it be about her and him, or a joke about gays, but I still didn't think this was enough to make him a sexual harraser. He was just joking around and nobody else was offended. I would have needed a little more to change my opinion. I would have needed to know that his words started turning into actions, or that she was fired because of this.
Case 2:
In the case of U.S vs David Jones, the victim, Susan Williams claimed rape against her then boyfriend, David Jones. This was very one-sided case and it seemed the entire time the jury had one thought on their minds... innocent. That happened to be the outcome, and it was unanimous. There were just a lot of facts that did not add up, or the prosecution did not get them out because it did not make sense why this guy would rape her. He had no motive. Yes, it was true that Susan Williams was withholding sex from him because she didn't want to get hurt, but they had had sex three weeks prior to this event and it seemed like a reasonable idea that he might have been able to again. Things like her saying no, but continuing to kiss, threw this case for the prosecution. The fact that she didn't leave until like 10 or 15 minutes later. Another thing that was made aware was that Susan Williams didn't even consider this rape until the school counselor put this idea into her head. That was enough for me to say it wasn't rape. To change my view I would have needed some sort of circumstantial evidence that would have made it clear that she was raped. It is not enough to just have her testimony and an expert witness who only met with her. The character witnesses for David Jones proved that he is no rapist.
I think sexual harrasment is something that is pretty much ignored. It is something that people just turn away from and pretend not to know that it is going on. I think what people need to know about sexual harassment is that it is very serious and that it follows you around once you are charged with it. I really don't think DHS has a problem with sexual harrassment just because of the environment that we live in and how we were brought up. Rape is also a very serious offense, and if you are charged with it, then you will most likely get jail time. I think the thing that the second trial did the best was show that you need to just take things one step at a time and if you are getting mixed signals stop and talk. The whole thing about the Susan kissing him but also saying no was misleading to David because he thought she was being playful like she had been in the past. I will leave you with what Kramer told us on the way out of class that day, probably some of the best advice you will ever need, he said to us "if there is anything I want you to come away from this trial is that... No means no, just ask if you can have sex." Then on the way out class he reiterated it to me and a few buddies by just simply putting "remember, no means no, just ask". This is great advice because if you ever get into a situation like that with a girlfriend, you should hold up for a second and ask because if you end up going to far she might want to charge you for rape. Rape is not a big issue at DHS, just like sexual harrasment, because it just doesn't happen here because of how we are brought up. It is not something that we are really worried about.
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