I fully understand how women who have been raped feel. I was gang raped by eight men in San Francisco at the age of twenty-three. I reported it to the police who just laughed at me because of who one of them is. The attitude about rape was different then. I believe I would still be living in San Francisco if it had not been for this incident in my life and I may have possibly stayed if I had gotten some kind of justice. I got pregnant from the rape and terminated it. It has been over thirty years, time does heal, but it still comes to mind frequently. I chose to work with sexual offenders a few years after my own rape. I wanted to understand what causes men to rape. I have always found facing my fears head on to be very healing. Later I worked in a prison which had female sexual offenders including Mary Kay Letourneau. I have been through some things in Alaska which are far more devastating to me than that gang rape. I had some people who had political influence over an assistant district attorney and a judge have me charged with crimes I did not commit. This was retaliation by workplace bullies due to my complaints about unsafe practices, whistle blowing, and sick workplace sociopathic terrorism. I believe the corruption went all the way to Tallis Colberg because they printed a clear lie about me in their newsletter. The department of law also told the newspaper in the village an unbelievable number of lies. The judge did not examine the evidence or care what the truth was. Later he issued a warrant for my arrest at the insistence(malicious prosecution) of the assistant DA in a separate, completly fabricated case and had me wrongfully arrested. My cat was starved and tortured, my possessions were stolen, and I was tortured in the prison system, especially by their withholding of my medication which is common practice. This went on while several government agencies knew about it. The worst of them is the public defender agency who when asked why I could be arrested on no evidence said they had never seen such a thing happen before and could not understand what was going on yet did not file a petition for habeous corpus nor even come to see me. They knew my cat was being starved and tortured and one of them even sided with the sociopath who did it. This was because she knows these serial bullies and they had influence on the public defender agency. The public defender agency had tried at every turn to prove me wrong while I told the truth on many levels while believing two serial bullies who are sociopaths whose testimony should be inadmissible. I feel more raped by my experiences with the court system, the department of law, the public defender agency, and the prison system in this state than when I was raped by eight men. Those men raped my body, our trusted defenders of justice raped my soul.
I believe that one of the foundations this country is built on is that those accused of crimes are "innocent until proven guilty". This is true even for those accused of horrible crimes. I was pronounced guilty to the community and they did everything they could including lie to me to keep me from having a trial. I did do one thing I was charged with while I was very disturbed from PTSD from the workplace bullying. I admitted it. I would not have been charged with a crime for this, except in a handful of very backwards, ignorant states. They did not even get a warrant to search my apartment. Why? They knew there was nothing to find.
Anthony Rollins is accused of raping several women while he was on duty as a police officer. The judge in order to protect the public put Anthony Rollins on home detention with an ankle bracelet. They will know immediately if he leaves his house. This saves the state money when the accused are at home. It is a safety issue to have police officers in the prison system, for everyone, not just him. I am fully aware that if I was a man who was accused of raping several women I would have been thrown in jail and not gotten due process. It would be wrong in my case or any case. I understand why people are angry that he is not in jail, especially the women who say he raped them.
The way our court system is suppose to work is when we are accused we are considered "innocent until proven guilty." I want the justice system in this country back. I want due process. I want people tried in the court system with actual evidence and I want them to have a vigorous defense. Without this we can not have freedom. At this point the judge should be protecting the public and he has done this. The defendant is only allowed to go to church on Sunday and I would imagine arrangements have been made for people at the church to take responsibility for him. Remember even people who have been accused of murder are sometimes out on bail.
About one in seven of the people in our prisons are innocent. I am not saying Anthony Rollins is innocent or guilty. My point is even if I think he is guilty he should have his rights protected and get a fair trial. Being tried in the media has contributed to many being wrongfully incarcerated. We have 328 exonerations of murders and rapes to date. Research at the University of Michigan suggests we have thousands in prisons who are innocent. Most of the exonerations are based on DNA evidence. For many crimes, especially non-rapes and lesser crimes there is no DNA to prove their innocence. In Alaska we are so backwards our courts do not allow DNA to even be used. I guess they know there are innocent people in the prisons here, otherwise why block it. We have to have high standards when prosecuting and that just does not happen in Alaska and a lot of other states which results in a lot of injustice. In this country thousands of men are convicted of sex crimes every year who are innocent. This is due to bad science, using jail house snitches who are promised something or threatened, out and out lies by district attorneys, bad defense lawyers, states(like Alaska) spending a lot to convict and almost nothing for defense, and idiot judges. Mr. Rollins may be guilty of everything he is accused of, but should have due process just as everyone else should.
I do not agree with publicly trying to influence the judge, the accused is secure and is apparently requesting a trial. If convicted he will get a significant sentence. People are outraged by the prisons in the middle east, our secret prisons, and the torture, rightly so. We have had atrocities going on in this country along the same lines and most people do not know about it. Everyone assumes because someone is accused they must be guilty. District attorneys lie, witnesses lie, the police use bad science, there are some really horrible lawyers, judges make bad rulings, and people are convicted falsely. Why is there no outrage about the injustice from our court system and thousands of innocent people in our system of gulags?
http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume9/j9_3_6.htm
http://www.innocenceproject.org/understand/Snitches-Informants.php
http://www.truthinjustice.org/exoneration-study.htm
1 comment:
I agree with you, Celia. There is going to be a spotlight on this case, and the guy has not yet been found guilty, so bail should be an option open to the judge. The judge crafted an order that will let him be at home, be monitored, but still pose very little risk to the community and the victims. He may never be convicted, even if he is morally guilty, which is not the same as legally. Hope for justice.
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