Steubenville Ohio school footballers guilty

[frigidmagi]

BBC

Two high school football players in the US state of Ohio have been found guilty of raping a 16-year-old girl.

Trent Mays, 16, and Ma'lik Richmond, 17, attacked the girl after a drunken party in the town of Steubenville. Both wept as the verdict was read out.

The case came to light via text messages, online videos and social media posts made the morning after, attracting nationwide attention.

The two were sentenced to at least a year in juvenile detention.

Mays was sentenced to another year for taking pictures of the naked victim, and the judge said both might stay in detention until they reach 21.

The case was thrust into the national spotlight after attention by bloggers and the hacker activist group Anonymous.

Some claimed that the community - including local police - had sought to cover up the crime to protect the accused, who were members of a celebrated high school football team.

The case focused attention on teenage alcohol abuse and highlighted the increasing use of social media as evidence in court, the BBC's Matt Wells in Washington says.

Last August, Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond left a party with a 16-year-old girl and sexually abused her, first in a car and then at a friend's house.

The victim was so drunk she had no memory of the attack, but prosecutors said she had been "treated like a toy".

There was no physical evidence, but details of the evening emerged from text messages, tweets and humiliating photos posted on the internet by the attackers and other party-goers.

The case caused a bitter divide in Steubenville, a small and economically depressed former steel town that had immense pride in its high school football team, known as the "Big Red".

Some of the witnesses were friends of the accused who gave evidence against them in return for immunity from prosecution.

[Hotfoot]

The sentences for this case are damned short for a case that actually went to trial. These are punishments I would have expected for plea bargains, but then the full sentences aren't decided yet, and the defendants are young, which leads to the "they didn't know any better" thought process a lot of people have in cases like this.

That said, I really want to see the adults who tried to sweep this under the carpet get some serious damn jail time. They fostered the atmosphere that made these reprobates feel as though they actually didn't do anything wrong. This entire thought process needs to die violently, and people going to jail for engaging in criminal conspiracies to keep up the facade of normalcy is a good way to do it.

At the trial, the argument was made that the case is about a crime, not theatrics or the internet, and that's a great ideal, but in this case, I don't buy it. It might have made it to trial and a guilty verdict without Anonymous, but I doubt it would have been as quick and decisive as this was.

This is also going to go in the books as a notable instance where our social dynamic is altered by our technology.

[Josh]

Well said, Hotfoot.

I don't know what the legal particulars are of sentencing a seventeen-year-old to more than a year's imprisonment. If we had a sane prison system I'd say this merited trial as adults and a more appropriate sentencing.

[frigidmagi]

Yeah the sentences seem short, but I've found they're also on the sex offender list and they won't be playing ball while in detention. Also let's be blunt and say it's damn unlikely that these boys are going to college. No major employer is going to put them in a position of influence or power because... Bad PR (hey use the products of corporation X, WE HIRE RAPISTS YAY!).

Their lives are fucked and I'm not sorry.

That said, yes the town and the adults in it are responsible. I mean look, these brats took video and bragged about it! They clearly had no idea they had done something wrong or that anyone would ever think they should be held responsible. On the one hand, I'm glad about that. It makes monsters like this easy to catch. On the other, it's chilling that they think raping a passed out girl is something they're entitled to and everyone will agree!

When children act like that, it's the adults fault.

[LadyTevar]

Now the procescutor is going after two girls who used "Social Networks" to threaten the raped girl to keep quiet. Further action may be taken on the parents whose home the party was in, on those who purchased the booze, and the owner/driver of the car the girl was moved in.