Justice, Mercy, Rape, and the Honor Code

[MiserereNobis]

In a now locked thread, Storm Rider said:

Then because they were raped everyone is supposed to back off, not punish, ignore everything she has consciously chosen to do, look the other way because she was an idiot and was raped by another idiot.  How many young men who are idiots are given the same leeway when really bad things happen to them?  Just curious where all these mercy warriors are when it is a male that has gotten into trouble?

 

My response (written while the thread was being locked):

First of all, I sincerely believe that you should examine your understanding of justice and mercy as it works in the atonement of Christ.  We are ALL idiots, such incredible sinful idiots, yet God gives us the greatest leeway, thanks to Christ.  You, Storm Rider, are such an idiot that you should be damned to hell.  But God offers you a chance for forgiveness.  And me, MiserereNobis, am such an idiot that I should be damned to hell (and I know, because I know myself!).  But God also offers me a chance for forgiveness.  And this is true of every person who has ever existed.

Secondly, you call both the victim and the perpetrator an idiot.  Can you see how you are equating them?  She was an idiot for drinking, and he was an idiot for raping.  But... but... drinking and rape ARE NOT EVEN CLOSE in their seriousness.  As I said above, if the law of chastity is so important that breaking it is second only to murder, then where is rape on that scale?  Second to murder, and then some!  How can you even equate a woman's actions of drinking, or being in the wrong part of town, or wearing something sexy, or whatever else you think she did... how can you equate that with rape?  Rape is not idiocy.  It is the fundamental violation of a person's human and divine dignity.  It is the breaking of a commandment that, according to Mormon theology, is next to murder.

Think about this, please.  It appears to me that you have SERIOUSLY underestimated the sinfulness and destructive nature of rape.  You equate it with honor code violations.  That... is stunning.

 

Edited April 16, 2016 by MiserereNobis

[Stargazer]

4 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

In a now locked thread, Storm Rider said:

Then because they were raped everyone is supposed to back off, not punish, ignore everything she has consciously chosen to do, look the other way because she was an idiot and was raped by another idiot.  How many young men who are idiots are given the same leeway when really bad things happen to them?  Just curious where all these mercy warriors are when it is a male that has gotten into trouble?

 

My response (written while the thread was being locked):

First of all, I sincerely believe that you should examine your understanding of justice and mercy as it works in the atonement of Christ.  We are ALL idiots, such incredible sinful idiots, yet God gives us the greatest leeway, thanks to Christ.  You, Storm Rider, are such an idiot that you should be damned to hell.  But God offers you a chance for forgiveness.  And me, MiserereNobis, am such an idiot that I should be damned to hell (and I know, because I know myself!).  But God also offers me a chance for forgiveness.  And this is true of every person who has ever existed.

Secondly, you call both the victim and the perpetrator an idiot.  Can you see how you are equating them?  She was an idiot for drinking, and he was an idiot for raping.  But... but... drinking and rape ARE NOT EVEN CLOSE in their seriousness.  As I said above, if the law of chastity is so important that breaking it is second only to murder, then where is rape on that scale?  Second to murder!  How can you even equate a woman's actions of drinking, or being in the wrong part of town, or wearing something sexy, or whatever else you think she did... how can you equate that with rape?  Rape is not idiocy.  It is the fundamental violation of a person's human and divine dignity.  It is the breaking of a commandment that, according to Mormon theology, is next to murder.

Think about this, please.  It appears to me that you have SERIOUSLY underestimated the sinfulness and destructive nature of rape.  You equate it with honor code violations.  That... is stunning.

 

A straw man, I am sorry to say.  I say this because I haven't seen anyone equating rape with drinking alcohol.  

Bluebell was giving me the once-over for implying that the young woman was responsible for placing herself in a situation where she was helpless in the face of the clearly evil actor who raped her.  It's as if being victimized removes all responsibility for placing oneself in the situation.  It is something growing out of pure emotion, apparently, and the forest is invisible because of the trees.

I wrote the following while the thread was being locked:

Quote

I don't get you.  Jesus was indeed responsible for being in Jerusalem, he made a choice.  He didn't have to be there.  He knew what was going to happen if he showed up, and he showed up.  I for one am glad he did.

You seem to truly not understand the difference between responsibility and guilt.  Guilt is the result of sin.  Responsibility is the result of choice.  

And the distinction is very relevant.

It's like MiserereNobis saying: "...can't you see that a rape is violating one of the most sacred and important things a human has?"  And of course I see it!  I am totally onboard with it.  I am sickened by the fact that this young woman was violated in this way.  I want the perpetrator to be punished for his act.  He has no excuse, and if he is truly guilty he does not deserve to enjoy the company of decent human beings.  And I keep saying that, and yet still there is this inexplicable failure to discern that the young woman bears some responsibility for having placed herself in harm's way by her irresponsible actions.  

It's quite clear that there's no excuse for the rapist's act.  There was never a question about that.

But this is going to go back and forth because you and others refuse to believe that persons who place themselves in harm's way bear some responsibility (NOT GUILT) for what happens.  It needn't be rape, since this seems to be clouding everyone's mind.  It could just be walking drunkenly onto a roadway and getting hit by a car, and killed.  Worse outcome, but nobody is to blame, except some responsibility for getting drunk in the first place rests with the person who got killed.

I just KNOW this is still not going to make any difference.  There is a refusal to see the clear logic and there will only be a response to the emotion.  I see how others could avoid a similar fate, and would counsel them to keep to the terms of the Honor Code, or for that freaking matter, screw the Honor Code, just keep the freaking Word of Wisdom.

I have nothing further to say on this issue.  There's clearly no point.

 

[JulieM]

This story is getting national attention now:

http://m.nydailynews.com/news/national/byu-sexual-assault-victims-speak-honor-code-article-1.2603017

"Sexual assault victims at Utah’s Brigham Young University say the school’s honor code turns them into suspects, according to reports.

Women forbidden from registering for classes after reporting the crimes are openly questioning the rules enforced by the private Mormon university owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And local prosecutors told The Salt Lake City Tribune on Friday that the guidelines mandating chastity, sobriety and a dress code are jeopardizing a rape case."

 

[strappinglad]

I watched a video the other day of people at a Safari park in (Africa?). A bunch of cars had stopped on the road and were watching a big male lion as he lay on the road. In one car there were a couple of kids who decided to roll down the back window and take pictures of the lion which was about 15 ft. away. The lion got increasingly irritated. Eventually it raised up and moved toward the car. The lion could easily have reached into the car and injured or killed one or both of the children. Had he done so, whose responsibility would it have been? Well, the lion of course. No one else had any responsibility, but we know who the family's lawyer would have gone after. Right?

Edited April 16, 2016 by strappinglad

[MiserereNobis]

56 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

It needn't be rape, since this seems to be clouding everyone's mind.  It could just be walking drunkenly onto a roadway and getting hit by a car, and killed.  Worse outcome, but nobody is to blame, except some responsibility for getting drunk in the first place rests with the person who got killed.

This is a terrible analogy.  There is basically no similarity to the issue we are discussing.  I know you are saying that you are trying to remove emotion from the issue and posit a situation where there is no emotion (I guess).  But consider this: feeling an emotion of outrage and sympathy and pure sadness over a terrible event is part of being human.  It is part of what makes us human.  Trying to remove emotion from a response to a tragedy is trying to dehumanize us.  When my fellow teachers were sobbing over the killings of 6 and 7 year olds at Sandy Hook Elementary School, I didn't say to them, "now, now, let's not get emotional about this, it will cloud our judgement."  No.  We all cried together, we all felt emotions, because we are human and because we are made in the image of God, who weeps even when a sparrow falls.

Now, when we take your example and make it an analogy to rape, this is what we get:  there is the victim of rape as a drunk person walking onto the road.  The rapist is the driver of the car that killed and hit the drunk person.  In your example, obviously the driver is innocent and the drunk person guilty.  The driver made no choice but was just cruising along.  This is NOT the case in a rape situation.

This might be a better analogy:

A man and woman are at a bar.  The man never interacts with the woman, but he notices she is drinking a lot.  She keeps drinking, more and more.  When she leaves the bar, he also leaves.  He sees that she is going to walk home.  He gets into his car and follows her from a distance, waiting for his chance.  When her drunkenness makes her stumble onto the road, he hits the pedal and runs over her at 80 mph, killing her.

If this situation were to occur, wouldn't we be spending all of our time and energy talking about how messed up this guy was?  Who would even spend much time talking about the woman?  This guy followed her in his car just to run over her... what we would think of someone who said, "well, she was an idiot for getting drunk in the first place."

Please, let's look at what is happening and focus on priorities of justice and applications of mercy and not spend all this time talking about how the victim was "responsible" for what someone else did to him or her.

Edited April 16, 2016 by MiserereNobis

[MiserereNobis]

58 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

Guilt is the result of sin.  Responsibility is the result of choice

But if we are punishing rape victims for their behavior prior to the rape, then we are indeed saying they are guilty, yes?  Not just responsible, but guilty, since we punish those who are guilty.

Edited April 16, 2016 by MiserereNobis

[Storm Rider]

MiserereNobis, I understand your position; I understand the utter futility that we each stand in due to our sinful natures.  It is only through God's grace and mercy that we are saved.  That principle is not the question before us.

What you are proposing is that justice be put away, removed from all consequences resulting from the actions of all individuals.  We will throw out justice and allow mercy to reign supreme.  What is the result of that?  What does society look like in that situation?  No one will be punished because we are all committed to mercy.  Without negative consequences for our own, conscious choices what motivates us to choose properly, choose righteousness, choose holiness?

What I see in this conversation is a strong commitment to mercy for a single type of individual who has endured an unspeakable wrong.  Let's accept the need for mercy and forgive all their poor choices surrounding the situation.  Okay, now what do we do with others that have chosen poorly and very bad things have happened to them?  Someone, any of you, draw that line where mercy is given full reign and justice is deemed ineffective and unreliable.  Give us a workable proposal that demonstrates an equality among all those in need of mercy due to their bad choices while also respecting their commitments, promises, covenants, beliefs, an commandments in a private, religious institution that is so highly subsidized for each student that attends.  Explain why these individuals who so willingly abuse so many different things on so many levels should not forfeit their place for another student who would not in a million years choose like they have. 

I would like to hear something workable, fair, and equally treats all students. 

[bsjkki]

The Deseret News weighed in.  It's a very well written article and doesn't shy away from the issues. 

http://m.deseretnews.com/article/865652357/Controversy-swirls-over-sexual-assault-investigation-and-BYU-Honor-Code.html

[MiserereNobis]

It's disturbing in the Deseret News article that the man who gave the honor code office the police report said he was doing so because he wanted male athletes investigated, but the office used it to investigate the victim.  If his statement is true, his intent was to bring an investigation onto males who were inappropriate with women, yet the honor code office lumped a victim into their investigation.  Why?  Where are the priorities of justice?  Why not let the instance with the victim go and instead focus on the greater violation: the violation of divine dignity?

[MiserereNobis]

16 minutes ago, Storm Rider said:

MiserereNobis, I understand your position; I understand the utter futility that we each stand in due to our sinful natures.  It is only through God's grace and mercy that we are saved.  That principle is not the question before us.

What you are proposing is that justice be put away, removed from all consequences resulting from the actions of all individuals.  We will throw out justice and allow mercy to reign supreme.  What is the result of that?  What does society look like in that situation?  No one will be punished because we are all committed to mercy.  Without negative consequences for our own, conscious choices what motivates us to choose properly, choose righteousness, choose holiness?

What I see in this conversation is a strong commitment to mercy for a single type of individual who has endured an unspeakable wrong.  Let's accept the need for mercy and forgive all their poor choices surrounding the situation.  Okay, now what do we do with others that have chosen poorly and very bad things have happened to them?  Someone, any of you, draw that line where mercy is given full reign and justice is deemed ineffective and unreliable.  Give us a workable proposal that demonstrates an equality among all those in need of mercy due to their bad choices while also respecting their commitments, promises, covenants, beliefs, an commandments in a private, religious institution that is so highly subsidized for each student that attends.  Explain why these individuals who so willingly abuse so many different things on so many levels should not forfeit their place for another student who would not in a million years choose like they have. 

I would like to hear something workable, fair, and equally treats all students. 

It appears to me that your underlying assumption here is that if we cannot a draw a clear line in a grey area, then we have to turn it all black and white.

I do not know exactly where the line should be drawn between justice in mercy in the grey murky areas that are often part of life.  I do know, however, that the fact that is hard to find the exact place to draw the line does in no way imply that we should become extreme and say there is no place to draw the line so justice should reign supreme.  Such a view is simplistic and totally ignores that God does not deal with us in the blacks and whites of absolute justice.

In this situation, the line seems pretty clear.  The difference between an honor code infraction and a rape are so incredibly huge that it should be so easy to forgive the infraction of the victim (mercy) and seek punishment for the perpetrator (justice).  This is not in the murky grey area.  This is pretty dang obvious.  And the fact that there is a murky grey area out there somewhere has no bearing on such an blatantly obvious situation.  Forgive the girl for having him over to her apartment after curfew.  Punish the man for breaking one of the most serious commandments.

The grey areas are hard to deal with, for sure.  But this is certainly not one of them.

[Stargazer]

31 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

But if we are punishing rape victims for their behavior prior to the rape, then we are indeed saying they are guilty, yes?  Not just responsible, but guilty.

I have said nothing about punishing rape victims.  And I haven't punished any rape victims for getting raped.  

And they are not guilty for getting raped.

But they would have been better off not being where they were and in the condition they were in.

Pointless to respond.  I'm saying one thing and you hear something completely different.

[Stargazer]

35 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

But if we are punishing rape victims for their behavior prior to the rape, then we are indeed saying they are guilty, yes?  Not just responsible, but guilty.

Yes, I get it already.  If someone violates an agreement they made, and subsequent to this someone violates their person, this automatically qualifies them for mercy with respect to the violation of the agreement.

So, what if the young lady hadn't gotten raped, and the honor code violation had been discovered, you'd be OK with the consequences then?

[carbon dioxide]

2 hours ago, MiserereNobis said:

But... but... drinking and rape ARE NOT EVEN CLOSE in their seriousness. 

 

The act of rape is far more serious than drinking beer but should BYU allow students to drink beer since there are far more serious things one can do than drink beer?   Stealing a laptop is not as serious as rape so students should be allowed to do that as well?  Of course there is one HUGE difference between drinking and rape.  In the case of drinking, that is an action that the student is held accountable for.  In the case of rape, the rape victim is not at fault and is not accountable. 

[Stargazer]

14 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

 

The grey areas are hard to deal with, for sure.  But this is certainly not one of them.

But there is no grey area.  The young woman violated the agreement not to engage in the behavior she engaged in.  That's pretty black and white.  What is grey is the insistence that since something bad happened to her as a result of her violation of the agreement, the normal consequence for violating the agreement must not occur.

 

[carbon dioxide]

1 hour ago, MiserereNobis said:

This is a terrible analogy.  There is basically no similarity to the issue we are discussing.  I know you are saying that you are trying to remove emotion from the issue and posit a situation where there is no emotion (I guess).  But consider this: feeling an emotion of outrage and sympathy and pure sadness over a terrible even is part of being human.  It is part of what makes us human.  Trying to remove emotion from a response to a tragedy is trying to dehumanize us.  When my fellow teachers were sobbing over the killings of 6 and 7 year olds and Sandy Hook Elementary School, I didn't say to them, "now, now, let's not get emotional about this, it will cloud our judgement."  No.  We all cried together, we felt emotions, because we are human and because we are made in the image of God, who weeps even when a sparrow falls.

Now, when we take your example and make it an analogy to rape, this is what we get:  there is the victim of rape as a drunk person walking onto the road.  The rapist is the driver of the car that killed and hit the drunk person.  In your example, obviously the driver is innocent and the drunk person guilty.  The driver made no choice but was just cruising along.  This is NOT the case in a rape situation.

This might be a better analogy:

A man and woman are at a bar.  The man never interacts with the woman, but he notices she is drinking a lot.  She keeps drinking, more and more.  When she leaves the bar, he also leaves.  He sees that she is going to walk home.  He gets into his car and follows her from a distance, waiting for his chance.  When her drunkenness makes her stumble onto the road, he hits the pedal and runs over her at 80 mph, killing her.

If this situation were to occur, wouldn't we be spending all of our time and energy talking about how messed up this guy was?  Who would even spend much time talking about the woman?  This guy followed her in his car just to run over her... what we would think of someone who said, "well, she was an idiot for getting drunk in the first place."

Please, let's look at what is happening and focus on priorities of justice and applications of mercy and not spend all this time talking about how the victim was "responsible" for what someone else did to him or her.

People are responsible for their own actions.  In the case you provide, the driver is responsible for running her over and the woman is responsible for going out alone and getting drunk.  The point is this.  We don't live in an ideal world were people are looking out after each other.  We live in a world of predators and sick people who look for easy targets and a wise person understands this and does not go out into the world and make themselves easy targets.  Even people who do their best to protect themselves are victims of crime on occasion.  We can't always protect ourselves but we do have an obligation to do the best we can.  Lets not pretend that the police are going to be their to save us from the criminals. Lets not pretend that other honest people will be around to save us.  We are the first line of defense for our protection.  Nobody should knock a woman down who has been a victim of rape or blame her for this and that.  But we should learn lessons from what happened and avoid making the same mistakes.  One lesson that women need to learn is if a man offers her alcohol and she is not with friends, do not drink it.  Say no and run away if necessary.  Learn the mistakes of others and don't be a victim yourself.

[MiserereNobis]

1 hour ago, Stargazer said:

If someone violates an agreement they made, and subsequent to this someone violates their person, this automatically qualifies them for mercy with respect to the violation of the agreement.

Yes.  The person had a minor violation (honor code, word of wisdom, etc... and yes, those are very minor, even the word of wisdom) and then that person was violated to the most major degree imaginable.  The last thing the victim should be thinking is: if I report this person, the perpetrator, who is breaking the commandment second only to murder, will I be punished for breaking a minor rule that might not even be a commandment?  You KNOW that the victim has been running around and around in his or her mind all the things they did.  You KNOW the victim has been blaming him or herself for the rape.  You KNOW that the psychological trauma is soooo severe.  (And if you don't know it, then you need to do some research, and you need to read about victims of sexual assault, and you need to maybe spend some time with a victim, and maybe you really just need to imagine one whom you love most dearly going through this and see what a convoluted mess their mind is when it comes to their assault -- I have this experience).

So yes, the violation of the agreement is a breaking of a rule.  But since it utterly pales in comparison to what a victim has suffered, we should grant the victims mercy.  Mercy!  Madi Barney should not be in a situation where her rapist is going to trial and the prosecutor is asking BYU to stop the honor code investigation, and the prosecutor is telling her not to talk to them about it, and yet the honor code office is making the investigation of her top priority and has academically suspended her until she cooperates with them against the counsel of the prosecutor!

Isn't that a bit messed up?

Edited April 16, 2016 by MiserereNobis

[carbon dioxide]

1 hour ago, MiserereNobis said:

 The difference between an honor code infraction and a rape are so incredibly huge that it should be so easy to forgive the infraction of the victim (mercy) and seek punishment for the perpetrator (justice). 

Not sure the Lord would agree here.  I am not aware that God dismisses our behavior if someone does something far more serious to us a little later on.  Lets present a different situation. Say a BYU couple go out on a crime spree to steal a bunch of stuff from other BYU students.  They steal laptops and iPads and other things.  The guy after a few hours of joyful theft decides to force himself on the coed and he rapes her.  Should BYU look the other way from all the theft (lesser crimes and sins than rape) the coed willfully did simply because she is now a rape victim?  Justice and mercy should always work together but one does not simply overlook action A because a far worse action B occurred also during the day.

Edited April 16, 2016 by carbon dioxide

[bsjkki]

6 minutes ago, carbon dioxide said:

Not sure the Lord would agree here.  I am not aware that God dismisses our behavior if someone does something far more serious to us a little later on.  Lets present a different situation. Say a BYU couple go out on a crime spree to steal a bunch of stuff from other BYU students.  They steal laptops and iPads and other things.  The guy after a few hours of joyful theft decides to force himself on the coed and he rapes her.  Should BYU look the other way from all the theft (lesser crimes and sins than rape) the coed willfully did simply because she is now a rape victim?  Justice and mercy should always work together but one does not simply overlook action A because a far worse action B occurred also during the day.

From my vast experience watching Law and Order, I think this happens all the time.  It's called immunity.  The cops would rather have her testify against thief/rapist than prosecute her too.

[MiserereNobis]

28 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

But there is no grey area.  The young woman violated the agreement not to engage in the behavior she engaged in.  That's pretty black and white.  What is grey is the insistence that since something bad happened to her as a result of her violation of the agreement, the normal consequence for violating the agreement must not occur.

 

 

I'm not quite sure what to say to this... if you don't think there are grey areas in the application of justice, then we are all eternally screwed.  Even our totally flawed human based system of justice has mitigating factors.  If reporting a rapist isn't a mitigating factor against being out past curfew, I don't know what is.

Two points come to mind:

1) are you against prosecutors making deals with defendants in order to get information and/or testimony out of them to prosecute a greater criminal or crime?  This is pretty standard procedure in criminal law, you know...

2) do you want God to judge all of us in the black and white paradigm you've suggested? Christ did clearly state that with what judgement we judge, we shall be judged.

[bsjkki]

In a new Trib article and the Deseret News article, it is explained that BYU will not answer the question whether the Title IX office broke the law when reporting possible honor code violations to the HC office that were discovered during the sexual assault investigations.  The title IX officer is prohibited from having conflicts of interest. 

http://knowyourix.org/title-ix/title-ix-in-detail/

If BYU broke the law should they be punished and held accountable for every violation of a students rights under federal law?  I'm no lawyer so if you know more, please share.

[MiserereNobis]

1 hour ago, carbon dioxide said:

The act of rape is far more serious than drinking beer but should BYU allow students to drink beer since there are far more serious things one can do than drink beer?   Stealing a laptop is not as serious as rape so students should be allowed to do that as well?  Of course there is one HUGE difference between drinking and rape.  In the case of drinking, that is an action that the student is held accountable for.  In the case of rape, the rape victim is not at fault and is not accountable. 

I'm glad you recognize that rape is far more serious than drinking beer.  This means we are one step closer to realizing that mercy for a beer drinking rape victim and justice for a rapist are not somehow mutually exclusive.

Now, saying that someone who drank beer and was raped should be granted amnesty is VERY different than saying that someone who just drank beer and was caught should be punished.  Here is a major reason why:

Since rape is by far and by far and by far a worse violation than drinking beer, we should be utterly focused on finding rapists. If rape and drinking beer come in conflict, then we should dismiss the beer drinking and focus on rape.  When honor code violations stifle the reporting of sexual assaults (which has been admitted by BYU's title ix director, the lead rape investigator on the BYU police, and the prosecutor involved in Madi Barney's case), things should be adjusted, because it is more important to catch rapists, who are SERIOUS violators of legal (the law), bureaucratic (the honor code), and divine (God's law) injunctions.

Let's prioritize our justice and grant mercy to those who have already suffered so much for so little (I feel like I am appropriating Churchill here).  I don't agree with this idea, but it might be a way to reach some of you: if you feel a violator of the honor code who has been raped deserves to be punished, don't you think the rape is punishment enough?  A natural consequence, so to speak? What could be more punishing than the violation of your human and divine dignity?  Why do you want to add to that?

 

Edited April 16, 2016 by MiserereNobis

[strappinglad]

Did I read it correctly that the charges  have been dropped and that is even with a seeming incriminating recorded phone call ? In other words this assault is unproven in a court of law , but everyone is complaining about the Honor Court violation. Another case of presumption of innocence being waved aside while trial by media takes over. The OJ situation should teach everyone what happens when way too many people go tramping around in the evidence without thinking about proper investigation protocalls .  Somebody should have consulted a good lawyer before saying anything to anyone.

[JulieM]

2 minutes ago, strappinglad said:

Did I read it correctly that the charges  have been dropped and that is even with a seeming incriminating recorded phone call ? 

Where did you read this?  I missed it, if that's true.

[Sleeper Cell]

2 hours ago, MiserereNobis said:

This is a terrible analogy.  There is basically no similarity to the issue we are discussing.  I know you are saying that you are trying to remove emotion from the issue and posit a situation where there is no emotion (I guess).  But consider this: feeling an emotion of outrage and sympathy and pure sadness over a terrible event is part of being human.  It is part of what makes us human.  Trying to remove emotion from a response to a tragedy is trying to dehumanize us.  When my fellow teachers were sobbing over the killings of 6 and 7 year olds at Sandy Hook Elementary School, I didn't say to them, "now, now, let's not get emotional about this, it will cloud our judgement."  No.  We all cried together, we all felt emotions, because we are human and because we are made in the image of God, who weeps even when a sparrow falls.

[emphasis added]

As a trained volunteer disaster service worker, I was taught that it was necessary for us to try to remove emotion from our response to a tragedy.  For starters, allowing emotion to cloud our judgment would defeat the very purpose of mass casualty triage, possibly resulting in even more deaths.   

I certainly would never have told you or your fellow teachers that you shouldn’t sob or otherwise get emotional.  But, presumably, they were not acting as first responders -- at least not at that particular time.  

I would suggest that it is probably desirable for those who are trying to find ways to prevent (or reduce the likelihood of) a similar tragedy to also try to avoid allowing emotion to cloud their judgment.   

[MiserereNobis]

4 minutes ago, strappinglad said:

Did I read it correctly that the charges  have been dropped and that is even with a seeming incriminating recorded phone call ? In other words this assault is unproven in a court of law , but everyone is complaining about the Honor Court violation. Another case of presumption of innocence being waved aside while trial by media takes over. The OJ situation should teach everyone what happens when way too many people go tramping around in the evidence without thinking about proper investigation protocalls .  Somebody should have consulted a good lawyer before saying anything to anyone.

No, you did not read it correctly.  The charges of rape have not been dropped.  So everything you say and insinuate here is false.

There was a charge against the rape defendant and a sheriff's deputy of retaliating against a witness.  That charge was brought when the lead prosecutor realized that the case report had been given by the perpetrator's friend (the sheriff's deputy) to the honor code office at BYU.  His superior had the charge dismissed without prejudice (which means they could refile the charge, but they have said they are not going to).  This is probably what you are thinking of.

The rape charge still stands, especially due to the recorded phone call.

Perhaps you should consider why you were so quick to jump to all the things you said after your first sentence since none of it is true.  Read this for more info: http://www.sltrib.com/home/3773615-155/prosecutor-says-rape-case-is-threatened