I did not say that, and only someone who has either lived with there blinders on, or has been sheltered from the real world would think that.

What I said was....

Let me translate that for you.

Here you can get out on bail and have a chance at defending yourself in front of a "Mostly" impartial judge. (Or jury depending on the crime)

In other, more socialized countries.
Your Son would have been in jail from day one, and the trial might not happen for many years. And then, unless you had the $$ to bribe the judge, he would be found guilty and sentenced to the maximum term.

Granted, in a few countries nothing would have been done to your Son and the girl would have been stoned to death by her family for disgracing them......But I really don't think you want to go there.

Or people who can't find something wrong with other people to make thier own deeds look less nasty.

I allways felt that the legal term refered to how we were supposed to look at ourselves, as innocent, instead of guilty and predisposed to do wrong. The problem is with stewardship of this life we have, and the self-centeredness of people who think they are above the human condition, They think they could never fall.

In law it is still the same, people are tried with what facts they have, and the popular trends of man convict them according to thier judgement, in and out of court.

IMO God is the only one who can be truly just and he hands out the punishment for even those who think they get away with it.

Gack, your logic reminds me so much of President Obama's "Things Could be Worse" speech the other day. Funny, that one didn't make me feel much better either.

Gack has a point, it could be worse.

I think the reason your son is giving you the "I don't care" attitude is that he is pyschologically preparing himself for the worst. If he thinks the worst will happen, he can't be disappointed when it does.

Sure it could. And I never said otherwise. But it could be so much better. Why settle for some empty platitude such as "It could be worse" instead of stepping up and doing something to make it better? It seems like so many people have just fallen into this state of apathy, thinking, well at least we don't have it as bad as "those" guys. Such thinking creates inaction and stagnation, which just leaves us right where we are - not as bad off as some, but nowhere near as good as we could be.

I agree. I've used this defense mechanism myself in the past. However, it can prevent a person from stepping up and trying to do something about the situation, and I don't want him to give up and just take whatever they decide to dish out. It isn't over until the fat lady sings.

Our system works very differently depending on where you sit in the PC solar system. It cuts all different ways.

But at this stage of the game, the system is primed to treat very seriously allegations against a man of spousal abuse, rape, child molestation, etc. There were times when these allegations were typically dismissed without investigation, and outrage over perpetrators "getting away with it" lead the system to react differently. Now perhaps the pendulum has swung too far toward condemning people quickly. Look at what happened to the Duke lacrosse players.

Investigation is expensive. We cannot afford to fully investigate every allegation. So do you want the default to be we believe the allegation, or we don't? Either way, the default reaction is going to be wrong a good percentage of the time. So do you want a bunch of innocent men to be convicted? Or do you want a bunch of perpetrators to walk away? There is no perfect system. And we cannot afford anything even remotely close to one.

I realize it is crushing when the process steamrolls over someone you love. I cannot imagine the pain and fear writer is going through. I wish I could make it go away for her and her son. My prayers are with her family.

Writer, have you left a message for your attorney today? You need to be the squeaky wheel on this one. Call and call and call. Say to his administrative assistant, "We're going to court tomorrow and there hasn't been any effort to prepare us."

I've been trying to call, but I just keep getting a busy signal. I thought, with call waiting and all that stuff, that busy signals didn't even exist anymore.

You maid the allusion that you would have it better in another country, I was simply trying to show you that was not true.

It could also be FAAARRRR better.

Serious allegations must be taken very seriously, that's why you are in this pickle. But like anywhere that suffers from a huge bureaucracy, you need someone to guide you through it. Someone who can do this well, is quite valuable. And unfortunately, that talent costs money.

This is a sad fact, but unfortunately true.

And in your case, I think a lack of money is resulting in a lawyer who is lacking ambition with your case. I wish this was not the case for you, but I can't change that.

Also, location has a lot to do with. California might want to change there motto to "The victims state" because almost everyone there is a victim of something...

At least that's what they think

I HOPE your lawyer is just a poor communicator and has taken care of everything

But I am weary of it.

Gack, I never said I would be better off legally in another country. I simply said I was going to Tahiti so that I could spend the rest of my life living in a little hut on a beautiful beach, sipping drinks with little umbrellas in them and watching the sun set. That has been a dream of mine for many years. Actually, it used to be Fiji, but then my SIL spent her honeymoon in Tahiti and I saw all the beautiful pictures of the islands and changed my mind.

I spoke with our attorney's secretary, since he's in court this morning. She assured me that our attorney would never go to trial without preparing us. Since he hasn't heard back from the DA, he hasn't really been able to prepare for anything tomorrow. We don't even know who the DA plans to call as witnesses, which I believe our attorney needs to know prior to the trial. So, all indications seem to be that we will be asking for another continuance tomorrow so our attorney will have time to speak to the DA about a plea bargain or prepare for trial if there is no plea. The attorney is supposed to call us when he gets in the office.

Well Writer, my thoughts are with you today and of course tomorrow. This is astounding to me. I know that does not help you tho. On the one hand I believe that attorneys are probably in court in the mornings. On the other hand are you or your H prepared to go to his office if you do not hear in a reasonable amount of time?

Also, I recall you saying in a recent post that this girl stated that this incident took place in her home when both of her parents were there. I agree with you that this just does not compute! Any normal person in a small house would have to have heard the commotion especially screams in a small house. And, any normal girl in this situation would have tried like he$$ to get away, or when she was able to get to her parents. It suggests to me that if this does go to trial tomorrow that his attorney will dilligently question her and may be able to trip her up or at least affect her credibility. I just think this is something that any defense attorney would really focus on and capitalize on. I hope that is the case for you.

Tom

kewl...that sounds more like it.

Tom

Thanks Tom.

On a few occasions, our son stayed the night at this girl's house when they were going to leave on a fishing trip early in the morning. Her father liked to have a boy to take fishing. I was super uncomfortable about my son staying at her house, so we talked to her parents prior to the first time this happened. They assured us that the kids would have separate sleeping quarters and be closely supervised the entire time, and I believed them. In hindsight, I realize how stupid I was. I chose convenience, since I didn't want to get up at 5 a.m. and take my son over to their house. The baby still wasn't sleeping well back then, and I was sleep deprived for more than a year. Not an excuse, but it is what it is.

This "incident" happened on one of those nights. Not only did she not manage to wake her parents up with all the commotion of fighting off my son, she allowed him to spend the rest of the night there and then hang out with her family for hours after they woke up the next morning. They didn't end up going fishing, but he was there until around noon I believe (it was a long time ago, so I don't remember exactly). She even went with her mom to drive him home, AND NEVER SAID A THING! Then, she spends much of the next two months trying to convince him to get back together with her (we have emails to prove this). This just does not sound like the actions of someone who was violently and forcibly raped.

Update:

Spoke with attorney. He completely contradicted everything his secretary said. He did speak with the DA, and the DA said that any plea bargain that was offered would have to be under the same charges that are currently against my son: Rape by force and Oral Copulation by force. No other specifics were discussed, but my son would have to plead guilty to those charges. The attorney is supposed to talk to the DA again this afternoon and talk specifics. According to our attorney, if the DA offers anything that doesn't involve prison time (including time in juvenile hall and county jail) he thinks we should take the deal, sine those would not require my son to register as a sex offender for life. Prison = Registered Sex Offender.

If the DA does not offer a deal that avoids prison/sex offender registry, we go to trial tomorrow as planned. I expressed my frustration to the attorney about feeling very unprepared for this. He said we would be preparing tomorrow morning prior to the trial. That seems like a terribly insufficient amount of preparation to me. According to attorney, the only witnesses would probably be the "victim" and the arresting officer on the DA's side and my son and possibly a character reference on my son's side. Seems like a pretty pathetic trial IMO.

We just got back from delivering character reference letters to my attorneys office, which he hopes will give him some leverage when he speaks to the DA.

A run for the Mexican border is looking better and better by the moment.

This is unfortunatly the truth. The thing that makes it swing towards one client or another is also money, or some political agenda that will lead to security and or, you guessed it, money.

Thats why I am so much in your butt about making things tough for the lawter if he screws up. Its your only force that equals , yes you guessed it, money. If you make it expensive for him to screw this up, he is more likely to take his work seriuos.

I would like to beleive he is going to fight for justice to be served, and I would be advising you that you haven't given him a chance if it were not for his absence form court, his lack of communication, and the off the cuff plans he is making with no strategy.

God no, lets err on the side of caution when it comes down to men abusing women. Lets not write it off like it used to be. The only way to change the abuse patterns established is to make it dangerous for these guys. Not many want to go to prison and get dominated by other inmates, and child abusers get treated, well, shall I call it badly? I would call it like the animals they are. But I am D/Jing the animals.

Your son could use a good defense. Your lawyer might have something acceptable up his sleeve but mostly I think he is gonna do as little as possible because he has not that much to gain, politically or monitarily. Thats why you should make sure he knows he has something to lose in those areas. I wouldn't trust his conscience being his guide. I wish it were different.

writer, how many letters of reference were you able to get? Any teachers, principal, Bishop any from any position of authority.

The morning before the trial is not sufficient time to prepare. I had more preparation for my divorce mediation than your son has received. I don't understand.

Looking at your last few posts about the conditions of this rape, these are the questions that YOUR attorney should be telling the DA and bring to the trial.

Hate for him to get any type of record based on all of these assumptions.

Hope: We have 9 so far, including school personnel, bishop, people who worked with our son in our church's young men's organization, and family. We have more coming tonight, since originally we were told that we didn't have to have them until tomorrow morning. I only had about an hour to get together what we had and get them over to attorney's office (which is 30 minutes away from our house).

This entire thing just seems so chaotic to me. I do NOT feel prepared in any way for a trial tomorrow. But I don't know what to do. Right now, our options seem to be 1) accept whatever plea bargain the DA offers this afternoon (if that actually happens) or 2) go to trial tomorrow.

What do I do?