Judge finds midshipman not guilty in Naval Academy sex assault case
A military judge on Thursday found a former Navy football player not guilty of sexually assaulting a female classmate in a high-profile case that reverberated far beyond the U.S. Naval Academy’s Annapolis campus.
Marine Col. Daniel Daugherty issued his ruling on the fate of Midshipman Joshua Tate to a packed courtroom at the Washington Navy Yard.
Tate, a 22-year-old senior from Nashville, showed no emotion as the verdict was read, while a supporter seated behind him cried. The judge referred lesser charges of lying to investigators back to the academy to handle internally. Cmdr. John Schofield, an academy spokesman, said Thursday that the remaining charges were being dropped in exchange for Tate’s agreement “to accept the most serious form of punishment a midshipman can receive through the conduct system: a dismissal from the Naval Academy.”
His accuser, also a 22-year-old senior, has become a pariah on campus but remains on track to be commissioned as a Navy officer this spring. (The Washington Post generally does not identify alleged victims of sexual assault.)
full: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/judge-to-rule-in-naval-academy-sexual-assault-case-after-hearing-closing-arguments/2014/03/20/d9211394-b040-11e3-b8b3-44b1d1cd4c1f_story.html
In an interview with a Baltimore TV station, the victim said: "I have outside witnesses. The attackers had bragged about it. They had told me to my face what they did." And she STILL can't get justice?
Sometimes I reconsider whether the 6th Amendment (the right to confront an accuser) has a negative trade-off. I wonder why sexual abuse victims should ever be cross examined. You may deny it, but is it not a zero-sum game between protecting people from false accusations and providing justice for abuse victims?
Oh yeah, about that ignorant a** American Enterprise Institute fellow who wrote some garbage on Time.com "there's no such thing as rape culture duhhhh"...it seems that article was quickly debunked.
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