Feminist bloggers have been vociferously protesting the case of Cassandra Hernandez (pictured). This is how the case is described in Air Force Charges Victim in Her Own Rape from the blog Feministing.com:

"Hernandez was at a party, where she was drinking. She says that three male airman raped her. She went to the hospital and filed a report accusing her attackers. Due to stress and harsh interrogation tactics by the Air Force, she eventually refused to testify against the airmen.

"The Air Force then charged her with underage drinking...and, along with her three attackers, 'indecent acts'...So. The woman was raped. By three men. She reported her rape. She was harassed by her superiors, to the point where she became too afraid to testify. The Air Force took this as meaning that the sex was therefore consensual (which isn't what it means at all), and charged her in the case of her own rape...The three alleged attackers were offered sexual assault immunity to testify against Hernandez on the indecent acts charge...Hernandez is writing to her [legislators] and her Governor...in a desperate plea to end this madness. Once you finish throwing up, crying, breaking things, etc., I strongly suggest that you write, too."

I was surprised and disturbed by the case. I've done much work on the problem of false rape accusations, and I wondered whether the feminist portrayal of the case is accurate. I asked one of my most intelligent and astute readers, Stan Eads, to review the information in the case. I did not ask him to find reasons why the feminists are wrong--I told him, "what you find is what you find."

Stanton researched the issue and has come to the conclusion that the feminists have a legitimate cause for protest here. Based on his research, I think the facts surrounding the alleged rape are murky, and that the feminists may well be correct. Printed below is Stan's description of the case, and below that the Associated Press story on it. A more detailed story can also be found here.

from Stan Eads:

In the Cassandra Hernandez case, a female airman at Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina claims to have been raped by three cadets after drinking at a party on or near the base. The charges were taken seriously enough that one of the three alleged rapists was initially charged with the crime. The woman later declined to testify against the cadets, however, resulting in the charges being dropped. It's at this point that things get a bit strange. The four airmen, including the original accuser, were all charged with committing indecent acts, according to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and she with an additional count of underage drinking. Claiming that the sex was consensual, the three men pleaded guilty and were given minor penalties, but the woman admitted only to underage drinking, and thus faces a court-martial on the indecent acts charge. And the cadets whom she accused were granted immunity from the sexual assault charge in exchange for testimony against the woman.

The feminist blogs, of course, are righteously presenting this as a case of patriarchy doing its standard thing against women. Cara, at feministing.com, for example, describes the entire thing as "stomach turning" and urges readers to write to their congressmen to protest (http://feministing.com/archives/007517.html).

This is indeed an unusual case, in that charges have been brought against the original accuser. It has been said many times by Glenn and many other advocates of equality under the law that false charges, when provably malicious, should result in the same penalty for the false accuser as that which the charges would have brought upon the victim, if upheld. Some may consider this to be a step in the right direction. I do not, for a number of reasons.

First of all, it is not at all clear that this woman is lying about the rape. She did not, after all, recant the charges - she simply refused to testify. I admit to finding this suspicious. All parties involved had been drinking heavily, and the exact sequence and details of events may not be clear to any of the participants. The accuser may have enough conscience to realize that she was about to condemn three men to a life of hell based on fuzzy recollections, while still believing a rape to have occurred. She claims that over-aggressive and accusatory questioning by Air Force officials led her to refuse to pursue the case further. So neither I nor any of the observers who are watching this sad drama unfold know what happened that night.

So what is up with the charges filed against her? The Air Force decided that at the very least, there were violations of the Uniform Code, and that charges should be filed. These charges, according to the letter of the law, would apply to all four participants, if there was in fact no rape, all acts being consensual. Thus, she is not being charged with making a false accusation of a serious crime. She is being charged with participating in lewd behavior with three other airmen. From the perspective of the Air Force investigators, the three cadets were either guilty of rape, or of lewd conduct. If the former, then the accuser faces no charges, although the ordeal of the trial is real enough. If they are guilty only of lewd conduct, however, then the accuser is also guilty of participating. And I can even understand granting the cadets immunity from the sexual assault charges, even if I don't agree with it. This removes any motivation the accuser might have to go back on her decision not to testify against them, in order to spare herself the minor charge. Applying the law evenly, this is the logically correct action.

There is more involved here than a simple decision to apply the law, however. In this case, the accuser decided not to pursue the case against the cadets, for her own reasons. Had she known that this decision would result in her own court martial, perhaps she would have followed her original course to the bitter end. Others in her position may take an unfortunate lesson from this. Some leeway for discretion is needed when deciding what charges to bring, and it is my belief that no good purpose is served by charging this woman.

Airman Who Alleged Rape Faces Court-Martial: She Ties Her Prosecution to Refusal to Testify Against Airmen She Says Attacked Her
Associated Press, 8/8/07

POPE AIR FORCE BASE, N.C., Aug. 7 -- A female airman says she faces a court-martial next month because she refused to testify against three male airmen she accused of rape.

The woman is charged with one count of committing indecent acts and one count of consuming alcohol as a minor. The defense says the charges involve the same men she accused of raping her.

The military will not confirm whether the men were charged, because the case is pending, base spokesman Ed Drohan said Tuesday.

"The whole thing is a system failure," said Capt. Christopher A. Eason, one of the woman's defense attorneys. "This is unprecedented."

In letters, dated June 7, to the congressional delegations and governors of North Carolina and her native Texas, the woman said she decided not to testify against the men because she was "under enormous stress."

The Associated Press generally does not identify possible victims of sexual assault.

She says she was attacked in another airman's barracks room on the night of May 12-13, 2006. The charges against her allege that she performed an indecent act on one of the men she accused while the other two watched, the defense says.

In her letter, the woman said she reported the attack and was given a medical examination. The three men were charged with rape, but the charges were dropped after she refused to testify, she said.

"The pressure of the judicial process was too much for me, and I felt like no one was looking out for my interests," the woman wrote.

The men received nonjudicial punishments and have been granted immunity for their testimony in the woman's trial, according to documents the defense provided.

"This is the wrong message to send to women in the military," said Capt. Omar S. Ashmawy, one of her defense attorneys.

Said Drohan: "The Air Force is not attempting to cover up any wrongdoing."
A court-martial has been scheduled for Sept. 24 at the air base, adjacent to Fort Bragg, Drohan said.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 at 12:46 am and is filed under Feminism/NOW, Crime/Criminal Justice System/Police, False Accusations, Gender Issues (Misc.). You can trackback from your own site.