A That Lawyer Dude Quick hit.
ABA Journal News Now Blog has a story about a woman who entered a radio station contest to win a date with a guy who is a "great guy but too busy to find love". Yeah great guy my foot. He was twice convicted of Breaking an Order of Protection and he sexually abused the woman in the case at bar. He pled guilty to Sexual assault 1*. A gem of a guy.
Of course one has to ask themselves, how stupid can you be to agree to meet a total stranger in their home for pizza when he is supposed to be taking you on a paid date??? In fact who the heck answers these contests anyway?? Instead of winning "The Bachelor" sounds like she is going to be crowned "World's Biggest Loser".
1 comment:
Good morning Mr. Colleluori,
I understand that Jane Doe might have unfairly sued WXLC. Let's assume for the sake of argument that the station wasn't responsible for checking the man's record, or they couldn't have found out about his criminal record. Maybe she even signed a disclaimer to the effect that WXLC was not responsible.
And she did indeed make a mistake in going to his home for a first date. It's always better to meet in a public place, at least the first time around.
But that doesn't make her stupid. (Nice touch with the blog post label, btw.) And also calling her "The World's Biggest Loser" could easily be construed as your thinking she somehow deserved to be raped. That's absolutely bogus.
Yes, you condemn the guy's behavior. But your post focuses on the woman's, since she filed the suit.
She did nothing wrong. She could have done things to reduce the chance of her getting raped (rapists can and do spike drugs in public places, too, after all). But the man bears all the blame. None of this was her fault.
And what's wrong with answering these contests, anyway? They may be unorthodox, but they do work sometimes.
Worse still, what might a woman think as she's reading your post? "If I make just the slightest mistake and get raped, people are going to scorn me." How do you think that's going to influence her decision to report a rape or sexual assault, and go through with the prosecution? As you know, rape is seriously underreported already.
Last but not least, what about a man who might rape a woman? If he reads this post, he may think "Yep, just what I thought: a woman who answers a dating contest, falls for a line about being 'tired' and goes to my place on a first date is stupid and deserves what she gets. And she'll likely be too scared to report it, since people will mainly blame her. Raping a woman doesn't seem too bad, if you set it up right."
What do you think?
Jeff Deutsch
PS: CrimLaw pointed me to your blog, albeit not to this post.
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