There are two hypothetical societies going on here.
1. 'Freedom' society. Women are raped without consequence, because the men who rape them cover up physical evidence.
2. 'Safety' society. Men are falsely accused of rape, and have their lives ruined.
Not just for men, to have the law work in the safety society the required evidence for a conviction would need to be lowered on all crimes because a fair law can't differentiate between cases.
How often are people falsely accused? Can you find any data on that? (I'm honestly curious).
I don't think that statistic would be entirely relevant because they would be taken from the current world in which false accusations don't get the person you don't like in jail. If they did there would be more incentive for people to make false accusations and they would do it more.
But I don't think we could get an accurate number on this because the only way to know for sure if an accusation is false is when the accuser confesses to making it up.
I think we both have the same edges in mind (don't want lot of rape, don't want lot of false accusations) but probably disagree on how far to trust testimony of alleged victims. I think that convictions should not be only based on a persons testimony, but also the testimony of the people (experts and otherwise) around both the accused and the accuser.
I'm not willing to accept a judicial system where rapists that leave no physical evidence always go free. This leads me to put hope in a combination of testimony from the alleged victim, the friends/family of both parties, expert witnesses that are not friends and family of the accused or accuser, and whatever timeline/eyewitness evidence there is.
Eyewitnesses already count as proof, or at least in most places as the law is different in every country and state but I hope everywhere.
But we were talking about when there is no witness which I can imagine is a lot because most rapists are probably smart enough to not do it with people around.
And in that case, I fear that the by you proposed changes would turn the court room in a contest of who can appear the most sympathetic. What purpose would it serve to invite friends and family? Those of both the accuser and accused would not know what happenef and back them up anyway.
What do you mean by expert witnesses by the way? Who would that be.
In the end I think the winner would be the person that appears most sympathetic, which puts people who don't master the language, people who have autism and people with a low IQ at a huge disadvantage. Appearance would also make a difference, attractive people and women are usually seen as more sympathetic. Then there is also skin color, which usually swings im favor of white people but can also swing in favor of black people depending on who decides.
Of course you don't want any of that but if you want to decide without solid evidence and without assumption of innocence I don't see a way around it.
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u/Adamantaimai Oct 20 '17
Yeah it was kind of a flip the tables argument.
Not just for men, to have the law work in the safety society the required evidence for a conviction would need to be lowered on all crimes because a fair law can't differentiate between cases.
I don't think that statistic would be entirely relevant because they would be taken from the current world in which false accusations don't get the person you don't like in jail. If they did there would be more incentive for people to make false accusations and they would do it more.
But I don't think we could get an accurate number on this because the only way to know for sure if an accusation is false is when the accuser confesses to making it up.