Men are no more at risk now than before
record, Republicans were unconcerned about the allegations made against him, and Democrats acted like juveniles to prevent another conservative from being seated on the high court.
Sounding an alarm about due process and probable cause being thrown out the window only add to the acrimony. Those concepts still matter, but at trial.
Job interviews aren’t bound by what can be proven. If an employer doesn’t feel good about how a candidate interviews, even if those concerns aren’t substantiated, the candidate doesn’t get the job. The only way for Republicans to steer around the questions concerning Kavanaugh’s background was to conflate the confirmation process with a trial. Kavanaugh is innocent until proved guilty, they argued, and there’s no corroborating evidence. Except it wasn’t a trial.
More disturbing is the alarm voiced by columnist Jay Ambrose, who warned that men are now at greater risk because the potential for baseless allegations has increased. Evidence is no longer needed to be found guilty of sexual abuse. All that is required these days is for a #MeToo feminist to say the victim is a victim.
Ambrose cites the story of Gregory Counts and VanDyke Perry, who, between them, were wrongfully incarcerated in New York for 36 years for a rape they did not commit. A horrible blunder, but it happened in 1991, well before #MeToo came along.
The problem with stories like this is not so much about women conjuring up stories — the basis for Counts and Perry being wrongfully convicted — but more about our judicial system being fallible. Wrongful convictions happen more than most would think.
A few years back, I met six men — Ricky Jackson, Kwanme Ajamu, Wiley Bridgeman, Joe D’Ambrosio, Derrick Jamison and Dale Johnston, who had spent a combined 173 years incarcerated in Ohio — some on death row — for murders they did not commit before their convictions were overturned.
Samuel R. Gross of the University of Michigan Law School, Barbara O’Brien of the Michigan State University College of Law and two research professionals estimated in a study published in 2014 by the National Academy of Sciences that 4.1 percent of all death-sentenced defendants are wrongly convicted.
With all things human, including trials, there will always be error. Wrongful convictions happen because of eyewitness misidentification, unreliable forensic science, false confessions, government misconduct, snitches who lie, judicial error and bad lawyering.
Here’s the point: For all these shortcomings, we don’t stop prosecuting murder cases, and there’s no reason to even think about backing down on holding men accountable for sexual abuse. Instead, let’s always work on improving the system.
Ambrose is worried the #MeToo movement will devolve into zealotry which, he fears, can lead to “different kinds of abuses, societal unfairness, indecency, to a guillotine that may not literally cut off heads but can cut off fundamental human rights” for men. Haven’t women suffered these same injustices for years?
The world is no more dangerous for men today than it was 50 years ago. Only womanizers need fear the #MeToo movement.
If a man drinks in moderation, is mindful of the company he keeps and avoids questionable situations, his risk of being unfairly accused of sexual abuse is no worse than the risk any man faces of being wrongfully accused of any crime. Maybe some men simply don’t like the idea of being held accountable.