Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

32 years later

The Rhode Island attorney general’s office has charged a man with rape based on a memory “repressed” by the complainant “until recently”. Harold Allen of Narragansett, 48, at the time of the alleged incident was sixteen years old, as was the complainant. Allen has pleaded not guilty, and through his attorney says he never had […]

The Rhode Island attorney general’s office has charged a man with rape based on a memory “repressed” by the complainant “until recently”. Harold Allen of Narragansett, 48, at the time of the alleged incident was sixteen years old, as was the complainant. Allen has pleaded not guilty, and through his attorney says he never had relations with the woman, though he was acquainted with her. There is no statute of limitations on the charge of first-degree sexual assault. (“Man charged with rape 32 years later”, AP/EyewitnessNews, Jun. 14; Volokh, Jul. 3).

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7 Comments

  • If repressed memories are what passes for science in court these days, I predict that the day we first make contact with alien beings, immediately following which some plaintiff’s attorney hits them with a class-action suit by loads of rural dwellers, alleging kidnapping and sexual assault. If they have a budget to travel through interstellar space, they must have some seriously deep pockets.

    • By LAN3

  • LAN3,

    Sad but true.

    • By Deoxy

  • I take it that the statute of limitation (or lack of)in this case applies within Rhode Island?

    How long before all crimes have no statute of limitation? That gumball I stole when I was four could land me in prison.

    • By KDP

  • The article I read about this said that the DA charged him in the indictment with raping her at some time during a 7 month or so period, like April through October of that year. Apparently the “victim” could not remember an exact date (or approximate month). I have no idea how a prosecutor can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant raped the “victim” if the “memories” (and sole evidence) the charges are based on basically boil down to: “well he did not rape me during the Christmas season.”

  • I can’t believe he got an indictment with a 7 MONTH window on the time period of the alleged crime. Nice way of making any sort of alibi impossible… if he spent any of those months out of the area, oops, I guess the crime didn’t happen then.

  • LAN3: On the science fiction series Babylon 5, there was a very short preliminary hearing on such a suit in the space station’s courts, quickly recessed until such time as an interpreter could be found for the gray alien defendant, who communicaated by something like projecting images of geometric shapes. This wasn’t pursued any further, it was just a comic sideshow – but the actor playing the judge did a very good job of staying in judicial character while obviously thinking, “Why did this case land on my docket?”

    • By markm

  • Daubert?