I've long argued public promotion of 'someone being charged' is a cheap way for the police to do their job. An accusation is made and the police sit back and wait for other accusers to come to the fore. A better funded police force, with better investigatory skills should be doing exactly this job.
We had a huge problem over here in the UK with Operation Midland and Operation Yewtree, where the police went scouting for accusers in the media and found people ready to make accusations. They've paid for it in court - but the whole thing was awful at every level.
With Ellen, there wasn't even a crime committed (as far as I'm aware). That was just public bitching about someone who was a lot less nice in real life than she appears to be on TV. I'm not entirely sure I want to be in a society where every grievance you have about someone should be publicly available at all times for some sort of unspoken social contract. How do you deal with different sensitivities? If Ellen was as rude to me as it's claimed she was to others, I would've told her to go fuck herself. I wouldn't have gone home and cried or gone back to work the next day. I could argue that I was 'driven out of the job' but in reality, I have very little tolerance for asshats.
Back to the rape/sexual assault parts of the discussion. I made some general statements about changes to the British legal system on a longer article about an overturned rape conviction here in the UK. It's an interesting case and throws up all sorts of moral issues.
The story is here if you're interested.
