Categories
Uncategorized

Appeals court rebukes Purdue for hiding evidence from accused student, likely anti-male bias

‘Alcohol isn’t the cause of campus sexual assault. Men are’

 

Purdue University didn’t bother reviewing an investigative report before judging an accused student responsible for sexually assaulting another student. It didn’t show him the report, either.

The public university didn’t even require his accuser to submit written testimony for a hearing she skipped.

Adjudicators judged “Jane Roe” more credible without “John Doe” being able to question her motivations for accusing him, including possible retaliation for reporting her attempted suicide.

This was too much for the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but not because John has a “protected property interest” in his education that requires Purdue to provide minimal due process protections.

Rather, the “fundamentally unfair” proceeding by Purdue led the U.S. Navy to oust the accused student from its ROTC program, meaning he couldn’t pursue a career in his chosen field. And John has a “protected liberty interest” in his career, the 7th Circuit ruled Friday. It remanded John’s lawsuit to the trial court that had dismissed it.

The opinion by Judge Amy Coney Barrett is the second by a short-list candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court to mandate a certain level of due process in campus sexual assault proceedings.

Judge Amul Thapar wrote the 6th Circuit decision last fall that required public universities to let accused students or their “agents” cross-examine their accusers in live hearings.

The 7th Circuit’s precedents forced it to take a different route to find fault with Purdue’s procedures. Unlike some other appellate courts, it does not recognize a protected property interest in education.

“Do the alleged facts, if true, raise a plausible inference that the university discriminated against John ‘on the basis of sex’?” Barrett wrote for the unanimous court, dismissing other appeals courts that have used “formal doctrinal tests to identify general bias in the context of university discipline.”

The three judges agreed that John had met his threshold to sue under both the 14th Amendment and Title IX. In particular, they faulted Purdue office that shared an article on Facebook that blamed men as a group for sexual assault.

Purdue provided a statement Monday to The College Fix that said it “understand[s] and respect[s] the appellate court’s decision, recognizing that it was bound by legal procedure to accept each of John Doe’s allegations as true.”

Spokesperson Tim Doty said the university “stands ready to now answer those allegations and looks forward to the opportunity to present its evidence.”

MORE6th Circuit says Title IX trials should be more like ‘My Cousin Vinny’

No factual basis for credibility finding

Jane is John’s ex-girlfriend and a fellow ROTC cadet. They had consensual sex 15-20 times starting in the fall of 2015, according to Barrett’s summary of John’s suit.

But she displayed mental health problems during their courtship, and attempted suicide in front of him that December. They stopped having sex after that, and Doe reported the suicide attempt to a university advisor.

Jane expressed animosity toward John for reporting her, and soon after started dating someone else.

When Sexual Assault Awareness Month came in April, Purdue’s Center for Advocacy, Response and Education sponsored events on the issue and shared articles on the subject. One of them came from The Washington Post: “Alcohol isn’t the cause of campus sexual assault. Men are.”

That same month, Jane reported John to the university for allegedly groping her without consent that November. He also went through her dresser without permission, visited her dorm unannounced and “lost his temper in front of her,” she claimed.

Similarly to an expelled student’s allegations against Yale University, which settled his lawsuit on the eve of a jury trial, John claimed that Purdue opened an investigation even though Jane didn’t file a formal complaint.

Katherine Sermersheim, dean of students and Title IX coordinator, informed him of Jane’s allegations in a letter. Soon after he was suspended by his ROTC program and “barred from eating in his usual dining hall because Jane used it.”

John wrote a letter denying all of Jane’s allegations from the jump. The only possibly nonconsensual behavior he admitted to was touching Jane’s knee while she slept after witnessing her suicide attempt.

After she found him responsible and John appealed the decision, Sermersheim was ordered to provide the “factual basis” for the finding. She claimed that he placed his hand “above her knee … and moved it up to her ‘crotch’ areas” and also digitally penetrated her.

The only evidence the dean proffered was that she found Jane but not John “a credible witness” by a preponderance of evidence.

Purdue violated student’s due process by withholding evidence, 7th Circuit rules by The College Fix on Scribd

Withheld report falsely claimed he had confessed

John provided an abundance of evidence that he considered “inconsistent” with Jane’s accusations, including her texts to him over the holidays. She also sent his family “homemade Christmas cookies” and invited him to her room when school started in January.

“He also provided details suggesting that Jane was troubled and emotionally unstable, which he thought might explain her false accusations,” according to Barrett’s summary. He turned over some “friendly” texts and provided a list of more than 30 “integrity” witnesses.

Sermersheim refused to give John a copy of the investigative report ahead of the Advisory Committee on Equity hearing, which would make a recommendation to her. This was in keeping with Purdue’s procedures at the time.

It was only because a Navy ROTC representative showed him a redacted copy of the report, “moments before” the hearing, that John saw it was factually incorrect and one-sided. It falsely claimed he had confessed to Jane’s claims and omitted his “description of Jane’s suicide attempt.”

John claimed that two members of the hearing panel admitted they didn’t read the investigative report, while another asked “accusatory questions that assumed his guilt.” They refused to let him provide witnesses including his roommate, who claimed he was in the room when John allegedly groped Jane.

Because Purdue suspended John for a year and made his return contingent on “bystander intervention training,” he “involuntarily resigned” from the ROTC program under its “zero tolerance” practice.

View image on Twitter

View image on Twitter

Barrett’s opinion distinguished John’s claims from other cases where plaintiffs “spill[ed] the beans” about their punishment and then blamed defendants for ruining their reputations.

“Purdue, not John, revealed to the Navy that it had found him guilty of sexual violence, and John had a legal obligation to authorize the disclosure,” she wrote. The university also changed his status after finding him “guilty of a sexual offense,” meaning he has “adequately alleged that Purdue deprived him of a liberty interest.”

The procedures that Purdue provided are not even good enough in a high-school context, the Supreme Court shortlister continued. Because he was suspended for “sexual violence rather than academic failure … for an academic year rather than a few days,” he was entitled to not only notice but evidence.

This failure was “itself sufficient to render the process fundamentally unfair,” Barrett said.

The hearing also appeared to be a “sham” because two of the three panelists judged him guilty without reading the investigative report, the judge said. It was also “unclear, to say the least, how Sermersheim and the committee could have evaluated Jane’s credibility” without speaking to her or even receiving a statement she wrote herself, “much less a sworn statement.”

It ignored “specific impeachment evidence” from John, including Jane’s texts and “continued romantic relationship” with him and the testimony of both parties’ roommates. This was “fundamentally unfair” to John, the opinion concludes.

It’s here that Barrett parts ways with the 6th Circuit, refusing to determine whether due process requires cross-examination of the accuser. “[W]e need not address this issue” because John has already met his pleading burden on “procedural deficiencies,” she wrote in a footnote.

MORE6th Circuit requires cross-examination in campus rape cases

‘Pressure on the university’ by Obama admin ‘was far from abstract’

Also parting ways with other circuits, Barrett said she didn’t need to use a particular theory of “general bias” to analyze John’s Title IX claim. She specifically noted two recent additions from 6th Circuit sexual misconduct cases: “deliberate indifference” and “archaic assumptions.”

John blamed Purdue’s action on the Department of Education’s 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter that threatened the federal funding of colleges that didn’t lower their standards for finding sexual misconduct.

This showed that “Purdue had a financial motive for discriminating against males in sexual assault investigations,” Barrett summarized. She noted Purdue was under two investigations by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights when Jane accused John.

This showed that “the pressure on the university to demonstrate compliance was far from abstract,” and “may have been particularly acute for Sermersheim,” the Title IX coordinator who also chaired the hearing.

But the Dear Colleague letter was not enough for Barrett. What pushed John’s claims over the line was the decision to credit Jane “without directly hearing from her” in a purely “he said/she said” situation:

Sermersheim’s explanation for her decision (offered only after her supervisor required her to give a reason) was a cursory statement that she found Jane credible and John not credible. Her basis for believing Jane is perplexing, given that she never talked to Jane.

MOREAnti-male Title IX case against Columbia will proceed

Barrett notes that another Title IX coordinator, CARE Director Monica Soto Bloom, provided the only account of Jane’s claims in a letter that Bloom herself wrote. Sermersheim “apparently gave significant weight” to Bloom’s letter.

The three hearing panelists were “biased in favor of Jane and against John” as made clear by his allegations, the judge continued. They showed hostility to him “despite their lack of familiarity with the details of the case,” further suggesting that “Jane’s allegation was all they needed to hear to make their decision. “

The Facebook post by CARE during Sexual Assault Awareness Month, when John was disciplined, adds further evidence that “Sermersheim and her advisors chose to believe Jane because she is a woman and disbelieve John because he is a man,” the opinion reads:

To be sure, John may face problems of proof, and the factfinder might not buy the inferences that he’s selling. But his claim should have made it past the pleading stage …

View image on Twitter
View image on Twitter
See KC Johnson’s other Tweets

Administrators shielded for ‘all but the most egregious constitutional violations’

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education gave qualified praise to the decision in a legal analysis Monday, noting its limitations.

Samantha Harris, vice president for procedural advocacy, pointed out that the 7th Circuit does not recognize a “stand-alone property interest in an education at a state university,” making the ruling less applicable to situations unlike John’s.

The ruling shows how difficult it is for students to find justice in the courts, she said, citing Barrett’s rejection of personal liability for several administrators.

In order for John to get monetary damages from them, he must show he had a “clearly established” right to procedural due process in the proceeding, according to Barrett.

MOREPurdue incident shows why comedians should skip colleges

The 7th Circuit has “never applied” the rule in John’s case – his liberty interest – to a university, the judge wrote, so the officials couldn’t have known that their actions violated the 14th Amendment. John also lacks standing to demand injunctive relief, since he hasn’t said he wants to return to Purdue:

What John really seeks to do is champion the rights of other men at Purdue who might be investigated for sexual misconduct using the flawed procedures that he describes in his complaint. That is a no-go …

The 7th Circuit both provided a “narrow view of the circumstances under which public universities owe due process to their students” and shielded administrators from liability for “all but the most egregious constitutional violations,” Harris wrote in FIRE’s analysis.

“The decision is both a victory for the accused student and a reminder that the courts are an imperfect vehicle for students seeking redress after being subjected to unfair campus disciplinary procedures,” she said.

Categories
Uncategorized

Anderson Cooper cuts to commercial after Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll calls rape ‘sexy’

Cooper had asked writer E. Jean Carroll, 75, if she felt like she was a victim. During a discussion of her allegations with the CNN host, Carroll maintained that there was nothing “sexual” about her alleged rape in the dressing room of a New York department store.

“I was not thrown on the ground and ravaged,” Carroll said, denying that she was a victim. “The word rape carries so many sexual connotations. This was not sexual. It just hurt.”

Chief Political Correspondent Byron York on the expanded Washington Examiner magazine
Carroll described the alleged event between Trump and her as a “fight” rather than “rape.” Cooper responded by saying that most people would likely think of rape as a violent assault, to which Carroll responded that she thinks most people find rape “sexy.”

She said: “I think most people think of rape as being sexy. They think of the fantasies.”

Clearly uncomfortable, Cooper swiftly cut in and said they would take a quick break.

Carroll’s interview with Cooper comes after she accused the president Friday of sexually assaulting her in either 1995 or 1996.

The accusation was published in New York Magazine as an early excerpt release of her book, coming out July 2, titled What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal.

Trump, 73, has denied the allegation on multiple occasions, saying on Monday that “she’s not my type.”

Carroll, who was Miss Cheerleader USA in 1964, claimed the incident took place in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room while she was about to try on lingerie. She said Trump pinned her against a wall, pulled down her tights and penetrated her with his penis.

Trump said in an interview: “Totally lying. I don’t know anything about her. I know nothing about this woman. I know nothing about her. She is — it’s just a terrible thing that people can make statements like that.”

Categories
Uncategorized

Senators Seek to Break Sexual Assault Impasse on Education Bill

Senators Seek to Break Sexual Assault Impasse on Education Bill

  • Bipartisan group looks to balance accuser, accused rights
  • Congress, Education Department working separately

By Emily Wilkins | June 27, 2019 11:02AM ET | Bloomberg Government

A group of eight senators is working to tackle one of the most contentious issues in higher education—when and how colleges need to respond to allegations of sexual assault.

Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and ranking member Patty Murray (D-Wash.) brought the group together in a quest to resolve potentially the biggest remaining obstacle to a bipartisan reauthorization of federal higher education programs.

“We’re all looking for the same thing: an environment that encourages reporting when there is a problem and a process that gets at the truth and is fair to the person bringing a claim and fair to he person who is accused,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), a member of the working group.

Murray and Alexander are members of the group, as well as Republicans Tim Scott (S.C.), Susan Collins (Maine), and Richard Burr (N.C.), and Democrats Kaine, Maggie Hassan (N.H.), and Tammy Baldwin (Wis.).

Categories
Uncategorized

Education Department Will Review Anti-male Bias at University of North Carolina

Categories
Uncategorized

Judge rips into University of Michigan for evasion, bad faith in accused student’s lawsuit

University’s lawyer doesn’t know what ‘cross-examination’ means

 

The University of Michigan does not have a good history with Senior U.S. District Judge Arthur Tarnow.

That history got even worse on Monday.

The federal judge let loose a stream of invective against the university in an eight-page brief to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, citing its behavior in a due-process lawsuit by a student accused of sexual misconduct.

Tarnow accused UMich and its “ever-expanding” legal team – three law firms and its general counsel – of caring more about President Mark Schlissel’s image than “providing a fair process for adjudicating sexual misconduct claims.”

The university has been arguing with Tarnow for more than a month about his demand that Schlissel (feature image) appear at a settlement conference in the case. A transcript of a May 1 conference shows UMich lawyer Joshua Richards repeatedly relitigating the order, questioning Tarnow’s intelligence, and then asking the judge to dismiss himself from the case.

The 6th Circuit approved the university’s motion to stay Tarnow’s hearing last week, where Schlissel had been ordered to appear, and asked him for an explanation. Tarnow’s Monday brief blamed the university for bad-faith stalling tactics and needless publicity.

He also questioned the intelligence of Richards, the university’s lawyer, who “repeatedly claimed that he did not understand the meaning of the term ‘cross-examination’” at an April 25 teleconference.

“The Court hopes to hold this informal conference in open court” – a point of contention with UMich – “to quell the public’s confusion concerning the status of the case which has been generated by the University’s recent filings,” Tarnow told the 6th Circuit.

The Bill Clinton-appointed judge has twice ruled against UMich in the past year for withholding due process from parties accused of sexual misconduct, in this case and another brought by a female professor.

‘Delay, uncertainty, and additional billable hours’ for no reason

UMich has repeatedly insisted that Schlissel has better things to do than appear in Tarnow’s court, and that the president does not have “primary responsibility” for the Title IX policy.

It could not tell Tarnow which official actually has that authority, however, and the judge demanded Schlissel appear as the only person who can approve a final settlement proposal. Resolving this case “should be more important to [Schlissel] than almost anything going on at the university,” he said May 1.

Arthur J Tarnow.jpgIn his Monday brief, Tarnow (left) defended his prerogative over “case management” and his belief that the parties were “not working together” to institute a sexual misconduct policy that can pass legal muster.

He laid the blame squarely on the university, which failed to consult the accused student’s attorney before issuing a new sexual misconduct policy.

MOREStop arguing and turn over Schlissel, Tarnow says

The 6th Circuit’s Baum ruling last fall, which ordered universities to let an “agent” of the accused student cross-examine the accuser in a live hearing, “should have been helpful in formulating a hearing procedure acceptable to both parties” in this case, Tarnow wrote.

The revised UMich policy followed four months later, and its lawyers cited it “as a basis for declaring compliance with due process and for filing a motion to dismiss” the lawsuit:

The University’s unilateral actions virtually guarantee the possibility of an appeal of any ruling by the Court. The result? Delay, uncertainty, and additional billable hours for an ever-expanding defense team, with no added value to its client. … [UMich should have]—at a minimum—sought input from Plaintiff’s counsel before instituting a
policy which directly affects her client and the outcome of this case.

KC Johnson

Blistering filing just in from the court in @UMich due process case. Judge strongly implies Michigan lawyers not handling the issue in good faith: “The University’s unilateral actions virtually guarantee the possibility of an appeal of any ruling by the Court.”

View image on Twitter

KC Johnson

@kcjohnson9

Judge Tarnow: UM lawyer “repeatedly claimed that he did not understand the meaning of the term ‘cross-examination.’” Judge blasts “insincere behavior” of univeriy counsel.

View image on Twitter
Schlissel should be here to see how his lawyer acts

Tarnow showed his irritation in footnotes. One identifies the three firms on retainer for UMich in this case and says its general counsel is “probably on a salary” yet didn’t make an appearance in the year-old suit until early June.

He also distinguished the behavior of the university’s many lawyers, who seek “a fair result to be achieved expeditiously,” from the university itself, though he singled out Richards for contempt.

The 6th Circuit had just remanded the case to Tarnow’s court when the parties met for a settlement conference, but Richards (right) used the occasion to make a “performance,” the judge said. This is where Richards confessed his confusion at the meaning of “cross-examination,” and apparently it caused Tarnow to swear at him.

The judge did not deny UMich’s accusation of the “expletive,” but said if he did swear, it was because of the “insincere behavior” of Richards. The reason the May 1 conference had a transcript was because of the “tenor” of the April 25 “off-the-record” meeting, he told the appeals court.

MOREUMich withholds degree, transcript with no hearing

Tarnow laid out his argument again for Schlissel’s appearance in court, including the president’s “ultimate authority” to resolve the case and UMich’s failure to even provide the title of another official with “full settlement authority.”

Schlissel has already violated the rules of Tarnow’s court by refusing to appear as the “client” in the lawsuit at the initial status conference, the judge said:

His attendance at the conference avoids the need to resort to the bureaucratic and lengthy settlement process inherent in university litigation. It is also important for the President to be aware of the demeanor of his legal representative.

He mocked the university’s argument that Tarnow plans to “cross-examine” Schlissel. He doesn’t have to say anything, the judge said: “As with any settlement conference, the talking will be left to the attorneys.”

KC Johnson

3 major revelations from today’s filing by Judge Tarnow in @UMich case:
1) univ lawyer claimed not to know definition of x-exam;
2) univ changed its TIX policies w/o consulting student’s lawyer in case;
3) Tarnow & univ lawyers seem to have tense rel’ship:https://twitter.com/kcjohnson9/status/1140688310257500160 

KC Johnson

@kcjohnson9

Judge Tarnow: Univ. of Michigan “attorneys appear to be more concerned with keeping the President out of the public eye than with prompt resolution of this case and providing a fair process for adjudicating sexual misconduct claims.”https://twitter.com/kcjohnson9/status/1140686972471664641 

Conference should be public because of university’s bumbling

The university’s stated desire to protect the settlement talks from becoming a media circus is belied by its own actions, according to Tarnow.

The settlement conference with Schlissel was Tarnow’s attempt to protect everyone from “unnecessary publicity and delay,” yet “the University’s attorneys have refused to participate in good faith,” the judge wrote.

Richards’ refusal to provide the president unless Tarnow put it in a written order has resulted in publicity that “neither helped the University’s image nor contributed to the resolution of this case,” according to the judge. He noted a local legal publication ran an “ambiguous headline” that suggested Schlissel himself was wanted for sexual misconduct.

UMich attorneys look “more concerned with keeping the President out of the public eye” than designing a fairer sexual misconduct process, he said. Tarnow has “bent over backwards” to accommodate Schlissel’s schedule, to no avail.

MOREUMich’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day at the 6th Circuit

It’s true that Tarnow made a “last-minute decision” to hold the settlement conference in public, as opposed to the in-chambers private meeting he had previously suggested.

But the judge said the change was prompted by his desire for transparency and the university’s June 5 motion to dismiss, which “incited confusion amongst the media on whether it was an attempt by the University to avoid the conference.”

The university has “pursued every possible avenue for garnering publicity in this case,” including by using an “improper method” to get the 6th Circuit to intervene, Tarnow wrote. It wasted a month by seeking a “writ of mandamus,” giving the appeals court one day to consider the filing, rather than seeking “interlocutory appeal” of Tarnow’s May 8 order denying reconsideration.

UMich told the Detroit Free Press that Tarnow’s brief showed why the public university “is deeply concerned by the fairness of the proceeding in this case.”

Spokesperson Kim Broekhuizen cited Tarnow’s change of mind on the openness of the settlement conference “less than 48 hours before” as the reason for Schlissel’s backing out. He was “fully prepared” to attend a closed conference, she said, and Tarnow has not explained how an open conference would lead to a faster resolution “than a private discussion between the parties and the court.”

Judge: U-M is trying to protect president from public. Here’s why.

Federal court Judge Arthur Tarnow responds in court filing that U-M more concerned with protecting president than providing fair sexual assault claims process

MOREUMich violated professor’s right to cross-examine accusers

Categories
Uncategorized

Texas Goverernor Signs Bill Making It Illegal to Hear Sex Jokes on Campus and Not Report It

Categories
Uncategorized

Texas governor signs bill making sex jokes on campus a criminal offense

Get ready for ‘explosion of frivolous investigations into protected speech’

 

Greg Abbott issued broad protections for campus speech a week ago. A few days later, he rendered those new protections meaningless.

Ignoring warnings from a civil-liberties groupand yours truly, the Republican governor signed provisions into Texas law that use criminal law to enforce the Obama administration’s unconstitutional definition of campus sexual harassment.

Their practical effect will be scaring faculty and other university employees into reporting any “sex-based” conduct or speech that may be “unwelcome” to someone at their campus. That includes overheard sex jokes.

SB 212 threatens termination and up to six months in jail for any campus employee who “witnesses or receives information” – that means hearsay – that may count as sexual harassment under this exceedingly broad definition, and fails to report it to the Title IX apparatus.

Those staggering employment and criminal penalties practically ensure that Title IX offices will be flooded with sexual harassment reports, and that students will be subjected to wide-ranging administrative investigations for constitutionally protected speech.

Abbott signed both SB 212 and a related bill, HB 1735, that uses the same definition of sexual harassment and deprives accused students of basic due process. Texas law will conflict with U.S. Department of Education rules if proposed Title IX revisions remain substantially similar in the final published regulation.

MORETexas lawmakers approve unconstitutional campus speech restrictions

The purportedly conservative governor has been on notice for three years that broad definitions of sexual harassment are unconstitutional on their face.

In a 2016 op-ed in Abbott’s local newspaper, Executive Director Robert Shibley of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education noted that an anti-gun protest at the University of Texas counts as sexual harassment under the Obama administration’s Title IX guidance.

Why is that? Because students were waving around sex toys in the “Cocks Not Glocks” protest. It would be shocking if the display of silicone erections and sexually themed chanting were not “unwelcome” to someone on campus.

The new Texas laws now functionally incorporate the Obama administration guidance that the Trump administration’s Department of Education rescinded. The “unwelcome” standard – which has no objective component – was mandated by President Obama’s department in a “blueprint” agreement with the University of Montana in 2013, a move it repeated with the University of New Mexico in 2016.

The non-criminal provisions of the bills take effect in September, while the criminal portion takes effect in January, FIRE’s Tyler Coward writes in a blog post:

This means Texas’s students and faculty will be forced to navigate new, unconstitutional speech codes this academic year that will inevitably lead to an explosion of frivolous investigations into protected speech, self-censorship, and possibly even jail time for faculty members who run afoul of the new law.

Coward, who serves as legislative counsel for FIRE, predicted that the new Texas laws will be struck down in court, since similar speech restrictions “have fallen time, and time, and time again in Texas.”

But in the meantime, he encourages students and faculty to contact FIRE if the two laws result in “deprivation of their free speech or due process rights.”

MOREFree speech advocates alarmed by Obama’s campus harassment rules

Categories
Uncategorized

Order of protection fails to prevent Fort Benning soldier’s murder; wife charged

Sgt. Brandyn Paonessa, 26, was killed Thursday in Phenix, Ala., and his wife was charged with the murder. Brittnay Ryals Paonessa, 27, was jailed on $150,000 bond.

He obtained the order of protection just three days prior to the shooting. His petition called her “very mentally ill” and “very unstable” and said she had refused treatment help from a rehabilitation center, WTVM reported.

ARMY SOLDIER ALLEGEDLY OPENED FIRE IN NORTH CAROLINA HOME WHILE ON ACTIVE DUTY, IN UNIFORM: POLICE

Paonessa also accused his wife of stalking him, his family and friends, threatening his Army job and running a “truck into the house,” narrowly missing their children, an infant, a 2-year-old, a 3-year-old and an 8-year-old, the station reported.

Brittnay Ryals Paonessa and Brandyn Lloyd Paonessa

Brittnay Ryals Paonessa and Brandyn Lloyd Paonessa (Lee County Sheriff’s Office/Facebook)

A statement from Fort Benning expressed condolences to the sergeant’s family and friends, according to the station.

“Paonessa was assigned to Task Force 1-28, 3rd Infantry Division,” the statement said. He joined the Army in 2013 the same year he and Brittnay married.

1ST WOMAN TO TAKE COMMAND OF A US ARMY INFANTRY DIVISION

Paonessa was shot in the stomach and the murder weapon, a shotgun, was recovered, the station reported. Deputies found him in the yard in front of his house.

Brandon Lloyd Paonessa and his wife Brittnay Ryals in happier times.

Brandon Lloyd Paonessa and his wife Brittnay Ryals in happier times. (Facebook)

The Birmingham News reported that court records show the couple had a history of marital discord.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

He was arrested last year on a domestic violence charge after she accused him of punching her in the stomach, the paper reported. She said he assaulted her because she had looked through his cellphone but then declined to press charges, leading to the case’s dismissal.

Categories
Uncategorized

Biased training for judges still a problem

Anyone familiar with the Scottsboro Boys or “To Kill a Mockingbird” will be familiar with the need for due process in sexual assault allegations. The often “he said/she said” nature of these cases make them especially susceptible to false allegations. Unfortunately, there is continuing pressure to reduce even basic due process protections and to prosecute unfounded cases.

In one recent Nebraska case, for example, prosecutors charged a man with sexual assault even though the accuser changed her story numerous times, destroyed evidence and made unsubstantiated allegations in two unrelated cases. The case was so weak a jury acquitted him in less than an hour.

In another recent Nebraska case, a man was prosecuted for sexual assault despite substantial uncertainty any assault had occurred and DNA evidence that showed there had been no sexual contact between the parties. He was also acquitted.

These are in addition to dozens of similar cases from elsewhere around the country. In addition, hundreds of lawsuits have been filed against colleges and universities alleging they violated the due process rights of accused students.

Why is this happening? Biased training is partly to blame. Two years ago, a lawsuit forced our state judicial branch to disclose training materials used to train our judges. Once disclosed, those materials showed our judges were given false information that misrepresented applicable research and failed to disclose dozens of studies that contradicted the presenter’s personal political agenda.

One form of biased training is based on “trauma-informed” practices. According to a recent article, “assertions about how trauma physiologically impedes the ability to resist or coherently remember (sexual) assault have greatly undermined defense against assault allegations. But science offers little support for these claims.” These practices are so suspect that a federal court recently found “trauma-informed” practices in college sexual misconduct investigations were plausible evidence of unlawful gender bias.

Unfortunately, a new Nebraska statute authorizes new “restorative justice training” that specifically includes “trauma-informed practices.” Our state judicial branch has also sponsored numerous programs over the last several years that are based on “trauma-informed practices.”

In addition, prosecutors and police are being pressured to abandon objective investigation techniques and to instead “start by believing,” be “victim-centered” or “believe survivors.” One result is cases are increasingly being brought that have no corroborating evidence to support the accuser’s allegations, something that rarely happens in other cases. These practices are unsound from an investigatory perspective and constitutionally suspect because they encourage fact-finders to abandon the constitutional presumption of innocence.

What can be done? New unbiased training must be provided to stop the flow of misinformation to our judges, police and prosecutors and to correct the misinformation that has already been communicated. This training should reject discredited theories like “trauma-informed” and “start by believing,” and instead teach objective and constitutionally-sound practices. The content of all training should be available to the public to ensure it is unbiased.

Shawna Thompson is a director of Nebraskans for Equal Justice and a longtime advocate for children and sexual assault victims. She lives in North Platte.

Categories
Uncategorized

Violence Against Women Act Does Violence to the Constitution

A common trick of big-government loving politicians is to give legislation names so appealing that it seems no reasonable person could oppose it. The truth is, the more unobjectionable the title, the more objectionable the content. Two well-known examples are the “PATRIOT Act” and the “Access to Affordable and Quality Care Act.”

Another great example is the Violence Against Women Act. Passed in 1994, the Violence Against Women Act provides federal grants to, and imposes federal mandates on, state and local governments with the goal of increasing arrests, prosecutions, and convictions of those who commit domestic violence.

Like most federal laws, the Violence Against Women Act is unconstitutional. The Constitution limits federal jurisdiction to three crimes: counterfeiting, treason, and piracy. All other crimes — including domestic violence — are strictly state and local matters.

The law also forbids anyone subject to a restraining order obtained by a spouse or a domestic partner from owning a gun. This is a blatant violation of the Second Amendment’s prohibition on federal laws denying anyone the right to own a gun. Whether someone subject to a restraining order, or convicted of a violent crime, should lose their rights to own firearms is a question to be decided by state and local officials.

At least the current law requires individuals receive due process before the government can deprive them of their Second Amendment rights. The House of Representatives recently passed legislation reauthorizing and making changes to the Violence Against Women Act. The most disturbing part of this “upgrade” gives government the power to take away an individual’s Second Amendment rights based solely on an allegation that the individual committed an act of domestic violence. The accused then loses Second Amendment rights without even having an opportunity to tell their side of the story to a judge.

This is a version of “red flag” laws that are becoming increasingly popular. Red flag laws are not just supported by authoritarians like Senators Diane Feinstein and Lindsey Graham, but by alleged “constitutional conservatives” like Sen. Ted Cruz.

Red flag laws have led to dangerous confrontations between law enforcement and citizens who assumed that those breaking into their property to take their guns are private, rather than government, thieves.

The House bill also expands red flag laws to cover those accused of “misdemeanor stalking.” Many jurisdictions define misdemeanor stalking to include “cyber” or online stalking. These means someone could lose Second Amendment rights for sending someone an “offensive” Facebook or Twitter message.

Forbidding someone from owning a firearm because of offensive social media posts sets a precedent that could be used to impose legal sanctions on those posting “hate speech.” Since hate speech is defined as “speech I don’t agree with,” this could lead to the de facto outlawing of free speech online.

Instead of addressing concerns over the inclusion of new red flag type laws in the Violence Against Women’s Act, proponents of the bill have smeared their critics as not caring about domestic violence. As Reason magazine senior editor Jacob Sullum has pointed out, these progressives sound like neoconservatives who smear PATRIOT Act opponents as allies of Al Qaeda.

All decent people oppose domestic violence and terrorism. However, the desire to catch and punish wrongdoers does not justify violating the Constitution or denying anyone due process. When government violates the rights of anyone it threatens the liberties of everyone.