Quote Originally Posted by Lady's Human View Post
The issue with false charges in the realm of crimes like this is simple. If you're accused of DUI, and you beat the charges, there's little to no lingering stigma.

Someone accused of a sex crime, however, tends to carry the stigma of the accusation with them for years. Want to ruin an NCOs career? Simple, get a lower enlisted to accuse them of sexual harassment. The accusation is all it really takes, the veracity of the charges doesn't matter.
Whoa. Stop the presses, Nelly. "Beat[ing] the charges" has nothing to do with whether the crime was committed. If someone rapes a person, abuses a child, or animal, but the prosecution doesn't do its job- that means a not guilty charge is returned. That is a whole lot different than a innocent charge.

Imagine, heaven forbid, your wife was raped at gunpoint, and the prosecution failed to present a good enough case to a jury, and the jury had no choice but to find the defendant 'not guilty'. Are you going to tell your wife the crime didn't happen?

The stigma of the accusation exists in our culture for both the defendant AND the victim. Fair? Perhaps not. I don't believe the military is somehow hit harder with false charges than the rest of the population. If so, perhaps the military needs to beef up its code on 'false charges', or get better prosecutors.