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Friday, 4 October 2013 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
We realise that litigation does not happen in isolation. Cases before the courts reflect issues and disputes in a given society. In their attempt to resolve those conflicts the courts will be guided by the laws, ethos and the values of that society. What one society may think is of fundamental importance another may dismiss as insignificant.
In this case both the Plaintiff girl as well as the Respondents (two boys) is underage, 16 year olds. One evening in August 2011 the Plaintiff Savannah Dietrich (victim), whose parents were divorced, hosted a typical teenage party at her father’s house while he was at work.
There was plenty of booze, beer, whisky, vodka and apparently at some point she passed out due to over-indulgence. The two boys had then carried her to a room, removed her underwear and taken some cell-phone photos of her including some with their fingers in her vagina. Some hours later when Dietrich woke up she found her underwear shifted but had no recollection of the events that had occurred earlier.
Months later, sometime in November that year a male friend told her that there were rumours that the boys had taken semi-nude shots of her. Unsure of precisely what the photos showed or who else had seen them, Dietrich confronted the two boys. Although they initially denied it, under her persistent prodding they finally admitted taking the photos but pointed out that they had later deleted them. One of the boys implied that she had taken off her clothes on her own.
Although very distressed by the actions of the two boys, even suicidal, Dietrich did not give up the fight and decided to go to the Police. The two boys were from a prestigious all-boys Catholic academy called Trinity High School. Both were good students, avid Lacrosse players and had good records. At the Police interview the boys admitted their acts. By this time the photos were deleted and apparently no direct evidence of the photos was found. In March 2012 they were arraigned, charged with sexual abuse and voyeurism.
The prosecutor offered the boys a deal. Upon a guilty plea they would get 50 hours of community service (along with counselling) with the option of withdrawing their guilty plea when they reached the age of 19 and half, the case dismissed and records expunged. The judge also advised Dietrich that under the rules of confidentiality in a juvenile court she should neither discuss the court proceedings nor the crime outside the courthouse.
Dietrich was livid that a victim of a crime was being gagged in this manner by a court and was not going to take this silencing quietly. She turned to Twitter, “Protecting rapists is more important than getting justice for the victim in Louisville” read one of her tweets. “They said I can’t talk about it or I’ll be locked up. So I am waiting for them to read this and lock me up. F..k justice?” read another message.
The lawyers for the boys hit back filing a motion to hold her in contempt arguing that she had made “contemptuous” remarks at the court and false allegations of criminal activity in using the term “rapists”. This now meant that Dietrich faced a potential jail term while the boys, because of their plea bargain, would not.
Dietrich, who was also working as a hostess at a restaurant fought back, asking the public defenders to file a motion to dismiss the contempt charge. They argued that it was wrong for court to silence a victim of a crime and that this amounted to a denial of free speech.
Dietrich’s legal team went after both the judges (there were two involved) and the prosecutors requesting that all three be disqualified from the case. They argued that the prosecutor was not objective and alleged that he was from the same school as the boys (Trinity) and remained an active supporter of the school, serving on a re-union committee and in an alumni society.
The case became national news in the USA, most accounts highlighting the possibility of a victim of a crime going to jail. Court trials are held in public so that “Justice must not only be done, justice must also seen to be done”, as the adage goes. In an evolved society the judicial process cannot simply ignore public opinion.
As public interest in the case grew the lawyers for the boys quietly dropped the contempt motion. At the request of the lawyers for Dietrich the court records were unsealed and the sentence made stiffer. Now the boys’ conviction cannot be completely expunged and can only be downgraded to a misdemeanour after three years, depending on their good conduct. The two boys were not invited back to a senior year at Trinity and had to find new schools.
Whether in a comparable case a 16-year-old girl from a broken family could expect this kind of support and assurance from the Sri Lankan legal system is far from certain. If the offender is from a so-called powerful family, there is a good chance that he could walk away freely.
From an incident of ragging at a private school to more violent behaviour in public places, we have seen many an offender going scot free only because of the power and influence of his parents. To have a system such as shown in this case from Kentucky, there needs to be a degree of integrity at every level, from the victim, offenders, the Police, the judges, media and ultimately the public.
A simple test of the two systems would be to ask a young girl, if she were to have the misfortune of undergoing such an unwelcome experience, to pick the country in which she rather have it happen. It is obvious that Kentucky has more than just fried chicken to offer!
(The writer is an Attorney-at-Law and a freelance writer.)
