Oh Those Words

A great big thanks to Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, the Yarn Harlot,  for pointing this out to her readers in her blog. Here However, it makes me question why I need to read about the words “rape” and “victim” being banned in a courtroom in Nebraska on a knitting blog (not that knitting blogs are nonesense, but still…what happened to front page news in my local paper?)

In case you were wondering, here are links to the only article in the US that I found when I typed “Nebraska” and “rape” into Google news. The CNN video is here.  When I looked further, there were four articles on the search page and a total of 187 filed away here.

In the page of headlines located by Google news, only two major headers with a few other links beneath were located. Google Don Imus. Go ahead. I dare you. Yeah, more than two months later there is still mention of his 90 second gaffe on his radio show.

Now, background: the basic tenet of the Nebraska rape case goes like this: Girl goes to bar. Girl has drinks - in the articles the Yarn Harlot read, she had “a drink”. According to the Washington Post, the victim says she was too drunk to consent. Washington Post Article  Regardless, she woke up the next day in the defendant’s bed not knowing or not recollecting her consent to the previous evening’s activities. The judge has since banned several words, including, but not limited to, ”rape” and “sexual assault.” The first trial resulted in a hung jury, and the second trial is underway.

Here’s my basic issue, aside from the general unfairness of the situation. OK, several issues which will be illuminated in the following paragraphs. First, we as a country have apparently decided that an insult on a limited audience radio show is more important than a legal decision that has long standing ramifications if it is not overruled. Don Imus was, as I’ve said in my personal life, not correct in his statement. That being said, his statement lasted a sum total of 45 - 90 seconds. Say the words “nappy headed ho’s” and see how long it takes. Again, I dare you. While insulting, the statement had no legal, long-term ramifications. They were the words of a shock jock who spent his life trying to insult people in an attempt to make money. The appropriateness of this and our inclination to listen to it is irrelevant. The internet buzzed. The story caught on. The man was fired. If the first trial resulted in a hung jury and the second is about to start, that means that the first trial should have ended at least three months ago. Why, then, has this only recently caught a buzz in the news? Few people seem to appreciate the fact that the decision by this judge has legal ramifications for all involved. Imus’ remarks were not going to send someone to jail or allow anyone who had committed a crime to walk free. They were insensitive. They were unintelligent. They were incorrect. However, they were personal, not legal. Don Imus, due to popular outrage, was fired. Nebraska’s judiciary is not elected. It is based on merit selection. Therefore we cannot “vote” this judge out as we did Imus. However, his actions are equally inappropriate, if not more so. Attention must be paid.

Second, this situation brings to the forefront the importance of words in society. When a person - woman, man, martian, whatever - cannot face his/her/its attacker in court and accuse him/her/it of the crime alleged all are wronged. The Constitution requires that defendants be allowed to face their accusers. If the accuser cannot state the crime being alleged, the defendant loses his/her Constitutional right and the accuser loses his/her reason for facing the demons involved in the crime. A rape or other victim has no reason to face the traumas of a trial if no satisfaction or vindication will be allowed. Words are important. These words have legal, as well as social, meaning. I can understand, to an extent, not allowing the use of rape or sexual assault by an accuser to the extent that those words imply actions and those actions have legal definitions. Those legal definitions require specific actions and intents to be proved as truths in a court of law. I am, after all, a licensed attorney who can see both sides of the situation and was forced to learn the archaic definition of burglary (a breaking and entering into a residence at night). As an attorney, I find this to be a travesty to the justice system, not just to women. Our legal system cannot work when we disregard the rights of the citizens to both accuse and be appropriately accused.

Third, there is the issue as to whether this judge would have placed the same restrictions on a man accusing another man of assault. Were this a situation in which one man had attacked another in a bar fight, I wonder serioulsy whether the restrictions would have applied. If the judge can honestly say that he has barred the words “burglary”, “assault”, “homicide” and “murder” in his courtroom, then I can stand behind his ruling. Those words, too, have legal definitions that require specific acts to have been fulfilled to be considered true. However, the difference is that they are not gender defined. They are gender blind. Men assault men. Women burglarize women. Men murder women. Women commit homicide against men. If the judge removed the gender bias to the legal term, thus barring all legally defined terms from the court of law, then this would not be an issue. Until that time, all understood terms should be allowed in the courtroom unless they are inflammatory and thusly, legally, denied in a court of law.

Why has this not gained more national attention? The answer is likely that this is Nebraska and not New York City. To many Americans, Nebraska is a state with low population and not much happening (I was introduced to a person from Nebraska once and was as fascinated as if the person had come from Djbuti). This should not matter. The number of people ultimately directly affected by this decision far surpasses the number involved in the Don Imus case. As long as this stands, it becomes legal precedent for all other rape cases in Nebraska to the extent that other judges choose to invoke it. Women and African Americans may have been insulted by Don Imus. However, in that case an idiot was fired. In this case, women may be insulted, but more importantly, a rapist (whether this individual if he committed the crime or another who commits a crime at a later date) more likely will go free.

The words rape and sexual assault have strong connotations. They imply violence, as well they should. They imply force. They imply illegal activities. Not being allowed to use them in the courtroom to describe, or even accuse an individual of, an illegal action places us as Americans all the more at a disadvantage. The meanings of these words and their connotations must be allowed to stand if we are to remain a nation of freedom and equality for all.

On that note, I am going to go to sleep, I mean, close my eyes and enter a comatose state for eight hours so that I may gain the requisite mental distance from the world to be able to function in the morning. Right, and words have no meaning or importance.