The Vance Phillips Civil Suit Comes to an End With No Justice for the Woman He Assaulted
It has been awhile since we heard anything about the lawsuit brought by Katelynn Dunlap against Vance Phillips seeking some accountability for raping her. We talked about this multiple times here at DL, but see here, here, here and here for a good recap.) Updating the story, Ms Dunlap has filed a stipulation of dismissal for the civil action filed against Phillips in Kent County court. This isn’t quite the end of the story though. Ms. Dunlap took to the airwaves Wednesday to talk about this and released a statement about her decision to both the media and her Facebook page. This is what she published to Facebook:
There is really no non-blunt way to say any of this, but this is a part of who I am and I am not afraid of it, so here it goes…
As many of you already know, I was sexually assaulted and raped the spring and summer of my senior year of high school by a family friend and a local politician, Vance Philips. This former Sussex County Councilman befriended me, groomed me, gained my trust, and used that trust to put me in a situation where I was completely vulnerable and then attacked me. He orchestrated the attacks as well as their cover up and threatened me into silence. After breaking that silence, I diligently sought justice through the criminal justice system, but was told by the Attorney General’s office that he would not be prosecuted criminally at this time. In order to obtain justice, and to shed light on what happened, I chose the only other legal option open to me and that was filing a civil lawsuit. After almost three years, I have decided to dismiss this lawsuit with no payment or compensation of any kind.
Filing this suit was about me, my family and my healing, as well as showing the community who Vance Phillips truly is and holding him accountable. I felt it my responsibility to myself, to my community and the other women in this state to bring light to the fact that Vance Phillips raped me; that he is a rapist. Through this lawsuit I was able to do not only this, but also was able to face him through depositions and look him in the eye, and I was able to begin to heal and have been blessed in life tremendously along the way. No one will ever know how hard it has been for me to get to where I am today and I still have a long way to go. I still live with the pain, the nightmares, the anxiety and depression, but through facing what happened I have been able to begin to heal and gain strength. I am taking back control of my life and moving on from this is a big part of that. I do not need a judge or a jury to tell me what happened. I know that Vance Phillips raped me and the community now knows too. I am coming to terms with this and I am healing. I am still hopeful that one day he will pay criminally for what he did, but in the mean time I will continue to work towards my own healing and work to help other women who have been victims to have the confidence and support to come forward and seek justice and healing for themselves.
Vance Phillips fought to have the court filings protected and confidential and I opposed that and wanted the case to be open to the public. To this day he pleads the fifth amendment for fear of self-incrimination and has never denied raping me. I will always fight for justice, I will always fight for truth and I stand by every single one of my statements and accusations. Vance Phillips chose to hide behind the fifth amendment. He was given the opportunity to speak and defend himself but instead, when asked if he raped me, he turned his eyes away and plead the fifth amendment. May the record speak for itself.
I want to thank each and every one of you who has stood by and supported me over the past several years. Your support and love means the world to me and I would not be where I am today without it. I also want to thank my family and my wonderful husband. We fought for justice, but ultimately, it is all in God’s hands. The only judgement that counts now is the final and most serious. On that day, there will be no fifth amendment to invoke. On that day, justice will prevail.
Fierce. Clear-eyed and unflinching. Make note of the point that he won’t deny raping her — he just wants the proceedings to be closed. From where I sit, the injustice here is that she had to work so hard to get the system to work for her. The AGs office wasn’t helpful (and what does that mean for other women with sexual assault complaints?) and was apparently defeated in the effort to keep the civil proceedings open, where he couldn’t hide from the charges. It looks to me like she was failed at every turn here, but has pretty clearly had the last word. Here’s to hoping that Phillips can’t hide from this and that this statement is what comes up when people Google his name now. Here’s to hoping that because of this, he’ll keep a very low profile and certainly stay out of government.
Here’s a challenge to our local Year of the Woman candidates — let’s have a conversation about changes to Delaware law so that it is more responsive to the need for justice for rape victims, ok?
Tags: Vance Phillips
I applaud Katelynn Dunlap for not taking a settlement that no doubt would have required her to remain silent about her rape “by a family friend and a local politician, Vance Philips.” It is sick that this public rebuke and shaming of Phillips is the most justice that she can get, but that’s the reality. Phillips has money which buys him access to the part of the criminal justice system designed to protect people with money.
There aren’t enough words to express how proud I am of this young women. To speak out like this is the definition of bravery. I am in awe of the women writing these letters. They are fearless. They are also doing a great service by refusing to be silenced – they are paving the way for other rape victims by showing them how to speak out. Not that I have a lot of hope for our justice system. We have a long way to go.
She’s damned right he groomed her. Taking her “under his wing” when she was 16 and then waiting until she just turned 18 to make his move. It’s so calculated.
Hang in there, Katelynn. I believe and support you. You’re an amazing young women.
I read the original complaint for the first time this week. A few things stood out to me. First of all, I’m always skeptical about crimes that skip the criminal proceedings and go straight to a civil complaint asking for monetary damages. And also about civil complaints that retry failed criminal complaints. My thoughts on this have nothing to do with gender or sex crimes – I even object to the civil case against OJ as double jeopardy, even if he is guilty. But that’s just my opinion and is based on my high esteem for the protections for the accused built into our justice system. Better to let ten guilty men go free than to convict one innocent man.
The complaint is very elaborate in detail; even artistic in the way it was written. There are many details that could have been be verified to corroborate the facts of the story. I don’t know if they were ever verified. But we are asked to believe every detail of the complaint simply because of its emotional impact – “It’s so horrible, it must all be true.”
Phillips’s silence is exactly what you are supposed to do when accused of a crime. And even though it is couched as a civil complaint, it is an end-run around the high standards of proof required by criminal law.
My take is that there was some sort of inappropriate relationship but that fell short of the ordeal described in the complaint. Phillips is wise to keep his mouth shut. But if the full ordeal is in fact accurate, the State is doing the victim and potential future victims a terrible disservice by not following through with a criminal investigation of the facts. If Phillips did in fact inflict the crimes alleged on this young lady, what are the odds that she is his sole victim? Where is the crowd of other victims that usually speak up when a prominent man is accused?
I swear, I could set my watch by you.
I wish we could harness the energy from your jerking knee.
Fortunately for Vance Phillips, Puck isn’t the only persons in Delaware to internalize the belief that wealth and virtue go hand and hand, and that when a wealthy person is accused of a crime (by the first-hand eyewitness victim), there must be something more to the story. Some exculpatory or mitigating fact that isn’t getting out because the victim brings too much emotion to her telling.
Indeed, that internalized belief is shot through the entire system.
@pandora: If you did, it would have the wrong time.
@puck: First, the victim did not “skip the criminal proceedings.” She went to the authorities and got nowhere. In normal circumstances that would indicate there wasn’t enough evidence to indict. In fact, that probably amounted to nothing more than his claim that it was all consensual.
Your contention that it was “double jeopardy” to lodge a civil complaint against OJ for wrongful death shows a basic lack of understanding of the legal framework of our society. I’ll leave it to a lawyer — what ever happened to John Manifold? — to explain that more fully.
Your “where are the other victims?” point ignores the obvious truth that every serial predator has to start somewhere.
There can be no doubt that a sexual congress took place; Phillips would have denied it otherwise. There can be no doubt that rape took place; Phillips would have denied it instead of pleading the fifth. (There’s your “end-around.”)
“If the full ordeal is in fact accurate, the State is doing the victim and potential future victims a terrible disservice by not following through with a criminal investigation of the facts.”
No shit, Sherlock. Now look again at who the defendant is — one of the most powerful men in the county. The investigation would have been by the State Police, which gets tens of millions of dollars a year from the County Council that Phillips was a GOP leader of.
You aren’t usually this obtuse.
“Your contention that it was “double jeopardy” to lodge a civil complaint against OJ for wrongful death shows a basic lack of understanding of the legal framework of our society.”
I understand it; I just don’t agree with it on this point.
It’s infuriating. You obviously have an issue with this topic. In the Steubenville case you claimed we had to hold our fire until the trial (BTW, in my post I never accused anyone of rape) and then after the guilty conviction came down you still didn’t accept it. In the Brock Turner case (a case that met every standard you ever set for rape) you still balked.
I don’t understand where you’re coming from when the topic is rape and sexual assault. All I know is that – no matter what, no matter if there are actual witnesses, no matter if the police are called – you don’t believe women. That’s depressing.
Pandora, just try reading today’s comment without bringing your history of grudges and resentments. I made a pretty thoughtful on-topic comment. It has the answers to some of your confusion.
“I understand it; I just don’t agree with it on this point.”
That’s because you don’t understand it. Thanks for revealing yourself.
Nope. Your history on this topic speaks for itself, puck. It’s the one topic where you always go into the weeds to cast doubt on what women say. You’ve even compared rape accusations to UFO citings – as in, when one person claims to have experienced seeing a UFO (rape) that makes others claim to see UFOs (rapes). In the Brock Turner case you boiled our comments down to the “Outrage-O-Meter” – even though that case checked every box you’ve ever set forth when it comes to sexual assault/rape. There are tons of comments like this from you, but only when the topic is rape or sexual assault. Why is that?
Again, this young women did everything you demand of a rape victim. She didn’t skip the criminal proceedings. Why you put that out there and then cast more doubt by painting her as someone out for monetary gain escapes me – especially for someone so adamant that everyone to stick to the facts and proof. You then go on to describe the complaint as “elaborate in detail, even artistic” – and end with emotional. That isn’t you being neutral.
From the News Journal:
“Delaware State Police spokesman, said Wednesday police had given the Attorney General’s Office files from a “comprehensive” investigation of Dunlap’s claims when they first arose in 2012, and no criminal charges resulted.”
So the Attorney General is complicit in the cover-up too?
Or was it found that the evidence described in the claim simply was not corroborated?
What is striking here is that, to puck, there is never sufficient evidence to believe that sexual assault/rape occurred, even after a conviction following a trial (ala Steubenville). Puck is not skeptical, not thoughtful–that’s pure bullshit because his implicit belief is that rape almost never occurs, and that the default response is to assume that the alleged victim has lied about it. That’s pretty clear from everything he has posted every time this has come up.
I just wish he’d actually own that rather than pretending that he is considering each case on its merits. But what we’ll probably see instead is a concern that Roger Ailes never got to tell his side of the story, despite the fact that he and Fox ponied up millions to avoid going to court.
Here’s the reality of the Vance Phillips case: if he’s innocent, if it was a consensual relationship gone wrong, then she’s just given him a tailor-made case for libel. The problem for Vance is that truth is an absolute defense against libel.
Here’s the other reality of puck’s comments: arguing that failure to prosecute by the AG’s office is de facto evidence that it didn’t happen, instead of a coldly considered decision (very possibly with politics involved) that getting a conviction would be long and costly and uncertain, is effectively arguing that as long as you can keep the evidence murky enough, then you can commit rape with impunity.
Finally, I love the fact that because her complaint was well-written it leads Puck to conclude it has less credibility. That makes it even easier to abuse and assault articulate women.
I’d love to see puck man up and tell us exactly what percentage of reported rapes and sexual assaults he personally believes are the result of women lying about consensual sex.
The claim of AG’s office involvement is false on its face. As the statement makes clear, the AG’s decision was based on the STATE POLICE report. None so blind, etc.
So, fail.
“the AG’s decision was based on the STATE POLICE report. ”
So the AG declined to proceed on a horrific Sussex sex crime, based on a rigged DSP investigation, without any comment or objection? The conspiracy you are asking me to believe in is getting deeper. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. I’ll stick with Occam’s Razor on this.
And one more thing… Why is it so easy to believe that a young girl was manipulated into a sadistic ordeal by a powerful politician, but insufferably outrageous to believe that the same girl could be manipulated by other powerful attorneys?
Once again Professor Newton illustrates why he is not a law professor:
“the default response is to assume that the alleged victim has lied about it. ”
The presumption of innocence is in fact one of the foundations of our law. Accusations are not necessarily lies, but the burden is on the accuser to prove them. If they can’t be proved, it still may not be a “lie,” but legally it is null.
Sweet Jebus! This isn’t a conspiracy theory. This is pretty much standard operating procedure.
You’re the one who keeps making assumptions. Here’s what we know: Vance Phillips befriended a 16 year old girl. He doesn’t deny having sex with her right after she turned 18. He pleads the 5th rather than deny raping her. What’s the next assumption? That she wanted it? If so… Say. It.
You’re now portraying her as someone easily manipulated, when she appears to be anything but. Occam’s Razor doesn’t apply the way you think it does.
Your use of adjectives on this entire thread reveals your bias. Sadistic ordeal?
No wonder more women don’t come forward. You don’t believe them – and your comment history on this blog reveals that. Not once have you believed a woman’s story. And for someone so hell bent on the facts, the way you spun your tale about this case…
“First of all, I’m always skeptical about crimes that skip the criminal proceedings and go straight to a civil complaint asking for monetary damages.”
… tells us (like anonymous pointed out) exactly where you’re coming from. Facts didn’t matter so much then, did they? You painted her as a person looking to cash in – and since you haven’t retracted that accusation I’m assuming it still stands.
I’m with Steve. You should tell us what percentage of reported rapes and sexual assaults you personally believes are the result of women lying about consensual sex.
You speak of taking the Fifth as if it were itself incriminating. That’s not how the law works. The Fifth is there for a reason. More people should take the Fifth and more people should invoke their right to remain silent.
There’s nothing complicated about the police deciding not to pursue a he said-she said rape case. Happens every day. Why don’t you check how many rape complaints turn into rape prosecutions before you cast your conspiracy net?
Not to mention that your understanding of the prosecution of the laws of this state is sorely lacking. The police, not the AG’s office, run that railroad.
Fail again.
Taking the 5th is not incriminating in itself, correct. However, one pleads the protection of the 5th amendment if responses to the question could be used against them in the prosecution of a criminal case- in other words the response could be incriminating.
The use of that protection-the “taking of the 5th” may not be used against the taker, but it still leads to the conclusion that answer would be self incriminating.
“You speak of taking the Fifth as if it were itself incriminating. That’s not how the law works. The Fifth is there for a reason. More people should take the Fifth and more people should invoke their right to remain silent.”
Taking the Fifth is, by definition, an admission that speaking would incriminate the speaker. It is in no way evidence of innocence.
Once again you show your utter lack of understanding of the law and how it functions. Your thickheadedness here is Trumpian.
Sorry, Mitch, I got the posts mixed up. Also, one would be insane to take the Fifth if the answer were NOT incriminating.
Taking the Fifth isn’t the point you were making. You brought up Occam’s Razor. I laid out what was known and asked you to make the next assumption. You didn’t do that.
“if responses to the question could be used against them in the prosecution of a criminal case- in other words the response could be incriminating.”
“Incriminating” and “could be used against you” are not the same thing. Attorneys know that even if their client is innocent, his words can be twisted against him, or make his situation worse. Best to remain silent and let the prosecution do the work instead.
@puck: I made this clear: We’re not talking about legal liability here. He has evaded that. This is the court of public opinion. You are showing yours to be that of a men’s rights activist — the woman’s account is not to be believed in, no matter how strong the evidence.
“I laid out what was known and asked you to make the next assumption. You didn’t do that.”
LOL! I’m not here to be led around by the nose by you or anyone else. Comments from other people don’t always go the way you want. Is there some sort of Kabuki script you think we should be following?
“Incriminating” and “could be used against you” are not the same thing. Attorneys know that even if their client is innocent, his words can be twisted against him, or make his situation worse. Best to remain silent and let the prosecution do the work instead.
Wrong yet again. To invoke it you must say that it would tend to incriminate you in criminal proceedings, not civil ones. That is, you can’t say you invoke the Fifth because to do so would acknowledge the truth of a civil opponent’s case.
Seriously, you are both out of your depth on the law and showing your real colors here — those of the men’s rights movement.
“I’m not here to be led around by the nose by you or anyone else.”
Trumpian response.
“a men’s rights activist”
LOL again!! If DL ever posts something about a woman accused of a crime based on heavy accusations and scanty evidence, I’ll be skeptical then too.
Why do you characterize the evidence as scanty? Because she has no documentation?
You’re a men’s rights activist, all right.
The “conspiracy” you claim I’m conjuring is, as I noted, simply common procedure. Estimates vary, but the highest is that, nationally, about 37% of rape complaints are prosecuted. The lowest is just under 10%. One more case that fails to clear the bar of sufficient evidence for prosecution doesn’t require a conspiracy. It’s not as if the police are obligated to give this case special treatment either way, and the ongoing nature of the relationship makes it that much easier for the defense to claim it was consensual, even if she’s telling the truth about why she didn’t come forward immediately.
(BTW, I also find offensive your notion that an 18-year-old virgin should have been wiser in the ways of sexual assault. She was raised evangelical — she probably had no sex education at all outside of Biblical precepts. And her victimizer knew it.)
You complete your cow-flop hat trick with the insult that she was “manipulated” into this relationship when that manipulation consisted entirely of threats, and that therefore she would be open to manipulation by others who were bent on the destruction of a man she gave every public sign of admiring greatly.
So let’s apply Occam’s Razor. At what point does your version of events involve something simpler that what the rest of us have surmised?
“If DL ever posts something about a woman accused of a crime based on heavy accusations and scanty evidence, I’ll be skeptical then too.”
You mean like the Wilmington fire story?
Point of information: By the time these allegations came out, Vance Phillips’ power in Sussex County was decidedly on the wane. He’d already been nudged out of his role as council president in favor of a more even-keeled and less ideological member. The ultralight crash took him out of the spotlight for months. And his paid role with the Urquhart campaign greatly weakened his influence in his own party.
The man is a slime, don’t get me wrong – on both the personal and political levels. Rumors abounded for years before these allegations became public, and he was a gutpuncher politician who went for the jugular every time and did not know the meaning of subtlety. He had made plenty of enemies in both parties. But by the end, he did not have the same level of clout as he once did.
Forgot to mention his being pushed out of his role as vice-chair of the state GOP and his dustup with Sheriff Jeff, both of which weakened his stature in the party and the county.
Occam’s Razor…. Puck is working on Occam’s Rube Goldberg machine.
I once was one of the New Yorkers howling for the blood of the Central Park Five. I won’t make that mistake again if I can help it.
I too was a Central Park jogger, running the same route as the victim. I ran on the same road two hours before the assault.
The fact that Puck is part of the jury pool is probably the best reason to forgo a criminal prosecution.
LG with the Mic drop. Every comment from now on is superfluous.
Undoubtedly superfluous but necessary: Puck writes that I am not “a law professor” (which I’m not)implying both that I was speaking of (a) the presumption of innocence in American law; and (b) that my statement indicated an ignorance of that. Nice try, son, but fail.
I was speaking of his personal, repeated insistence–often despite even court convictions–that the man is almost always innocent and the woman almost always lies. This is, in fact, what I said, which is not what Puck’s out-of-context snippet shows:
Puck is not skeptical, not thoughtful–that’s pure bullshit because his implicit belief is that rape almost never occurs, and that the default response is to assume that the alleged victim has lied about it.
Note that Puck edited that part out. Then he tried to convert that his default response is to assume that the alleged victim has lied about it into being synonymous with a court’s requirement to provide a presumption of innocence in all cases. What Puck does–and hopes you won’t see–is convert the idea that the accused is due a jurisprudent presumption of innocence into being the equivalent of a presumption that most of the people bringing forth a charge must be lying.
It’s an argument that men’s rights activists like Puck have been pursuing for years because it neatly allows them to transfer the burden of documenting lack of consent to the victim, by arguing that all men accused of rape should be presumed to have had consent for intercourse, which they then stretch into the idea that it is the man’s opinion of whether or not he had consent that should be determinative in the absence of evidence that the victim wasn’t “asking for it.”
I believe her 100%. She was raised “evangelical” to the point of being, IMO, overly sheltered. The fact that she has handled this situation with so much fierceness is amazing to me. I am in awe of this woman. We all should be in awe of this woman.
Mic drops ain’t what they used to be. Back in the reality-based days, the first one to respond with insults was deemed to have lost the argument.
I believe her 100% too. And am also in awe of how she’s handled this.
Frankly, the fact that puck couldn’t pay attention to this woman’s own story to know that she did exhaust the criminal option before going to the civil tells me that he has no concern for her AT ALL — not even to have the courtesy to pay attention to her story before rushing to tell the world that her story isn’t credible.
We should have stopped the conversation right there, because puck clearly demonstrated he hadn’t a clue with his first post out of the gate.
How was that an insult? You are in the Delaware jury pool and you have an extremely high standard for guilt in rape cases, as documented above by Pandora.
If an AG didn’t put that kind of thought process into the mix when deciding to prosecute a case, they would be engaged in malpractice.
“she did exhaust the criminal option…”
Well what have we here? Now that the posse is here, Cassandra clearly is trying to pile on, without being familiar with the available information. Dunlap didn’t go to police; the police came to her, according to the News Journal:
My standard is no higher than the standard required of any jury on a criminal case.
“If an AG didn’t put that kind of thought process into the mix when deciding to prosecute a case, they would be engaged in malpractice.”
Beau wasn’t prone to letting sordid Sussex sex crimes sail by on his watch, and wasn’t especially inclined to cover for downstate republicans. If DSP handed him a non-credible investigation, I don’t think he would have let it slide without comment, lest he be guilty of something worse than malpractice.
If you were on a jury with the rest of the commenters on this thread, it would be a hung jury.
If that jury were only shown the evidence we were shown on this thread, we all should vote for acquittal.
OK, so again, how was my comment an insult?
How was it an insult? I don’t take it as more than a friendly jab. But still, it was an attempt to energize the posse by (incorrectly) mocking my supposed insistence on a unreasonably high standard of proof for sex cases.
@puck: Beau wasn’t prone to letting sordid Sussex sex crimes sail by on his watch, and wasn’t especially inclined to cover for downstate republicans. If DSP handed him a non-credible investigation, I don’t think he would have let it slide without comment, lest he be guilty of something worse than malpractice.
Shorter puck: in a rape case, everybody gets the benefit of the doubt regarding their ethics and good intentions except the victim.
The police “came to her” after an anonymous letter was sent to every state legislator accusing Phillips of raping her. At the time, the letter writer was suspected to be either Sheriff Jeff Christopher or one of his posse members. If you recall, there was bad blood between Phillips and Christopher to the point where Phillips allegedly kicked Christopher in the crazy sack during an altercation. This woman was collateral damage in a fight between two right wing wackos.
The fact that she was “outted” instead of coming forward just gives her statement more credibility.
The fact that she dropped the case without quietly settling just gives her statement more credibility.
The fact that she dropped the case without quietly settling and making sure she wasn’t “gagged” by Phillips’ attorney, again, just gives her more credibility.
I applaud this fierce young woman for making this statement.
Shorter Newton: Beau was in on the Phillips cover-up.
I never, and still haven’t, weighed in on the issue at hand. Jason took it as an insult, you took it as an insult, I viewed it as a statement of fact (and you agreed).
“I viewed it as a statement of fact ”
OK, so maybe I misunderstood your comment.
I’d love for you to weigh in, LG.
I’m weary. It seems no matter what the circumstances, puck’s position never changes. I already know what’s coming every time someone writes about sexual assault and rape.
Whether it’s a post about Steubenville, Brock Turner, consent, the airplane guy who groped the sleeping women, the “some girls rape easy” comment, Elliot Rodgers, Bill Cosby, etc. (and there are more), puck’s comments are consistent. There simply is never enough evidence, and if we go by puck’s requirements, stated on all these posts, then no one would ever be convicted of rape/sexual assault.
See, puck–you can’t even criticize correctly–
Shorter Newton: Beau was in on the Phillips cover-up.
Not even remotely like what I said. But you blandly assume that everyone in the process must always (despite lack of evidence) be assumed to be doing their duty. The accused must be assumed to be innocent. In your world, only the accuser is fair game to speculate about.
Live with it–it’s your mantra.
I have to hand it to you Steve. Many others have put words in my mouth and deliberately mischaracterized my comments, but you set the standard to beat.
I took it as a statement of fact so well phrased and consices that it defies rebuttal. Which is true and the accurate way of taking it.
We have not mischaracterized your comments.
The issue here is whom to believe. Your statement that “My standard is no higher than the standard required of any jury on a criminal case” is yet another attempt to substitute legal requirements for reasoning ability.
You are not his defense lawyer, but you seem to want to be.
If you really were a New Yorker during the Central Park Five case, you would have known from the beginning how shallow the evidence there was. It also was a case with vastly different circumstances. This one, unlike that one, involves an apparently sexual relationship that one participant claims was non-consensual.
You are still out of your depth and you still have revealed yourself as showing the same mindset as the men’s rights community.
You have repeatedly treated this as if we were the jury rather than intelligent people discussing this. Why? Standard male inability to accept that you might be wrong. Another men’s-rights trait.
I have to hand it to you, Puck. You have convinced yourself somehow that you are a liberal despite your highly anti-immigrant and anti-women positions. Quite a feat.
” let’s have a conversation about changes to Delaware law so that it is more responsive to the need for justice for rape victims”
I would be interested in kind of topic. Being in Sussex County, I’ve obviously followed the case and considering the AG’s decision (the facts and process by which they arrived at their decision are unknown to us), what changes to the law would have caused the AG to arrive at a different decision?
Were they constrained by evidentiary rules? If the minimum standard was a solid circumstantial case, what was missing that would have made conviction more certain?
There is no doubt by anyone that sexual congress (love that phrase!) took place, but what caused it to cross over to sexual assault/rape at from an legal perspective? Is a pattern of grooming, coupled with the conclusion of that grooming the smoking gun?
I’m not sure what type of change in the law would have changed the outcome of the criminal case. Also, since the standard of proof is much lower for a civil case, I wonder why the case was concluded as it was. That seems to suggest that the AG reached a logical decision (even though justice was not served). How could the outcome have been different?
“I wonder why the case was concluded as it was.”
Because, while the typical civil case of this type ends with a financial settlement that usually includes a gag agreement (sorry for the pun), this one clearly did not. Citing Occam’s Razor again, I conclude that the victim prioritized the ability to continue to speak about this over any other concern.
As someone noted above, Phillips now has grounds to sue her for libel if she is lying, but that would require testimony he chose not to give in this case.
This is a pattern of dots with the numbers right beside the 10 or so dots, with the quacking bill drawn in solid lines to help the kiddies out.
It’s a fucking duck.
Phillips is a very special guy he is “Judgement proof” No assets no Insurance. Nothing to get of consequence, pure and simple.
Why, did his wife get everything in the divorce?
He still has the farm doesn’t he?
“I wonder why the case was concluded as it was.”
I thought about this too. I wondered, what kind of settlement allows the complainant to go on a media tour doubling down on the claims of the suit?
The answer is, a settlement that doesn’t pay any damages. Given the scanty evidence, in this scenario neither party wanted to risk the suit going against them, so they agreed to end it. With no cash payout there was no leverage for her silence. Phillips however cannot speak out because there is still an open criminal case.
@Dave: “I’m not sure what type of change in the law would have changed the outcome of the criminal case. Also, since the standard of proof is much lower for a civil case, I wonder why the case was concluded as it was. That seems to suggest that the AG reached a logical decision (even though justice was not served). How could the outcome have been different?”
It is really depressing how this community is thirsting for lowered standards of proof for sex crimes. That is a bad road to go down. We are supposed to know better.
That couple of sentences might make sence 100 years from now when the social context isn’t “rich white guys like Vance Phillips can rape all they want.”
” let’s have a conversation about changes to Delaware law so that it is more responsive to the need for justice for rape victims, ok?”
OK, let’s. Using the Phillips case as a starting point, the consensus theory seems to be that DSP ran a cover-up and deliberately handed an incomplete or misleading investigation to the AG, who failed to smell a rat, and declined to pursue the case.
There’s two points of failure: the police, and the AG. Where would you like to start the reforms?
Is there a larger problem with police generating bad investigations or none at all? Entirely possible. We can see this happening every week with the videotaped police shootings. But that evidence is there for all to see.
For sex crimes, we’d have to appoint a credible panel to review recent complaints and see how they were followed up. Then we would have data to guide any reforms.
Or put body cameras on all the rapists, to follow your analogy and line of thinking – because first hand eyewitness testimony isn’t enough for you or the police right now. How about the police give the raped equal standing with the wealthy white rapists?
Weak.
So…. The raped shouldn’t have equal standing. Got it.
With no cash payout there was no leverage for her silence.
Read this again. So the deal with a civil case is to buy her silence.
Except that the real point if a civil case is to determine if the perpetrator is liable for injuries the victim received. It is not about who talks. The *first* person in this case who has not talked — who has taken the 5th, in fact — is Phillips. Phillips wanted this all to be secret. Ms. Dunlap did not. For obvious reasons. So instead of taking the money and running, she said No Secrets and has been pretty vocal ever since. It is pretty clear from here that no one was going to buy her silence, no one was going to enable him to hide from his issues.
Interesting that you think that the money is supposed to pay her off so that she can’t speak of the crime perpetrated on her.
This is beyond frustrating. First, Puck is pretending that rape is treated like every other crime – that there is no bias (there is). That the police believe you and that the judge sentences the guilty party (once they’re found guilty) accordingly. Far too many times women are warned by police that they won’t be believed. Add to that that prosecutors don’t want to take these cases, in part, because it can impact their conviction “win” record. Then toss in judges who openly shame victims in the courtroom while waxing lyrical on the man’s promising future.
And I haven’t even touched on the shaming and abuse the victim receives from “friends”, family, co-workers, classmates, etc.. The number of young girls who have killed themselves after being raped due to the system is heartbreaking. No wonder most women never report – they are well aware of what they’re in for. Hey, can we believe them after they kill themselves? Just like we did to women we accused of being witches? Oh no, she died (sank to the bottom and didn’t float), guess she was innocent.
Second, it really seems like, to puck, there will never be enough evidence to convict a rapist. I swear, he doesn’t believe rapes happen. He thinks women lie about rape. To puck the accusation of rape is worse than actual rape (of course, this doesn’t seem to apply to any other crime, because I’ve never heard puck say anything about a person being accused of fraud, assault, robbery, etc. – and there are false accusations with all of those crimes.)
Puck says: “OK, let’s. Using the Phillips case as a starting point, the consensus theory seems to be that DSP ran a cover-up and deliberately handed an incomplete or misleading investigation to the AG, who failed to smell a rat, and declined to pursue the case.”
No one is saying there is a cover up. Rape cases not making it to trial, despite evidence, is the norm – it’s systemic. But even with the cases that met puck’s level of evidence, it still wasn’t enough.
There’s two points of failure: the police, and the AG. Where would you like to start the reforms?
The first point of failure was the law. Which provided enough wiggle room for the AG to decline to charge. Since none of us know the details of that, I suggested that the Year of the Women who are running for office (and the ability to create law or to change it) dig into this.
“So the deal with a civil case is to buy her silence.”
Cassandra said that, not me. I’m not going to be anybody’s straw man. Cassandra is pretending not to know how civil cases are often resolved.
(hint: this is the cue for someone to quote a bunch of my comments randomly and claim it proves something I didn’t say)
@pandora: “No one is saying there is a cover up. ”
So do you think the DSP investigation was a good-faith effort to find all the evidence and present it to the AG? Or do you have some skepticism there?
What kind of reform would allow criminal charges to proceed without sufficient evidence?
@pandora; “Rape cases not making it to trial, despite evidence, is the norm – it’s systemic. ”
Then I assume you are behind my proposal for a panel to review recent complaints systemically to see if they were properly investigated? That would certainly confirm your theory. Which is probably correct, but we don’t have hard documentation on where it happens and who is responsible, so no basis for reality-based reforms.
These are your words, exactly, puck:
With no cash payout there was no leverage for her silence.
If this isn’t meant to indicate that a cash settlement is meant to be the quid pro quo for silence, I don’t know what is.
You need to stop pretending that we can actually read what you write.
Maybe you aren’t pretending; maybe you really don’t know how settlements are negotiated. I can’t put it on a lower shelf for you.
Oh by the way, can you post a link to Gretchen Carlson’s Ailes tapes? She won, didn’t she?
Notice what Puck has done here … again. His call for an investigation of investigations in Delaware because we don’t have hard documentation on where it happens and who is responsible, so no basis for reality-based reforms is primarily an attempt to push the whole issue somewhere into the future by pretending there is not already an extensive body concerning investigative and prosecutorial barriers to getting rape cases to trial, and that best practices have not been already identified.
First, for Puck’s edification, let’s point out that the most systematic study of memory function and rape reporting, conducted by the University of Virginia admits that trauma can impact memory but finds that fraudulent rape accusations are extremely rare.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/12/11/the-scientific-research-shows-reports-of-rape-are-often-murky-but-rarely-false/
The UK is far ahead of the US in examining this, but the Bureau of Justice Statistics has been getting into the act during the past decade in a big way, documenting the lack of rape evidence kits, the lack of training for officers conducting investigations, and the holes in the process that cause–according to US government stats–994 of 1,000 men committing rape or sexual assault to go free.
Some of that is referenced here and in the pages that link to it:
http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=317
There are bloody textbooks on the subject, like Hazelwood’s “Practical Aspects of Rape Investigations” that is accepted as the primary standard of best practices.
Instead of Puck’s time-wasting strategy of let’s conduct a new research study to see where things are breaking down (and thereby effectively re-victimizing women whose cases were mishandled), let’s instead take immediate steps to implement “best practices” going forward and monitor their implementation via civilian review.
In other words, it’s time to stop pretending that (a) we don’t know there’s a problem and that it hasn’t been sufficiently documented; and (b) we don’t know how to fix it.
So, no, Puck, the bait and switch of saying I assume you are behind my proposal for a panel to review recent complaints systemically to see if they were properly investigated? is just another diversion.
Steve – do you have a proposal inside all that snooty argle-bargle?
The Goldmans and Browns continue to speak about OJ and the murder of their relatives. Confidentiality is not always a part of these settlements. Besides, you are missing the point of Ms. Dunlap’s suit. (Of course you did, listening to a rape victim is not on your agenda since you just knee jerk your way into making sure that the men involved are absolved of everything.)
The money was clearly not what she considered justice here. She wanted the story to be told and to be public. Can you blame her? The whole business was broken by an anonymous letter and Phillips himself can’t do anything but take the 5th here. If money was what she wanted, why wouldn’t she have just lived with the secrecy? Because money was not the end game.
“The Goldmans and Browns continue to speak about OJ and the murder of their relatives. Confidentiality is not always a part of these settlements. ”
Analogy FAIL – the Goldmans didn’t settle but won outright and were awarded damages by the court.
The purpose of the lawsuit ended when Phillips left office. With no evidence for criminal charges and no evidence for a civil award, no wonder her lawyers skedaddled and dropped the suit. I guess with no money on the line, the lawyers lost their enthusiasm to continue. As cassandra points out so clearly:
“She wanted the story to be told and to be public”
… the whole point was to publish the narrative, not to validate it in court.
“Phillips himself can’t do anything but take the 5th here.”
If my own son were with me in church at the time a rape he was accused of happened, I would advise him to remain silent.
Oh… wow. Did you just assign motives to her? Really? Really?
You, Puck, have absolutely NO FUCKING IDEA of what her motives were. Do you know if she was offered a damn thing? The whole point was to publish a narrative? Can you back that claim up? Look who’s accusing someone now. Amazing how quickly facts don’t matter to you when it comes to the woman. Do you even see what you’re doing – what you’ve been doing for years? It’s really vile.
“Oh… wow. Did you just assign motives to her? Really? Really?”
No, I quoted cassandra. Nice try though. I think cassandra was paraphrasing Dunlap as quoted publicly.
Whether he was guilty or not, the long knives were out for Phillips in Sussex politics. That narrative was written by hardened lawyers, not a teenage girl.
Your insistence that men – anyone – be penalized with no evidence is deplorable.
Yeah, that’s not what you did. You accused her of resorting to a narrative once there was no chance of money. Can you prove that? Do you know if she was offered, or not offered, anything? You must know, right?
And show me where I’ve ever said that men – anyone – be penalized with no evidence?
And I’ll point out that none of your versions have her telling the truth. She’s in it for the money. She’s being manipulated. She has a narrative. Which all boils down to the main point you always seem to make: Women lie.
“You accused her of resorting to a narrative once there was no chance of money. Can you prove that? ”
That’s an easy one. The narrative came first, before the suit was dropped.In fact the first document in the suit was the narrative. Simple causal analysis based on the public timeline. I’m surprised you missed that.
“Do you know if she was offered, or not offered, anything? You must know, right”
I know lawyers don’t work for free, don’t you know that too?
So you don’t know, yet you’re fine with making that accusation. Guess you’re a-okay making accusations against women. You do it often enough.
I’m still waiting for you to prove your accusation about my insistence that men be penalized with no evidence.
“I’m still waiting for you to prove your accusation about my insistence that men be penalized with no evidence.”
In the Phillips case there was no evidence for criminal charges and no evidence for a civil award, and you are still calling for something to be done to “hold Phillips accountable.”
Q.E.D.
Justice is like blogging – sometimes when it speaks it doesn’t follow the script you want.
Where did I call for something to be done to “hold Phillips accountable”? You put those words in quotes. Where did I say that?
Those were scare quotes, not quotation quotes. Do you not agree with others in the thread who feel more accountability and justice should be imposed on Phillips?
I am totally in favor of reopening the police investigation. Were phone records pulled? Were people interviewed? Was Phillips’s house searched and his computers seized and cell phones forensically examined? Are their actually ceiling hooks installed in all the rooms that were described?
It could be that all these things were never investigated, which would point to a cover-up. But there is also the possibility those things WERE investigated, but did not support or even contradicted the narrative.
I think there is a good chance her narrative is fully or partially correct. But I also think there is a good chance it’s another Tawana Brawley case. Either way, the focus should be on the facts.
Look, the only way I am going to get off this thread is to stop reading it. So I guess that’s what I’ll do.
You’re not going to win with a men’s rights guy. He’ll just insist he’s right until the end of time.
This has been explained to you over and over again, Puck. You just don’t want to hear it.
No conspiracy is required for the police to fail to prosecute a he said-she said rape case. It happens all the time. This is where your entire speculative tower of bullshit falls apart. It required no coverup. It required nothing but business as usual.
You, on the other hand, have some serious problems with immigrants and women, and pretending that your positions were formed by logic instead of xenophobia and misogyny is getting you nowhere fast.
Analogy FAIL – the Goldmans didn’t settle but won outright and were awarded damages by the court.
No — the Goldmans and Browns got a public reckoning for their civil suit, which is what Ms. Dunlap is looking for. Buying her silence or using money for leverage to get her to be silent was not an option on offer. I don’t know why this completely eludes you.
The narrative came first, before the suit was dropped.
And that narrative came as an anonymous letter to legislators. Once it became public, the fight for some justice — public justice — began.
In the past puck has denied rape culture, yet his comments prove its existence. Reread this and other posts that deal with rape, sexual assault, misogyny and consent and pay attention to puck’s comments. All boil down to this:
– The woman is out for money
– The man’s life will be ruined
– An accusation of rape is worse than rape itself – and with this crime we must employ extra-ordinary measures, and any discussion on blog posts must adhere to the rules a jury is given (not so much for bankers, undocumented workers, CEOs) and be void of opinion
– Meanwhile, puck’s opinion about the woman and her motives is a-okay
– The woman was manipulated by her lawyers, family, etc.
– The woman has motivation to lie
– And even if there’s a case that checks every box puck has demanded he still balks and can’t bring himself to say, “That was wrong and this is a problem.”
– Puck doesn’t believe women – yet will bend over backwards to write narratives about what women say.
– Rape accusations are a lot like group hysteria
Puck is the guy who yells “All Lives Matter!” and then attends a “Blue Lives Matter” rally. He ignores statistics and the culture that makes what Anonymous says above so very true – it’s not a conspiracy, it’s business as usual. He seems to understand that police shooting and killing black men (and black and brown men receiving harsher sentences) happens far, far more in the black community – you know, that it is a problem and should be addressed – but he won’t acknowledge the same with rape.
I was actually betting that he’d reference the Duke Lacrosse Team, but he went with Tawana Brawley instead. Still, I knew that was coming. He believes these cases are the norm and the others are lies or exaggerations designed to ruin a poor man’s life.
I was really upset last night – I may swear in real life, but I try and keep it out of my blog comments – with the way puck wrote this young woman’s narrative. He had her only in it for the money and being manipulated by her lawyers. What he never did, what he’s never done, is even consider she’s telling the truth. He made up a whole bunch of crap about her – while simultaneously calling others out for not dealing with facts.
It’s depressing. We need the voices of liberal men. We need you to speak up and point out what’s going on. I doubt anyone here would question a kid who said they were bullied – even though bullies, like rapists and sexual predators, go out of there way to not have witnesses. I want to thank the men that spoke out on this thread. It means a lot to me.
There are a lot of ways one can view a case like this — a lot different prisms, if you will. Shine light through a prism and you can see what colors it’s made of.
I’m sorry, I missed this one, so I’m back for a last grind at the ax:
“In the Phillips case there was no evidence for criminal charges and no evidence for a civil award…”
Untrue. There was evidence. There wasn’t sufficient evidence. There is a large gap between those two statements. As in many rape cases, the only evidence is her account of events. In many other criminal cases, that is all the evidence needed to procure conviction.
“and you are still calling for something to be done to “hold Phillips accountable.”
Not all of us. He has suffered, and I am in no position to say whether it was enough. One could say his life is ruined, though it would be more accurate to say he ruined his life.
I wonder what puck and others here would say about this case…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/10/02/in-serious-and-disturbing-letter-incoming-missouri-lawmaker-accuses-another-of-raping-her/
The fact that this young woman decided to share her story publicly while knowing that for the rest of her life, every time her name is goggled this is what will come up, speaks volumes about her credibility, in my humble opinion.
For every job that she applies for, if she ever decides to run for office, every new person she meets who decides to look her up, will read about her case. I have no doubt that this will impact her in ways we’ll never fully comprehend- whether it be jobs she is not offered, new professional and personal relationships that will never begin, not to mention having to explain this to her children who will read about it on It Internet one day- the list is endless.
She knows the world is filled with jackasses like puck, complete strangers acting as judge and jury behind their computer screens who will be saying these things about her and assessing her credibility without ever knowing her personally. Subjecting herself to that kind of painful and unnecessary bullshit for the rest of her life was worth it to her so the public would know what this awful man did to her. That’s a pretty powerful indication in my book that she’s telling the truth.
As to what laws could be changed: Law enforcement needs to do a better job of training officers on how to deal with these victims and apply best practices for investigating these kinds of cases. So many cops still believe that victims who don’t respond or behave a certain way in the aftermath of a sexual assault are not being truthful about their rapes, even when we know that all victims process trauma differently. Train those cops to reprogram their thinking and if they still don’t get it, make sure when a rape is reported that that particular cop doesn’t respond to the call. Same goes for DOJ attorneys – if they continue to decline prosecuting cases after getting retrained because the victims are imperfect, then assign those cases to different DAGs.
When victims come forward, have police approach reports of sexual assault by believing them first, then substantiating/confirming/disproving details or elements of the story through the followup investigation after the initial report is given. This would go a long way to minimize the revictimization that sexual assault survivors endure when they report to law enforcement.
Allow victims to have some say in whether their case would be prosecuted, by giving weight to their wants and needs after they’ve been educated on the challenges they will face in court. Chances are most victims will not want to go forward if the case isn’t likely to be resolved in their favor- what victims hate is that these decisions are being made about them and for them, and the agency and control they desperately seek to restore over their lives is being denied all over again.
And most importantly the best thing we can do for victims is to stop creating new ones. If you want to reduce sexual assaults, we need to be teaching kids in school about consent, healthy relationships, healthy masculinity, and comprehensive sex education starting at 7th and 8th grade at the latest, and making this an ongoing component of their education through graduation. Absent this kind of robust and comprehensive prevention effort, we’ll never see real change as it relates to how these crimes are handled in this country.