When James McKinley wrote about the Cleveland gang rape in the New York Times, he noted that much of the community was shocked by the case, but not by the tragedy of what happened to the girl. In rape cases, the perpetrators are often painted as victims. And this sort of thinking isn’t limited to defense attorneys. Tragically, these factors were twisted and used to blame her. But it wasn’t, because the girl was audacious enough to wear makeup. You might think this would be a clear-cut case in which the men were quickly convicted. The offenders returned to her several times. She was repeatedly gang raped by several men. In this particular case, which happened in Cleveland, Texas in 2010, the 11-year-old girl wasn’t only raped by one man. Victims of rape are often slut-shamed as though they’ve invited the crime on themselves. Unfortunately, that sort of argument often prevails both in the courtroom and society at large. Imagine you heard the following statement in court: “Like a spider, she drew him into her web.” What kind of criminal do you think that would describe? A murderer? A con artist? No, an attorney once said this of an 11-year-old girl when he tried to defend the man who had raped her.
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