GOOD NEWS For This West Point Cadet. Facts Finally Prevailed.
Two years ago, U.S. Military Academy Cadet Jacob Whisenhunt was sentenced to 21 years in prison for allegedly raping an alleged sleeping classmate. On Monday, an appeals court threw out his conviction, citing lack of evidence to prove that the sex wasn’t consensual, given how many people were around at the time. “The defense theory was that the appellant and [the victim] engaged in a consensual sexual encounter while taking active measures to avoid detection,” according to the written decision by three military judges. “In our view, the circumstantial evidence in support of this defense theory severely undercuts the government’s case.” The judges went on to write that they thought it was unlikely that the survivor wouldn’t gasp or cry out when she woke up next to Whisenhunt, which would have alerted others to an assault. “This is particularly true when there is no evidence that appellant threatened [the victim] or took any steps, such as covering her mouth, to prevent an outcry,” they wrote. The cadet’s attorney says the decision demonstrates the need for checks and balances on court martial panels hand-picked by commanders under pressure to convict in a time of intense focus on sexual assault in military service academies. He added, “This case would never have gotten to trial in a state court, if it did, it wouldn’t have led to a conviction, I’m confident of that.”
That Cadet Whisenthunt should have been entitled to the presumption of innocence, a concept otherwise denied to male college students on campuses laboring under Title IX, is reflected in the appellate ruling, and utterly ignored in the narrative that facts should inform the outcome rather than “believe the victim” no matter what. The distinction here, of course, is that this was no campus tribunal, but a military court applying military law that ignored every applicable legal concept to convict and sentence the cadet to 21 years in prison…In this kind of case, Whisenhunt has the option to be fully reinstated at West Point, or request his dis-enrollment. Because he was charged before he completed two years at the academy, he is not obligated to any further military service or to pay back his education.
blog.simplejustice -S. Greenfield armytimes– M. Myers
