Petronius
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Joined: 1/1/2004
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Rover
quote:
ORIGINAL: scottjk
In regards to the law, there hasn't been, to my knowlege, any test of the consent defense. Any volunteers? Anyone? Hello? Beuler? Beuler?
Actually, there have been many tests of the consent defense and to my knowledge, only one was "successful" (if you want to call spending $ 500,000 defending yourself, spending 20 months in jail, and ultimately having the case dismissed "with prejudice" a success).
http://www.anusha.com/jov-deci.htm
This case is a serious double edged sword. While the court did ultimately decide that consent could be considered, it chose an awful case in which the victim was not a consenting participant. The issue of consent was complicated by the fact that, despite her nonconsent, she did admit to enjoying it on a certain level. This threatens to refocus the legal argument to one of "enjoyment" rather than consent... a complication that could have adverse implications for consensual BDSM, rape cases, etc.
To my knowledge, this case is the exception in regards to consent as a defense, rather than any precedent.
John
This is actually dead wrong on the facts.
In the Jovanovic case the women very much consented.
She sent him emails to that effect. She told her friends that. She told her friends she was a sexual masochist. She went with him voluntarily. She even suggested certain things that they do.
Then she went to the police and charged she had been kidnapped and raped.
Basically, the judge ruled out any defense that Jovanovic could present, citing -- quite improperly -- various rape laws concerning rules of evidence.
Since he claimed that one can never consent to assault he ruled that all the email and statements consenting were inadmissible. Then he allowed the woman to commit perjury by claiming she was horrified at what she claimed happened and had no idea that it would. The judge ruled that the earlier inadmissible emails still could not be used to demonstrate her perjury.
The woman's mother and grandmother wanted to testify for Jovanovic, claiming that the woman had a history of making false accusations of sexual horrors. The judge refused to let them.
And so it went.
I thought the very worst was the DA's office after the case was overturned on appeal. There was no way they could ever convict him since in the new trial all the woman's perjuries would come out.
But instead of prosecuting the woman for perjury, the DA claimed they wree dropping the case to avoid hurting ... the woman. I believe they claimed that she had "been viciously raped three times: first by Jovanovic, then at the trial, and now by the appeals court and we don't want to have her raped a fourth time at a new trial."
The only real relevance of the Jovanovic trial to bdsm was simply that a twisted judge and prosecutor can bring charges that never should have been brought and improperly twist the rules of evidence to get convictions that don't stand.
But the woman consented twnety-seven different ways to Sunday and then perjured herself over it.
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