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Alumbrado -> RE: Legal Questions (8/10/2008 12:51:36 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: DavidS8ist
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There were no insults, Michael. Simply facts and citations.
Why not look up the following cases: San Diego Six. Attleboro. Jovanovic. Why not check out the book I mentioned written by a sex crimes prosecutor. Again, opinion is terrific, but statute and case law will trump it every time *provided a prosecutor wants to go down that path*.
Look, I was doing fire and knife play on a Friday night in Hellfire a few years before it closed when about a dozen cops came through looking for building code violations. They looked around for the violations, a couple looked interestingly at the people playing, and they moved on. They're *not* going to crowd the docket with arrests from an S&M club that they've allowed to operate openly for decades. They'd look pretty foolish.
But if someone's partner goes to the supermarket with a bruise on her face from a slap that was administered when she was tied up last night and a do-gooder neighbor sees it, all bets are off.
I've never said folks *will* be prosecuted. I'm saying the possibility exists and that it's irresponsible to say "S&M is legal". This ain't a "the sky is falling" thread on my part. However it is, "There's a remote possibility of which folks should be aware." The legal possibility - not probability, not certainty, possibility - exists for a top to be prosecuted for assault.
As to why pro dommes are prosecuted for prostitution? Two reasons: It's an easier case to get them to cop to because most of the time prosecutors won't need to drag johns into court, and most often, the neighbors' have called in the cops thinking the dommes are running a whore house. It's a slam dunk for a prosecutor who gets a plea and a fine, for the neighbors who get at least temporary relief, and for the domme herself who needn't go through a lengthy and expensive trial.
Just please, for the sake of clarity, please read the citations in the case I presented and look up some of them and some of the cases I mentioned. Then think for a moment about the monies lost, reputations lost, careers destroyed because some folks believed that S&M was legal.
D.
You made a blanket and unsupportable claim that consent could not be a defense against assault charges (..."In New York and many other venues, "consent" is *not* a defense. "...), which is patently untrue. Lack of consent is a neccessary element for assault, rape, kidnapping, robbery, and many other crimes against persons.
Applying citations based on domestic abuse, or the potential for severe bodily harm or risk of death as being something that cannot be consented to (which is the prevailing legal consensus), to playing consensually is an enormous leap that defies logic.
Finding politicians who feel that they can subvert the law to promote some 'moral' agenda isn't exactly compelling proof either... long after the Consitution made an unequivocal statement on the equality of the races, sheriffs, judges, prosecutors, and legislators were going after people up for exercising their legal rights.
And the number of whackos in power who have followed the same pattern in arresting people for consensual activities is miniscule compared to that, and so far less likely to overturn the law of the land, which is based on the concept that consent is indeed a key component in determining rape, kidnapping, assault, and so forth.
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