You are entitled to your opinion, however afaik you are not the judge in this case, and your opinion is not legally binding.
Multiply impeached President #45, Donald J. Trump has been found guilty of the charge of rape, according to the legal opinion of District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan.
I’m a terrible debater, and terrible arguer. Did you by any chance read the court document? Or the part in the WaPo article where Judge Kaplan says “The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,’ ” Kaplan wrote. Emphasis added.
He raped her. No doubt. But as far as the state is concerned, he didn’t because it has never been criminally adjudicated. The judge can say that he did, but that doesn’t make it a criminal conviction. He was civilly liable for the rape. Saying he’s convicted is factually inaccurate.
Same thing with OJ Simpson. He was found civilly liable for those murders, but not criminally guilty. Pretty much everyone agrees that he murdered those people, but he’s not in prison right now because he wasn’t found guilty.
In the same vain, Trump has not been found guilty of rape.
All of this doesn’t mean that Trump didn’t rape that woman in actuality. It just means that he wasn’t convicted. And telling people he was convicted is disingenuous at best and a flat out lie at worst.
Ok, so here’s me being “disingenuous, at best”: “He raped her. No doubt.” If he did what he did to E. Jean Carroll in actuality, instead to your daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, how would you feel?
I’d be upset, but my emotions on the matter don’t change the fact that he wasn’t criminally convicted. You can say he raped her, which he did. You can’t say (honestly) he was convicted because that means something entirely different. Are you being purposefully obtuse about my point, here?
Perhaps disingenuous. I told you I was a terrible debater. My point is that Judge Kaplan said the difference was semantic, between the terms. It was a civil case, of course he wasn’t criminally convicted. This is the one case where it came to a conclusion. Are you being obtuse about how difficult it is for a woman to bring a case of rape against her to trial, especially against someone who is powerful, wealthy, and male? I mean, what’s in this conversation for you? Why do you care?
Donald Trump was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll
From Cornell Law School’s web site:
A party is liable when they are held legally responsible for something. Unlike in criminal cases, where a defendant could be found guilty, a defendant in a civil case risks only liability
At no point in the article you linked did the Judge say that Trump was “found guilty” of anything. Trump has no crime on his criminal record.
The judge in the article says that Trump was found to have raped Carroll, but acknowledged that there is “a legal distinction” between liability and guilt.
I’m not trying to defend Trump here, or argue that he didn’t do what he was found to have done, just pointing out that there is a difference between “found guilty of rape” and what actually happened.
Trump has not be convicted of rape. That’s misleading terminology and conflates the lower standards of a civil trial with a criminal one.
Judge clarifies: Yes, Trump was found to have raped E. Jean Carroll
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/19/trump-carroll-judge-rape/
For the Legally Literate: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.590045/gov.uscourts.nysd.590045.212.0.pdf
You are entitled to your opinion, however afaik you are not the judge in this case, and your opinion is not legally binding.
Multiply impeached President #45, Donald J. Trump has been found guilty of the charge of rape, according to the legal opinion of District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan.
There’s an important difference between civil liability and criminal guilt. They are very different things and you’re hurting your own argument.
I’m a terrible debater, and terrible arguer. Did you by any chance read the court document? Or the part in the WaPo article where Judge Kaplan says “The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,’ ” Kaplan wrote. Emphasis added.
He raped her. No doubt. But as far as the state is concerned, he didn’t because it has never been criminally adjudicated. The judge can say that he did, but that doesn’t make it a criminal conviction. He was civilly liable for the rape. Saying he’s convicted is factually inaccurate.
Same thing with OJ Simpson. He was found civilly liable for those murders, but not criminally guilty. Pretty much everyone agrees that he murdered those people, but he’s not in prison right now because he wasn’t found guilty.
In the same vain, Trump has not been found guilty of rape.
All of this doesn’t mean that Trump didn’t rape that woman in actuality. It just means that he wasn’t convicted. And telling people he was convicted is disingenuous at best and a flat out lie at worst.
Ok, so here’s me being “disingenuous, at best”: “He raped her. No doubt.” If he did what he did to E. Jean Carroll in actuality, instead to your daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, how would you feel?
I’d be upset, but my emotions on the matter don’t change the fact that he wasn’t criminally convicted. You can say he raped her, which he did. You can’t say (honestly) he was convicted because that means something entirely different. Are you being purposefully obtuse about my point, here?
Perhaps disingenuous. I told you I was a terrible debater. My point is that Judge Kaplan said the difference was semantic, between the terms. It was a civil case, of course he wasn’t criminally convicted. This is the one case where it came to a conclusion. Are you being obtuse about how difficult it is for a woman to bring a case of rape against her to trial, especially against someone who is powerful, wealthy, and male? I mean, what’s in this conversation for you? Why do you care?
The other people in this thread are arguing semantics - whether he is “guilty” or not. They may be correct.
Thing is, they’re still trying to split hairs about a man who raped someone to make sure he gets the benefit of … semantics or something.
From the article you linked:
From Cornell Law School’s web site:
At no point in the article you linked did the Judge say that Trump was “found guilty” of anything. Trump has no crime on his criminal record.
The judge in the article says that Trump was found to have raped Carroll, but acknowledged that there is “a legal distinction” between liability and guilt.
I’m not trying to defend Trump here, or argue that he didn’t do what he was found to have done, just pointing out that there is a difference between “found guilty of rape” and what actually happened.