juliet benet – i really like your breakdown of the case and what the judge should have done. maybe you should move to philly and run against this idiot judge, you’ve obviously got a better legal mind then she does.

zuzu – thanks for posting this, and for preventing people from posting up the link to some random guy who may or may not be the perp’s myspace page. way to keep the discussion on-focus.

and i really really hope that word of this outrage spreads and it costs this creep her re-election.

DEFINITION OF TERMS

To debate this argument, we need to consider what constitutes a rape and what constitutes a robbery.

Rape is legally defined as non-consensual sexual contact, involving forced penetration orally, vaginally or anally either by a body part or using an object. Rape can also occur if one party in a sex act is not mentally able to comprehend or willfully consent to the act, in instances where the victim is under the age of consent, or mentally impaired either by disability, alcohol, drugs or duress.

Robbery is defined as the seizing of property through force or intimidation. (This is different from burglary, which is the seizing of a property without resorting to violence or threats – such as breaking into someone’s home when they are not present and stealing their television set)
Theft of Services is defined as “a crime which is committed when a person obtains valuable services — as opposed to goods — by deception, force, threat or other unlawful means, i.e., without lawfully compensating the provider of said services.”

Prostitution is defined the exchange of sexual activity for remuneration, being either cash or other goods/services.

RAPE IN THE CONTEXT OF A ROBBERY

In order to comprehend rape as a robbery, you need to first comprehend prostitution as a service that can be stolen, and before that, as a service that can be rendered.

To do this, I will compare prostitution to plumbing.

Both a plumber and a prostitute have a service to offer. A plumber will come to your house, inspect your pipes, and unclog a drain if need be. A prostitute will come to your house (or other suitable location) and perform sex acts. In order to get either of these people to do either of these things, you must pay them. Typically, a plumber will see the clog in your drain and tell you how much it will cost you to remove. Similarly, a prostitute may ask what you want, and depending on what requests you have, give you a fee. In this manner, both people are giving you an estimate, or, an approximate amount of money you’ll be required to pay.
Let’s say that for each of these people, the fee to get them to do what you want is $200. Let’s assume that neither of them requires the money upfront. This implies that you will pay them $200 after the completion of said service.
In the case of the plumber, you will probably receive a written contract. This contract will, at the bare minimum, look something like this:

I, Juliet Bennett-Rylah, agree to pay Percy Plumber $200 for his service of unclogging my kitchen pipes on November 10, 2007, upon completion of this service.

And both Percy and Juliet will sign the document. Likely, we will both have a copy. This is a written binding agreement that is unequivocal proof indicating that this service is to be rendered and when it is, Juliet will pay Percy the agreed amount. Contracts are legally binding. Contracts can only be signed by people who are 18 years old or older, in good mental health and not under mental duress – i.e., the same type of people who can consent to have sex. Verbal contracts are sometimes not legally binding. For instance, if Percy asked Juliet for five dollars for lunch, which he promises to pay back tomorrow, he is not legally obligated to do so because there’s no proof that this ever happened.

That said, Gindraw was not under legal obligation to pay the woman for sex, because they had no binding agreement that he would. This is because prostitution is illegal, therefore, it is an oxymoron to assert that a legally binding document could exist pertaining to an illegal act.

However, there is such a thing as an implied contract. That is to say, if you go to an auto repair place and have them change your oil, it is implied that you will pay for it. If you don’t, you are still legally bound to pay because it is implied that you will. It’s common sense. Therefore, if you go to a prostitute and have sex with her, it is implied that you will pay her because, by definition, prostitutes are people that have sex for money.

Unfortunately, the bit about prostitution being illegal still remains true. An illegal act has no legal recourse. If a buyer does not pay his dealer for cocaine, it is theft. However, what can the dealer do? He can’t take it to the police. He has also committed a crime.

Ignoring the fact that prostitution is illegal and is not subject to these contract laws (as Deni has clearly done), and assuming that this transaction should be compliant with all others, it is true that Gindraw did commit a theft of services against the young woman. He breached an implied contract by having sex with her, a prostitute, and then not paying. It is true that he is guilty of robbery, in particular, theft of services, because he used intimidation and force to acquire them. Armed robbery at that, because he employed the use of a gun.

So, by simply reducing the argument to its basic terms, we know that Deni is correct. What occurred on September 20 was a theft of services. A robbery. But, was Deni correct is throwing out the sexual assault and rape charges? Was the crime only a robbery and not a rape?

ONE, THE OTHER, OR BOTH?

Let’s go back to the definition of a rape: “non-consensual sexual contact, involving forced penetration orally, vaginally or anally either by a body part or using an object.”

Gindraw did penetrate the woman, and it was against her will. She had initially consented to oral and vaginal intercourse with him for the arranged price of $150 and his friend for an additional $100. Her willingness to participate in the act depended on his end of the bargain, that is, the payment. When he made clear he was not going to pay her, he breached the implied contract. Therefore, she revoked her consent. At the moment when the sex occurred, the woman was a non-willing participant. She was a non-willing participant because she had a gun to her head and because she was not going to be compensated for her advertised and hired services. Therefore, Gindraw raped her and Deni’s claims that this case minimized “true rape cases” and demeaned “women who are really raped” is false: the plaintiff was really raped. In addition to this, Gindraw’s friend also raped her by rescinding his offer of payment. Furthermore, the additional two friends made no offers to pay her, did not ask her if she would have sex with them, and forced themselves on her, using the gun and their sheer presence to intimidate her. They caused her to fear for her life. These men also, then, were involved in what is legally defined as the rape of the plaintiff. Gindraw, by assisting them to rape her by holding the gun, bringing her to the scene of the crime, and inviting the men to commit a crime, was an accessory to three separate incidences of rape, not including the one he personally committed.

It would also help to note that Gindraw had done the same thing to another woman from Craiglist less than a week before committing this atrocity against this particular escort, meaning that was not a bizarre and isolated incident, but rather a calculated and willful act of malevolence and poor business ethics.

THE RIGHTFUL CHARGES

To go back to the plumber, this would be equivalent to Juliet forcing the plumber to fix her drain clog for free by holding a gun to his head, then taking him to several neighbors’ homes to do the same, also for free, gun still to his head.

All this evidence considered, Gindraw is guilty of the following:
1. Theft of Services
2. Armed Robbery
3. Intimidation (Also known as criminal threatening)
4. Assault
5. Fraud
6. Rape
7. Accessory to Rape
8. Sexual Assault
9. Employing a Prostitute
10. Kidnapping

It is also, I think, useful to note that in Philadelphia, the line of separation between Petty Theft and Grand Theft is $400. If the woman agreed to have sex with him and a friend for the combined total of $350, then the average going rate for sex is $175. Since the woman was forced to have sex with four men, this would result in services stolen worth $700. Therefore, the penalty for the theft charge should be considerably higher than one for a petty theft, such as the amount of $350 (under the line of $400) that was actually called into question.

Therefore, if the defendant is going to be charged with theft of services in regards to services that are illegal, then clearly all the same rules should be applicable as if the service was legal. Therefore, the plaintiff should be awarded compensatory damages. $700 in direct damages, an estimated amount in consequential damages for lost earnings (to be estimated based on how much time she couldn’t spend working because she was in trial/recovering) and related health costs, in additional punitive damages, as determined by a crisis counselor to somehow attempt to compensate for the emotional trauma she endured and to deter Gindraw from committing such crimes again.

CONCLUSION

Deni is clearly wrong on all accounts. She did not balance her equation when convicting Gindraw of Theft of Services, because she did not carry out all the requirements of such a charge by compensating the victim in damages. She was also wrong to convict him of Theft of Services, since the ‘service’ is not legal. She was also wrong to throw out rape and assault charges, because those crimes were clearly committed.
Given that the intended audience for Deni’s argument was a court of law, her argument was both ineffective and inappropriate. She imparted her own values into what should have been a fact-based argument. By using fact-based logic, it is easy to see how her value-based argument was incorrect. Matters of the law should be conducted exactly as the law implies they are to be done: as unequivocally fact-based, and never altered to conform to someone’s personal morals, making them value-based. Although her argument cannot be improved now, because a judge’s rulings are final until the next appeal, she could go back in a time machine and improve her argument by adhering to the rules of the court. She could, if she feels so strongly about prostitution as a wrong, convict the defendant of rape and assault as he is so obviously guilty of, and also charge the plaintiff of prostitution (although, in an additional value-based argument of my own, that sounds like adding insult to injury unnecessarily – of course, isn’t that what this current ruling does?)
Since Deni is clearly incapable of following the rules of the law, she should be removed from her position. The trial of Gindraw should be re-executed by a judge who knows how to differentiate fact and justice from her own personal bias. The young woman should not be demeaned and reduced to the sum of her reproductive parts as capital, and we should all feel slightly unsettled that someone this illogical could ever be given any sort of authority.