Would a jury convict?

Some of you are familiar with the movie I Spit on Your Grave, and I wanted to discuss with everybody here, the case in the movie. The tagline for it is that this woman has burned, mutilated and killed four men, and there's not a jury in America that would convict her. The reason because because they brutally raped her and left her for dead, and this was her revenge. Now, on a board for the movie, somebody thinks the exact opposite, that ANY jury would convict her because she wasn't raped, she has no proof of being raped, all there is proof of is that she murdered four men.


This is my take on it, and do keep in mind I haven't seen the movie, and I know it's 40 years ago when everybody thought VERY differently about this kind of stuff, but this is how I see it.

This woman brutally mutilates and kills four men, she may not have any proof that she was raped, HOWEVER, if she was not, WHAT then drove her to do something like this? We all know how society views women, they're weak and delicate, and also polite and sedate, they're not evil, they're not murderers, they're not brutal or barbaric, their feminine little minds simply don't think that way. They may kill people, they might poison a man or shoot him, but they wouldn't disembowel and dismember someone and chop them up with an axe, let alone FOUR someones.

The ONLY way I could see that a woman WOULD do something of that nature, without provocation, would be she'd have to be crazy. Of which in the movie, there would be no previous history of anything insinuating that she was. SO, for something to suddenly MAKE her just SNAP so she could commit such barbaric acts, SOMETHING had to happen to drive her to that breaking point, and if she wasn't attacked by them originally, then what was it?

If I were on a jury, THAT is what I would be looking at. A jury wouldn't convict Lizzie Borden, and a woman who resents her overbearing parents just snapping and whacking them 13 times with a hatchet would be a bit easier to buy than one woman seeking out, luring, and mutilating four strange men and killing them all. No no, the way I see it, she would get a full acquittal, and a parade, and a pink toy poodle on a keychain.

Ah, the old "It must have been justified because the revenge was so gruesome" defense. No juror would convict. Unless I was on it.

If the evidence proved beyond a reasonable doubt she committed the murders there would be no choice but to convict. Movies are great escapism but in reality there is a big difference between revenge & justice.

Alan Smithee wrote:Ah, the old "It must have been justified because the revenge was so gruesome" defense. No juror would convict. Unless I was on it.

yep

honestly... if i was on the jury, and i believed they raped her, i wouldnt convict cause i could reasonably believe that if a woman just happened to run into her rapist accidentally on the street, that seeing him could cause flashbacks and make her snap. I knew someone who went over the edge because of this---she didnt kill anyone... but she locked herself in her house and wouldnt leave and was terrified he was coming back. She became agorabphobic for years! Complete mental breakdown.

HOWEVER--- I DO believe that women are killers... the first recorded serial killer in history was a woman in like 80 AD!!!! it WAS a woman... and she was executed in Italy. Most people think it was Jack the Ripper... but that is bullshit. Women kill... I could kill I know it... I think any of us could kill for the right reason. I actually have "deadly" weapons placed in my apt in certain places since i live alone.... so I am prepared if i am attacked. Even if i have to break a glass mirror and stab a guy in the neck with it... its him or me---i choose him! And F@#$ the jury if they convict me!

Brutal rape or not, murder shouldn't be justifiable. Rape is not ok, but it should not be ok to murder the rapist unless it is a means to leave the situation at the time of the attack.

Especially since she has no proof of the rape. People do crazy shit all the time.

We just watched the Blue Eyed Butcher yesterday. (spoilers) This beautiful woman stabs her controlling, abusive husband by stabbing him 193 times. She then hid the body in the back yard. Killed him on a Monday and went to the police that next day to get a restraining order on him. It was a week later until she confessed. She claimed battered woman syndrome and I really thought at the end of the movie she would get off. Happily she did not.

I think it was a Stephen King short story (vague memory)where a woman is raped and later tells her husband that she's seen her rapist and knows where he is and convinces him to take revenge. So the husband eventually does and as they're driving away the woman points out another man, and then another and another as the rapist and her husband comes to the realization that she was nuts all along and he's probably murdered an innocent stranger.

Alan Smithee wrote:I think it was a Stephen King short story (vague memory)where a woman is raped and later tells her husband that she's seen her rapist and knows where he is and convinces him to take revenge. So the husband eventually does and as they're driving away the woman points out another man, and then another and another as the rapist and her husband comes to the realization that she was nuts all along and he's probably murdered an innocent stranger.

I remember a story like that. Seems like it was a Twilight Zone or Outer Limits...something like that. And gotta say that story came to my mind too.

CeCe wrote:

I remember a story like that. Seems like it was a Twilight Zone or Outer Limits...something like that. And gotta say that story came to my mind too.

No no, it was the very first episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Of course for the 1950s they couldn't have rape in the TV storyline so it was just that she was assaulted, and during a drive to get out of there, she points to a man who she's identifying by the back of his head, but the husband believes it and beats the guy to death with a wrench, only for her to point out several more men as being the one.

The murders can be proven, the rape can't be. I would convict her ass.

CeCe wrote:

I remember a story like that. Seems like it was a Twilight Zone or Outer Limits...something like that. And gotta say that story came to my mind too.

Now that you mention it I think you're right.

First off she did not chop anyone up the murders were gruesome but they were related to what was done to her by each of the men. She did not go to the police or a hospital after the rape so where is the evidence that she was raped?? She could not go to the police because the Chief was in on the whole thing. When she escaped they did try to kill her by shooting her but she was in the water and they assumed she drowned.

She should have gone to a hospital right away (she lived in the woods for months before the retaliation) and from there they could have gotten in touch with the State Police since she would have had forensic evidence that she was raped by the 4.

Since she didn't do this I can't imagine a jury would believe her story without any proof she was assaulted.

Since I saw the movie I surely can't blame her for doing what she did and they certainly deserved it but as far as acquittal, I don't know she would have to do a pretty convincing job for the jury to find her not guilty.

Alan Smithee wrote:I think it was a Stephen King short story (vague memory)...

CeCe wrote:I remember a story like that. Seems like it was a Twilight Zone or Outer Limits...something like that. And gotta say that story came to my mind too.

Alan Smithee wrote:Now that you mention it I think you're right.

Supernova wrote: No no, it was the very first episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. ....

Super Wins. Alfred Hitchcock Presents - 1955.