In response to “Stop assuming victims are lying”

Dear Editor, 

Assuming that the defendant is guilty is not how law should be practiced. The system of law should be based on the idea that one is innocent until proven guilty, not guilty until proven innocent. The burden of proof falls on the accusing party to bring evidence to prove someone is guilty. 

It is important to apply this consistently to all cases in our system. I don’t care if the plaintiff (or victim as you put it) is a man, woman, or a circle. I don’t care if the case is over illegal possession of a class three firearm, unauthorized communication of national defense information, or failure to stop at a stop sign. The same assumption of the innocence of the defendant must be maintained. 

With that, we MUST assume the plaintiff (or victim as you put it) is not telling the truth without evidence. If we don’t, this country would collapse into chaos. You take a very similar tone to the former Vice President for George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, who was quoted saying: “I am more concerned with the bad guys who got away than I am with a few that, in fact, were innocent”.

To paraphrase from John Adams: It is more important that the innocent are protected than the guilty be punished. The number of crimes that happen in this world occur so frequently that every crime can’t be punished. But to accuse the innocent of committing such crimes would provide no security in a society. With the same sentiment, it can be said that it is better 100 guilty parties are let go than one innocent person punished. 

You mentioned that the percentage of rape accusations that were false were 2-8%, which was similar to other felonies. Either you didn’t bother to look a little more into the biased source you chose to cite, or you deliberately went out of your way to cite a source that agreed with your viewpoint. 

Ourresilience.org (a self-described website for sexual assault survivors) links a literature review that concludes the percent of false accusations is 2-8%. But nowhere in that paper does it make the connection to other felonies, that is Ourressilience.org making that claim. 

A quick google search (humor me on my investigative journalist journey) of “what percent of criminals are falsely accused”, gives the following result from thehighcourt.com: “Between 2% and 10% of convicted individuals in US prisons are innocent”. This would mean that a much higher percent of individuals are falsely accused but are exonerated on the charges. This doesn’t dismiss your point but should be a lesson in using statistics from a clearly biased source. 

In conclusion, I would like to say that I will stand behind and support anyone who is a legitimate sexual assault/abuse victim. But I will not aid the malevolent machinations of people taking advantage of the obscure nature of sexual assault cases to professionally ruin men and women of all ages.

Thomas Walsh, 19, 

freshman of Kearney