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posted by martyb on Monday July 25 2016, @03:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the adding-injury-and-insult-to-insult-and-injury dept.

The anonymous woman was raped in Houston in 2013, according to court documents, and was cooperating with prosecutors when she suffered a breakdown while testifying in December 2015.

She has bipolar disorder and was admitted to a local hospital for mental health treatment when the judge ordered a recess for the holiday break until January 2016.

According to the documents, authorities were scheduled to be on vacation and "did not want the responsibility of having to monitor Jane Doe's well being or provide victim services to her during the holiday recess."

The complaint alleges that the district attorney's office obtained an order from the Harris County sheriff to take the woman into custody so she would not flee before completing her testimony.

The employee booking her into Harris County Jail identified her as a "defendant in a sexual assault case, rather than the victim." That impacted her treatment from jail staff, as the complaint reads:

The Harris County Jail psychiatric staff tormented Jane Doe and caused her extreme emotional distress and mental anguish by further defaming her, falsely insisting to her that she was being charged with sexual assault, and refusing to acknowledge her status as an innocent rape victim."

Doe also suffered beatings from other inmates and from a guard, who then requested assault charges to be filed against her "in an attempt to cover up the brutal abuse," according to the complaint.

[...] The complaint notes that her "rapist was also an inmate in the same facility" and treated more humanely. "Her rapist was not denied medical care, psychologically tortured, brutalized by other inmates, or beaten by jail guards," it reads.

Source: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/07/22/487073132/rape-survivor-sues-after-texas-authorities-jailed-her-for-a-month


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Capt. Obvious on Monday July 25 2016, @03:43PM

    by Capt. Obvious (6089) on Monday July 25 2016, @03:43PM (#379858)

    The bigger issue is that they feel compelled to torture someone awaiting trial who has not been found guilty. Yes, it's horrible this happened to her, but it also would have been horrible if it happened to an innocent person. Or, frankly, that a guilty person would be tortured by the staff like that.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Monday July 25 2016, @04:24PM

    by frojack (1554) on Monday July 25 2016, @04:24PM (#379881) Journal

    Torture is her word. Suddenly finding yourself listed as a perpetrator would cast any normal inmate services or counseling as torture, especially if you were already suffering a bipolar breakdown.

    it sounds to me like the jail staff didn't know what was going on, not being privy to the DA's gambit, and only having the booking sheet to go by.

    Tell me you wouldn't be first in line bitching if jail psychiatric staff denied her any services and ignored her, and left her alone in her cell to commit suicide, just because she was distraught and insisted she was innocent (like everybody else in the entire jail).

    No what bother me is this bit:

    The complaint alleges that the district attorney's office obtained an order from the Harris County sheriff to take the woman into custody so she would not flee before completing her testimony.

    When you track that down, I bet it REALLY says the district attorney's office ISSUED an order to the sheriff to take her into custody. Because Sheriffs don't issue arrest orders - they follow them.

    The DA's office seems to be at fault here, and maybe the booking officer going along with a detention for which there was no record of any arrest.

    Also, a guard yelling at someone to get in their cell is assault, psychically pushing them into the cell is battery, and from battery to beating is usually a lawyers turn of a phrase.

     

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday July 25 2016, @04:41PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 25 2016, @04:41PM (#379896)

      Usually guards and inmates don't walk around hand in hand looking for people to beat up because they're bored or Bernie lost the nomination or they failed to obtain their favorite pokemon character. I'm sure there's more to the story.

      I think I found a FOURTH peculiarity of the case, traditionally a beat down from "inmates and a guard" means the inmates where fighting and a guard broke it up and its time to cash in the sweet lawsuit and the inmates have no money but the guard's employers do and theres always "something" to monday morning quarterback. So reading between the lines, she was involved in (started?) a fight and the guards broke it up, either too forcefully, or not forcefully enough (aka too slowly) or the guards were angry about having their coffee break interrupted so they yelled at them or who knows, but what matters is the guards employers have money to be taken in a lawsuit.

      People being very complicated its hard to say if the fight was justified anyway. Its quite possible to be crazy, a crime victim, and totally orthogonal to those two, also be a jerk deserving of a beat down because ... Umm yeah the story is a bit light on the "because" part. Of the whole sad story, it may be the only thing happened to her that she actually deserved. Maybe. Or maybe not. Its carefully not being reported in the linked article, yet is more interesting than the entire rest of the article.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by driven on Monday July 25 2016, @04:54PM

        by driven (6295) on Monday July 25 2016, @04:54PM (#379906)

        That's the problem with news these days. It's crafted to rile people up, and doesn't seek to answer many of the important questions. It does a disservice to real issues that people really should be riled up about, because all the real issues float around in a sea of bullshit and click-bait. Couple that with the endless onslaught of new "news", and even reading the news becomes what seems more and more to me like a pointless exercise.

      • (Score: 2, Flamebait) by frojack on Monday July 25 2016, @05:00PM

        by frojack (1554) on Monday July 25 2016, @05:00PM (#379910) Journal

        Yes, there's likely a whole lot more to this story.

        The whole story seems taken from her lawyer's pleading.
        Not something one normally takes at face value, even in a court of law.

        Yet I'm constantly amazed at the mindset around SN that immediately assumes that This Lawyer was 100 percent truthful, (while in every other situation all lawyers are liars), just because it suits their political belief system (at least for the moment).

        Quite likely she is due some compensation. Quite possibly the DA needs to be put on the hot seat. And quite obviously a lot of SN readers need to start reading and thinking like they are older than 15.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2016, @06:53PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2016, @06:53PM (#379973)

          > And quite obviously a lot of SN readers need to start reading and thinking like they are older than 15.

          Start with #1 man. You have a history of making up shit from whole cloth just because it fits your own internal narratives. Even when 2 minutes of google would have shown you otherwise.

        • (Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Monday July 25 2016, @10:19PM

          by Beryllium Sphere (r) (5062) on Monday July 25 2016, @10:19PM (#380078)

          The DA has made some public statements defending herself, which confirm several though not all key facts of the case. Here's a link to her statement, embedded in a criminal lawyer's assessment of the case. To the best of my knowledge he is older than 15. http://blog.simplejustice.us/2016/07/23/harris-countys-devon-anderson-strips-naked/#more-29388 [simplejustice.us]

          If you've read much about jail conditions, the victim's account is plausible. Things like that happen All The Time, whatever actually happened to her.

          Whatever turns up in this case, there are enough other data points to build a pattern. For example, there was the judge who referred to a rape victim as "the accused". Repeatedly.
          http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/judge-sex-assault-robin-camp-1.3663552?cmp=rss [www.cbc.ca]

          You don't have to like the people who talk about "rape culture" to look around and notice that it's a thing.

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by Zz9zZ on Monday July 25 2016, @08:43PM

        by Zz9zZ (1348) on Monday July 25 2016, @08:43PM (#380033)

        Jack booted thugs. That is what you guys come off as. She was 100% a victim from start to finish. If you want to blame someone why not blame the person responsible? The DA! Sending her to jail is bad enough, but saying she's the defendant? Everything else stems from this, and you conservatard thugs deserve a stint through the system labeled as child molesters so you can get a taste of what you promote.

        As seems to always be the case, money is all that matters to you guys. In this case the guards' employer's money. Who cares about freedom, human rights, or a functional justice system that fixes more problems than it creates? Money is all that matters, money money money. She deserves compensation for being illegally jailed and thus assaulted.

        Perhaps she is also on the line for assaulting a guard, as you say the details are vague. Did she have her meds? Yes? Culpable. No? Innocent. Also, degree and pre-meditation. Did she lash out because she was in the middle of a fight and someone grabbed her? Or did she see the guard and target him?

        Oh, right, details won't actually matter unless they support your viewpoint. I guess I'm one sided even after saying she could be guilty of assault.

        --
        ~Tilting at windmills~
        • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday July 25 2016, @09:15PM

          by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 25 2016, @09:15PM (#380051)

          Yeah I think we basically agree, seeing as her lawyer is also a big fan of

          Oh, right, details won't actually matter unless they support your viewpoint.

          There is something possibly odd that they dropped the assault charges and nobody wants to talk about it, so that implies there are aspects of that event that make both sides look bad, or make both look worse than any likely gain either side would get from continuing or talking about it.

          I'd estimate based on the linked article we probably have less than 10% of the whole story. Like an article ten times longer and more detailed could come out of it, if properly researched.

          • (Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Monday July 25 2016, @09:27PM

            by Zz9zZ (1348) on Monday July 25 2016, @09:27PM (#380056)

            Until the court case settles we won't find anything out most likely. My take is that they dropped any assault charges against her for her doing the same. No matter what she could be found guilty of assault for hitting a guard, the law doesn't care what put her in that situation, so seems fair to drop the same charges against each other. No need for any deeper reasoning, though its possible there is more to it.

            --
            ~Tilting at windmills~
        • (Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Monday July 25 2016, @10:35PM

          by Beryllium Sphere (r) (5062) on Monday July 25 2016, @10:35PM (#380086)

          She could be guilty of assault, but I'd insist on seeing surveillance video first, given that things like this happen: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2015/12/nueces-jailer-who-beat-inmate-accused.html [blogspot.com]

        • (Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday July 26 2016, @10:44AM

          by cubancigar11 (330) on Tuesday July 26 2016, @10:44AM (#380251) Homepage Journal

          Why do you use the word "you guys"?

          • (Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Tuesday July 26 2016, @07:59PM

            by Zz9zZ (1348) on Tuesday July 26 2016, @07:59PM (#380419)

            Because there are multiple users with the same type of opinion, and "guys" is basically a catchall for people, not just men. But that could just be my little bubble of experience. Its left as an exercise for the user to determine if they should be included.

            --
            ~Tilting at windmills~
      • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday July 26 2016, @08:51AM

        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Tuesday July 26 2016, @08:51AM (#380238) Homepage
        Arse or not, anything which is predicated upon a fuck-up is the fault of the person who made the fuck-up. Just because there were consequences he couldn't foresee is irrelevant, they aren't exactly unexpected - it's not an environment where these kinds of things are unheard of, and she was known to be not quite right in the head.
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2016, @05:59PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2016, @05:59PM (#379943)

      it sounds to me like the jail staff didn't know what was going on, not being privy to the DA's gambit, and only having the booking sheet to go by.

      They don't have to know what's going on. Regardless of what's going on they're not allowed to harass non-convicted people. And they probably shouldn't be harassing convicts either.

    • (Score: 2) by Bogsnoticus on Monday July 25 2016, @10:26PM

      by Bogsnoticus (3982) on Monday July 25 2016, @10:26PM (#380082)

      > "psychically pushing them into the cell is battery"

      So the guards can't even think in the general directions of prisoners these days? Sheesh, what is the world coming to?

      --
      Genius by birth. Evil by choice.
  • (Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Monday July 25 2016, @04:24PM

    by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Monday July 25 2016, @04:24PM (#379882)

    careful

    "but it also would have been horrible if it happened to an innocent person."

    Your showing the mindset that a someone who gets raped is at fault.

    --
    "Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
    • (Score: 4, Informative) by Capt. Obvious on Monday July 25 2016, @04:37PM

      by Capt. Obvious (6089) on Monday July 25 2016, @04:37PM (#379893)

      Sorry, that was a typo of a particularly bad sort.

      Please correct to "but it also would have been horrible if it happened to any innocent person."

      My intention was to say that any person in jail awaiting trial should be treated as innocent, not to imply she was in any way at fault.

  • (Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Monday July 25 2016, @04:31PM

    by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Monday July 25 2016, @04:31PM (#379888)

    The SJW angle is that her rapist was in the same facility, and was treated better.

    Did the guard think they got drunk and raped each other?

    Did the guard think that she had second thoughts and was making up the rape accusation?

    And even if he did, that meant she deserved abuse?

    • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday July 25 2016, @04:43PM

      by tangomargarine (667) on Monday July 25 2016, @04:43PM (#379898)

      Would the guards necessarily know they were involved in *the same* rape case?

      --
      "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
      • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday July 26 2016, @09:06AM

        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Tuesday July 26 2016, @09:06AM (#380240) Homepage
        If there would be the need to keep them apart, then yes, the staff would need to know that. It's not unusual to try and keep people apart in order to prevent collusion (even solitary has been abused for this purpose).
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday July 25 2016, @04:53PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 25 2016, @04:53PM (#379905)

      Fifth weird aspect to the story not being reported is why the dude is in there.

      Yeah yeah critical feminist theory that all men are rapists or WTF-land. But in practice, accused attackers are not usually tossed in the mental health center. So there's something behind that story.

      One story that instantly springs to mind is legally inmates cannot consent, therefore all sex is rape. The guards know that there are "couples" that keep it quiet, happy couples mean calm conditions mean happy guards (happy in a different way hopefully). But the guy cheats on her or otherwise pisses her off enough to make her angry enough to go all rape allegation, which is not unheard of, but this makes the guards look awful (as if they have enough staff to prevent two willing participants from bumping uglies) AND the local inmates are now getting cracked down on which is ruining their sex lives and therefore making them extremely angry with her.

      I mean the most likely explanation of the story, that is carefully not being explained, doesn't cast her in a very positive light, which is probably why its not being reported. There are other possible explanations that make her look bad, but they're less likely.

      Or reading between the lines, what if the dude's day job is being a guard? The dude isn't crazy, he works there. Or in the cafeteria or janitorial staff or who knows.

      Its just fascinating that the dude is in there with her and that's carefully and intentionally not a major discussion point in the story.

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by Adamsjas on Monday July 25 2016, @05:18PM

        by Adamsjas (4507) on Monday July 25 2016, @05:18PM (#379917)

        You said:
        "Fifth weird aspect to the story not being reported is why the dude is in there."

        She was testifying at HIS rape trial. That's why he is in jail.
        The only question is why was SHE in jail.

        Harris county jail is huge. There is no suggestion they were even in the same wing, and certainly no rape took place there.

        • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday July 25 2016, @05:58PM

          by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 25 2016, @05:58PM (#379940)

          Oh... oops. I got that wrong when I look at the details.

          local hospital for mental health treatment

          booking her into Harris County Jail

          I was visualizing my home town where the multibuilding courthouse and jail complex has a mental health building that's the only specifically mental hospital in the area leading me to think this woman in TX was more or less in the same cell the whole time. Which is probably unusual.

          The Harris County Jail psychiatric staff

          Hmm so they have a mental health hospital thats not next door to the jail that she went to first, but the jail has mental health staff who are none the less not in a mental hospital.

          Why would they have booked a diagnosed mentally ill person into the regular jail instead of into the mental health wing? I guess that's yet another problem, either with what they did or with her story.

    • (Score: 2) by fritsd on Monday July 25 2016, @08:58PM

      by fritsd (4586) on Monday July 25 2016, @08:58PM (#380040) Journal

      I read it completely differently :-)

      My (completely substanceless) opinion is, that the guard thought: "oh shit! I really screwed up! If I ignore it, maybe the problem will go away! Pity for that woman though."