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Notes -
If we're doing electoral politics culture war, how about the news out of Ohio?
For those not paying too much attention there's a fairly competitive race going on for Ohio governor between Democrat Amy Acton and Republican Vivek Ramaswamy. On Twitter yesterday Walter Curt, whose biography describes him as the State Director of the Conservative Caucus of Ohio, posted this video. The video features one Donna Arthur, Amy Acton's mother, who says the following:
That's a pretty powerful ad! Getting a candidate's mother to come out against them like that. Acton's campaign had their own response prepared, of course.
Those are some pretty explosive allegations! Perhaps Acton's mother's opinions are not very reliable if Acton was removed from her custody at age 12 and Donna chose her rapist husband over her daughter. As best I can tell, the allegations are true. National Review alleges to have reviewed documents showing one Cledith Arthur was charged with having sexual contact with Acton while married to Donna. Donna has her own criminal history as well, with a conviction for theft by deception and accusations of animal abuse. Interestingly the Huffington Post dug up another 2020 interview with Donna from Operation Rescue. According to that interview:
...
It seems to be Donna's own testimony that her husband was arrested for sexual abuse of Action and Donna and her husband skipped town while on bond to avoid any kind of trial.
Journalists naturally reached out to Ramaswamy's campaign for comment, and they said:
On the one hand, it's hard for me to see how one goes forward with the ad above knowing the full story. If the question is to be one of credibility I am not sure I trust Acton's mother, whom she has not spoken with for almost 50 years and who chose her rapist husband over Acton, above Acton herself. Especially if she has her own criminal convictions for specifically fraud-adjacent behavior.
On the other hand, how did you not know this information? As best I can tell it took the National Review and Huffington Post less than a day to get their hands on the primary legal documents detailing the dispute. The campaign's own statement references the 2020 interview, in which Donna admits the sexual abuse allegations and discusses their leaving town ahead of a trial. I guess the hope is voters see the ad but don't dig any further into the situation or context?
Is this ethical behavior for a lawyer? It seems a small step from advising your client what chemicals to use to dissolve the victims body in so the cops would not find anything. If I were a lawyer I would be careful not to mention anything which obviously prevents justice from being done outright. "Based on a preliminary analysis of the evidence, it seems very likely that you will go to prison for multiple years after the trial." If the client picks up on it being not in their best interests to be present for the trial, that is not my fault.
Also, especially as someone "building one of the first two sexual abuse programs in America" (presumably a program to help SA victims, not a program to facilitate SA), skipping town makes you look guilty as fuck. Absent physical evidence, sexual abuse is notoriously difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt. And this was likely a few decades ago, so the chances that you get a jury who decides to just take every claim by a woman as gospel seems small.
At best, it is a vote of no confidence in the justice system. "Any guy can go to prison if his stepdaughter accuses him of sexual abuse because he did not buy her an iPod" seems a bit outlandish from where I stand, and if you believe it, that raises the question if this is not a worthier cause area to dedicate your life to than helping the supposed victims of sexual abuse.
The only ethic of a defense attorney is to defend his probably guilty client to the fullest extent of the law. Therefore following the law is his only ethic, otherwise defense attorneys would throw defenses, but this is meta-unethical because it is ethical for everybody to have a good defense. So the only question is, did he tell him to break the law, or did he tell him to move in a legal way? I am guessing the move was legal.
Maybe if you stop Orwellianly calling it that it will seem clearer. It is merely a legal system, not a special system which comprehends what justice actually is. It is reasonable to have low confidence if a podunk law court interested in airing sexual gossip. It's already a low confidence signal that mere words could be enough to bring charges.
Sorry, native German speaker. The word "Justiz" in German means the legal system, with no particular claims that it is just ("gerecht").
I am unclear if he was indicted by a grand jury, and if they had any evidence besides her testimony.
My understanding is that generally, prosecutors do not want to lose court cases, so I suppose that the median tale of "my step-dad totally raped me" would not go to trial.
We also call it the justice system in English.
Hence the old joke: Litigant: "I thought this was a Court of Justice!" Judge: "Actually it is a Court of Law"
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