Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
(Updated below.)
I think the following story out of Kentucky is an interesting one. Savannah Dietrich, a seventeen-year-old, is the victim of a sexual assault. Last August, she was assaulted by two boys she knew after she passed out at a party. It wasn’t until months later that Dietrich learned that pictures of her assault had been taken and shared with other people.
The victim told a newspaper that she cried herself to sleep for months. She added, “I couldn’t go out in public places. You just sit there and wonder, who saw (the pictures), who knows?”
According to the Courier-Journal, Dietrich felt frustrated by what she thought “was a lenient plea bargain for two teens who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting her and circulating pictures of the incident.” She took to Twitter and named her attackers. She also tweeted, “There you go, lock me up. I’m not protecting anyone that made my life a living Hell” and “Protect rapist is more important than getting justice for the victim in Louisville.”
Dietrich is now facing a possible jail sentence. The attorneys for the boys who pleaded guilty to her assault have asked a Jefferson District Court judge to hold her in contempt for publicly naming her attackers. Dietrich stands accused of violating “the confidentiality of a juvenile hearing and the court’s order not to speak of it.” If charged with contempt, Dietrich could receive a “potential sentence of up to 180 days in jail and a $500 fine.”
Jason Riley of the Courier-Journal wrote: “Legal experts say such cases are becoming more common, in which people are communicating more frequently through social media and violating court orders not to speak.”
Greg Leslie, who is the interim executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in Arlington, Virginia, said, “In the past, people would complain to anyone who would listen, but they didn’t have a way to publish their comments where there would be a permanent record, like on Facebook and Twitter, for people to see worldwide.” He continued, “It’s just going to happen more and more.”
“So many of my rights have been taken away by these boys,” Dietrich told the Courier Journal. “I’m at the point, that if I have to go to jail for my rights, I will do it. If they really feel it’s necessary to throw me in jail for talking about what happened to me … as opposed to throwing these boys in jail for what they did to me, then I don’t understand justice.”
Dietrich claims that she and her family “were unaware of the plea bargain and recommended sentence until just before it was announced in court — and were upset with what they felt was a slap on the wrist for the attackers.” Dietrich said. “They got off very easy … and they tell me to be quiet, just silencing me at the end.”
Emily Farrar-Crockett, one of Dietrich’s attorneys, said that her client had looked at the laws of confidentiality before she tweeted her comments. Crockett said that Dietrich “tried not to violate what she believed the law to be” by not tweeting about what happened in court or what was in court records.
Greg Leslie said he thinks that Dietrich should “not be legally barred from talking about what happened to her. That’s a wide-ranging restraint on speech. By going to court, you shouldn’t lose the legal right to talk about something.”
Not all legal experts agree with Leslie. Ohio media law specialist David Marburger said that even if the judge might be limiting freedom of speech with an order, “it doesn’t necessarily free you from that order. You have to respect the order and get the judge to vacate the order or get a higher court to restrain the judge from enforcing the order.” And Jo Ann Phillips, head of Kentuckians Voice for Crime Victims, said that she “doesn’t blame Dietrich for standing up for what she felt was an injustice, but said she should have gone about it another way.”
“This (assault) could affect her for the rest of her life and the fact that she said, ‘I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore,’ you have to applaud her,” Phillips said. “But you also have to respect authority.”
“ … She should have gone to a victims’ group or her local legislator and fought for the right to speak out.”
What do you think? Was Dietrich wrong to name her accusers publicly? Do you think Dietrich has the right to speak out about what happened to her?
UPDATE: The motion to hold 17-year-old Savannah Dietrich of Louisville in contempt was withdrawn on Monday.
SOURCES
Assault victim’s tweets prompt contempt case (Courier-Journal)
Savannah Dietrich, 17-Year-Old Sexual Assault Victim, Faces Charge For Naming Attackers (Huffington Post/AP)
Elaine,
“I’ve learned that there are times when I think it best to ignore Matt’s comments.”
————-
You’re right, of course. It only encourages his bullying blather. I’ve said that I try to give people more than one or two chances. But then I run out of chances and want to punch him in the nose, or somewhere, metaphorically, of course.
Elaine M. 1, July 23, 2012 at 3:38 pm
bettykath,
I’ve learned that there are times when I think it best to ignore Matt’s comments.
=========
That isn’t unusual. Why do you think I got fired.
Matt,
“What if I have a 41 magnum revolver and I’m an expert shot? Add the 12 gauge shotgun for good measure. Not really.”
———————-
More bravado. In fact, that is the attitude that would make you a target. You would be seen as someone who needed to be taken down a peg or two. A middle of the night attack after a long hard day of work. You’re sound asleep. They’d have your pants off before you woke up. Arm your attackers? Good move. Not.
I will say that sexual abuse in the Navy has not been reported to the extent that it has in the Army and the Air Force. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen though.
bettykath,
I’ve learned that there are times when I think it best to ignore Matt’s comments.
Blouise, Someone is insulting women and their “orifices” again. Something about the tone is familiar….
As far as I can ascertain, the contempt hearing is scheduled for July 30.
The NCAA has spoken.
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/07/13/down-in-the-valley-iv-king-football/#comment-396813
bettykath 1, July 23, 2012 at 2:50 pm
Matt, I was responding to your ignorant and insulting comment to Blouise and Elaine about their orifices.
As to what can or cannot happen in the Navy, there wouldn’t be much you could do stop three assailants if they decided to gang up on you. Chop off their wangkers? Nice thought but you’d need to assemble your own gang. Then the Navy has gangs going after each others’. Bravado will take you only so far and might even make you a target for the sadistic bullies who join together to make a force stronger than one man.
=========
What if I have a 41 magnum revolver and I’m an expert shot? Add the 12 gauge shotgun for good measure. Not really.
Matt, I was responding to your ignorant and insulting comment to Blouise and Elaine about their orifices.
As to what can or cannot happen in the Navy, there wouldn’t be much you could do stop three assailants if they decided to gang up on you. Chop off their wangkers? Nice thought but you’d need to assemble your own gang. Then the Navy has gangs going after each others’. Bravado will take you only so far and might even make you a target for the sadistic bullies who join together to make a force stronger than one man.
Dont those people have something better to do in Louisville than just show up once a year at Churchill Downs to watch ponies run?
Of course if this happened in my neck of the woods when I was a kid and this victim was my sister or even second cousin once removed, well, those two guys would be pushing up roses.
Malisha is right. The Louisville folks need to come out en mass to the courthouse and picket, yell. I further say that they should demand that the judge be removed from office and the Gag Orders be burned on the courthouse steps by the Clerk of Court.
Does the judge really have the right to silence someone not a party to the hearing itself? Does she really have the right to silence someone for speaking of her own story? “I was raped, these guys did it.” Or did she overstep her bounds? Or are the defendants’ attorneys overstepping theirs? Since sentence has not been given, we don’t know how harsh or lenient the judge will be. Has the judge agreed to cite her for contempt? Does she have to? So far I see a DA working with the jocks to protect their future. I don’t see that the judge has done much one way or the other except for gag order that she may or may not enforce harshly.
T-SHIRTS not just for victim and her family, but for another thousand people crowding the courthouse when she gets tried for contempt:
NAME RAPISTS, DON’T PUNISH VICTIMS
“The teens are to be sentenced next month, and the judge could reject or modify the terms of the proposed agreement.
When Judge Dee McDonald admonished everyone at the hearing not to speak about what happened in court or about the crime, Dietrich said she cried.”
….
“The boys’ attorneys have asked a judge to hold Dietrich in contempt for violating the confidentiality of a juvenile hearing and the judge’s order not to speak about it.”
….
“Dietrich’s attorneys want her contempt hearing open to the media, arguing she has a First Amendment right to speak about her case and to a public hearing.
The boys’ attorneys, however, have asked to keep the hearing closed.
The contempt charge carries a possible sentence of 180 days in jail and a $500 fine.”
http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/national/kentucky-teen-savannah-dietrich-faces-charge-for-naming-attackers
bettykath 1, July 23, 2012 at 2:00 pm
Geez, I was going to ignore Matt but his ignorance is beyond the pale. Rape is about power, not sex. Age, physical attributes, gender have nothing to do with it. Power over others is what motivates the rapist and he looks for people who are less likely or less able to fight back. Consider the number of rapists that act only after the victim is unconscious or beaten into submission. What cowards.
Matt is becoming an infected pimple on a nerve.
======================================
We all lived on the same ship. It wouldn’t have been allowed.
Citizens of Louisville need to show up at that Courhouse with Picket Signs and tee shirts with messages on them. Messages like: Judge Con Law One-First Amendment. Or: JoeBob and JimBob Assaulted A Human and Need Justice (insert real names for Joe Bob and JimBob); Or: Nurnberg Here We Come– We Need Judges To Be Accountable For Human Rights Violations. Or: First Amendment: This Government Is Hereby Petitioned To Shut UP and To Ungag Our Citizens. Or : Judge JillBob: Read The First Amendment. Picket Sings and Tee Shirts.
When the victim enters the courtroom she needs to be handcuffed to her mom and dad so they cant take her away. Hide the key. She wears a tee shirts that says: JoeBob and Jim Bob Assautled Me–So Does This Court.
Can someone print the name of the Judge who is approaching the deeds of Herr Alstoeffer? Google: The Judge’s Trial at Nurnberg for details.
Hotsie Totsie I smell a Nazi.
bettykath,
Or we struck a nerve … 😉
Matt,
you may want to read the information a little more carefully. The article states that the victim didn’t learn that there were pictures taken of the assault, not that she wasn’t aware of the assault until the pictures were published online. These perps pled guilty to the assault so I guess, maybe, it happened!
Geez, I was going to ignore Matt but his ignorance is beyond the pale. Rape is about power, not sex. Age, physical attributes, gender have nothing to do with it. Power over others is what motivates the rapist and he looks for people who are less likely or less able to fight back. Consider the number of rapists that act only after the victim is unconscious or beaten into submission. What cowards.
Matt is becoming an infected pimple on a nerve.
Elaine,
I read the whole story from your link. What a subject for discussion! No man or woman in their right mind would want to be in a foxhole (pun intended) with those perverts.