On Nov. 5, we’ll find out if W.C. Fields’ low opinion of Philadelphia was justified…
An unethical and incompetent judge in Philadelphia doesn’t think so, thus making a powerful argument against electing judges, being a prostitute, and living in Philadelphia.
Philadelphia Municipal Court judge Teresa Carr Deni ruled that the 2007 rape of a prostitute at gunpoint was merely “theft of services.”The woman had agreed to meet a man have sex with him for the bargain fee of $150. He asked her if his friend could join in the fun for an additional $100, and she agreed. When these two sterling citizens arrived for the appointment, however, they held her at gunpoint and forced her to have sex with them free of charge.
If this isn’t rape when a prostitute is involved—forced, unconsented intercourse, through the threat of deadly force—then any prostitute can be raped at will, with the worst charge being “theft.” Selling sex doesn’t convert sexual battery into nothing, a non-crime, once consent for that sale is withdrawn. If you know someone is preparing to sell blood to a blood bank, and you attack him, subdue him, and drain his blood to sell yourself, is this merely theft, or a crime of violence? If he was going to be an organ donor, and you rip out his kidney, is that just theft? There is no route through law or reason that allows us to ignore the fact that a woman was forced to have sex with two men without her consent. Judge Deni clearly has a monstrous bias against prostitutes, and thus believes that they shouldn’t receive equal protection under the law. When criticized, her rationalization was that prosecuting the men for rape “minimizes true rape cases and demeans women who are really raped.”
Really raped? A woman who is forced at gun point to have sex isn’t really raped? What kind of judge thinks like this? And why is she still a judge six years after making such an indefensible, cruel, unfair ruling? What the heck is the matter with Philadelphia?
Deni is up for re-election on November 5. As you know, I hate being judgmental, but anyone who knows about this appalling case—activists are trying to make sure everyone does—and still votes for her is a dreadful human being…just like she is.
Or am I being too harsh?
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Facts: Opposing Views
Ethics Alarms 
Not harsh enough.
I can’t win!
I agree somewhat with the judges ruling. However, it should be theft of services at gunpoint and therefore result in A slightly higher charge than he received. The plumber came to the crib fixed a leak I ain’t have the dough it was sent to collections. The problem is women are independent in the streets too often I know I good manager get at me!!!
It’s rape. There’s no reasonable argument to the contrary.
No, you’re not being too harsh. Rape is defined as the carnal knowledge of a woman without her consent. The key phrase, here, is “without her consent”. The issue here is consent, not the woman’s choice of product to sell.
“Rape is defined as the carnal knowledge of a woman without her consent.” Does that mean that men don’t get raped?
I wonder if Judge Deni defied binding appellate precedent in this ruling.
Don’t ask questions you know the answers to…
The ruling was based on the judge’s bias against prostitutes. If the prostitute had been killed would it be murder? For pity sake!
The ruling was based on the judge’s bias against prostitutes.
Now I am going to have to go read beyond Jacks post, is it in his link?
In society, you will find many conversions of what would normally be considered criminal and dastardly to something that is acceptable and normal as part of the job or doing business in said profession.
One such profession to note would be the military, or pulling the switch on an electric chair. Explaining in detail :
It is wrong and unethical to take another persons life, however in the military or in the chamber to pull the switch on the chair, somehow allows these people exemption because the people they are killing somehow don’t have the right to life either by being in the wrong place at the wrong time (military — stories of bombing schools and such), or by way of yet another judges say-so revoking that persons right to life.
I am not saying that a woman can not be raped under such circumstances, nor am I saying simply that these other mysterious conundrums somehow assure that this perversion of the system in place is accurate. What I am saying, is that this is not as simple as being right or wrong on either decision.
Her profession determined that her body was a good for sale, and that theft of goods is something to be questioned under these circumstances. By co-incidence, these particular goods upon theft would other-wise constitute rape if said goods were not on the market. Her profession does carry certain risks and this would be one of them, similar to opening a store to sell computers, and someone broke in and stole the computer equipment at gun-point, which is wrong in and of itself, she decided to open herself as a store, and therefore made herself a target for goods to be stolen from. As stated she was on her way to make a transaction, and had that not occurred, I would be inclined to say this is a straight rape case, however the intent for a business transaction does make this applicable as a theft. I must say that this is a very difficult call the judge made and I am unaware of his/her background or if there is another sinister agenda. This does not mean that a prostitute can not be raped — on the contrary — if there is no prior agreement (contract) and this occurred, then it would be open/shut rape case. So this does not set a precedent saying that simply because you are a prostitute, the gate is open for someone to pick you up against your will with no prior contract and rape you. What this does say, is that in the event of a business contract in transition of completion, this is as simple as not receiving payment for services rendered. (this would be a societal conclusion based on how our current system is run and acceptance of other deeds such as murder on an ongoing basis is acceptable by legal justification through specific trades or professions — this is not what I would consider to be purely ethical, but logical without emotion)
Onto the purely ethical side of things now — My opinion is that the perpetrators should be libel for damages to business property, theft, and since one of the employees was injured, assault, assault with a weapon, and sexual assault would be an ample and logical fit.
There are close ethical calls, but I can’t imagine why you would spend time and effort on this one, which is not, and reach the wrong conclusion anyway. This isn’t a tough decision for the judge at all. The elements of rape were all there. The contract wasn’t valid to begin with, even if she had been paid first–prostitution is illegal, and so was the deal. She wasn’t selling her body; she was selling a sex act that involved her body, and her body remained a woman’s body, with all the protections accorded by the law of a woman’s body. Once the deal was off, raping her was exactly the same crime as raping anyone else. This isn’t debatable. People aren’t property—remember that little Civil War thing? You would apparently argue that if someone was illegally selling a baby, the intended purchaser could kill it instead of buying and would have only committed “destruction of property.” That’s bats. Are you bats? Or are you just playing intellectual games? Rape is not a responsible topic with which to start dehumanizing women’s bodies just for yuks.
Please read the conclusion at the bottom of my last post which is where I personally stand and see would be the proper decision which did not happen — the large blot of text was understanding the logical decisiveness of this system in place and how such things are being legally justified, including MURDER.
Again — my stand is as follows (which you will see in my thread posted prior)
“My opinion is that the perpetrators should be libel for damages to business property, theft, and since one of the employees was injured, assault, assault with a weapon, and sexual assault would be an ample and logical fit.”
I do not condone any unethical or dehumanizing practice period. Murder, rape, lying, cheating, and so forth are all bottom line no-no’s. This is no different. The only reason I wrote the path of logic to the conclusion which was determined is to shine a flood-light onto a huge societal flaw whereby ones profession either cause for exemption from the act of being de-humanized or is justification for the act to de-humanize or otherwise cause harm. It is a system-wide flaw, generally accepted, and I do not agree with it on any level. Singleing out one particular scenario further does not make this case any more severe than the thousands that are murdered daily under the same mentality of false justification that either the deed being done is good or via whatever other mechanic helps those doing said harm to society in general instilling this mentality as an accepted evil, and there-by it is good.
Since you are a lawyer, I would presume that you can observe cases without any emotional attachment, for insight as to the logic where one could arrive at such a verdict or judgement — and then past that, look into it with your own logic and experience and come to a conclusion that is more befitting of the nature of the act or acts which occurred. This is what I have done here. The main and bulky paragraph is how this judge was able to — in capacity — make such a judgement, and what enabled that as a justification. The final paragraph was my conclusion on how such a case should have been handled fully, which entailed not just a crime of property, but saw the person as an employee of the company and thereby extending those rights of humanity to that person which is cause (even under said judges locked opinion), to place any further charges such as rape upon them. She is dehumanized in the prospect of property (yes, prostitution is illegal, but is legal in some places… thats a whole other topic…), but then rehumanized as a person in employ of her own company so gains the benefits of loss/theft of property(etc), and additionally, her human rights which gain the benefits of criminal proceedings. Therefore this situation allows for a duality of both civil and criminal proceedings for different perspectives on the same attack, which in turn is alloting her MORE rights than one who is raped while not under the course of doing a business transaction of same said “goods”.
It’s just plain, ordinary, forcible rape. Twice.
Bingo. The contract was never valid so there can be no theft of services. This is basic 1L contract law. I feel sorry for the victim and all the parties that appear before this moronic judge.
A long exposition like this that it wasn’t rape is why ‘not harsh enough’ applies. If a cheerleader, actor, athlete, or dancer sells their physical expertise, that is not a blanket permission to do anything else.
If you want to call it involuntary services, then we need to apply some much harsher sentences for slavery in addition to rape.
I also must consider you are merely trolling.
Actually, slavery may be a good application here in addition to ALL the listed charges which I felt should have been applied :
– Damages to Business Property (Mischief)
– Theft (Depends how you perceive this as the value of the transaction ($150 or under $1000), or the value of the “goods” (priceless or over $1000))
– Assault
– Assault with a Deadly Weapon
– Sexual Assault
This judge only applied one of the above “Theft”. I am voting for ALL of the above charges. Guys, please read my WHOLE post. Devil is in the details and all that jazz.
Capital punishment and militaries are not “mysterious conundrums”, nor are they “murder”. At least not as far as anyone knowledgable is concerned. You don’t seem to have devoted very much of your life to thinking about the difference between a murderer being executed after a trial by jury (capital punishment) , and a hooker being killed by a creep with a knife (murder). I find that thinking somewhat lazy.
You are playing fast and loose with the definition of “murder” (for what purpose, I do not know, since even if your analogy made sense it wouldn’t justify raping a prostitute.) Self-defence is not murder, and military actions and capital punishments (when justly executed) are nothing more than self-defense on a macro scale.
Damn Jack I read it and thought well no shit it is rape…..Then I read the comments and thought a bit more about it and I still think it is heinous. I am not defending the crime, or blaming the victim, but I can see a strange bit of logic in the theft ruling. I am not saying a rape charge didn’t apply but I am not a lawyer nor have I read up on the case so I don’t know what the evidence was or if there was an agreement made for a lesser charge. She was out on a call she consented to provide her services putting her there willingly, at least initially. She agree in advance that she was willing to trade sex for money, they got the service but didn’t fulfill their agreement. That is theft is it not? If I hire an artist to paint a family portrait and then make her do it at gunpoint it is theft correct? How would it play out if I hired a thief or contract killer and then made him apply his trade while pointing a gun at his head?
At the point she no longer consented it is rape, but legally speaking wouldn’t the totality of the event and the evidence/prosecution case really drive how the judge ruled? Without knowing more about it I couldn’t necessarily say the judge is unethical and incompetent. Assuming the evidence and prosecution case was strong then I would assume a rape conviction should have followed.
It’s not theft because it was not an enforceable contract. It was rape.
It is rape, of course, but surely you wouldn’t argue that if prostitution was legal and the contract was valid, it wouldn’t have been rape!
Is it impossible to have a conversation on this topic? If she didn’t consent then it is rape, I said that already. If it were legal wouldn’t it be theft and rape? Since it isn’t legal it cant be theft?
It still would be rape of course, but you don’t need to do that analysis at all because of the illegality of the contract. If you are in Las Vegas, and the prostitute changed her mind, her clientele could not force her to perform — that would be rape. At best, the client might have a breach of contract action depending on state law, if there was a written contract, etc. The better question would be what if they agreed to terms, had intercourse, and THEN the client refused to pay. This is consensual sex, but here, the prostitute might have a breach of contract action against the client.
Beth wouldn’t the theft charge make more sense if he stole something from her, say a phone or money? I don’t think the theft charge was based on the rape at all now, I think it was in addition, not in lieu of rape.
Steve — you cannot “steal” sex even from a sex worker — you can only rape or have consensual sex (and if money was exchanged, then you have the additional crime of prostitution). If the defendants stole her cellphone, the charge wouldn’t be “theft of services,” it would be just plain theft. I appreciate your analysis here and the fact that you are trying to find a more nuanced approach, but my guess is that the reason for Jack’s post in the first place is that there can be no other legal interpretation of these facts. Sometimes there really is just a bright-line test to be applied.
The Judge obviously was hung up on the fact that she routinely has sex. You know who else routinely has sex? Wives and husbands. And in their legal relationship, not only is sex permissible and expected, but it is part of a larger financial and emotional relationship. But if a husband pulls out a gun and forces his wife to have sex against her will — it’s still rape. Even if they had consensual sex ten minutes before he pulled out the gun.
Even if the contract was enforceable it would be rape as soon as she didn’t want to do something and he chose to do it anyway.
It is why I laugh at the idea of a sex contract. All a sex contract proves is consent was given. Consent can be revoked at any time in sexual situations.
Absolutely.
This sequence of comments is problematic, in my opinion, and neglects some of the moral nuances one can imagine in important hypothetical cases. The case on which the Philadelphia judge ruled may have none of these nuances, but this should not obscure the fact that ethical anomalies can arise when money is exchanged for sex, with or without legally enforceable contracts, but especially without them. When Liberal Dan scoffs at the idea of the sex contract, insisting that it can signify nothing but consent, I am inclined to disagree. The contract, implied or actual, can signify more than consent. If there is any merit to calling it a contract at all, then it should create in the buyer a right of usufruct. Suppose John pays Jill for sex and after a minute of it she calls a halt to the action, insisting that the time is up. Jill has no intention of returning the money. Can John continue the sex with some force to get what he feels is rightfully his? He cannot, and I imagine most of us would consider this to be rape. I certainly would. But I think my strong intuition in such a case reveals something odd. The oddity is made plain by examining a similar scenario: If Jill agrees to sell Jack a toaster; if Jack then pays Jill and takes hold of the toaster, Jill’s toaster has become Jack’s toaster by right; if Jill then changes her mind and tries to wrest the toaster from Jack, he may retain it with some force since it is rightfully his. We are not inclined to call Jack’s forceful resistance in this case “assault,” are we? So what is the difference between vicious John, the rapist, and virtuous Jack, the guy holding on to the toaster that is his by right? I think it has something to do with the morally anomalous nature of selling sex for money. While it is true that Jill provide a service (sex) in the first instance and merchandise (toaster) in the second, I’m not sure how far this goes toward explaining the ethical difference between the two cases. That’s why numerous other posts have sought to reckon Jill the sex worker as just another service provider. It is tempting but also incorrect, I think, to consider Jill as a service provider just like any other. If we do, we discover that we are one step closer to the Philadelphia judge’s reasoning. Why? If I hire a juggler to perform at my party and then, when he arrives, force him to juggle for free at gunpoint, I am certainly guilty of a crime, but I am not guilty of “forcing a person to juggle” since there is no such crime, neither morally nor legally construed. The specific act of forcing a person to do what that person does by trade is perhaps nowhere defined as a crime EXCEPT in the case of prostitution. So if I hire Jill to have sex with me and then force her to do what she does by trade at gunpoint, I am guilty of a unique crime, unique in the sense that in no other coercive use of a person’s mental or bodily services would I face a correspondingly specific charge. It is this anomaly, I suspect, that the Philadelphia judge tried to repudiate in her ruling. She may well have acted from a bias against prostitutes or against sex in general, as another post suggests, but the principle of charity in interpretation can buy us a little more than that easy explanation. In the most charitable interpretation I can conceive, the judge wanted to assign the case of forcing the prostitute to do what she does by trade to the class of all other cases of forcing a person to do what that person does by trade. This assignment, if unqualified by some additional ethical concern, removes or at least weakens the justification for attaching a specific crime to the specific instance of forcing a sex worker to do what she does by trade. I think this is a terrible argument for various reasons, but I’m too tired to enumerate them.
If she was forced to have sex it is rape. If the evidence doesnt support the charge of rape then the ethical thing for the judge to do is to dismiss the charge. There was no charge of theft of services, it is unethical and poor reporting. The whole thing looks like a feminist attack job that was short on any facts of the case.
Any simple issue can be made to sound difficult, nuanced and full of anomalies. The act of surrogate birth is a good topic for the kinds of issues you raise, and well, but not this. Your body is not a toaster, and sex is simultaneously a product and an area of absolute personal dominion. Bottom line: nobody should ever be forced, by power of body or law, to have sex when they don’t want to, whenever or why they don’t want to.”Period.” (I may quote the President this way forever.) It’s not rocket science, nor advanced ethics.
Thanks Beth, so what was the theft?I assuming he was not charged and convicted for nothing, what was the basis?
I don’t understand the question. If the charge was rape, and the judge found that the crime wasn’t rape, then the charge of rape was dropped. A prosecutor who id determined that crime should not escape punishment can try another theory, such as the cockamamie theft of services charge. Obviously the argument is that that what was stolen was her sexual “services,” at gunpoint, yet. But the crime following those facts is rape, not theft. It has never been defined as theft, and crimes are as they are described by statutes. Apart from crimes, we could say that she was defiled, assaulted, that her dignity and autonomy was stolen..there are many arguably valid descriptions. But she was also raped, and the legal system says that is the crime that was committed. One of the reasons, I suspect, that this isn’t treated as “theft of a woman’s virtue” is that this leads to the usual attacks on the victim about the value of what was stolen. If a woman is promiscuous or “easy,’ is the theft of a sexual act petty theft, while the same crime against a virgin a major felony? No, we just call it rape. Good.
Jack see this is my problem with this case, Beth flatly states it coulnt be theft based on contract law. So if it wasn’t theft of services I assume he stole something to receive the conviction. Everyone apparenty assumes this is charge is directly from the crime of rape, if couldnt be legally then what was the basis? If it was based on the rape wouldnt it be overturned by now? It has been a few years.
So I will guess at this point that the charge and
conviction were based on him stealing something
from her. So if that is the case and if she dismissed
the rape charge based on a legit legal reason isn’t that what she is tasked to do? Sorry on my phone
so formatting and such may have suffered
My “guess” is that the prosecutor brought a rape charge in the first place but the Judge wouldn’t let it go forward OR found that the elements hadn’t been proven. Given her absolute idiocy in interpreting the law, this probably was appealed. (At least I hope it was appealed.) If it was appealed and the State still lost, then double jeopardy attached. If it wasn’t appealed, then the D.A. should be fired but given the amount of time that has lapsed, there is no way to bring the rape charge again.
There may be some utilitarian “logic” in the theft ruling, but, thank Heaven, most people with functioning consciences don’t rely solely on utilitarian logic.
There would be “a strange bit of logic” to gassing the mentally handicapped as well, but that would also still be evil.
I must assume by your snarky comment that you would rather just go ahead and charge someone of rape regardless of the evidence then to charge them based on the crime the evidence supports?
“That is theft is it not?”
I see your point but more like armed robbery.
It is rape without doubt.
The use of a firearm to force compliance (Not consent) is the icing on the cake, but unarmed physical force would suffice. On the other hand had she (foolishly) engaged in the act expecting to be paid at completion, and was not… — I refuse to say he stiffed her — then you might have a case for theft of services or breech of contract.
In a past life I dealt with both situations, all too frequently. [Commenter braces for response from Maggie McNeil.]
Think of it this way. Can a judge be judged? Can a thief be robbed? Can a killer be killed? What a person does is not an important factor when something (especially something criminal) is done to them. If she was not raped then the concept of rape is meaningless.
but was she robbed?
No — she was not robbed.
Very hard to find some facts on this one as the activist articles and short news bits are the ones coming up and most of them are short on any facts. I reread what I wrote above and want to make it clear my intent is to examine the judge. So in the short time I spent looking into it I have found the bar association chancellor Jane Dalton in an “unusual” move condemned her (Deni) decision based on the transcripts of the preliminary hearing. It is assumed the chancellor was speaking for the association, it is posted on their page, but the whole statement is written as her opinion and not the bars, is that normal?
http://www.philadelphiabar.org/page/NewsItem?appNum=1&newsItemID=1000699 .
“Deni dismissed the rape and sexual assault charges Oct. 4. She upheld conspiracy, robbery, false imprisonment and other charges against Gindraw.” I cant find what the “Other” charges were.
“The district attorney’s office has refiled the rape charge at a different local court, the Court of Common Pleas, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer” but I cant find anything on what the outcome of that was.
The other three men involved were not charged at all.
She serviced other customers after the rape, not sure how that plays for the overall case.
Gindraw was accused of a similar incident 4 days after this.
The bar association which endorsed her retention last go around endorses her this time. When asked why they endorse her they said they look at the totality of an individuals career not just anomalies.
Karla, your statement “The ruling was based on the judge’s bias against prostitutes.” was based on the following? Chancellor Jane Dalton; “Her decision in this case was based on a pre-existing bias as to when sex can be consented to, and as to when that consent can be withdrawn, and reflects, in my opinion, a clear disregard of the legal definition of rape and the rule of law in this case,”
As far as I have found this one case (2007) is the basis for all the activist attacks, yet other then the questionable quotes of the judge, which I have not actually seen the primary source of, there is nothing I have found that demonstrates that she is unethical and incompetent. The judges quotes are disturbing but I have learned not to trust such, the primary source Philadelphia Daily News where the quotes are attributed to is a dead link in every story I have looked at. I went to the site, did a few searches and turned up nothing. I will hold judgment on them until I can at least see the original context.
Jack, do you think this one ruling and quotes are signature significance?
We have discussed many events and individuals in the past and several times the situation may have not been accurately reported/facts known but they served well to develop a discussion of ethical principals around them. In this case it appears your advocating voting against her and I am not sure she deserves such. I am not saying she doesn’t, but if everything that was being stated were true, with all the years that have passed, wouldn’t you think there would be an article that was much heavier in facts that would address additional, if any, incidents of hers, the outcome of the rape charges at the other court or at least the evidence she disregarded in dismissing the rape charges?
These types of election attacks occur all to often, it might be baseless or accurate but for such a long time passing and little facts being presented I would air on the side of the Bar Association whom I presume evaluated her record, including this case and endorses her retention.
on many low rent convenience stores and eateries:
“We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.”…applies here .
I read the post and replies up until this point. I know several of you are lawyers and most of you are interested in ethics. Too many of you seem to have shut down your ethics compass just because the topic involves rape, or at least a rape allegation. I thought there might actually be a discussion on whether it was ethical for a judge, you know those folks charged with protecting our rights and administering justice, based on the evidenceto dismiss the rape charges. It appears many of you are in agreement that since it was a rape allegation the judge must insure that the bastard be tried and convicted. If this was any other topic, information, facts, evidence and discussion of such would have ensued. If this discussion would have been about politician who said something about what a rape was and wasn’t I could buy the hard-line, “it was rape”. This topic is of a judge and her decision to dismiss charges, you know those things that may lead to a citizen being incarcerated? I thought there was a process in which the system and everyone involved was supposed to evaluate the evidence and insure justice was being done. I can accept that she may have screwed up by the numbers dismissing the rape charge, but the argument “it is rape”, repeated, isn’t arguing the ethics or validity of her decision in dismissing the charges. The quotes attributed to her don’t put her in a good light, but then I challenge you to go find them, in context, original source and present them. I tried, I failed, I couldn’t find them, not even cached, but I am not the best researcher out there so it isn’t saying much.
Bonus points if anyone can find the outcome of the rape charge the prosecutor filled with the other judge.
The bottom line is I thought this post was about a Judge being unethical in the performance of her duties, I am not convinced she was.
Thanks, Steve. I’ll deal with this as a Comment of the Day.
Well I hope you don’t tear me up to bad, thanks.
Thanks for the COTD that is, I wasn’t asking for you to go easy.
I think this is the original article where the quotes were cited, I still am unsure of the true context but at least it is a source. http://archive.is/pnYzQ.
There was reporting on a bar complaint against the prosecutor contacting the media, not sure the validity.
I can find nothing in regards to a conviction of the guy on this incident. There is one for a 2009 rape so I am guessing he wasn’t in prison.
The “theft of services” appears to come from the reporting not the hearing. It may have come from the coffee shop conversation with the judge and Jill Porter. The charges were “conspiracy, robbery, false imprisonment and other charges” Nothing I have found says what “other” charges are.
The supposed “robbery” had to be of services, since nothing tangible and concrete was taken. Conspiracy is easy, as is false imprisonment–all of which are ways to get around what actually happened: a double rape.
Jack, four guys holding a gun to a woman’s head and having sex with her is rape. If they didn’t do that or the state didn’t have evidence to support the charge should the judge allowed it past a hearing? If it was a valid charge supported by the evidence and the prosecutor filed it with the other court where is the conviction? I would think such a damning conviction would be the nail in the coffin of this judge. Do all charges submitted at a hearing survive to trial? Or is it a judges duty to insure the validity of such charges and when in doubt dismiss them so the prosecutor either has to firm up the case or charge the defendant with charges that fit the evidence?
Ok after trying to put as much of this together as I could and reading between the lines a lot I think I have come up with a fact that may play a bit more into why those charges were dismissed. Most of the stories which contain any facts say that she consented, arrived, later agreed to an additional dude for another $100, he showed up later with a gun instead of cash. So if Gindraw had sex with her before this would that null the rape charges for him if he did not participate after the fact? At least one account extended the time frame out a bit, Gindraw, then guy with a gun, two others, fifth guy who didn’t do anything but sent her on her way. She stated that she had her cell phone, purse and pepper spray taken from her.
No argument with your points Jack. These bastards forcibly raped this woman twice and the judge was a dunce. That being said, many prostitutes set up their clients with no intension to have sex with them and rip them off under the current laws. I think that we in the USA should take a hard look at the European system where it is legal in certain areas in Germany and the Netherlands and both the woman and their clients can be protected.
Correction Jack :
According to this article – http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/us/01brfs-judge.html?_r=2&
There were four assailants, not two.
“being forced to have sex with four men at gunpoint”
Oh. Well that’s OK then.
The source I had implied two. It’s incidental to the issue at hand, but I’d call four not rape but “gang rape.”
agreed. and each should have been convicted on all charges stated.
I am entering late on this conversation, but I would like to offer an analogy based on the premise that the prostitute did not consent to having sex, she consented to having sex in exchange for cash payment. The consent was therefore conditional, and this does introduce some dilemmas. So, with this premise in mind, how would you evaluate the following hypothetical case: The men pay her the money up front, have sex with her, and then take the money back either by force or by stealth. Alternatively, you could suppose that the men and the woman agree beforehand to exchange money only after the sex, and the men leave without paying. Would these be instances of rape too? After all, the woman consented to have sex only if paid. If the payment does not materialize, then neither does the consent.
The offense then would have occurred after the consensual sex, and would be not rape, but breach of contract…an unenforceable, illegal contract at that. Fraud in the inducement would also fit, perhaps. Never rape
Actually, you are supposed to pay her before the act, so your logic is flawed.
But again, still rape…
In the case as it is originally described, there can be little doubt that the prostitute never consented to being threatened with a gun to have sex, so there is little doubt that she is a rape victim. I deliberately constructed the analogy with an agreement to pay after the sex–no guns involved–in order to clarify the potential complexity of the consent in exchanges of sex for money. The problem with conceiving the crime as “theft of goods” is not any inherent absurdity in the idea. It is that the crime–or at least some crime–would remain even if the two men had in fact paid her the money but only after the coercive sex at gunpoint occurred. With or without the payment, then, there is clearly some criminal violation of the woman, hence we can’t think of this crime primarily in terms of theft. But not all cases would be so clear, I think, especially given the fact that there are no useful boundaries imposed by any real or implied contract for the exchange. Suppose the men had paid the money up front, no guns involved, and suppose after an hour the woman called a halt to the action by insisting that their time was up. If the men continued to have sex with the woman, forcibly, we should say they are guilty of rape. And if the woman had called a halt after one minute, then what? Still rape. If you pay someone for sex, what, if anything, becomes rightfully yours? I think the difficulty in answering this question lies behind some of the odd sense in this case.
Jack any idea if she won? Can’t find any results.
Looks like she was retained with 76 percent of the vote. Of the other JUDGES OF THE MUNICIPAL COURT she scored more yes votes then all but one other.
http://phillyelectionresults.com/
Your reply seems plain enough and even convincing, but I don’t think it tracks with sufficient precision the ethics of the scenario. When you write that “[t]he offense then would have occurred after the consensual sex . . .” this neglects the fact that the consent was provisional and that the sex act itself, although without struggle or force, was not in fact consensual without the payment. Can de facto consent to some action in the present be contingent upon some future action? If the two men had met the woman, and if she had asked for payment up front, and if they had forced sex upon her, only paying for the sex afterwards, this too would be rape and not “late payment for services rendered.” Why? Not simply because the woman was unwillingly subjected to sex (after all she had already indicated her willingness to have sex with the men although, crucially, it was a provisional willingness). We would call this rape because the woman was subjected to sex without the expectation of payment. Obviously, the woman’s state of mind, actual or implied, is a necessary condition for the immorality and criminality of the sex act. Just as obviously, the force with which the men carry out the sex is a necessary condition too (where force must be understood in its many forms, from physical injury to implied threat and coercive language).
Rape cannot become a rape retroactively. Once you open that door, then it will become rape if the man breaks his promise to love her tomorrow, or to marry her, or any number of other things. If the woman says “yes” for any reason that is not coercion, it’s not rape. It might be fraud, or a breach of contract, but it was unequivocally consensual when it occurred.
“”If the woman says “yes” for any reason that is not coercion, it’s not rape.”
Also “intoxication”. A woman can claim non-consent after the fact in that scenario. Haven’t they?
Sure, but that’s because one cannot consent knowingly and legally while mentally impaired.
It is only consent if she has the ability to. Which is a whole other bag when you have to figure out if she is intoxicated or not. I have been seeing this a lot lately, just had one recently where the gal showed up a party after preflighting, didnt drink a thing at the party, guy/gal hooks up, she reports it . She was under 21 which made things even worse for him as he was investigated for suppling booze as well. After investigating the rape it was found that there was no way he could know as even a police officer which she interacted with on the way to the guys place couldnt tell.
So, if she had consenting sex with the men and they refused to pay afterwards, what would that count as?
This is exactly the starting point of an important series of analogies or hypothetical cases that effectively prove, I think, that–at least in some cases–we are not dealing with simple consent. Therefore–at least in some cases–it could be difficult to identify, precisely, the nature of the personal violation against the prostitute, who is three things: a person, a vendor, and( to some extent) the merchandise, as reprehensible as that sounds to say (the German philosopher Walter Benjamin puts it this way somewhere in his Arcades Project). Consenting to sex is not the same as consenting to sex in exchange for money. It can get ethically complicated, I believe, in some instances, although the gunpoint assault originally described is not one of these instances.
Well, I step out of action for one weekend and miss out on this….
I bet if that prostitute got paid she wouldn’t have went crying to the police.
Yeeeeeeehahh!!
or maybe if she didn’t get raped at gunpoint, her stuff stolen and didn’t get paid you may have a point about her not going to the police.
I know it’s an old story but I have to agree with the judge. Technically you could call it rape. That being said the rape laws are written in such a way as a traumatized victim. A normal women who gets dragged off and raped or taken advantage of by someone she trusted would have serious mental anguish and feel very violated after. This girl already was ready to give up the goods for $250, she wouldn’t have felt traumatized the same way after. The gun would have been traumatic and the loss of money would have pissed her off. It would be the same as someone experiencing armed robbery.
On a site with “ethics” in the name “Ethics, sometimes known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct.” I am sure we all could agree what the men did is wrong. That being said I think subjecting them to the same penalties made to punish someone that rapes an unwilling and crushed there soul would also be unethical. She was more than willing until they didn’t have her money. $250 of cash when people traumatically raped pay thousands upon thousands to recover from being raped.
It’s not the same thing.
Yeah, it really is. We don’t rank crimes according to how well the victim handles it: robbing a rich man is as much robbery as robbing a poor one, and killing an only child is no more horrible than killing one of 15 children. The judge was wrong—you’re even more wrong.
But a provocative and thoughtful comment. Thanks.
They should at least charge him with armed robbery, if not rape. I hope he got a decade or two in prison, like anyone who commits armed robbery with a gun.