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)
Malisha,
I was living in Skokie at the time after growing up there and I don’t remember that the Nazi’s called off their march. I worked with some Holocaust survivors and they were ready to attend that march.
It just doesn’t do to put the Judge who has yet to rule on the punishment for your clients in such a position no matter how badly you want to revictimize the victim.
Bats eat lots of mosquitoes. They’re good.
Will Frey whispers in his opponent’s ear “Fear the BAT.”
among other endearments.
Meso said “Legal implies a consideration of the rights of everybody, not just folks we like”
Legal may imply that consideration but once you hit the courtroom door politic, money, name play a major role
Austin Zehnde … Hoping to become a doctor he feels he surgically debilitates his opponents, as they feel he has removed certain organs without anesthesia.
He’s already proven he can operate on the unconscious.
OS,
As do certain female bloggers on this site. 😉
Hoping to become a doctor he feels he surgically debilitates his opponents, as they feel he has removed certain organs without anesthesia.
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You have to use the anesthesia. It’s just cruel otherwise.
Withdrew the contempt motion? Kinda sounds like when those Nazis called off their parade in Skokie; once things get real and somebody’s gonna push back, there’s less push, and ALL THE LEGALITIES CHANGE.
The same should happen to the so-called SYG laws.
Both young men play lacrosse.
Here is Will Frey’s profile on the team website for the Bluegrass Bats.
“He is a strong athlete that loves challenges. He does not intimidate easily. His signature move the French Frey is a combination of face dodge and split dodge. He can score in any position. Will believes he resembles a Wildabeast, because he is a Wildabeast. Will is a Junior and would like to attend Centre, Denver, or Jacksonville to play lacrosse. When he is on the field he whispers in his opponent’s ear “Fear the BAT.”
Here is Austin Zehnde’s profile on the team website, amongst other things notes:
Hoping to become a doctor he feels he surgically debilitates his opponents, as they feel he has removed certain organs without anesthesia.
“David Mejia (meh-HEE’-yah), an attorney for one of the accused boys, says the motion to hold 17-year-old Savannah Dietrich of Louisville in contempt was withdrawn Monday.”
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Reckon somebody was beginning to feel the heat from a public relations disaster. David Mejia as well as Judge Dee McDonald may be about to find out that bloggers have long memories. I know of at least one abuse survivor activist group that has plans regarding those two, as well as the District Attorney. Making a few hundred thousand bloggers angry and upset is never a good idea if you hope to run for reelection.
Off Topic:
Sally Ride, first US woman in space, dies at 61
http://www.courier-journal.com/viewart/20120723/NEWS05/307230107/Sally-Ride-first-US-woman-space-dies-61?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Home
Savannah Dietrich Doesn’t Face Contempt Charge For Revealing Names Of Sexual Attackers
By JANET CAPPIELLO and BRUCE SCHREINER
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/23/savannah-dietrich-contempt-charege_n_1696303.html
Excerpt:
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A 17-year-old Kentucky girl who defied a court order by tweeting the names of two teenagers who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting her won’t face a contempt charge.
David Mejia (meh-HEE’-yah), an attorney for one of the accused boys, says the motion to hold 17-year-old Savannah Dietrich of Louisville in contempt was withdrawn Monday.
Blouise,
Sometimes guns are loaded…with blanks.
😉
Blouise,
“And he has to let everyone know he has a loaded gun … I guess he’s just happy to see us.”
: ) (big smile)
This particular Judge is up for reelection in a couple years … good luck.
Bet these boys are costing their parents a pretty penny … there goes the college fund.
BTW … sounds as if the lawyers for the boys and the prosecutor worked out a pretty sweet deal … might be interesting to discover just how connected the boys’ parents are.
Yep, this thing has legs.
Swarthmore mom
Blouise, Someone is insulting women and their “orifices” again. Something about the tone is familiar….
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And he has to let everyone know he has a loaded gun … I guess he’s just happy to see us.
It’s loaded.
BettyKath, NO the judge does not have the right to silence someone who is not even a party to the proceeding. But judges TAKE THEIR RIGHTS from their underlings’ guns. They do something and then people have to move heaven and earth to try to undo it, and that gets dangerous and expensive.
BUT…case in point.
Harford County, Maryland — Judge was asked (by the attorney general) to order a non-party (Leora Rosen, who wrote a book about the secrecy imposed on child sexual abuse proceedings by courts) to remain silent in a case where she discovered that the Child Protective Services agency of the county had DELIBERATELY MANUFACTURED a case without evidence. As soon as the motion was made for the judge to order her to be silent, she filed a federal suit against the court and the AG for attempts to violate her first amendment rights. She spent $500 in three days to file suit and made copies of all the offensive documentation, drove into the federal court, and filed her civil rights action. There HAD TO HAVE BEEN a phone call from the federal judge to the state judge, who suddenly said, “I have no jurisdiction here” and denied the motion. THEN the federal judge SEALED THE RECORD for the privacy of the child (HA HA HA HA HA HA HA) and dismissed the case as MOOT.
Dismissing cases as moot is the court’s way of saying “OK YOU GOT ME” but not letting you have the benefit of the law in so saying.
You’re sound asleep. They’d have your pants off before you woke up. Arm your attackers? Good move. Not.
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The 41 magnum revolver is only about six feet away.