Missoula : rape and the justice system in a college town

I found this to be a deeply disturbing book both for its subject matter and some of the conclusions that Krakauer draws from his investigation of the University of Montana-Missoula rape crisis that crescendoed during the early 2010s.

First, I would forewarn anyone reading (and especially, as I did, listening to) this book that Krakauer investigates in sometimes disturbing detail the rape of many young women who were students at UM-Missoula. While the cases that Krakauer unpacks are extremely important and topical, many may find it off-putting and too difficult to process or endure.

The book is roughly divided into three parts. In the first, Krakauer outlines the contours of the 'rape crisis' in Missoula between c. 2009 and 2014 when many young women came forward to the Missoula police and the DA's office with allegations against male students--many figuring prominently on the college's football team. The second part describes the court proceedings for two infamous cases against Beau Donaldson and star QB Jordan Johnson. In the former, Donaldson plead guilty to raping a close friend during a house party and was sentenced to ten years in prison. The latter case resulted in the acquittal of Johnson primarily because the allegations rested on extremely circumstantial evidence. Finally, the third part of this book details the author's views on campus adjudication of rape, biases in the criminal justice system that harm victims and allow potential rapists to "get off the hook," and his considerations about how both college administrations and the American court system should seek reform.

I found this last section the most problematic because Krakauer adopts a radical stance on the presumption of innocence that protects the accused in our criminal justice system. Citing a plethora of cases that never reached trial in Missoula because, presumably, the DA's office was biased in favor of the Grizz football team or, generally, refused to believe young women (e.g. "Oh, she wasn't raped. She just regretted bad sex."), Krakauer advocates for American college administrations to vigorously prosecute male sexual offenders using the "preponderance of evidence" burden of proof from the DOJ's "Dear Colleague" letter promulgated during the Obama administration. His reasoning is that most rapists will face few or no consequences for their actions in the criminal justice system and, therefore, campus authorities must do their best to ensure some form of punishment is meted out--even if that, at worst, means expulsion. While all well and good, in theory, the Jordan Johnson case featured prominently in the book actually argues against using the "preponderance of evidence" standard in campus proceedings. Johnson was hauled before a kangaroo campus court, stripped of his scholarships and position on the football team over flimsy and extremely circumstantial evidence, much of which had little or no bearing on whether a rape actually occurred. Just as an example, Johnson was found guilty of having violated the campus code prohibiting sexual assault because:

“Contrary to your repeated assertion, text messages between you and the victim prove you and the victim were more than mere acquaintances.”

and:

“Your failure to attempt to retrieve your watch that you forgot at the victim’s house, despite your assertion that this watch had been a present to you from your sister.”

What? Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus indeed. A jury of his peers during a criminal proceeding subsequently acquitted Johnson of rape, and Johnson also won a civil suit against the university. The Johnson debacle is pretty much exactly why we should not presume guilt.