Regurgitated Chivalry vs. Scientific Forensics, The Truth About “Start by Believing”

“It is of the first importance not to allow your judgment to be biased by personal qualities. A client to me is a mere unit—a factor in a problem. The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning. I assure you that the most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance money, and the most repellent man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million on the London poor.”

Few realize the man who wrote those lines was an early pioneer of modern forensic science as well as the definitive writer of detective fiction, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Their insistence upon an investigator’s objectivity—Sherlock Holmes’s response to Dr. Watson’s chivalrous, sentimental prejudice in favor of the charming Mary Morstan—has become “Forensics 101.” Yet now a concerted, influential campaign is rejecting over a century of progress and attempting to reduce America’s police officers, prosecuting attorneys, judges and jury members to so many prejudiced Watsons.

Inculcation of this attitude was, for example, the only apparent purpose of an online seminar recently held by Start by Believing. This is an organization committed to the idea that rape allegations’ veracity should be uncritically accepted. Not taken seriously. Presumed true. Failure to even pay lip service to legal presumption of innocence or investigative impartiality or due process was predictable. So was disregard for the distinction between “complainants” (persons alleging rape) and “victims” (persons known to have been raped). And the relegation of false allegations received to a single passing mention. The interesting thing was that, rather than attempt to build on case on bogus evidence, the seminar didn’t try to build a case on any evidence at all.

Let me repeat that. The seminar didn’t try using facts or figures to support the contention that the truth of rape allegations should be presumed. Speakers didn’t bother making the common claim that less than 10% of rape allegations are false. (Actually there isn’t clear evidence for or against the majority of allegations. Between 5 and 10% are proven false.) They didn’t argue trauma distorts victims’ memories. (Trauma sometimes causes memory problems but there is no evidence this happens either in the majority of rapes or of all traumatic incidents.) What the seminar did unwittingly present evidence for is why people embrace “start by believing”—unreasoning emotional sympathy.

The first half of the seminar had two purposes. One was inducing viewers’ to allow their minds to be biased by personal qualities. The main speaker, Kimberly Corban, was is the type of woman who tends to attract attitudes of sympathy and protectiveness—friendly, seemingly innocent, able to pass for a model or someone younger than her 35 years. Much of her presentation articulated how she felt cared for and protected by those who “started by believing.” She even appeared alongside the district attorney who prosecuted her rapist and whom she later married. The fear she experienced before her rapist was caught and convicted was also emphasized. The obvious implication was “Don’t you want to side with me?”

Corban also obscured the difference between clear cut and ambiguous cases. Her home was broken into by a man she didn’t know and couldn’t recognize. She was held prisoner for hours, believing she’d be killed. Of course the truth of these types of accusations can be considered probable. Few would invent them, the basic facts can be confirmed or disproved with relative ease. They allege unambiguously criminal behavior. Presupposing their truth does not require presupposing any individual’s guilt.

But such cases are fairly rare. Cases more commonly involve either:1) No proof any sexual encounter took place; or, 2) Disagreements between accusers and accused as to whether a sexual act was consensual. (It is not unusual for claims of rape to be made by those who refused to resist psychological pressures.) “Start by believing” concerns these sorts of “he said/she said” cases. It insists upon assuming the veracity of one person’s uncorroborated claims—putting the burden of proof on the defense. Building a case for “start by believing” on Corban’s rape is an emotional “bait and switch.” It makes people feel that questioning uncorroborated stories of, say, “date rape” is the same as denying the story of a woman held captive.

The second half of the seminar was a series of brief presentations by criminal justice professionals, medical professionals and college staff members. These presented accounts of ways they spread the Start by Believing message, intended to suggest ideas and create a “bandwagon” effect. Their one notable feature was mention of the way certain police departments and district attorneys’ officers pressure members to commit to Start by Believing.

Those responsible for overseeing the criminal justice system need to be made aware of the type of propaganda Start by Believing uses to promote its message. It is not enough for criminal justice professionals to be trained in due process and scientific forensics. They must be trained to recognize how some use implicit, subliminal methods of inculcating emotionally based bias. Pressures to embrace such bias must be eliminated. The practical usefulness of evidence is, after all, largely relative to the objectivity or the prejudice through which it is interpreted.
by is licensed under