Northampton’s Daily Hampshire Gazette reports today that a Hampshire Superior Court jury has acquitted Hubert Jaundoo, a local man accused of raping his then-girlfriend’s seven-year-old daughter in 2001, after Jaundoo’s lawyer attacked the child’s credibility on the grounds that she was too sexually experienced:
His defense lawyer, David Hoose, argued the girl’s precocious knowledge of sexuality created a reasonable doubt as to whether her accusations against Jaundoo were accurate.
“The child was exposed to a lot of information about sex at an inappropriately early age,” Hoose said in a telephone interview Tuesday. How or by whom she was exposed to this information is unclear, he said.
Jaundoo was originally convicted of the charges in 2003 and sentenced to 18-20 years, but the Appeals Court overturned that verdict in 2005 on the grounds that the jury should not have been allowed to hear about the large collection of pornography found in Jaundoo’s home.
The appellate ruling is hard to square with evidence such as this testimony before the Minneapolis Government Operations Committee during the 1983 civil rights hearings on pornography. Bill Neiman of the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office found that not only was it common to discover pornography in the homes of sexual abusers, it was more common when the victim was a child. Jaundoo’s possession of porn was absolutely relevant to the case. According to the Springfield Republican:
When the victim testified four years ago, she said Jaundoo would sometimes give her a dollar after making her engage in sex acts with him, and showed her a pornographic video and magazines. She also testified Jaundoo said her mother would beat her if she told anyone about the sexual abuse.
The implications of yesterday’s verdict could further stigmatize and silence victims of child sexual abuse and deter them from seeking justice in court. In the days before feminism, a woman who was “tainted” by past sexual activity was deemed not credible in a rape trial. Whether or not Jaundoo raped this girl, someone clearly abused her (or was grossly negligent) by exposing her to inappropriate sexual materials. Now the court system is telling her that her victimization makes her “tainted”, that her assertions of abuse have no value.
In her study of porn and child sexual abuse, Professor Diana Russell relates how mere exposure to porn can make children reluctant to seek protection from abuse:
When child molesters expose targeted children to pornography, the children often feel guilty and complicit, particularly if they found the material sexually exciting or masturbated to it. According to Scotland Yard, one of the five major ways that pedophiles use
pornography is to “ensure the secrecy of any sexual activity with a
child who has already been seduced” (Tate, 1990, p. 24). Child
molesters can often silence their victims by telling them that their parents would be very upset to learn that they had watched pornography. Even without such warnings, children often fear that their parents will blame and punish them for having looked at this material. Children who are sexually abused following the exposure may feel complicit in the abuse and thus become even more motivated to remain silent. Ultimately, this reduces the likelihood that abused children will disclose the sexual abuse to their parents or others.
In the Jaundoo case, the court astonishingly appears to have reinforced the value to sexual predators of silencing children or neutralizing their testimony by exposing them to porn.
We recall the study released earlier this week, which found that of children who are 10 and 11 years old, 17 percent of boys and 16 percent of girls reported unwanted exposure to porn online. Can those children now expect less protection from the law if they are sexually abused?
Possession of porn by the man caused the mother to silence her child? Sorry, you loose me there. Further, here you insinuate that a man should have been convicted of child molestation solely because he had porn in the house. (It was not stated whether or not it was adult or kiddy porn – but as there was no mention of conviction for possession of kiddy porn …) Was the man using the porn to normalize sex to the child to induce her to have sex with him? We were not told – only that, according to the (uncollaborated?) testimony of the child he had showed her one video and “magazines”; even if true, we do not know how, when and where. For all we know, it was after the alleged sexual abuse! If the sexually explicit materials were not used to induce the child into believing it was okay to have sex with the 50 yr. old man, then why would evidence of the man’s having porn in the house be relevant to the issue of what he actually did or did not do to the child? A hearing outside of the jury trial may have been conducted on this issue – it would have be nice for you to ascertained that and what transpired at the hearing before you convicted the fellow in print. The DA built a case on the child’s familiarity with sex, and, I guess, her uncollaborated testimony that he forced her to have sex. The appeals court judges (not that they are always right, but there was more than one who was wrong then)found the evidence of possession of porn would have been more prejudicial than relevant. Should the mere, uncolloberated testimony of a seven (now eleven?) year old versed to some degree in sexuality plus possession of adult porn by the defendant alone be sufficient to ruin a man’s life? Are you saying if a women merely alleged I raped her, and the only other evidence was porn was found in my apartment, that is enough probable cause to charge me, may be even to convict me of rape?
According to your brand of justice, it’s not hard for me to see a wave of innocent defendants being convicted in a tide of anti-porn hysteria, caused by the likes of you riling up the public without in depth and critical inquiry into the facts. A criminal defense attorney I know, who is very much against sexual abuse of any kind, laments often to me how often the DA charges or continues sexual abuse charges based upon not only weak facts, but flat out exculpatory facts. Often the female “victim” has alleged nonconsensual sexual activity, to avoid the consequences of admitting that the sex was consensual, especially to parents. In this climate fostered by the likes of your website, refusing to charge or continuing a charge of sexual abuse is a risk a DA cannot take. Recall the recent case against the Duke undergrads. Recall the numerous cases of rape convictions that have been overturned based upon the new technology of DNA testing.
The question here is not ensnaring the innocent, but ensuring that actual child molesters are brought to justice and punished.
I agree that bad court decisions are troubling. Anything that will render more just verdicts is to be supported. In this light, let’s consider that one of the most toxic messages of porn is that women enjoy being forced into sexual activity, that a man can, through force and not taking no for an answer, ‘convert’ nonconsensual activity into consensual activity. Messages like these have been shown to cause many viewers to take rape less seriously. Considering the high levels of exposure to porn in our society, the implications for jury verdicts are obvious.
But arguing that the admission of evidence that for all we know was irrelevant and highly prejudicial does not serve the cause of justice, nor your own. Also, the school boy notion that “no” means “yes” pre-dates (to my recollection at least) the sexual liberation that occurred with the greater legal acceptance of porn in the later part of the last century. If anything, it was when the sexual liberation occurred that women were liberated enough to feel comfortable about aggressively asserting “no” means “no.” Further, your criticism of bondage porn seems to ignore the fact that those who engage in it do so voluntarily and like it! (Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know why – I find it revolting, myself.) And the ordianary viewer knows that the bondage porn is fantasy, just like shows on TV are fantasy.
To be sure, some people are wrongly affected, as I have said before, but I think you exaggerate in your minds the extent to which porn plays a role in causing sexual abuse, rape, etc. Relatively few of the total population who enjoy porn can be said to be perpetrators of sexual abuse, rape, etc. (just as only a few of the totality of gun owners can be said to illegally shoot people) and sexual abuse and rape has been pervasive in society for hundreds, nay, thousands, of years before modern day porn arrived on the scene.
NPN’s analysis fails for lack of a broader social and historical perspective.
Peter, your armchair assertions minimizing the role of porn are simply not compelling in the face of the numerous scientific studies that have demonstrated porn’s attitude-poisoning power.
Your line of reasoning suggests a certain despair and hopelessness to me. ‘People are savages.’ ‘Rape and sexual abuse are endemic to the human condition.’ ‘Civilization doesn’t matter.’ I recall the testimony of Cheryl Champion, sexual abuse counselor:
There are tantalizing indications that while porn can damage people’s attitudes, education and courageous action can counter it.
Our explorations into bondage porn quickly revealed that a lack of consent, or at least a pretend lack of consent, appears to be a major part of the appeal:
“The look in her eyes tells us that she would like this bondage session to end pretty soon. Forget it, girl!”
Punishment Porn: “Whether-She-Wants-It-Or-Not” (explicit)
It’s no surprise people have become confused about what consent means, or whether consent adds or detracts from a sexual experience. As Sherry Arndt testified,
The phenomenon of Female Chauvinist Pigs suggests that, for many women. liberation has come to mean adopting callous attitudes, rather than asserting healthy boundaries. That doesn’t strike me as true progress.
Abuse of other beings, human or animal, men or women, and especially children, is sad and sickening. “Always”, you keep referring to the child’s “uncollaborated” testimony. I believe the article stated that physical exam showed the child had been molested by someone. That comes down to he-said, she-said. If sixteen studies show that porn in the home predisposes molester and victim to child molesting, thats pretty important information, and the girl said he showed her porn, then its relevant to this case. You are in denial, my friend. Is there a special reason for that? I was raped at fourteen, and other times, as well. Only one time did I even tell anyone. My mother was also raped at fourteen, and perhaps before. She was sent away to live with other relatives. And my sister was molested at a younger age. Talk about what you know, find out about what you don’t know. As one receiver of sexual violence, I can tell you that I would be more likely to believe a little girl with nothing to gain by lying, than a man trying to hold on to his freedom.