What we are meant to do
Brendan O’Neill announces that we must never believe accusations of sexual assault unless and until they’re established in court.
Why does everyone believe Kevin Spacey’s accuser rather than Kevin Spacey himself? In a civilised society, it would be the other way round. In a civilised society we would doubt the accuser and maintain the innocence of the accused.
Is that so? Why? How? According to whom? Who is “we”?
In short, it’s not that simple, is it. What about Harvey Weinstein for instance? It turns out that all Hollywood knew about Harvey Weinstein, and a lot of women told similar stories about their experiences with Harvey Weinstein, so why in a civilized society would we be maintaining Weinstein’s innocence while calling his victims liars? What’s civilized about that?
There’s nothing civilized about it, but it’s nicer for the bros, and Brendan O’Neill is a bro.
How do we know Spacey did this thing? Because one person said he did. If we had any kind of attachment to the ideals of reason and justice, the building blocks of civilisation, this wouldn’t be enough. It would be so far from being enough.
Is that right? Is it that simple?
Of course it’s not. It depends. Justice isn’t all one way – it isn’t all for Spacey and none for the one person who said. Often one person saying is all there is, and often that means the powerful get away with doing harm to the less powerful. That’s not exactly justice.
Spacey says he doesn’t remember the assault. ‘I honestly do not remember the encounter’, he said in a statement, before going on to say that if it did happen, then he’s sorry. (Who’s advising these people? Do not apologise for something you do not remember doing.) Spacey, in his own lame way, is calling into question the veracity of Rapp’s accusation. And you know what? We should all be doing that. For three reasons.
No we should not all be doing that. It’s fair to say that one person saying is just one person saying; that’s not the same as calling into question the person’s accusation.
O’Neill says we should because 1. it was 30 years ago, 2. it’s part of #metoo. And 3 –
And thirdly because this is what we are meant to do. We are meant to believe in the innocence of everyone accused of a crime or misdemeanour, until such a time as a jury of their peers has been convinced beyond reasonable doubt that this is ‘what he did’.
Meant? Meant by whom? According to what rule? What a fatuous claim for such a showy libertarian to make. It’s also complete bullshit. The state is forbidden to assume guilt before it’s demonstrated, but that doesn’t mean every human on earth is required to “to believe in the innocence of everyone accused of a crime” until a jury [or a judge, he neglects to say] determines.
O’Neill’s sloppiness is reliably annoying.
Updating to add: I missed the last three paragraphs because I thought an ad break was the end of the piece.
‘I believe’ has become the ultimate virtue-signal. But it is utterly lacking in virtue to say this. Sixty-two years ago a woman called Carolyn Bryant Donham accused a young man of sexual harassment. He grabbed her by the wrist and said ‘How about it baby?’, she said. He wolf-whistled at her, she claimed. Everyone in her local community believed her, uncritically, and instantly. ‘I believe.’ They went after her harasser, tied him to the back of a truck, and then beat him to death in a barn. His name was Emmet Till. He was a victim of uncritical belief in people who make accusations of sexual harassment. Crying ‘I believe’ in response to every accusation of a sexual crime isn’t progressive; it’s a species of savagery.
Evil piece of shit.
Yes, we know accusations of rape were a pretext for lynching. That’s why I said “it’s not that simple” and “it depends” rather than “we have to believe all accusations no matter what.” But Harvey Weinstein was and is in no way comparable to Emmett Till, and Kevin Spacey’s accuser is not comparable to the white population of Money, Mississippi in 1955. I’m a good deal more agnostic about Spacey than I am about Weinstein, because as O’Neill says there is only one accuser – but that does not mean I’m required to “maintain his innocence.”
By O’Neill’s logic, Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot weren’t mass murderers because they were never convicted in court. We’re going to have to rewrite a lot of history books if we’re “meant to believe in the innocence of everyone accused of a crime.”
Frankly, I think ‘justice’ is a bit irrelevant.
Look, I’m a South African, legally in cases of rape I cannot name the accused unless they have pleaded in court. I hum and har over whether or not I agree with that law, on the one hand I do think cases should be heard in court not the newspapers, on the other…
There is a value in naming people like Kevin Spacey – and it isn’t justice. It is warning other people to keep an eye out for that sort of behaviour – in other words, we still have the presumption of innocence, but also a caution.
The whole issue over what is just, well that kind of plays second fiddle to preventing future cases of this sort of thing doesn’t it?
I mean I knew people at school who were never convicted of any crime, and they had reputations as thieves. It wasn’t presuming guilt to say “Watch your stuff” around them was it?
And I sort of see the whole thing here along those lines. I mean don’t just call him a rapist or whatever that requires a guilty verdict, but don’t be afraid to give people fair warning by mentioning the allegations.
Of course my views around this are still evolving, so this is basically a work-around, I’m still unsure on the ethics.
It’s not simple. I’ve never said “Believe the accuser no matter what” (or any variation on that) because it’s not that simple…but that doesn’t translate to “believe the accused and not the accuser no matter what.” That’s O’Neill’s commandment and it’s ludicrous.
Ophelia Benson
I fully agree. It is like he’s taking the presumption of innocence to equal the absence of suspicion, and honestly, I can’t quite see it that way.
“Innocent Until Proven Guilty” is a great rule … for courtrooms.
Since we individual citizens do not have a court’s power to punish we do not need to “prove” guilt.
According to “the law” O J Simpson was not guilty but those of us of sound mind are convinced he did it and that in no way conflicts with that excellent courtroom rule.
If Kevin Spacey is, as a result of suspicions that someone accusing him of something is being truthful about it, beaten to death without trial, then I will acknowledge the force of O’Neill’s argument. Short of that extrajudicial punishment – we’re not violating the legal presumption of innocence. We’re taking accusations seriously and not dismissing a presumptive victim – much as the police, judge, jury, and prosecution must.
Also, something Brendan is completely dismissing, is the many cases in which the accused walk free *despite* there obvious guilt. For example, the Malheur terrorists… also basically every case of jury nullification ever.
James Graham mentions OJ Simpson, which reminds me that OJ was held responsible for those deaths in a civil trial, because even courtrooms do not always insist on the “presumed innocent until proven guilty” standard of proof. In civil trials, preponderance of evidence is enough.
We use the strictest possible standard to establish guilt for criminal conviction. It is absurd to claim that it is morally incumbent on everyone to use that standard in all circumstances.
It’s also absurd to suggest that the outcome of a criminal trial establishes the truth of a matter. Nobody is ever wrongfully convicted in Brendan’s world?
You know who I’m having trouble believing? Kevin Spacey.
Here’s the thing – if you’re accused of doing what Rapp accuses Spacey of doing to him as a 14 year old boy, is there not something stomach-churningly complacent about his shrugged off “eh, I probably did that, I was drunk, sorry” not-pology? If he remembers it enough to know he was drunk (and being drunk is no goddamn excuse for assaulting someone, especially a child) then he’s lying when he says he doesn’t remember. And if he genuinely doesn’t remember the incident, then what does it say about him that he hears this and considers it to be entirely plausible behavior? In which case, why should we believe he is actually sorry, and not just sorry the story is out there?
Is there not a single one of the people I have grown up admiring who is actually worth a damn?
Oliver Sacks. I’d be floored if Oliver Sacks turned out to be an abuser.
‘Beyond a reasonable doubt’ is a fine standard for a properly impaneled jury hearing a criminal case. The rest of us can use Occam’s Razor.
And, yes to what Claire said about Kevin Spacey. “I don’t remember molesting *this* teenager, but it sounds plausible enough,” kind of suggests Mr Spacey made enough of a habit of molesting teenagers that his victims have blurred together.
The government is bound by that requirement, the public is not. Silly mistake, yet every douchebro does it.
The fact that Spacey is not denying the claim is reason to find it credible. Most people accused of sexually assaulting a minor would be appalled and reply that they would never have done such a thing. That Spacey is responding with a claim not to remember and an apology implies that he thinks that it is the sort of thing he would have done or that he knows he did but does not want to incriminate himself.
It seems that the accuser’s claim is convincing enough for Spacey himself. He may well have been in a blackout at the time. But he must have a fair idea of what sort of behavior he was capable of at the time.
One of Lisak’s points about investigating predators is the importance of prior conduct. Men like this don’t get ‘struck evil’ just before they are caught. They almost always have long track-records of sexual and other violence.
http://www.middlebury.edu/media/view/240951/original