Prosecutors detain 17-year old rape victim in Sacramento. How will L.A.’s mayoral race shake out? Race related crimes across the country spark hate crimes debate. Love, men and cheating
Prosecutors detain 17-year-old alleged rape victim in Sacramento
In a highly charged legal situation, prosecutors in Sacramento County, California have placed a 17-year-old alleged rape victim in detention for failing to testify against the man accused of raping her in court.
Victims’ advocacy groups are up in arms over this decision, which they argue is highly unusual and could deter other victims of rape or sexual assault from coming forward with information against suspects.
The prosecution team against Frank William Rackley, the accused, concedes that detaining the young girl is extremely rare, but they insist that it’s essential to provide justice and protect the public good. Rackley has a storied criminal past and is suspected of raping another woman as well.
Rackley was identified via a swastika tattoo on his chest by the teenager now in detention, who is the key witness in this case. Her supporters stress that she is scared of confronting her attacker, and that this period of detention will only serve as a punishment she does not deserve.
But is it possible to achieve justice in Rackley’s trial without her involvement? Are prosecutors in Sacramento County overstepping their bounds in forcing this victim to testify? What Constitutional rights do victims have to keep information to themselves? What about the morality of the situation? Is it fair to pit one person’s individual experience against the hypothetical well-being of a community? Can this situation be resolved to benefit all parties involved?
Guests:
Meg Garvin, Clinical Law Professor and Executive Director of the National Crime Victim Law Institute at Lewis and Clark Law School
John Myers, Professor of Law, University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law
How will L.A.’s mayoral race shake out?
The top-tier candidates are neck and neck with a year to go until polling day. A survey of 1,600 Angeleno voters show Wendy Greuel, Zev Yaroslavsky (who hasn't entered officially), and Eric Garcetti getting 24 percent, 23 percent and 21 percent, respectively.
That's among voters who already have a pick, according to the Center for the Study of Los Angeles. But nearly two out of three registered voters don't know their pick yet. And it is early days. Financier Austin Beutner has yet to spend his money on a campaign. There is also City Councilwoman Jan Perry who secured a solid 17 percent in that survey; radio personality & attorney Kevin James; and more question marks.
What are the top issues for the city now and going forward? What kind of leader does the city need? Who might get the endorsement from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and how much could that help? Which interest groups have the muscle to help these candidates?
Guests:
Jim Newton, Columnist and Editor-at-Large for the Los Angeles Times; Author, "Eisenhower: The White House Years;"
Frank Stoltze, KPCC Reporter
Race related crimes across the country spark hate crimes debate
On Good Friday, two men allegedly terrorized the north side of Tulsa, Oklahoma. By the end of the one day rampage, two men and one woman were dead and another two men were injured.
All five were African-American. The men who admitted to the crimes, Jake England and Alvin Watts, have been charged with several counts, including first-degree murder and malicious harassment, a charge that indicates the victims were targeted because of their race.
Also this month, Mississippi sent the first person ever to be convicted under their hate crimes laws to prison. He’s a young man named Daryl Dedmon, who, as a teenager, killed an African-American man with his truck after beating him and using racial epithets.
These cases, along with the more nuanced one of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman (who has not been charged with hate crimes), is causing many to wonder about these laws.
Critics have said that a person’s motivations don’t make their crimes worse and creates a situation in which a person’s ideology is put on trial. In the words of New York Times Editor Bill Keller, we should be careful about criminalizing defects in character.
On the other hand, many contend that crimes that are motivated by hate affect a wider swath of people than just the intended victim. When a cross is burnt in someone’s yard, the victim is terrorized, but so are their neighbors and friends.
Do a criminal’s motivations make their crime worse? Are hate crimes laws a way to regulate morality? We have a right in this country to say what we want no matter how hateful. So, do hate crimes laws violate first amendment rights?
Guests:
Eugene Volokh, Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law
Mr. Jody Armour, Professor of Law at USC Gould School of Law
Love, men and cheating
Is monogamy for everyone? Is it especially difficult and maybe impossible for men to be monogamous?
The pervasive notion that monogamy is the ultimate proof of true love doesn’t really square with the reality that cheating is rampant. And yet, whether gay or straight, the vast majority of relationships start with the belief that monogamy is the desired ideal.
In his new book, “The Monogamy Gap,” sociologist Eric Anderson combined 120 interviews with social science and biology experts and came up with a theory about why men cheat despite their best efforts to be faithful.
Monogamy, Anderson contends, is irrational because it denies the reality of a lifetime of sexual urges, and cheating is the only way to satisfy sexual desire while staying in a loving relationship with one’s partner. The distance between the monogamous ideal and the biological compulsion for sex is “the monogamy gap,” a term Anderson created to explain why cheating is the rational response to an irrational circumstance.
"If you ask couples what's more important in their lives – the emotional relationship or the sexual relationship – they're of course more likely to say the emotional relationship," he said. "We put all of our policing efforts into the sexual aspect of it, and that is not what is most important in a relationship."
Anderson explained that the desire to stay faithful to one partner is culturally conditioned, part of it coming with the Industrial Revolution.
"It used to be on a farm, the more kids you had, the more hands you had to do the farm. But in industry, one wage can only feed so many people, so the more kids you have under one salary labor – well, it's not beneficial to have multiple kids out of that," he said.
The book's central question is whether monogamy is serving society well. Anderson contends that the number of emotionally healthy families breaking up due to sexual violations gives evidence to monogamy's drawbacks.
"I'm suggesting that we need to do is decrease the stigma about open sexual relationships so that couples can make better choices. Because right now, men are saying to me, it's better to cheat and hope that it go unnoticed, than ask for an open sexual relationship because there's such a stigma," he said.
So, should we all throw in the towel on monogamy? Or is there something about that kind of commitment that we should preserve and honor? Is it even possible?
Guest:
Eric Anderson, author of “The Monogamy Gap: Men, Love and the Reality of Cheating” (Oxford University Press). Professor Eric Anderson is an American sociologist at the University of Winchester.