Rossman also noted that he had no control or right of control over Spierer that night. Rosenbaum added the Spierers alleged damages were caused in whole or in part by the comparative fault of Lauren Spierer.
I've been thinking about this quote and what it means to have 'control or 'right of control' over a person...
For ex. what if this was a sexual assault case, and not a missing person case...
Just hypothetically, imagine if, the morning of June 3rd, Lauren had woken up in CR's bed. The last thing she remembers is him buying her shots at Kilroys. She looks in the mirror and realizes she is covered in bruises and has black eyes. She gets home and... what? Her roommates would see her black eyes and be horrified. She would hear rumors from the night before from other people and find out that there were multiple witnesses who had seen this scene unfold -- That people had told Corey to bring her home, that there had been a fight, that he had taken her out of Smallwood, told people he was in control of the situation, and carried her back to his place.
What would have happened if she was scared/ angry/ confused about what happened the night before or if she suspected she could have been drugged and had gone to the police?
Around the same time Lauren disappeared, a student at IU was charged with sexual assault. Like this case, he was witnessed by several people bringing an intoxicated girl home. Also like this case, when people saw him dragging a girl down the street and asked if everything was okay and if the girl needed help, he answered for her and said "No, it's okay. I've got it".
He was charged with rape, sexual battery and criminal confinement. Eventually the rape charges were dropped in a plea deal, and he was sentenced to 5 years, is on the sexual offenders registry and was kicked out of IU.
http://bl-ids-website.ads.iu.edu/news/story.aspx?id=80090
So, I keep thinking about this case for two reasons.
First, arguing that one didn't have 'control or the right of control' over a person implies that they had control over their own actions, doesn't it? In the Yu case, the key evidence for the assault and criminal confinement charges seems to be the witnesses and video that showed that the victim was too impaired to be in control of herself. This led to Yu's admission in his guilty plea:
Would you agree that her level of intoxication rendered her mentally disabled or deficient? Veidlinger [the judge] asked Yu.
Yes, he said.
And that mental disability or deficiency prevented her from being able to consent to that touching? Veidlinger asked.
Yes.
This is a missing person case, not a sexual assault case, so obviously the issues are different. But if it can be established that Lauren was not physically/ mentally able to consent to being taken by CR to 5 N, I'm not sure how he can absolve himself of responsibility by claiming he had no control or 'right of control' over her a few minutes later.
Second, this case was in the news around the time of Lauren's disappearance. If you click on the IDS link, you'll see that it links up to several articles about the case. We've talked a lot about the 5 N guys fearing the consequences of their involvement with drugs if something happened to Lauren, but this case reminds me that the possibility of being charged with sexual assault could have been a real fear. Regardless of CR's intentions or what happened when they got back to 5 N, having a girl wake up in your apartment with no memory of what happened and black eyes could be really bad... especially if you knew there were witnesses who had called you out on acting aggressively/ inappropriately before you had carried her home.
Just thinking 'outloud'.... it's quiet in here!