George Morris on the SS list

[Denali6298]

I want to add to I don’t think your awful nor do I have any malice against you. I just think you need to step out of your trial attorney shoes and you need to stop ignoring evidence that proves your theories wrong. I think your logic is in the right place, I just don’t think you are educated enough on sex crimes and what people go through. That’s not meant to be a criticism by the way. I know an awful lot because it’s something I do extra for work.

[Denali6298]

@YankeeDuchess

Indeed, I know nothing about the upper levels of the H/J community. Everything I know about George Morris I learned on this thread.

Who is being accused of “spreading false information about BNTs being banned by SafeSport BECAUSE they are a BNT”?

I thought Cupcake was bashing Horsegirl’s Mom for saying that a non truncated sample was necessary to get meaningful statistics on the rate at which bans are overturned on appeal. Horsegirl’s Mom was absolutely right about that.

I didn’t even object to Cupcake slinging around a mild insult, just pointed out that “clutching pearls” is sort of tired at this point.

Why are you picking fights over stuff that doesn’t matter? You have done enough in this thread to help the anti Safe Sport people. All you know of George Morris is in this thread… why then are you trying to be relevant? You said the same thing in the Rob Gage thread. Prey tell why are you even apart of this discussion?

What exactly is your agenda? The only threads on this BB you have contributed to is the Rob Gage thread and this one. In both you admit to not knowing anything about them.

[Horsegirl_s_Mom]

@Denali6298

I want to add to I don’t think your awful nor do I have any malice against you. I just think you need to step out of your trial attorney shoes and you need to stop ignoring evidence that proves your theories wrong. I think your logic is in the right place, I just don’t think you are educated enough on sex crimes and what people go through. That’s not meant to be a criticism by the way. I know an awful lot because it’s something I do extra for work.

Well thank you for saying that, Denali. I’ll agree–I know a lot more about being a lawyer than what it is like to be a victim of a sex crime, which I am fortunate enough not to have experienced. We all tend to view the world through the prism of what we know best.

If you do work relating to sex crimes, then you know there are agonizing issues at the intersection of sex crimes and the legal system. Prosecutors face the same problem that SafeSport may sometimes face: they want to prosecute a sex crime defendant, but the victim doesn’t want to testify. (Same thing happens in domestic violence cases). Prosecutors can and do subpoena the victims to testify–sometimes even children. I never worked in sex crimes but I imagine it would be heartbreaking.

[Denali6298]

@Horsegirl's Mom

Well thank you for saying that, Denali. I’ll agree–I know a lot more about being a lawyer than what it is like to be a victim of a sex crime, which I am fortunate enough not to have experienced. We all tend to view the world through the prism of what we know best.

If you do work relating to sex crimes, then you know there are agonizing issues at the intersection of sex crimes and the legal system. Prosecutors face the same problem that SafeSport may sometimes face: they want to prosecute a sex crime defendant, but the victim doesn’t want to testify. (Same thing happens in domestic violence cases). Prosecutors can and do subpoena the victims to testify–sometimes even children. I never worked in sex crimes but I imagine it would be heartbreaking.

What I know about trials is both attorneys put on a show and that is what wins. I truly believe your heart is in the right place. Here is what you have got to understand. Many cases go unreported. I’ll speak only to my own profession. In the military we have to reporting options. Restricted and unrestricted. The majority choose restricted because they are afraid of retribution. Restricted allows the victims help without the publicity of an unrestricted report. They will even get a transfer and no one is the wiser. Unrestricted involves the command and NCIS. So same as a rape victim going to the police. It really is traumatic to go to law enforcement because people can and will say the person was drinking, the person was slept around etc. It’s hard. What’s also hard is the majority of rape and sexual assaults are committed by people the victim knew and trusted.

Again I totally get the line of legal thinking you have even though I disagree with it. But the the facts I stated above are really what you need to know. I get an easy loop hole closer to prevent an over turn like what happened in the Lopez case would be subpoenas. But think about it this way, would you want your daughter to, it’s an extreme I know, end up in jail for contempt of court because she couldn’t mentally handle testifying during arbitration? Would you put your daughter through that?

[BLBGP]

@ynl063w

And after he explained his situation to everyone who accepted his invitation to his house, he did not have any kind of unwanted physical or sexual contact with anyone in the neighborhood, minor or adult.

But how would you know this? Unless you are able to Quantum Leap Scott Bakula-style into all your neighbor’s bodies and minds, you have no idea if it’s true. You can say he was never publicly arrested for molesting anyone, that would be true. But if he is as charming as you say, he could have easily groomed someone(s) and they would never have told you. Even if you asked everyone in your neighborhood every single day, you still don’t know for sure. That’s the nature of these crimes.

I am not bashing you for believing him. It’s possible his story was mostly or entirely true. But how could you possibly know he never did anything to anyone else?

I’m terribly sorry about your brother. So awful.

[dags]

Just chiming in to say I have appreciated @Horsegirl’s Mom’s (and others) contributions. I, as an equine professional, don’t have Clue #1 where to start googling any of this nor the time to do so, and I am definitely more educated than I was 30+ pages ago. So, to pull someone’s specific example, when someone IRL comes at me with “But Bonnie Navin said!!!” I will have answers, thanks to HGMs (& others) questions, and y’alls’ begrudging & salty answers to them.

I don’t know why some think this conversation is just happening in the COTH sandbox of a half-dozen participants. And helloooo, most of us aren’t lawyers. We might need this stuff spelled out, perhaps even repeated. Thanks to HGM’s incredibly patient tenacity, a lot has been broken down into bits us laymen can actually digest & then regurgitate with some semblance of authority.

In closing, could we perhaps stop with the self-appointed refereeing? By COTH standards, this is some rather thought-provoking discussion, more my style than the daily ration of breech brands & trainer bashing. I don’t really have time to be logging in and fretting over How to Post on COTH Without Getting Railed to demonstrate my participation in this conversation, but I am enjoying the read.

[dags]

@Denali6298

Again I totally get the line of legal thinking you have even though I disagree with it. But the the facts I stated above are really what you need to know. I get an easy loop hole closer to prevent an over turn like what happened in the Lopez case would be subpoenas. But think about it this way, would you want your daughter to, it’s an extreme I know, end up in jail for contempt of court because she couldn’t mentally handle testifying during arbitration? Would you put your daughter through that?

And how do you weigh that against the possibility of another child, perhaps your daughter, being molested?

Honest question. Clearly I just demonstrated in my post above that I don’t know enough to be opining on the use of subpoenas, so I am not, but there is a moral struggle beyond the line you’re drawing.

[YankeeDuchess]

@Denali6298

Why are you picking fights over stuff that doesn’t matter? You have done enough in this thread to help the anti Safe Sport people. All you know of George Morris is in this thread… why then are you trying to be relevant? You said the same thing in the Rob Gage thread. Prey tell why are you even apart of this discussion?

What exactly is your agenda? The only threads on this BB you have contributed to is the Rob Gage thread and this one. In both you admit to not knowing anything about them.

 I finally see where your hostility is coming from. You perceive me of “having done enough on this thread to help the anti-SafeSport people”.

  I am ardently pro SafeSport. I think George Morris is guilty as hell.   I’m the one who has been calling Bonnie Navin out for brazenly claiming that “90%” of bans are overturned on appeal. I never remotely believed it and it looks like we are getting closer to getting the statistics we need. 

  Why all the hostility to Horsegirl’s Mom and to me if we point out that a nontruncated sample is necessary?

  The legitimate statistics based on a nontruncated sample might look slightly less favorable to SafeSport than those based on a truncated sample?  You’d prefer to lie with statistics if that makes SafeSport look better?  

   I fully support SafeSport. To me the way to improve the legitimacy and credibility of SafeSport is to consider ways it might be made better at succeeding in getting the bad guys, and assuring trainers that there are good procedural protections for someone false accused. 

    I think there is some validity in the charge by ISWGers that the ban is imposed prior to a finding of “guilt” because the respondent does not have the opportunity to make his case in front of an independent adjudicator until the appeal. Sometimes you have to give the devil his due, and not just scream “You’re the devil”.

      The difference between us is that you think the best way to defend SafeSport is to have a knee-jerk negative response to anyone who entertains the notion that a change in procedure might improve it. Some of your posts have come so obviously from jerking knees as opposed to your brain, that I found them difficult to understand. In particular, the one in which I pointed out that in my view the part of the process which was designed to be “fair” was more the appeal part than the investigation part. You stated that since neither party appears before an arbitrator during the investigation, that seemed fair to you. Even though, with no arbitrator, SafeSport unilaterally issues a sanction based on its assessment of its own investigation. 

     I think the more effective way to defend SafeSport is to get the valid statistics, and discuss whether possibly there might be ways to improve it. 

     I also think that liberal use of insults or giggling when someone calls me a “raving moron” or acting smug when you wrongly decide I‘m an alter does not add to the force of your arguments. 

    Why does it matter that I didn’t know RG or GM as equestrians?  By far the most useful poster here is FiSk123, and she is not an equestrian at all. 

That said, I will endeavor again not to reply to your posts.

[MHM]

@omare

I thought safe sport extended to amateurs in addition to minors? Generally I could see a person that was seen as “abusing” their position of authority (or violating in a similar way their professional code of ethics) that put them on the sex offender list would rightly be banned from sports to protect both minors and amateurs.

It’s not limited to just minors and amateurs. It can be anybody, including an adult employee, since that situation could also involve an imbalance of power. I believe the short term suspension of Tommy Serio involved an employee, from the version I heard. And again, that case seemed to show that safe sport worked as intended. He was suspended briefly (for about two weeks?) during the investigation, then taken off the suspension list immediately following the conclusion of the investigation.

It’s possible that they are concentrating on cases involving minors at the moment, especially if they are short staffed. Those might seem more urgent and also clear-cut, as well as illegal in many cases.

[Denali6298]

@dags

And how do you weigh that against the possibility of another child, perhaps your daughter, being molested?

Honest question. Clearly I just demonstrated in my post above that I don’t know enough to be opining on the use of subpoenas, so I am not, but there is a moral struggle beyond the line you’re drawing.

Honestly in my experience having an a way to report sexual assault/rape without the general public knowing who prevents a lot and helps a lot. Safe Sport isn’t there for the accused. It’s there for the victims. Safe Sport is about the victims. That gives people closure, knowing they can carry on with their sport knowing their assailant can’t.

Sometimes closure isn’t about people going to jail. It’s about seeing someone being sanctioned for their behavior. Sometimes it’s about telling your story to people who believe you and try their best to sanction the person who committed the crime. Sometimes it’s just about telling your story and having people believe you and helping you move forward.

Safe Sports goal is to eliminate sexual predators. That’s a great goal. I bet Safe Sport knows it’s a lofty goal. Like I said, sometimes it’s good enough to have an avenue for people to say what happened. Maybe it doesn’t lead to an immediate sanction. But allowing victims to tell their story, believing them and helping them is way more powerful than a jail sentence. That’s why Safe Sport is a good thing. They listen. They don’t pass judgement and call the person a liar. They just ask for more if they need it.

[dannyboy]

Well, while we’re at it, I’ll put in my oar also. I do have some basic understanding of the legal system gleaned over the years and I once had to testify in court. I was very well coached in how to sit, what to wear, “not too much leg”, when to pull out a kleenex, etc. In the end, presentation was as important as the actual testimony in my case. Fortunately, it was not a traumatic situation for me, I can only try to imagine how horrible it could be for an assault victim to confront your attacker across a courtroom.

I also have some personal knowledge of both the TN and GM situations, not all of which I can share here. But this has been a major learning experience for me. I started out being a bit knee-jerk critical of SafeSport, but I do now see the absolute necessity of it. Cumbersome or not, it’s high time the horse world got dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

My thanks to everyone who has shared their specialised knowledge of the SS process and how it works. It’s refreshing to hear the mostly civilised discussion here, in contrast to the IS NOT!!! IS TOO!!! UR MEEN!!! tone of Facebook. Keep on posting - I’m willing to keep on learning.

[Denali6298]

@YankeeDuchess

I finally see where your hostility is coming from. You perceive me of “having done enough on this thread to help the anti-SafeSport people”.

I am ardently pro SafeSport. I think George Morris is guilty as hell. I’m the one who has been calling Bonnie Navin out for brazenly claiming that “90%” of bans are overturned on appeal. I never remotely believed it and it looks like we are getting closer to getting the statistics we need.

Why all the hostility to Horsegirl’s Mom and to me if we point out that a nontruncated sample is necessary?

The legitimate statistics based on a nontruncated sample might look slightly less favorable to SafeSport than those based on a truncated sample? You’d prefer to lie with statistics if that makes SafeSport look better?

I fully support SafeSport. To me the way to improve the legitimacy and credibility of SafeSport is to consider ways it might be made better at succeeding in getting the bad guys, and assuring trainers that there are good procedural protections for someone false accused.

I think there is some validity in the charge by ISWGers that the ban is imposed prior to a finding of “guilt” because the respondent does not have the opportunity to make his case in front of an independent adjudicator until the appeal. Sometimes you have to give the devil his due, and not just scream “You’re the devil”.

The difference between us is that you think the best way to defend SafeSport is to have a knee-jerk negative response to anyone who entertains the notion that a change in procedure might improve it. Some of your posts have come so obviously from jerking knees as opposed to your brain, that I found them difficult to understand. In particular, the one in which I pointed out that in my view the part of the process which was designed to be “fair” was more the appeal part than the investigation part. You stated that since neither party appears before an arbitrator during the investigation, that seemed fair to you. Even though, with no arbitrator, SafeSport unilaterally issues a sanction based on its assessment of its own investigation.

I think the more effective way to defend SafeSport is to get the valid statistics, and discuss whether possibly there might be ways to improve it.

I also think that liberal use of insults or giggling when someone calls me a “raving moron” or acting smug when you wrongly decide I‘m an alter does not add to the force of your arguments.

Why does it matter that I didn’t know RG or GM as equestrians? By far the most useful poster here is FiSk123, and she is not an equestrian at all.

That said, I will endeavor again not to reply to your posts.

Still hung up on the moron comment that wasn’t directed at you.

Listen cupcake knowledge of the culture and a basic understanding of Safe Sport is what people are asking for. You have neither. Why you defend Horsegirl’s Mom is beyond me when her and I have managed to have an adult conversation without you.

[YankeeDuchess]

@Denali6298

Still hung up on the moron comment that wasn’t directed at you.

Listen cupcake knowledge of the culture and a basic understanding of Safe Sport is what people are asking for. You have neither. Why you defend Horsegirl’s Mom is beyond me when her and I have managed to have an adult conversation without you.

OK, maybe I don’t understand where the hostility is coming from.

[Denali6298]

@YankeeDuchess

OK, maybe I don’t understand where the hostility is coming from.

It’s clearly all in your head. I don’t have any hostility towards you. Your just not that important in my life.

I will say your posts on here have done a 180 compared to the Rob Gage thread.

Never mind you take up the mantel for other posters.

[atl_hunter]

@YankeeDuchess

OK, maybe I don’t understand where the hostility is coming from.

If only I had a dollar for every time someone asked this individual this question. sigh

[Denali6298]

@atl_hunter

If only I had a dollar for every time someone asked this individual this question. sigh

Says the person who always thought it cool to sleep with minors.

[Keep_it_Simple]

@Denali6298

Again I totally get the line of legal thinking you have even though I disagree with it. But the the facts I stated above are really what you need to know. I get an easy loop hole closer to prevent an over turn like what happened in the Lopez case would be subpoenas. But think about it this way, would you want your daughter to, it’s an extreme I know, end up in jail for contempt of court because she couldn’t mentally handle testifying during arbitration? Would you put your daughter through that?

My 2 cents about requiring a sexual assault victim to testify. No, never. I was abused as a minor years ago. I am older, but the statute of limitations had not run out for me to file civil charges. I chose to file a report with SS against the person that abused me. I chose to meet with the investigator. I chose to talk to SafeSport’s attorney. I agreed to testify at the arbitration hearing. I agreed to be cross-examined by the accused attorney. And the morning of the hearing I was sick to my stomach and not sure I was strong enough to do it. Some days I think I could handle a civil suit, other days I am sure I would not want to put myself through that. I still remember the day of arbitration as if it was yesterday. I would not have wanted SS to force me to testify, nor do I think anyone should be forced to testify. The Accused is not required to testify either - it is their choice. Would it sway your opinion if they didn’t testify? What if the witnesses agree to be cross-examined, but the accused does not? Is that fair?
One note, SS attorney’s do not represent the victims; they represent SS. So, there is a financial cost to the witness if they desire to have an attorney present. I spoke once to SS’s attorney about 48 hours before the hearing. As a witnesses, you are not prepped, you are not coached. You may be asked to tell your story as a narrative, or it may be more of a question and answer. It depends on how the arbitrator decides to run it and you find that out at the beginning of the hearing, not in advance.

[Denali6298]

@Keep it Simple

My 2 cents about requiring a sexual assault victim to testify. No, never. I was abused years ago, but the statute of limitations had not run out for me to file civil charges. I chose to file a report against the person that abused me. I chose to meet with the investigator. I chose to talk to SafeSport’s attorney. I agreed to testify at the arbitration hearing. I agreed to be cross-examined by the accused attorney. And the morning of the hearing I was sick to my stomach and not sure I was strong enough to do it. Some days I think I could handle a civil suit, other days I am sure I would not want to put myself through that. I still remember the day of arbitration as if it was yesterday. I would not have wanted SS to force me to testify, not do I think anyone should be forced to testify. The Accused is not required to testify either - it is their choice. Would it sway your opinion if the didn’t testify? What if the witnesses agree to be cross-examined, but the accused does not? Is that fair?
One note, SS attorney’s do not represent the victims; they represent SS. So, there is a financial cost to the witness if they desire to have an attorney present. I spoke once to SS’s attorney about 48 hours before the hearing. As a witnesses, you are not prepped, you are not coached. You may be asked to tell your story as a narrative, or it may be more of a question and answer. It depends on how the arbitrator decides to run it.

@YankeeDuchess read this again and again.

@Keep it Simple Big hugs. I get it. I hope others do too. No one should have to endure what you went through.

[NoSuchPerson]

@dags

I will have answers, thanks to HGMs (& others) questions, and y’alls’ begrudging & salty answers to them.

You’re completely ignoring the primary reasons for the “begrudging & salty” answers, which include:

• Ignoring answers you don’t like and continuing to repeat the questions over and over again

-Twisting the responses and coming back at the respondent to disagree with something the respondent never said in the first place

• Showing no appreciation of people’s attempts to provide information, just snapping that the information offered isn’t what they wanted

-Repeatedly asking questions that they could easily answer themselves with very little effort (The origin of the acronym “JFGI”)

This thread is now over 3000 posts long and no one else posting here has managed to come close to creating the level of aggravation and annoyance generated by HLMom/Horsegirl’sMom and YankeeDutchess.

[Denali6298]

@NoSuchPerson

You’re completely ignoring the primary reasons for the “begrudging & salty” answers, which include:

• Ignoring answers you don’t like and continuing to repeat the questions over and over again

-Twisting the responses and coming back at the respondent to disagree with something the respondent never said in the first place

• Showing no appreciation of people’s attempts to provide information, just snapping that the information offered isn’t what they wanted

-Repeatedly asking questions that they could easily answer themselves with very little effort (The origin of the acronym “JFGI”)

This thread is now over 3000 posts long and no one else posting here has managed to come close to creating the level of aggravation and annoyance generated by HLMom/Horsegirl’sMom and YankeeDutchess.

I love you. ETA: these same questions were asked and answered in the Rob Gage thread.