Before a jury was even seated, a judge declared a mistrial in a sex-assault case where he had barred the words “rape” and “victim,” among others.

Cheuvront barred attorneys and witnesses from using words including “rape,” “victim,” “assailant” and “sexual-assault kit,” and ordered witnesses to sign papers saying they wouldn’t use the words. Words such as “sex” and “intercourse” were allowed.

Nebraska state law allows judges to bar words or phrases that could prejudice or mislead a jury.

Bowen, 24, was fighting the ban, arguing that it hurt her testimony because she had to pause and make sure her words wouldn’t violate the ban. She said: “I want the freedom to be able to point [to Safi] in court and say, ‘That man raped me.’ “

Anyone think this judge is the sort who sits up and worries all night about defendent’s rights versus victim’s rights? Or does he think there’s no such thing as date rape?



  1. badcowboy says:

    Nebraska must have some of the most #$*&% up judges in the country. This case along with the judge in Sidney, NE that relased a child molester from prison for being too short — not the brightest bulbs on the tree out there.

  2. CJ says:

    I think someone should rape this judge! How can crap like this still be going on in this day and age? I realize that there are still some “back woods” communities still left but this is absolutely ridiculous….

  3. Man of Leisure says:

    Emotional decisions are almost always WRONG. “Rape” is an emotional word that prosecutors can use to get another WIN. I’ve served on five juries. I’ve seen the antics that lawyers use. They use cheap mind control tricks including NLP, misdirection and diversion. Unfortunately only one or two jurors out of twelve actually see it. And that’s where politics come in during juror deliberation. One time, I remember bullying a female juror into crying and finally into submission and another vote for the right decision. I didn’t want to do it but justice is hard to come by when people can’t see the truth.

  4. CJ says:

    Man Of Leisure Wrote: “I remember bullying a female juror into crying and finally into submission and another vote for the right decision. I didn’t want to do it but justice is hard to come by when people can’t see the truth.”

    So you admit to jury tampering huh? I guess it made you feel good to bully a woman too? You’re the type of idiot that also needs to be raped!

  5. Man of Leisure says:

    #4, And you’re the type of idiot that innocent people pray are not on the jury.

  6. god says:

    Having been found “not guilty” a couple of times in my life – I’d much rather have #4 than an ego-tripping #3 on any jury charged with determining my guilt.

    Leave the bullying to the police who get paid to enjoy it!

  7. Jägermeister says:

    #1

    Agreed.

    #2 – I think someone should rape this judge!

    No, you can’t write that… You should have wrote something in line with:

    I think someone should forcefully make love to this judge without his consent!.

    That would probably pass the Nebraska judge filter.

    #3

    Don’t call water wet.

  8. CJ says:

    @Man Of Leisure; How do you know the person was innocent? Were you there? Did you witness it? I’m figuring not. The fact still remains that you bullied a woman to make her see things your way! That makes you no better than the idiot judge! You should be rapped twice and then someone should bully a juror into voting the rapist innocent.

  9. Man of Leisure says:

    #8, If Hitler was on trial and you were one of the jurors but the other eleven were secret Nazis what would you do? You can’t tell right from wrong, right CJ? The other eleven jurors have EQUAL weight in the determination of Truth, right? You would leave that decision of setting Hitler free because you couldn’t get others to your side, no matter what the means. I think that’s cowardly. Yes, I bullied a woman into submission but after the trial I saw her complaining to the loser lawyers and they looked at me and saw that the truth prevailed. Yet, they listened to her to console her “hurt” feelings but deep down they knew that this time they didn’t get away with their blatant lies.

  10. Man of Leisure says:

    CJ, I highly recommend that you see the movie “Twelve Angry Men”.

  11. BertDawg says:

    Yet again:
    1. If our laws were in simple,easy-to-understand English, we wouldn’t need lawyers.

    2. Who do you think deliberately wrote most of our laws in the most complicated language they could manage? A: lawyers in legislature.

    3. They (the attorneys – Public Enemy #1) are correct in assuming that the overwhelming majority of us are way too stupid to ever figure it out, even when someone points it out for us. : (

  12. RBG says:

    I’m pretty sure in Canada there is no law against rape. That’s because they deliberately removed that word in favor of various degrees of “sexual assault.” If you check into why Canada has done this, you will gain some insight into what the judge is attempting to do.

    RBG

  13. Lou says:

    #12, how dare you bring logic and reasonableness to this forum.

    Until I hear otherwise, I’ll assume that the judge is trying to get the jury to decide things based upon the facts, not highly emotional words.

    Let us remember the Duke case. You could have screamed rape, and victim all you want (as the prosecutors did), when in fact she was *not* a victim and rape did *not* occur.

  14. tj says:

    this is insain. whats next? baring the words “shot” and “killed” and “stabed” from murder cases because it is crippling to the defense?

  15. ECA says:

    I think this judge wants a DETAILED, descriptive of what happened.
    Insted of saying a train DERAILED, he wants you to say the train ran off the tracks after hitting the car, that Then crumpled under the front of the train, forcing the engine OFF the tracks.

    So that he can read it at night while in bed. Or to submit it to 1 of many Dirty book groups.

  16. Rob R says:

    CJ per your comment #2 & ECA comment 14.
    Agreeing with Comment 13. I don’t think we can even discuss this without remembering the boys at Duke. If Nafong and his rush-to-judgment co-criminals had the same good judgment at that judge, those innocent boys would not have had they lives damaged. (What if they had been your sons?)

    Accusations of “Rape” have now become the equivalent of yelling “Fire” in a crowded theater. As the Duke case shows, the judge is smart to try to gear down the hysteria. It isn’t ipso facto that the accused is guilty.

  17. ECA says:

    16,
    My concept of law, is interesting.

    The only time a murderer goes to the gas chamber is when there is Total positive proof. And if that Proof is False, those involved, Follow soon after.

    Someone files a false testimony, they Get the same treatment as the one they were testifying against.

    And I dont care if its the Cops, the judge, or the Lawyer involved…They ALL go inside. And NOT the Hotel 6..

  18. Matt says:

    If a defendant has the right to face his accuser then the accuser should have the right to actually use the word for the crime while making the accusation.

  19. qsabe says:

    #3 scares the shit out of me, that one person should feel that everyone else on the jury doesn’t know what they are hearing and should do as s/he dictates. Isn’t that the same philosphy the religious nuts use as they are the ones who can hear the voices in their heads the others can’t know about.

  20. Rob R says:

    17
    Variation on an eye for an eye, huh. That’s progressive.

    And of course, what do you mean by “False”? What if a statement is false but had nothing to do with the jury’s decision to convict? You give him 30 years? What if it was only a small part of the decision to convict, but other evidence was more compelling? You gas her? You don’t see a difference between being wrong and being a liar: treat both the same.

    I think your idea funny. No one would ever be convicted of anything.

    We do fine with reasonable doubt, perjury and civil lawsuits. Let the judge tweak.

  21. ECA says:

    20, with an average of 10%+ in jails for nothing, besides being in the wrong place?

    Have you read about our first hackers NEVER going to trial? There were Held without charge for over 3 years.. they had to sign NON-Contest papers before being released.

    I just feel that those that PUT people in jail Falsely…Should SHARE in the Glory.

  22. Hmeyers says:

    After reading the article — which I do not believe many of the above commenters actually did ….

    It looks like the judge did this to remove bias from the courtroom.

    The issue in the case was not whether the accused had sex or not with the accuser which both sides agreed occurred, but other matters.

    It appears the judge had valid reasons for disallowing those words based on the tactics of the attorney.

    That’s why you read the article instead.

  23. Mister Mustard says:

    When it comes to baseless allegations, it’s a woman’s world. Men are guilty unless and until proven innocent. Maybe the guy raped her, maybe the woman just had second thoughts the morning after about consensual sex. Maybe they were both just drunk and disorderly.

    I’m with the judge on tihs one.

  24. Rob R says:

    20,
    I don’t know where you got your number of 10% false convictions. How is that proven?

    And of course, you’ve not addressed any of my questions about what you mean by proportionality of fault for error and don’t seem to want to differentiate between a mistake and perjury.

    Your system is a potential disaster for witnesses in the “wrong place” at the crime scene who then testify to the best of their ability. For example, 10 years later they’re arrested for a mistake somebody said they made (not just perjury) and ruin themselves financially in a defense, or sign those “Non-contest papers”. You just replace one injustice for another.

    My point is that no one would be so stupid to testify to anything, because it wouldn’t be worth it. Everyone would do a Gonzalez.

  25. Lauren the Ghoti says:

    There is no criminal conviction reversed more often after DNA evidence surfaces than rape; there is no charge on which more convictions are based on nothing but the testimony of the accuser.

    And because of that, there is no charge for which innocent people are railroaded more often or even anywhere near as often.

    Pls spare us any bullshit posing. I despise rapists, and I fully support the adoption of the death penalty for forcible rape with a weapon, if physical evidence is shown. But more guys have been sent to prison for rapes they didn’t commit than any other charge, and for that we can thank the Nifongs of America, posing as ‘protectors of the weaker sex’ and their fellow ‘win-at-any-cost’ prosecutors who don’t give the first flying fuck whether the person they’re prosecuting actually did it or not. Combine that with vicious, amoral, sometimes sociopathic women, often spurned lovers or ex-girlfriends who will stop at nothing for revenge, all too often over utterly trivial matters.

    Many fools who support the rape craze in the courts make as though they’re standing up for victims in a blow for liberation and sexual equality – and frequently, nothing could be further from the truth, because they’re actually supporting good old-fashioned sexism in the form of the hoary myths that women are inherently innocent and more virtuous than men, that a woman wouldn’t dream of making a false accusation, that a woman can’t possibly misidentify someone, that no woman would ever consent to have sex and regret it the next day – and a host of other tried and true regressive and repressive gender stereotypes and prejudices.

    The laws virtually everywhere in America grant rape accusers rights in criminal proceedings that grossly and blatantly violate the Constitution’s due process guarantees. At trial for any other criminal charge, the accused has the right to call into question the accuser’s motive in making the charge against him; he has the right to inform the jury if the accuser has made false allegations of rape in the past.

    And no criminal convictions are obtained even remotely as often as rape with no evidence other than the accuser’s totally unsubstantiated word, in part because so few people understand the fact that eyewitness testimony is the worst, the most unreliable form of evidence in the world.

    As a perfect example, here in Harris County (Houston), DNA evidence that had been lost through police incompetence or fraud was rediscovered and proved beyond any doubt that the accused – as he had been claiming for the last 10 or 15 years – had absolutely nothing to do with the crime, and in fact, the DNA matched another person, a convicted multiple rapist already in prison.

    So he’s utterly, totally, factually innocent – he didn’t do it, and it’s been proven that someone else who looks somewhat like him is the real rapist.

    Our dain-bramaged, corrupt and incompetent District Attorney, Chuck Rosenthal says he doesn’t care if the DNA proves conclusively that the accused didn’t do it, and proves who actually did it – this mouth-breathing dipshit clown says that because the accuser still says that the wrongly convicted man did it, he believes her! Scientific proof be damned, she says different!

    Now ask yourself this; do you really believe that this is an isolated incident??

    This judge here appears to be trying to negate the unfair advantage unConstitutionally given the accuser. If only we had more judges with guts enough to stand up for what’s right and fair.

    “Silencing rape victims” my ass. Tell that to the thousands of innocent men in prison on nothing but the word of a crazy or vindictive liar, but who don’t have the DNA test to prove it.

    “Silencing” them? They get to say MORE than the alleged victims of ANY OTHER CRIME. That’s “silencing” them?

    We need stiff criminal penalties and the willingness to impose them for rape accusers who are proven to have deliberately lodged a false accusation. That would be a start.

  26. Mister Mustard says:

    What Lauren the Fish said.

  27. Mr. Fusion says:

    #25, Lauren,

    You make some very valid points. My problem is that you are focusing on a specific case and then blaming the entire system for that.

    Rape or sexual assault, call it what you will. It does however happen. Sometimes very brutally too. The vast majority of rape accusations are shown to be true. We should not lose sight of that by crying for the bad trials.

    From what you have written, I do agree that this guy should be given a new trial.

    *

    #4, CJ,

    You’re the type of idiot that also needs to be raped!
    Comment by CJ — 7/15/2007 @ 8:32 am

    And you’re the type of idiot that has no sense of justice, of right, or of when you are wrong. If there is sufficient evidence that the woman in this case was raped by the accused then he will be found guilty. If there isn’t sufficient evidence, then hopefully he will be found not-guilty. That is how our system works. Wishing violence on others is wrong.

  28. ECA says:

    24,
    And what do they do now??
    A person just got out of jail for a rape charge after 2 years in prison, BECAUSE THE GIRL SAID IT WAS HIM.
    The family of the person Finally Paid for a DNA test, and he WASNT the guilty one.
    If a person is sent to jail on your Identification, and its later found they had nothing to do with it…YOU GO INSIDE. IF the COURT sent you to jail on BAD information, THEY go inside.

    25,
    I know of 1 worse thing to be accused of, that will get ANY person in jail faster then RAPE…Child molestation. And trying to protect yourself, from AFTEr being accused, is almost Impossible. Unless you can Prove you were 500 miles away, you have a Very good chance of being convicted.

  29. bobbo says:

    Any case, and there are many more than just rape, that come down to just one persons word against another, and NO corroborating objective evidence, should be thrown out of court as a matter of law. Many guilty people would go free, or the cops would have to work harder, but the standard for conviction is “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

    How can mere accusation without proof meet that standard?

  30. Lauren the Ghoti says:

    ECA – you are absolutely right…

    bobbo – most criminal charges are brought with evidence, and when there’s no physical evidence, there’s at least circumstantial evidence.

    That’s what makes charges of rape and, as ECA sez, child molestation special, they’re very often taken to trial with no evidence other than the complainant’s word, and these PC days, sometimes even with conflicting circumstantial evidence – and of course with complainants with serious mental health issues, strong motivations to make false accusations (like divorce and child-custody issues), highly suspect sexual histories and even histories of false accusations – all because prosecutors can keep those extremely relevant issues away from the jury, in addition to playing the ‘gender card’ as I mentioned previously; woman = angel / man = devil.

    Due to the tireless efforts of hardcore militant gender feminists from the Marxist-inspired Millett / MacKinno / Dworkin axis, men face a criminal charge of rape with an automatic presumption of guilt.

    Thanks, girls.

    * * * * * * *

    Fusion –

    “My problem is that you are focusing on a specific case and then blaming the entire system for that.”

    No, I’m citing what has, tragically, become an all-too-typical case. This has become a common occurrence, where pre-DNA-testing evidence is reexamined and proves the defendant’s innocence only after he’s already spent years in prison.

    “The vast majority of rape accusations are shown to be true. We should not lose sight of that by crying for the bad trials.”

    I’m trying to remain civil here, but it’s not easy.

    Read again what I said.
    There is no charge that is so frequently found to have resulted in the conviction of an innocent person as rape.

    Of no other crime have so many persons been convicted without any evidence other than the accusers’ word.

    And of no crime are people falsely accused of more often – proven by the number of reversals due to new & reexamined evidence, and / or recanted / disproved accusations – than of rape.

    Being railroaded on bogus accusations of rape or child molestation is a very real and very common risk to American men today. Using those accusations to easily get revenge or child custody in the aftermath of rancorous relationships has become commonplace.

    And those lies, that injustice, by sowing the seeds of distrust, only works to worsen the legitimate, worthy plight of those women who actually are victims of rape.

    Exactly as in matters of race, the self-serving lies of the widespread PC culture of professional victimhood only poisons the well for the smaller number of REAL victims, trivializing their legitimate complaints and providing ammunition and cover to those who are their real victimizers.

    Just more evil, perpetuated by the Marxist Politically Correct saboteurs of sane, free, just societies. Just keeping buying into that feel-good holier-than-thou propaganda, comrade.


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