Posts by Graeme Edgeler
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The question is not "Did she deep down want this sexual encounter?", it is "Did she provide consent for this sexual encounter?"
No. The question is "is it reasonably possible that she provided consent for this sexual encounter?" It is a decidedly different question.
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Do you mean "highly probable" isn't good enough, it needs to be be "beyond a reasonable doubt"?
Yes.
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I'm trying to figure out how anything that happens before someone says "no" is relevant.
The safeword is applesauce?
But as a legal matter, it may be relevant in determining whether you believe the person actually said "no". Or even whether you believe it is reasonably possible the person didn't say "no".
If you conclude in a rape case that it is highly probably that a complainant withdrew consent, and made this known, the charge hasn't been proved and the person is not guilty.
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...Mr Goff said the lack of a challenger was "a recognition that the leadership team they have got in place is the best team that they could hope for"
Ouch.
Why? This isn't a bad thing to be - this is an awesome thing to be. Labour MPs and supporters, in their wildest dreams, have been imagining the perfect most awesome leadership team for Labour possible, and have been hoping for that team.
No-one's that good - even in the Heydey of Helen Clark, Labour MPs would have changed some things about her - they might have hoped for a leader with Helen's intellect, and command of everything, but Rodney Hide's new teeth, for example.
But somehow, Labour now have not just the best leader from their current MPs, nor the best leader of a generation of MPs, but the best team that they could even hope for. Even in their wildest dreams of what an awesome perfect Labour leader could be like, no-one could be better than the one they have.
I had the same thing a couple of weeks back. I'm always on the lookout for fancy new awesome soft-drink. And then I tried Frank Sparkling Zesty Lemonade. Wow. In my wildest dreams I could not have expected such an awesome soft-drink. Just yesterday I took two buses to go across town to try to find a supermarket that stocked it in four-packs. I loaded up so much, that I had to take two buses home and then go out again just to buy milk.
In my wildest dreams - hope against hope - I could not imagine a soft drink that awesome. I wouldn't even have been sure that it was possible to hope for a soft drink that good. It is the best soft drink I could hope for.
Ouch?
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oh and does this set a precedent?
No.
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"It is an offence for a man to rape a woman or another man... "
As a code for prosecution it does appear to start off in an old fashioned restrictive manner?
Like the law it is simplifying. It not an offence for a woman to rape a woman or for a woman to rape a man. Not because it's not sexual assault (in New Zealand, called "sexual violation"), but because anything a woman could do would not be rape. Indeed, in New Zealand, it's not even possible for a man to rape a man.
The code for prosecution reads like that because it's kind of important: "Do not charge a woman with rape."
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One thing that it helps to bear in mind when discussing criminal consequences for rape is that a rape trial is not about determining whether there was consent - a rape trial is about determining whether there is a reasonable possibility there was consent. Being only pretty damn sure there was consent means the defendant is properly found not guilty.
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not quite the Daily Show but @7 on TV3 hasn't been too bad for a first attempt in my IMHO.
I didn't see very much of it (never a whole episode), but their interview with Prince William had an excellent Clarke and Dawe vibe going (I happened to get it for Christmas):
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Heh! As a kind of registered freaknroguescholar, I think I better go watch the series...
Good luck with that. I've got the DVDs, but that's because I'm crazy.
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At what point does the alleged rape victim get a representative that actually does do everything they can to prove the case?
They don't. Just as a victim of an armed robbery doesn't, nor a victim of any other crime. Which is not to say that the prosecutor, and cops aren't trying damn hard to secure a conviction, just that in there pursuit of a conviction other factors do have a (usually small) part to play.