That is not what the DA said.
I read the Yahoo! Sports article linked on this thread.
This was very clear on the article and I assume on the record.
From the article (bold added):
I understand that the girl's attorney will fight it. We will see where that goes because that civil case will most probably go forward.
Araiza is not denying sexual contact occurred.
This article - https://buffalonews.com/sports/bills/report-prosecutors-say-ex-bills-punter-matt-araiza-had-left-party-before-reported-gang-rape/article_a4ec61c0-ee0f-11ed-976f-4343bf543f80.html - notes that the accuser's attorney has been asking for the police for corroborating evidence that Araiza left the party and claims to have received none, so yes, it's possible that prosecutors used the statement during the meeting by just taking the "buddy's" statement at face value.
Thanks. My point is that they did say that and they concluded that. Based on that and other factors they decided not to charge the guy. Not sure about the others.
Your point was that he didn't have sex with an underrated girl. Something Araiza doesn't even seem to be arguing.
I did not say that. My point was that the article said that the DA made the determination that he wasn't there at the time. Whether it can be disputed or not, he had a witness placing him out of the scene. There are two elements in proving rape, that the sexual act happened and that it wasn't consensual. The DA said that he could not prove the first part, and just by the way, after watching videos, he thought he could not prove the second part either.
A 17 year old girl being underage.
Yeah that puzzles me too. The age of consent in California is 18 from a Google search. And I understand that regardless of what she says or looks like, statutory rape applies. (one of the articles mentions that the girls said she was 18 several times. Does that affect charging in California?
I believe CA recognizes a defense if perp believed victim was 18.
According to many online sources, a reasonable belief that the victim was of age is a defense in California. That's absolutely wild to me, but it seems to be the consensus.
https://www.wklaw.com/california-statutory-rape-laws-faq/#:~:text=According to California statutory rape laws, you cannot be convicted,years of age or older and many others.
I've seen this comment or something similar in I think three threads now. It is not accurate.
Thanks for this post. I wholeheartedly agree. So much of the rape culture in this country persists because we focus on things females should do to avoid it, as opposed to teaching males to be better.
Are there any articles/books you'd recommend where I can read more about this? I think a lot of the sentiment about prosecutors not going after these cases unless they are slam dunks stems from books like "Missoula" or tv shows like "Unbelievable." I am NOT trying to challenge your statement by the way, I would just like to educate myself more.
I think you're drawing a line between the sexual activity in the side yard and the sexual activity in the house that others are not drawing.
I'll send you a PM when I get a few. Briefly, I'd say that such broad statements of how things are should not be based on limited anecdotal data. SSS and failures being more newsworthy and thus more likely to come to your attention, etc...
Guys, first off I do not think anything that happened in that house is ok.
I wholeheartedly agree. This is totally a disgusting scenario. The utter lack of respect and self awareness is off the charts. However, and sadly, the DA has said that he cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the behavior is non consensual.
I appreciate the rest of your post but I just wanted to point out again that the above statement is not accurate. I don't want to beat a dead horse but the DA's office simply decided not to charge Araiza. We don't know why and we in particular don't know what pieces of evidence they found credible or non-credible.
I will let that point rest. I am not goung to defend someone who may have engaged in this activity.
The girl's attorneys will need to counter this.
Why is this wild to you? If a 17 year old is lying about being 18, what is, say, a 19 year old supposed to do? Ask for an ID? Even so, kids make fake IDs fairly easily, at least something that could be passed off as legit to a random at a party. Seems harsh to go over people in that scenario if the person could reasonably pass for 18 and is lying about his/her age.
Not where? I might be missing something here, but again, the original accusation was never that he was present for the gang rape, it was that he led her into the house and handed her off to other men. No one disputes that he was at the party and had sexual contact with her. What's in question is whether he passed her off to buddies and whether he knew or suspected or suggested that they might rape her. That the rapes took place an hour after the handoff allegedly happened is not an alibi for the handoff itself.
There are many states where regardless of ID, regardless of looks, or anything else, if she is a minor you comitted a crime.
I will stop this and concede. I will only say I quoted the DA. This will be litigated down the raod and I am 1000% sure that he will use that quote as a defense.
Umm no.
The original article is unclear, it states that he led her to a room where others were waiting. I went back and reread it and never saw anywhere say that he left the room and didn’t participate in the rape. Even if the original accusation was just that he handed her off to friends, plenty of people, myself incl (strictly anecdotal from talking about this case, and reading the first few pages of this thread)
Sure, that part is unclear. And that's the point -- whether he stayed or not is separate from the things he definitely was accused of doing.
I will leave that to the lawyers here and angain, concede the point.
I'm not really sure that's the case. I believe most states do have some sort of rule similar to CA, where a reasonable belief of age is a defense. There's also, of course, prosecutorial discretion. DAs are not going to go around charging every 18 year old who had sex with a 17 year old (at least for the states which use 18 as a hard cutoff, of which many do not). In CA, it's a misdemeanor if you're within 3 years, and DAs don't go around prosecuting all of those. It will depend on the facts and circumstances.
As it's being defined here, if this was the standard and you were using 18 as the cutoff for minor, a significant portion of all professional athletes would be cut immediately. There's plenty of drinking and sex happening in high school, particularly with Juniors and Seniors. I think the facilitating the rape question has been answered as best as possible if he's not being charged, right? That would still be a crime.
As of 1999, many states do not have a mistake of age defense. Here's a summary: https://www.cga.ct.gov/PS99/rpt\olr\htm/99-R-1084.htm.
I was speaking more of the social/moral implications of signing him, based on what is known and acknowledged to this point. By the (correctly) higher standards of consent in 2023, his behavior would preclude me from signing him were I an owner or a GM. As we've seen in many instances since the me too movement started, strict legal liability is hardly the last word standard in cases like this. I've no doubt he's hardly alone in behavior like this among high level college and professional athletes, but his case is very public, and therefore, he's under much greater scrutiny. And as a fan, I would be very disappointed if, hypothetically, he was signed by the Patriots, based on what we know now.
While you can get married at any age in CA, you need both parental consent and a court approval to marry under age 18. So it's not really conducive to eloping secretly.
Rodgers has a lot of faults, but why on earth would he give a shit who the punter is? Some people just take their hatred of Rodgers to extremes I guess.
Victims of the woke mob need to stick together, dude.
I just read back what I wrote and it sounds a lot worse than I meant, so my apologies.
Wow, I mean, this is pretty terrible. Lumping Rodgers and this guy together? I don't know much about Araiza's case but why would Rodgers want this guy on the team? Just a ridiculous extrapolation.
I think it was... and, are we that concerned about preserving the honor of Aaron Rodgers here?
Because having the better punter during the game means consistently better field position when he gets the ball?
Rodgers has a lot of silly opinions but I don't see the point of assigning additional hypothetical ones to him unless you have a specific agenda toward him.
Sure.
That’s the whole point of making fun of someone who has silly opinions. “They’re so crazy because they believe x, they probably also believe y! LOL.”
