Dialogue 5 – Trial Prep

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AUDIO

Nancy and Sam have sex after meeting at the bar. When confronted by her boyfriend Mike, Nancy falsely accuses Sam of rape. Mike believes and supports Nancy. He insists that she go to the police. Nancy reluctantly agrees. The police believe that there is sufficient evidence to arrest and charge Sam. Sam is currently a law student studying for the bar exams. He retains Grant McKenna as his criminal defense lawyer. In this dialogue, Sam and his lawyer prepare for trial and discuss the issues surrounding his case.

 

 

 

 

Grant: How are you holding up?

Sam: To be honest, not well. This has been hell. I feel like my life has been turned upside down.

Grant: That’s to be expected. Just know I’m here to help and if there’s anything you need, just let me know.

Sam: Thanks, I appreciate that.

Grant: I’ve reviewed your file and as you know the charges are pretty serious. The good news is that the evidence against you is pretty thin. Just so I know I haven’t missed anything, why don’t you tell me in your own words what happened.

Sam: So the three of us…

Grant: Three?

Sam: Yeah, myself, Nancy and a mutual friend Greg.

Grant: Did Greg see you go home with Nancy?

Sam: No, he left earlier.

Grant: But you were all drinking together?

Sam: Right.

Grant: OK. Please continue

Sam: We arrived at Nancy’s place. Her boyfriend wasn’t home. She invited me up to set up her IKEA furniture. When she got there, we had another drink. We were both pretty drunk by that point since we’d already been drinking at the bar. We were on the couch and she started lightly stroking the inside of my thigh. We kissed, moved to the bedroom and did it there. Although we were both drunk it was totally consensual.

Grant: Did you use a condom?

Sam: She said not to worry about it. She’s on the pill. I didn’t have any on me and when I asked her she joked that Mike’s condoms would be too small for me.

Grant: Hmm. OK. We’ll have to work with that. You need to be aware that she paints a very different story. According to her you were asked up to help her with her IKEA furniture. She passed out on the couch fully clothed. When she woke up she was naked and had been raped.

Sam: That’s a fucking lie!

Grant: Listen, if we’re going to get through this you’re going to have to remain calm. I’m on your side. But the prosecutor is not.

Sam: Sorry, I just don’t know what I’m going to do. If I get a conviction for sexual assault, they’ll never let me practice law. I have so much student debt as it is. My parents have re-mortgaged their house at this point. All because of one stupid night.

Grant: I completely understand why you’re upset. Just try to think of the next step. Which at this point is trying to get the prosecutor to drop the charges against you.

Sam: So you think that’s a possibility? I thought you said the prosecutor is not on my side.

Grant: Well the prosecutor is not there to take sides. There’s a saying that the Crown never wins and never loses. It means they’re not supposed to care whether they convict, but rather to see justice is done. Now the reality is quite different of course. The prosecutor in this case is known for her activism.

Sam: What do you mean?

Grant: She’s made public statements about the number of women that tell her that the trial process felt worse than the rape. She wants to secure a conviction for the victims, which is fair enough, she has a job to do. The problem comes when we throw out the presumption of innocence.

Sam: Yeah, I used to believe in innocent until proven guilty until I got charged. Now even people in my own family look at me with suspicion. I somehow feel that even if I’m acquitted things will never be the same.

Grant: You’re not wrong. Things won’t be the same after this.

Sam: But it would help if I knew how we got here, you know. I know that I’m innocent. So does Nancy. Doesn’t that count for something? Shouldn’t that matter?

Grant: It should and it does. But we live in an increasingly politicized world — one where feelings have come to matter more than right and wrong, or perhaps more accurately, what is felt is regarded as the objective truth. Logic and reason are dispensed with when feelings and emotions take centre stage. It’s for this reason that so many nitwits talk about my truth, or my lived experience, as if that should count in determining who is at fault. The legal system has been all but captured by the feminist narrative at this point.

Sam: Totally, I hate feminism! It’s brought nothing but chaos in our society. It doesn’t matter how much men do, it will never be enough. I’m so sick of that shit. You’re so right. We are taught from a young age that mother knows best and to believe women. But what happens when they lie? We’re supposed to turn a blind eye to their shitty behavior and have our faults highlighted every minute of every day. It’s fucked up.

Grant: Again, it’s OK that you rant like that to me. This, unlike your university classroom, truly is a safe space, as our communications are subject to privilege. Remember always that I’m your lawyer and I represent you. Just don’t advocate for violence against anyone; I’m required to report that.

Sam: OK. Nancy is lying; how come no one sees this?

Grant: I’m afraid this is a consequence of the ‘believe women’ mantra that is so prevalent in our society today. It puts all the responsibility on men to fix things. Women can retain authority but never be at fault or held accountable.

Sam: I read a YouTube comment that said that women want the power and authority of a man, the privilege of being a woman, the account-ability of a child and the self-awareness of a fetus.

Grant: That’s some serious Red Pill you’ve taken, I’d caution you not to go too far down that particular rabbit hole. You’re going to have to dial this down if we are to have any hope of getting through this. But I have to admit that you’re not entirely wrong here. I’ve seen this in my own practice. There’s a complete double-standard when it comes to assault for example.

Sam: Oh yeah?

Grant: Sure. Women want equality, except when it comes to sen-tencing. Once convicted I’ve seen women that have committed heinous crimes transform themselves into harmless angels as they plead for a reduced sentence, which they consistently obtain. You are far more likely to get jail time as a man than a woman would for the same crime. No feminist cares about this fact.

Sam: It’s so unfair. Women are plain evil.

Grant: Some women are, some women will always be. There’s a long history of female evil in Western Civilization that can be traced right back to the book of Genesis.

Sam: You mean Adam and Eve?

Grant: Yes. It’s as relevant today as it was when it first entered the collective consciousness of humanity.

Sam: Wasn’t Eve basically evil?

Grant: Not exactly, she was tempted by the serpent to eat the forbidden fruit, but Adam was derelict in his duty to protect Eve, so the deception took place on his watch, so to speak. When you think about it, the same has occurred in your case.

Sam: How do you figure that?

Grant: Let’s take a deeper look at the circumstances that have led you to be sitting in front of me charged with sexual assault. You knew that Nancy had a boyfriend, right?

Sam: Yeah, but…

Grant: You were also alone with her and drinking, correct?

Sam: Yeah.

Grant: You wanted her and she wanted you, yes?

Sam: Yes.

Grant: Then why were you drinking?

Sam: I don’t know, I guess because we were having fun and one thing led to another.

Grant: Well I’m pretty sure it wasn’t fun for Nancy’s boyfriend.

Sam: Yeah, but what’s he got to do with it?

Grant: For the sexual assault, nothing. But then there’s an ocean of difference between ethics and law, between sin and crime. I like to alert my clients to the moral dimensions of their situation. This helps them better process the verdict, whether guilty or innocent. While I’m only dealing with your criminal charges, there are a number of things that happened before you end up sitting in the chair in front of a criminal defense lawyer. There are important lessons for you to learn here, Sam. Don’t turn away from them. You have to break the pattern. But first you have to identify it.

Sam: I’m not sure what you mean.

Grant: You need to accept responsibility for your role in precipitating this situation. By taking responsibility you will take back control of your life.

Sam: I still don’t get it. Aren’t you supposed to be my lawyer?

Grant: Yes, but law is just the thin edge of a much larger ethical wedge. There are massive moral and ethical issues lurking underneath. These issues are not relevant for the criminal trial. In that forum we are only discussing the facts established by the admitted evidences and whether the elements of the crime of sexual assault have been established beyond reasonable doubt. But it’s important to examine the ethical issues as they hold the key to deeper lessons that need to be learned if you have any hope of moving past this. Trust me, an ounce of ethical analysis will save you a ton of therapy; it will take you years to work through the anger, bitterness and resentment you will undoubtedly experience, if you don’t deal with it now. Did you ever sleep with Nancy before or was this the first time?

Sam: First time.

Grant: You see, casual sex is never casual. It’s the thing no one tells you when you hook up with someone.

Sam: No, they don’t.

Grant: Have you ever thought of why that is?

Sam: Not really.

Grant: Here’s your first problem. Pretty much since the sixties there has been a relentless effort to decouple sex from commitment. Divorce rates have skyrocketed in that time. Far from being liberating it turns out that the sexual revolution was like sugar for relationships between the sexes, sweet to the taste but morally corrosive. Dating apps and porn have commodified human intimacy and produced a generation of miserable women and feeble men.

Sam: But I thought we’re supposed to be equal. And didn’t Pierre Trudeau famously say that, ‘There is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.’

Grant: I’m afraid you are finding out the hard way that men and women are not equal. They never have been, they never will be. Especially when it comes to sex. It used to be the case that people waited until marriage to have sex. In the absence of reliable birth control this was really the only way to have sex. It’s hard to underestimate just how much changed with The Pill.

Sam: But I don’t understand. I wanted it, so did she, what’s the problem?

Grant: Just because you both wanted something and it felt good in the moment doesn’t make it right, Sam. In former times you had to get married in order to have sex. People married much younger and had fewer sexual partners as a result. The consequences of engaging in premarital sex carried serious social repercussions. The language used to describe moral departure was different back then too. Adultery, for example, was used when at least one of the parties involved (either male or female) was married, whereas fornication described two people who are unmarried (to each other or anyone else) engaging in consensual sexual intercourse. Now, in the advent of no-fault divorce, adultery is not considered in the breakdown of a marriage and no one has any idea what the verb fornicate means.

Sam: I haven’t heard of it.

Grant: I’m something of a word nerd. I like etymology; knowing the origin of a word provides a deeper insight into what that term is trying to communicate. In Latin, the term fornix means arch or vault. In Ancient Rome, prostitutes waited for their customers out of the rain under arched structures. Fornix became a euphemism for brothels. Curb crawling wasn’t a thing back then as there were no cars. Fornicate as an adjective is still used in botany, meaning ‘arched’ or ‘bending over.’ In modern usage, the term fornicate is often replaced with more judgment-neutral terms like premarital sex, extramarital sex, or casual sex. It’s not like I’m a Puritan or anything, but the problem is that we’ve pretty much abandoned standards in this area under the false assumption that giving people (both men and women) more choice about when and whom they have sex with would result in greater freedom and happiness. The argument is meretricious; free love is never free. We tend to forget that with more freedom comes more responsibility. It’s a case of being careful what you wish for. While you may not have broken any moral laws you’ve certainly bent them in this case.

Sam: I never thought of it that way.

Grant: Why would you? From your perspective you were having fun. Hook-up culture is after all promoted and perpetuated by women. Many modern women think they can sleep around in their twenties and settle down in their thirties. But it doesn’t work that way. It turns out that hook-up culture favours a highly select group of men that all women want. What is it they say: ‘six feet, six pack, six figures.’ It’s sad how everything these days can be reduced to a hundred-and-forty-character tweet. Most regular guys that don’t meet these criteria are all but invisible to most women; few people draw attention to their feelings of social isolation and sexual frustration. You may have good looks and good game, but you are no match for the legal system, which I can assure you will grind you to a pulp as it has the power to strip you of your liberty and make your life a living hell.

Sam: Yeah, I totally regret that night.

Grant: Hey, we’ve all been there, I was young once too. I can’t believe I said that, I sound like my dad! The difference here is that your decision to sleep with Nancy is now under the microscope.

Sam: I feel I’ve been lied to.

Grant: You have, but it is a lie you wanted to be true. Who doesn’t want to believe that having sex with someone has no consequence. But criminal courts are not interested in your beliefs.

Sam: I’m starting to think you’re right.

Grant: It’s hard to appreciate just how pervasive the idea of free sex is in our society. The ubiquity of porn is a case in point. Porn invariably creates unrealistic sex expectations. We think we’re not doing any harm but we can’t separate fantasy from reality and we require more stimulus in order to maintain the same response. Sooner or later we get hooked and on a downward spiral.

Sam: Like an addiction.

Grant: It’s the very definition.

Sam: So what’s the solution?

Grant: For a start, stop watching porn. You’ll notice your relationships improve. You’ll start seeing women as they really are, rather than what you fantasize them to be. The discipline and self-control will spill over into other areas of your life, your studies, your career. It’s not easy, you will have setbacks, but every man has to decide whether he will be a slave or a master of his own sexual desires.

Sam: But what about Nancy, doesn’t she have some responsibility here? I can tell you that I’m not the first guy she’s been with.

Grant: Nancy is not on trial. Even if she was in the witness box, I can’t ask her about her sexual history to impeach her credibility. The are very few downsides to a false allegation of rape in the criminal justice system.

Sam: That’s not right. She gets to completely upend my life and there’s no consequence for her.

Grant: Tell me a situation in our society where women are held completely accountable for the consequences of their actions? There’s a new Taylor Swift song that recently came out — ‘Anti-hero.’ There’s a line in that song about her looking at the sun but never in the mirror. This is very true of women of today. There are so many safety nets in place, they think they are invincible. Either the government will bail them out or some loser guy will. Everyone loses in this game.

Sam: So that’s it?

Grant: No, not exactly. Mother Nature always yields to Father Time. Shallow women make the mistake of thinking that their beauty will last forever. A lot of women simply go nuts without male attention. The feminists that complained about the objectifying nature of the male gaze, now complain that men are no longer asking them out. There is a lot of loneliness coming and the pandemic has only made things worse.

Sam: I get it. It’s like role reversal. My friend Greg, who is a total tool, is getting DMs from girls he used to troll.

Grant: You can’t blame women for their nature. You can try to understand it and conduct yourself accordingly. There have been a lot of subtle effects of allowing women’s feelings to become the arbiter of objective truth in our society. Practically everyone jumped on the Me Too movement with the Harvey Weinstein scandal. I’m not saying that guys like Weinstein and Bill Cosby don’t deserve to be punished. They most certainly do. But these days you can hardly say hello to a woman without being accused of sexual harassment.

Sam: I know. Things have become so lame now.

Grant: Well not for guys like you, that are prepared to break the social rules. Unfortunately, you had a bad break here. The real problem is not the Weinsteins of the world. They are easy to deal with once they are identified. It’s when the average Joe doesn’t want to play anymore that women will really suffer.

Sam: Why is that?

Grant: Jordan Peterson with his lobster analogy demonstrated that social hierarchies have persisted since prehistoric times. At the top of any human hierarchy you will find a man. You can choose to ignore this fundamental reality, you can socially engineer your policy to flatten the differences between genders, but what you will end up with is Bruce Jenner transitioning to Caitlyn and becoming Time’s Woman of the Year.

Sam: Damn. I never thought about that. But there’s still no solution that I can see.

Grant: The idea that the world would be better if women were in charge will always be with us. This toxic feminism is not unlike the COVID-19 virus. You have to socially distance in order to break the chain of infection.

Sam: I’ve certainly learned my lesson.

Grant: I’m sure you have. Anyway, I’m running late. We can follow up by phone.

Sam: Thanks, Grant. I appreciate your help.

Grant: No problem. Take care.