Originally published at: Italian judge rules sexual assaults that last less than 10 seconds are not crimes | Boing Boing
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That’s actually not true. You don’t need mens rea for some crimes in the first case. Secondly the belief that what you were doing was jocular or not a crime is insufficient to recategorise something as not crime.
What’s going on here is simpler misogyny, sexism, institutional discrimination than a philosophical breakdown in the idea of crime.
That criminal justice systems don’t focus on restorative justice is a separate issue. This guy is a criminal that a judge decided to let off despite, not because of the evidence.
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Where are the mafia when they might finally be good for something?
I get the sentiment, but, no. Extrajudicial punishment isn’t justice.
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Rapists and fascists alike have taken to the old “just joking” excuse. Not that it works outside a court of law presided over by a judge sympathetic to both.
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Correct. When a crime requires motive, that doesn’t mean that you have to have had ill intent. It just means that you meant to do the thing you did, that you did it intentionally. That your purpose was humor instead of sexual gratification is irrelevant, although I don’t buy for a second that this asshole was just joking. I don’t know anything about Italian law, so I can’t say for sure that this ruling is counter to the law there, but I suspect it is. Not that we haven’t had similar rulings from judges here, because we have.
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So you’re saying that victims who the “Justice System” not only refuses to protect, but actively encourages the criminals as is the case here, should just suck it up and quit being so whiney about people hurting them? If the “Justice System” is not justice, then something else will eventually have to be. This judge has declared that assaults of less than ten seconds are not crimes.
The question is, is that only sexual assaults, or assaults in general? I mean, when explaining this to said judge, should the single less than ten second swing of the baseball bat be directed to the head, or the crotch in order to be in compliance with his ruling?
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In my experience, “so you’re saying” rarely actually sums up what someone is actually saying. It usually reflects the frustrations, biases, and perspectives of the person writing “so you’re saying.” I wrote nothing about “sucking it up,” nor did I accuse anyone of being whiney.
If the “Justice System” is not justice, then something else will eventually have to be.
Who gets to pick the “something else?” You? Me? The Proud Boys? If I don’t like the “something else” that you pick, can I find some thugs to come after you for the “something else” I want?
We had “extrajudicial justice” in the USA for a very long time. It was used by whites who thought that the “justice system” wasn’t handling (mostly) Black folks’ crimes harshly enough.
That ruling was tragic, horrific. The answer isn’t to start getting underworld-types to mete out the “justice” we want. It’s to change the system.
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Right, so the victims get to suck it up and shut up, because there is literally zero they can do to change the system from “within”, since they aren’t within, and the ones who are do not consider them to be people. Maybe some day they’ll luck out and someone inside the system might decide to let them have rights, if they only be quite, and let people treat them like dirt for the rest of their lives. That’s definitely how every single bit of progress on human rights to date has come about. Compliance and avoiding complaint. The victim’s best defence, in the eyes of the assailant.
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I get your frustration. I share it. But we do have examples of people protesting existing systems, from within the system, and bringing about meaningful change. Within my lifetime, it’s happened. Even here in the United States. There’s also been backsliding, to be sure. Progress isn’t linear and steady.
But the alternative is revolution or anarchy, which doesn’t always work out well for the folks who actually need the kind of justice you describe.
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Every single one of those examples is backed up by decades of blood and the threat of more on behalf of the oppressed class in question. Just because a rare someone has decided to learn from history instead of being strung up on a hangman’s noose by it doesn’t mean that the required violence to make oppressors see others as humans didn’t happen. Until consequences affect those who make the rules (which they typically don’t), those who make the rules will not give a rat’s ass about who they step on.
I still want this judge to be forced to answer that question on the bench, as clarification of his ruling:
The swing of that baseball bat is intended as a joke! The people he’s @#%@#'d over with his abominable rulings will find it hilarious. It’s less than ten seconds. In light of his ten second ruling, does the swing need to be at his crotch in order to not be a crime, or does it apply to any assault that someone would feel was funny which takes less than his time limit? Or perhaps if he was forced to face the prospect of being actually affected by his own rulings (He won’t. Ever.) might he decide that assault is bad regardless of how long it takes?
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Chaos, not anarchy.
The suggestion that the mafia should do it would be like saying the C/RIRA or the UIDA/Red Hand Commandos etc. should see justice is done. States maintain a monopoly on violence to themselves, and when they don’t, as in Northern Ireland before the cease fire, very bad outcomes are expected.
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So if these women punch these dudes in the face for less than 10 seconds it’s not assault?
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Only if it’s funny! And possibly sexual, so it’s better to hoof them in the nards hard enough that they’ve got three adam’s apples.
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You’d think we could get some small measure of justice from humiliating the evil, but the system closes ranks to punish victims for that as well. If you want justice against the truly terrible, your best bet is to quietly take the abuse until you can get away from them for at least several months then lure them somewhere (no traceable electronic coms) and [chide] them for it. Evil is adept at using the system; that’s who it serves.
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What in the fuck?
If someone started punching this judge in the face for <10 seconds, does it not count as assault, but pugno faccia breve?
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When vigilantes or militias effectively revoke that monopoly it’s one of the academically defined characteristics of a failed state. “Very bad outcomes” is putting it mildly, especially in countries where the monopoly on violence was considered legitimate due to democratic institutions that acted as a check on the police.
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sounds like someone needs to squeeze the judges junk for 9.5 seconds.
Repeatedly
In public. On camera. While reading a copy of the decision.
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Not wading into the legal issue, but these “brief gropings” are exactly what “real” grooming looks like. Teach targets that their bodies are not their own, and that anyone can touch them, and that they should take it as a compliment.
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Then hitting the ball is not assault then. After all it only takes seconds. 
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