I thought there was sufficient evidence to conclude he raped her, but as it was a civil trial and he wasn't found criminally guilty of rape due to statutes of limitations, it was only called "sexual assault"?
Not exactly. It's due to a wrinkle in New York law. Since she was unable to positively state that when he penetrated her it was with a finger or his penis, the jury could only find him responsible for sexual abuse. In most (if all) other states, it would have labeled rape, but NY has this odd category where it must be a penis to be rape. Since it is unknown what he raped her with, it's officially sexual abuse.
I think the fact that she couldn’t tell if it was a finger or a penis is the best low-key insult of Trump’s dick size that I’ve ever heard.
It isn't the first time his button mushroom has been joked about and it won't be the last, if I can help it.
Jfc. :/
The state law specifically defines rape as penis-in-vagina. Since he only (ugh, I hate using that word here, because it makes it sound like I’m minimizing the attack…) fingered her, it wasn’t technically rape by the state’s very narrow definition. But that judge also said that his PR team couldn’t start going around with the “lol the courts said he didn’t rape her” thing, because the judge accepted that the extremely narrow legal definition and common nomenclature are different. When a regular person thinks “not rape” that usually includes things like fingering.
Trump’s argument feels a lot like the “pedophiles and hebephiles are different, so I’m not technically a pedophile even though I’m attracted to 11 year olds” thing that sometimes gets argued by creeps.
Wouldn't collateral estoppel automatically prevent them from trying that?
News
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.