I’ve been avoiding writing about Rehaeh Parsons and Audrie Pott, the two teenage girls who committed suicide recently following sexual attacks, bullying and non-responses (or worse) from their communities. Not because I don’t think their cases are important, but because the first time I delved into the world of a kind, loving and otherwise typical adolescent who was driven to suicide because of sexual violence and a negative response from her community, it nearly broke my heart. Her name was Elizabeth Seeberg, and she was 19. Rehtaeh was 17. Audrie, God keep her, was only 15.  

Elizabeth was from Illinois, Rehtaeh from Nova Scotia, and Audrie from California. While they lived different lives, they had some observable characteristics in common, and these things are not unimportant. They underscore the horror these women experienced- less, possibly, from the attacks- then from the response that eventually drove them into the cold embrace of death. 

All three were objectively beautiful in terms of Western ideals. All three appear to have had (and I know personally that Elizabeth had), loving families and supportive caregivers. They were physically healthy and active. They had the resources of middle class incomes and the relative freedom to pursue their dreams in dynamic and democratic societies. Outside of the context of their victimization, in terms of their stations in life and potential, it could be argued that they had the world itself before them. And yet they’re dead, all three of them, by their own hands.

The world was not enough.

That shouldn’t be surprising, because nothing is enough when you’re violated in the most fundamental way imaginable and then face the often greater nightmare of public humiliation, shame and rejection in its wake. Those things have always been reality for sexual violence survivors of course, particularly in non-stranger cases (the vast majority that occur). But it was modern technology- the kind that all three grew up with and that could have been listed among their assets as emerging citizens of the new age- that made their ordeals seem so horribly infinite.

“Infinite” is the carefully chosen and correct term for what Audrie and Rehtaeh in particular faced. The evermore nimble, powerful, and globally connected computers we still refer to as “cell phones” make the projection of our every memorialized moment as effortless as the practiced dance of slender, trained fingers over a tiny glass screen. In Elizabeth’s case, text messaging warned her that the colossus, Notre Dame football, was not to be trifled with. In Audrie’s case, her violators allegedly wrote on her body in permanent marker and then photographed their work with such a device. In Rehtaeh’s case she was allegedly photographed unawares while being raped; as it was happening, an accomplice shouted “take a picture!”

A picture. Once a delicate amalgam of chemicals on special paper, it’s now merely another manifestation of electronic communication, ready instantly for a worldwide web of limitless vectors and endless, light-speed traveled avenues. For Audrie and Rehtaeh, trapped without locks in the incubators of dread that their own bedrooms became, the predicable questions were surely asked: My God, who will see this? How many times will it be traded, forwarded, posted, mocked? 

We might as well ask how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Combine that with the judgment both girls know the viewers would surely deliver to them as the photograph’s subjects.

And then there stood the abyss, before them both.

Technology will not go backward and sexual violence will not be eradicated anytime soon. The sole option is moving forward in technology’s relentless grasp so that sexual violence, when it occurs, won’t be mocked foolishly in cyberspace to the detriment of its victims. Lizzy, Audrie and Rehtaeh were wounded by users, not the tools at their disposal. But because the tools are so much more powerful, because they allow the cruel, the vindictive, or simply the ignorant to cause so much more damage than ever before, we have an absolute duty to address cruelty, vindictiveness and especially ignorance more than ever before.

If we don’t, we can expect the roll of the dead to grow even faster than the sickening rate in which we’re seeing it now. 

Raphael has been challenged, though, not through honest discourse or documented findings, but through rank intimidation and an organized smear campaign. She discusses, among many other topics, the tragic inaction (and worse) of officials involved in the Sandusky/Penn State crisis. This caught the attention of a group of Paterno supporters in the Penn State community who decided they didn’t like Raphael’s illumination of the subject to the extent it threatened their hero-worship. What followed was a organized campaign to rate her book negatively on the Amazon book selling site in an attempt to make it less visible to to potential book buyers. On a message board (no longer visible) on the site “BlueWhiteIllustrated,” a poster wrote: ”I and others have been posting negative comments on the Amazon site where the book is being sold. As a result, the rating for the book has dropped from 5 stars to 2. Please go to the site and add your comments. Let’s drop the rating to 1 star. BTW, Ms. Raphael is a law professor – hard to believe.”

As a result, and since that campaign began, there are 41 negative reviews of her book, just about everyone of them related to the Penn State issue. As friend and colleague Katie Feifer of Counterquo put it so eloquently, “Seldom do real life events so quickly prove the key point that an author makes in her book.”

Raphael has experienced other forms of harassment and intimidation in the wake of her book’s release as well; thankfully she has the strength, dedication and courage to face them all down. But what she’s experienced in an effort to expose the truth about a preventable national shame and tragedy should sound a louder alarm. The problem is, in fact, even worse than we thought.

I cannot run from this.

It’s not an easy task to write about his case from the standpoint of an advocate for children who is also legally pro-choice. But to be in my position and not write about this case is, to me, an act of cowardice. I’m a former child abuse prosecutor and an advocate for the most defenseless among us. Abortion opponents would- and have- challenged me on how I cannot see a child in the womb as the most defenseless human being imaginable. My response, at least for now, is that I draw the line at the generally accepted notion of “viability” and accept it as sound public policy. Personally, I view every abortion as a tragedy. But I would never support (absent what I consider reasonable restrictions) a legal ban on the practice; among other things I lack the moral authority to block a woman from making basic reproductive decisions I’ll never have to face.

But if Gosnell delivered live human beings and then murdered them with scissors, all of this in a fetid, filthy and sometimes lethal atmosphere, he is evil incarnate. Of course, most on both sides of the abortion debate would readily agree with that statement. But they also see very different implications for what it means.

To many abortion opponents, Gosnell’s hellish work is simply the inevitable consequence of an abhorrent practice that devalues life and richly rewards the dealing out of death. To supporters of legal abortion, Gosnell was allowed to flourish exactly because of the increasingly truculent and organized attack on reproductive rights. Women have found ways to end pregnancy for millennia; legal restrictions against that effort only push it into the shadows where compassion and basic competence give way to recklessness, greed, and torture.

I can’t embrace fully the more extreme pro-choice view that the best way to avoid evil within the practice of abortion is to simply allow it to occur with few if any restrictions well into a second trimester. The combination of desperation and the shadows of illegality attracts horrors, yes. But as well, there’s the stubborn fact that, the later an abortion is contemplated, the more morality gets muddled as much as legality. There may be decent medical providers willing to perform such tasks for what they at least sincerely believe are the right reasons. But there will be others drawn to the practice for far worse ones.

Still, what I know of criminality and the nature of predatory people is what ultimately leads me to side, generally, with pro-choice elements on what allowed Gosnell to operate. The primarily religious based anti-abortion movement believes that the practice itself is inherently evil and that therefore associated horrors are inevitable. I do not; right or wrong, I part ways with the religious to the extent that they believe the basic practice of abortion, no matter how well-intentioned, well-orchestrated, or reasonably regulated, eventually produces the kind of callousness within many of its practitioners that leads to the charges Gosnell now faces.

What I believe is that the desperation of women denied other options is what attracts- not produces- men like Gosnell. This is how predators work. Despite the insistence that abortion invites the perversion of the soul, that’s not what I believe happens. Rather, in most cases and far more terrifyingly, I believe evil souls are usually perverted from the beginning, and then search for opportunities.

Gosnell is on trial for being, among other things, a perversion of a doctor who mislead, mistreated, maimed and killed mostly young women and babies. If the charges are true, he is probably every bit the monster he is feared to be. Not a reluctant practitioner of a dark art for the sake of women who had no where else to go, but simply a deeply evil creature who feasted on misery and murder, collecting its products in jars because it amused him.

If so, in my mind, he was not coarsened and “made” evil by what he practiced. He is more likely an opportunist with original intentions. He simply found the perfect environment in which to indulge them.

-former judge Robert Holdman on his time as Chief Trial Counsel, Child Abuse and Sex Unit, Bronx District Attorneys Office, Bronx, New York

A colleague and mentor, former New York State Supreme Court Justice Robert Holdman, was invited to participate in a Huffpost Live broadcast on the Steubenville rape case as the trial was being heard. He was joined by Alexander Abad Santos of the Atlantic Wire, and also Zerlina Maxwell and Jaclyn Friedman. Friedman and Maxwell in particular are well-known warriors in the fight against rape culture, and I’ve had the honor of working with and learning from Jaclyn personally. The broadcast is an excellent discussion of the Steubenville dynamics and the larger problem beyond it. It’s still well worth watching even as the case fades slowly away from the news cycle.

What made Holdman’s comments so important is that they came from the perspective of a former trial judge. While most U.S. judges are honorable professionals worthy of the power of the robe, the judiciary is still a place where we don’t see enough understanding of the dynamics and reality of sexual violence. This is particularly true with non-stranger sexual violence, the kind women and men experience far more than any other.

Every criminal defendant deserves a full and robust defense, and also a judge who is sensitive to the circumstances of an individual facing the power of the government, regardless of the charges. Holdman would surely agree, and his comments rightfully included the responsibility of judges to be neutral and fair to defendants facing criminal prosecution. Being a good trial judge doesn’t mean- from my perspective or any other- assuming guilt in any criminal case or anything close to it. But an ignorance of the reality of sexual violence, particularly between individuals who know each other, and an over-reliance on the myth and innuendo so pervasive in our culture regarding rape and sexual assault, lead far too many judges to render irrational and unjust decisions in these types of cases.

Important professional opportunities have taken Holdman- for now- from his duties as a trial judge. Still, I hope the messages he has conveyed reach the men and women who make the crucial decisions that shape sexual violence cases nationwide and beyond. I also hope he finds his way back to the bench as his career progresses; his kind of clarity on this subject needs to be as common on the judicial bench as it needs to be everywhere else.

TRIGGER WARNING: GRAPHIC

I was troubled by one understandable and typically American response to the Newtown massacre, namely the mostly Christian-themed memorial depictions that flew around social media. Some showed 20 children running cheerfully into a brilliantly lit classroom that was really heaven, or suddenly and happily finding themselves with wings on fluffy clouds.

Doubtlessly, the images and cartoons were well-intended. But ultimately they also served to sanitize the event, and almost to perversely undermine, however unintentionally, the gravity of it. The children are fine, the images suggested. We can move on.

But we can’t. Because when we do, however innocently, it makes it even easier for a sufficient number of feckless cowards who call themselves United States Senators to deny their responsibilities to any entity other than the corporate gun lobby or a fading and paranoid subculture of conspiracy blinded crackpots.

So please, invite your senator, if he or she voted against the series of reasonable amendments that died today amid an atmosphere shame and idiocy, to imagine the reality of Sandy Hook from the scope of a military grade assault weapon wielded by the miserable insect behind it. Demand that they picture what Lanza saw. Because it wasn’t 20 children and 6 women softly fading into the light of eternity, however warm that light might have felt once they got there.

They were ripped apart by a round of ammunition weighing about a third of an ounce with a muzzle energy (basically impact potential) of around 2400 foot pounds. That much metal at 2200 feet per second tearing into a child with an average weight of 48 pounds doesn’t cause him or her to fade with a sleepy smile into bliss. I thankfully have not seen the Newtown crime scene photos, but I am no stranger to images of children killed by gunfire.

So I know that the little angels of Newtown more than likely lost limbs and entire sections of their bodies in smoky red glazes. I know their faces probably exploded, their skulls bursting like pomegranates thrown from high windows. And, as Lanza squeezed again and again- as he would have had to do- an untold number saw their classmates eviscerated in unblinking terror and disbelief before his one open eye found their tiny, frail body and tore it open like fallen fruit under a truck tire.

Please, don’t blink. And don’t let your senator blink either.  Because that is the reality of the long moments of hell experienced by the supposedly now winged seraphim who were once Connecticut school children. The reality is smoking fragments of a Batman sweatshirt soaked in blood. The reality is a Disney princess headband spattered with brain matter on a tiny, shattered classroom chair.

But it’s not the only reality. The other is that Adam Lanza was a miserable creature limited utterly by his options. Thanks to the senseless expiration of the Federal Assault Weapons ban in 2004 (around the time Lanza turned 12), his mother was allowed to purchase a military style weapon, kept in her comfortable, remarkably low-crime Connecticut home within reach of the thing that was her child. The idea that this pathetic creature could have committed 26 brutal murders with a knife or a baseball bat is the height of sophomoric stupidity; right up there with the idea that a black president is going to disarm the populace and impose socialism on a dwindling white majority.

And yet that suspicion, to a greater or lesser degree depending on the droner making the argument, is what appears to hold sway still in the upper legislative house of the most powerful nation on earth. That and the threat of gun lobby money ending precious political careers. But balanced against two score little angels now nestled in Jesus’ bosom, is that so intolerable?

A shooting survivor shouted “shame on you” from the gallery today as Vice President Biden announced the final tally on a background check compromise. I took gallery shouters to task for their “Second Amendment” outbursts in Hartford, and I should be consistent and criticize her.

But in Hartford the object of the shouts was a grieving father. In Washington, D.C. today, it was among the most powerful and privileged group of 100 in the world.

Let freedom ring.

What they wanted to do, complete with a stolen knife and handgun in their possession along with a written plan, was to rape and then stab a fellow female student. One apparently even understood that rape was not a sexual act, but more a display of power and control. One of the boys was asked if he understood that murder was wrong. His response was “yes, I wanted her dead.” 

At this point, like anyone decent, I am thankful the plan was foiled. As for what lies ahead, or how these two arrived in a courthouse on trial for their youth, I have no answers. 

What I have never written and will never write is that false accusations never occur, or that they should not be punished when they do occur, absent a serious mental health issue on the part of the falsely accusing person. This is often if not usually true, and is exactly what occurred in the infamous “Duke Lacrosse” case that so many unfairly hold out as a “typical” or common occurrence. The complainant in that case, according to North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper in 2006, was so mentally ill that authorities felt she probably believed the accusations she made.

That kind of situation, i.e., a serious mental health issue, doesn’t seem to be at issue with regard to Wanetta Gibson, the woman who falsely accused Banks as a teenager, an accusation that landed him in California’s brutal correctional system for five years. Banks was, thankfully, exonerated in a Los Angeles county courtroom and on the motion of the LA District Attorneys Office, which did the right thing in light of the evidence Banks was able to provide. That evidence, featured in a 60 Minutes segment aired earlier this week, included a videotape made of the complainant, Ms. Gibson, calmly admitting to an investigator that Banks neither raped nor kidnapped her, and (to Banks himself) that she would be willing to help him with his plight, but apparently not if it meant giving back the $1.5 million dollar settlement Gibson received when her family sued the school district over what they claimed was inadequate security.

Banks was apparently a good student and an ultra promising football star verbally committed to play in college when his life was permanently altered and torn apart by the accusation. On the advice of counsel he pled “no contest” to avoid the uncertainty of a trial and was made to register for life as a sex offender upon his release. His dreams of playing in the NFL are almost certainly destroyed, but admirably he remains positive and not bitter about the person who cost him so much. Banks has stated he doesn’t want Gibson aggressively pursued by the law for what she did.

I don’t know that I do either. But I do believe there should be a legal response to both Gibson and her family in terms of the civil settlement and her false claim- one she maintained throughout a long and arduous process. Gibson was a juvenile when she made the accusations, and that should certainly be weighed along with as many other factors as are relevant. According to some reports, her mother was the person driving both the false allegation and the law suit forward. Both civilly and criminally, Los Angeles county and the involved school district have a responsibility, in my view, to seek justice here. It matters, regardless of Banks’ exoneration or how well he seems to be pulling his life back together. He seems like a decent, thoughtful young man and I salute his resilience and applaud his triumph.

But even if Banks isn’t insistent on pursuing Gibson and her family for tearing his life apart, his community should be. That’s what prosecution is, after all. It is not the use of the government to settle personal scores. It is the expression of the community coupled with the power of the courts, aimed at righting wrongs in the name of everyone. And for the sake of everyone.

Banks is not the only person wronged by this miscarriage of justice. Gibson’s misdeeds provide fuel to an already roaring fire against victims of sexual violence, the great majority of whom are valid, but suffer skepticism because of cases like this. A combination of that truth and a desire to be credible as an anti-violence advocate and former prosecutor prompt me to wonder why justice isn’t being sought against her, or the adults who pushed her forward.

Several groups, most prominently the dynamic support group Male Survivor, have rightfully called out NBC and Today for airing the interview in what looks like an effort to boost ratings with a draw backward to a sensational case rather than any real effort to shed further light on the story.

The fact is, Sandusky’s reign of terror, heartbreak and destruction is widely documented, legally and factually established, and thankfully over. What matters now is not this miserable predator and whatever delusions he wishes to entertain in the twilight of his life. What matters is only the well-being of the men and boys who survived what Sandusky subjected them to, and what lessons can be learned in order to make such horrors less and less common.

The only positive thing, perhaps, that emerged from Today’s bad choice and Ziegler’s tone deaf crusade is the Paterno family’s distancing themselves from the effort. As Wick Sollers, a family attorney said, Sandusky’s comments were “transparently self-serving and yet another insult to the victims.”

Amen.

So now, please, give this criminal no further exposure.