Comments on: The Victimization of Victims: How the Justice System Fails Savannah Dietrich and Other Women http://nypress.com/the-victimization-of-victims-how-the-justice-system-fails-savannah-dietrich-and-other-women/ New York's essential guide to culture, arts, politics, news and more Mon, 04 Mar 2013 11:49:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: David Sims http://nypress.com/the-victimization-of-victims-how-the-justice-system-fails-savannah-dietrich-and-other-women/#comment-19811 David Sims Wed, 29 Aug 2012 21:06:00 +0000 http://nypress.com/?p=53222#comment-19811 Okay, so now I’m hearing that Frey or Zehnder, or both of them, allegedly put fingers in Dietrich’s vagina, in addition to taking photographs. Now, that is a form of rape, I think. So I’ve changed my mind again. But what is the evidence in support of that allegation? Witnesses might lie from malice or by honest error. A photograph showing one of the boys doing the poking would be enough to convince a reasonable person, but is that the kind of evidence that persuaded the court to call the vagina-poking “a fact”? The epistemology of that “fact” was omitted, and it should not have been. Still, I’ve reversed my earlier opinion, again, and presently believe that Savannah Dietrich was indeed the victim of sexual assault by Frey and Zehnder. My opinion is subject, as always, to revision if new and countervailing evidence becomes available.

]]> By: David Sims http://nypress.com/the-victimization-of-victims-how-the-justice-system-fails-savannah-dietrich-and-other-women/#comment-19478 David Sims Tue, 21 Aug 2012 10:36:00 +0000 http://nypress.com/?p=53222#comment-19478 I am hearing from recently posted comments elsewhere that Savannah Dietrich wasn’t raped. What really happened is that she went to a party, drank too much alcohol, took off her shirt, and passed out. Two boys who were also at the party (Will Frey and Austin Zehnder) took photos of her while she was unconscious, and the photos showed that she was topless. The boys later showed these photos to other people.

Some time goes by. Several weeks, apparently. At some point, Savannah Dietrich became aware of the photos and opted to take legal action. I’ve not yet learned how, or by whom, the act of taking pictures of a topless girl became exaggerated into rape. The legal definition of rape is sexual intercourse without consent, which did not happen in this case. But the public was given the impression that it had.

When the boys took the photos, they might have been drunk themselves. If so, then perhaps they figured that if a girl was going to show her breasts at a party, she wouldn’t mind having them photographed.

The boys plead guilty to sexual abuse in order to avoid a trial on a charge of making child pornography. It would have been a technical charge, in a sense. Savannah Dietrich was 17—less than a year away from being able to pose for Playboy. But the penalty that a judge might have been required to impose on them could have been more severe than what they got by plea-bargaining.

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