Congressional Senate Bill 119, also known as the “Abby Honold Act” is another legislative program compelling law enforcement to deny due process to men. It creates financial rewards for law enforcement and prosecutors to implement “trauma informed” techniques in their work. An analysis of the spurious myths behind “trauma informed” law enforcement shows that it is merely an effort to create biased gender profiling and prejudice in law enforcement against men. Below we outline the goals and assumptions of “trauma informed” legislation.
There are five goals in trauma informed work:
- Ensure the emotional and physical safety of an accuser. This is not necessarily a problem and is a goal or objective upon which everyone can agree.
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- However, once law enforcement investigates, and finds no probable cause to believe a crime has been committed, the “protection” of the accuser should terminate. Maintaining the anonymity of the accuser, for example, permits serial false accuser to continue perverting and damages the criminal justice system, and, individual men who are accused without probable cause.
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- In addition, law enforcement should be compelled to protect the identity of the accused until at least such time as prosecutors review the investigation and determine that there is any probable cause to believe a crime has been committed. To protect an accused from false accusations, it would be appropriate for Congress to mandate that the identity of an accused shall remain protected and not disclosed until such time as a jury returns a verdict and all appeals have been exhausted. Jaime N. Morris, The Anonymous Accused: Protecting Defendants’ Rights in High-Profile Criminal Cases, 44 B.C. L. Rev. 901 (2003), https://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/bclr/vol44/iss3/6
- Work to make the accuser believe law enforcement is trustworthy. This is a desirable outcome in any law enforcement situation.
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- However, it is important for persons outside of the criminal justice system (especially legislators) to understand that it is not possible or desirable to compromise the integrity of the criminal justice system simply to “encourage” accusers to come forward. The reality is that good faith law enforcement investigations find that over 85% of accusations of sexual assault have no probable cause to believe the accused committed a crime. Too many accusers are being encouraged to come forward to make false accusations. Most trials of sexual assault cases resolve with an acquittal for the defendant. The current system encourages false accusers to come forward and this is damaging to the trustworthiness of the criminal justice system.
- Insure that the accuser has control during the interaction. Accusers are not police officers or prosecutors. They do not approach a case of alleged sexual assault with objectivity. More often than not, they approach sexual assault cases with vindictiveness, false memories, false accusations and a desire to pervert the system for their own personal gain. They should not have any control over the process. They might contaminate evidence, bias a witness, or withhold information. Police and prosecutors can be compassionate, but only law enforcement and the Courts should control the interaction.
- Collaborate with the accuser to make decisions about the investigation and prosecution. An accuser might request no prosecution, etc. In all crime the victim is the state, and the state has a right for police and prosecutors to thoroughly investigate cases regardless of the accuser’s desires. Since more than half of all accusations of rape are false, the concept of law enforcement and prosecutors “collaborating” with accusers, should include investigation and prosecution of false accusers.
- Empower the accuser by validating their accusations and affirming their personhood. This is an illegitimate objective. Police and prosecutors are not empowered to validate and affirm either guilt or innocence. Law Enforcement, prosecutors and the criminal justice system exist to thoroughly collect evidence of innocence or guilt, and to fulfill the due process rights of all involved. Affirming and validating accusers merely promotes false accusers, and empowers them to be more likely to falsely accuse again.
Trauma informed work makes at least six spurious and perverted assumptions:
- Assumption: All women have a history of trauma, including unremembered trauma from childhood. In the 1990’s the same feminists who claim all women have sexual trauma, pushed “memory recovery therapy”, causing many women to develop what were later proven to be false memories. (See Nelson & Simpson (1994). Falsely accused men, and women, teachers, pastors, neighbors had their lives destroyed. It is dangerous to society to assume a history of trauma and then engage confirmation bias without a reasoned evaluation of actual evidence.
- Assumption: Accusers rarely lie and thus they should be believed. Solid science shows over half of all accusations of rape are false, and a large percentage of them can be proven to be false. Over 50% of accusations of sexual assault are proven false through thorough police investigation and court proceedings. Women often admit that they falsely accused on fear of pregnancy, or an STD, or to get revenge, or to obtain government benefits and cash rewards for falsely accusing men. Research shows about one third of accusations of domestic violence may also be false. (See Nelson 2019, chapters 9 to 11).
- Assumption: There is only one abuser and one victim in each case. Fifty percent of all DV has two batterers both abusing each other. Contrary to stereotypes, women (not men) initiate 70% of domestic violence and it is women who are the largest number of aggressors in domestic violence, not men. Linda Kelly, Disabusing the Definition of Domestic Violence: How Women Batter Men and the Role of the Feminist State, 30 FLA. ST. U. L. REV. 791 (2003), see also Nelson 2019, Chapter Four. At least half of the accusers of rape are themselves sexual abusers in the relationship and are not the victim. Stemple, L., Flores, A., Meyer, I. H. Sexual victimization perpetrated by women: Federal data reveal surprising prevalence. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 34 (2017) 302–311.
- An accuser will be made comfortable if she is called a “victim.” Up to half of accusers are making false accusations. Calling them a victim will likely encourage them, and law enforcement, to believe what they are saying even if the evidence and investigation shows the contrary. It gives false accusers a sense of “I fooled the cops/prosecutor”, and probably will embolden them. It sets up the innocent man who is innocently falsely accused to be denied due process and have his life ruined. The title “victim” should not bestowed until a solid amount of evidence shows this to be true after a trial providing due process of law. Courts are now starting to rule that referring to an accuser as a “victim” is prejudicial to due process of law and the presumption of innocence. Klein, Richard, An Analysis of Thirty-Five Years of Rape Reform: A Frustrating Search for Fundamental Fairness, 41 Akron L. Rev. 981 (2008).
- Accusers may not willingly share their story, or may not remember it, so, techniques have to be used to extract it from them. This is exactly what happened in the 1990’s during the feminist practice of “memory recovery.” Experimenters in the field of memory science have shown that false memories almost always result from attempts to “extract” memories from accusers. If law enforcement, therapists or victim advocates attempt to “extract” memories, it is a form of evidence and witness tampering in almost all cases. Laws should be enacted to criminally prosecute professionals who tamper with the memories of the accuser (instead of laws such as the Abby Honold Act which encourage professionals in the criminal justice system to tamper with the accuser witness. Elizabeth F Loftus and Katherine Ketcham, THE MYTH OF REPRESSED MEMORY, St. Martin’s Press, 1994, see also Nelson & Simpson (1994).
- Caution should be exercised when asking an accuser for proof and supporting evidence, because it will “re-traumatize” them. Police and prosecutors strive to be compassionate and polite, but their job is to ask hard questions. By definition a bona fide victim may be uncomfortable or traumatized when recounting true facts. Falsely accused men are also heavily traumatized by false accusations. This is inevitable and is not caused by the system. It is an unavoidable hazard of criminal justice. “Re-traumatizing” should be given no consideration unless it is extended to both the accuser and accused at the same level of consideration.
For decades VAWA has funded anti-male, anti-due process practices by women’s shelters, police, prosecutors, college administrators, and so forth. This caused and continues to cause an epidemic of false accusations. SB119 is another landmine meant to destabilize proven police and prosecutorial best practices, doing so by extending financial rewards to agencies to create false and biased gender profiling programs and gender biased policing practices. The National Coalition of Men soundly rejects any legislation or practice that harms constitutional rights, including due process. SB 119 will unleash a wave of false accusations, by police and prosecutors who lower their threshold of professionalism — for taxpayer money.
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John Davis was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He was educated at Case Western Reserve University (BA) (one of the top ten universities in the United States), Seattle University School of Law (JD), and, New York University School of Law (LL.M post-doctoral) (one of the top ten law schools in the United States). John is fluent in seven languages (including ancient Latin and Greek). He has travelled the world over, many times, and has represented clients, in his thirty five year career, such as the United States Government and the Federation of Russia. He has been a prosecutor four times in his 40 year career. He has held positions such as Assistant Attorney General, Supreme Court Law Clerk, United States Speaker, and Deputy District Attorney.
Eric Nelson is the author of “The Judicial War On Men“, “Toxic Feminism” “Attorney Deposition Guide For Questioning A Domestic Violence Expert“, “Living & Working With Evil People“, and “Recovering From Toxic Masculinity Training.” Purchase Eric’s books at https://aeqpub.com. Follow him @ https://gettr.com/user/Dr_Nelson
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