10/4

Today in class we looked at three different cases: Anna Stubblefield, Steubenville, and Jameis Winston.

In the Anna Stubblefield case, she was a professor at Rutgers accused and charged of raping DJ, a 30 year old man with the mental capacity of a toddler due to cerebral palsy. Stubblefield watched over him and claimed to his family that they were in love (even though she was married with children). Unfortunately, due to DJ's mental capacity, he was unable to give consent, and probably not understanding of the situation that was going on, considering he couldn't even complete tasks at a preschool level. Anna said she would leave her husband to create a family and home with DJ, and DJ's family couldn't stand it. They filed the suit and won, sentencing Anna to 12 years in prison.

The Steubenville rape case was a story of football players at Steubenville high school raping a young woman digitally. The young woman was completely incoherent, vomiting, and passed out. She had a crush on one of the football players and trusted him to take care of her. Many pictures, videos, and text messages were on social media and went viral, making this case so big. One photo was released of Anna being carried by her ankles and wrists by two football players as she is clearly passed out. Mays and Richmond were convicted of rape of a minor, even though they were only 16 as well. The girl had a crush on Mays, but the next day woke up with urine and semen on her, prompting her to text Mays and ask why he did this, what happened to her, and telling him she had trusted him. The case exploded by social media and anonymous even dived into helping this girl find justice. Since the girl was incapacitated it was impossible for her to give consent to Mays and Richmond fingering her. I have read about this case in classes before so it was interesting to hear more details about it.

Jameis Winston was a football player at Florida State University, charged of raping Erica Kinsman. Kinsman agreed to drop the case after FSU offered her nearly 1 million dollars. Kinsman wishes she could have told her story, but FSU had completely covered up the case and hid the facts. In the end, Kinsman's attorney got 2/3 of her settlement money and she only got 1/3. This case was completely buried and even now when searching Winston, one must scroll very far through Google to find anything relating to the rape case. The media did a great job of burying the case of the Heisman winner so he is seen as just that, an athlete, not a rapist.