GoodK wrote:SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - A federal lawsuit filed by an American Indian man who accused a Mormon missionary of sexually abusing him in the 1960s has been resolved before going to trial.
Ferris Joseph, 53, filed the civil case in federal court in South Dakota against the Corporation of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of the LDS Church, both of Utah.
Joseph said that around 1968, when he was 11 or 12 years old, he was sexually abused by church missionary Robert Lewis White.
Joseph is an American Indian who lived with his family in Sioux Falls from 1966 to 1968, according to the lawsuit. The abuse happened at White's apartment in Flandreau, it states.
- The Associated Press
I wonder if this is a sign of things to come...
In any case involving
time, there are inherent problems of accuracy and
justice delayed is justice denied.
It without question that time tends to erode accurate access to evidence. Since “documentation” is critical in court, anything which erodes that documentation erodes the reliability of information presented. As any astute observer could recognize, “I'm not sure that we know what the evidence is.” (Good K)
At least one analytical opposition to “capital punishment” for any alleged crime is intimately connected with accuracy of evidence. And that accuracy is intimately connected with time.
You asked: “Should we teach children how to secretly collect forensic evidence?”
A more relevant query is: Could we possibly “teach children” this? And the answer is clearly that we cannot. We cannot do it collectively. We cannot do it individually. If we were to attempt to do it, we would foster a tortured childhood in which children would be deprived of what it is to be a child with an open, inquiring mind free to explore and learn.
You asked: “Should we give them rape kits?”
Of course we should not. And in that, we build on the innocent intellectual inquiry of children. We encourage children to be children.
“Justice” is relative. It’s not absolute. Some commit grave crimes and are never caught or punished. Other commit trivial legal infractions and go to jail. Still others go to jail who are in fact innocent of any crime what so ever.
Recently in the news, we have had examples of men released from prison after 20 and more years as a result of DNA evidence which has established their innocence of the crime for which they have been imprisoned. That is in no way limited to crimes associated with religious groups. But without question, religious groups are included as was your point of focus. Crimes of all kinds are discovered as well as crimes of all kinds go undiscovered, ever.