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This case is shocking. And the judge’s reaction is despicable.

The judge says the victim did not behave like a rape victim

 

 

 

Here’s a new one for you.

It seems in some rape cases you have to actually act like a victim if you’ve been raped.

A judge from Georgia has overturned a jury’s guilty verdict against a rapist because the judge didn’t think the 24-year-old woman acted like a victim.

According to his ruling, Judge Christopher McFadden issued the ruling on a request for new trial after he had sentenced William Jeffrey Dumas to 25 years in prison for the alleged assault.

The judge claimed that a new trial was necessary because the unnamed victim waited a day before reporting the rape, and because she did not behave like a rape victim.

Judge Christopher McFadden

The victim, a 24-year old woman with Down Syndrome, had endured a trial that included testimony which established that Dumas’ semen was found on the bed on which the woman slept the night of the alleged attack and that a doctor who examined the woman had made findings that were consistent she had been forcibly raped.

The Judge however in his new ruling said that the ‘rapist’ did not “behave like someone who had recently perpetrated a series of violent crimes.”

District Attorney Scott Ballard told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he “had to go visit the Down syndrome woman who was the victim of the rape and tell her that even though a jury had convicted her assailant of the crime, the judge was giving the guy a new trial.”

“Her parents were, as you can imagine, outraged,” he said. “I just hope we can get some justice.”

We’re hopeful for that outcome too.