A Maine prosecutor has vowed to prosecute people accused of sexual assault even if there is not enough evidence to prove they committed the crime.

WGME reported District Attorney Natasha Irving said she would try to reform the legal system by prosecuting cases that previously had been deemed “too hard to prove.” She said prosecutors shouldn’t decline to take on such cases because “that response is very damaging to a survivor,” suggesting she believes every accuser is a “survivor.”

Irving serves Knox, Lincoln, Sagadahoc, and Waldo counties in Maine.

Irving also repeated the misleading statistic that just 2% to 8% of sexual assault accusations are false. The number, as I have written numerous times, refers only to cases that have been proven false. The real number is unknown. Using the same logic employed by Irving, one could say just 3% to 5% of rape accusations are true, since that’s how many go to trial and result in a guilty finding.

Irving went on to explain the two criteria she will use to bring forward rape allegations. 1. Is the allegation credible? (Judging from Irving’s statements it’s hard to see her believing many allegations aren’t credible) and 2. Is the accuser (WGME predictably calls them a “victim”) willing to go forward with the case and potentially testify?

That’s it. That’s all it will take for Irving to drag someone through a lengthy court battle even if it’s obvious they will be found not guilty. As criminal defense attorney Scott Greenfield wrote on his blog Simple Justice, Irving’s approach seems to be about smearing the accused rather than obtaining justice in any particular case:

This isn’t to say that prosecutors should reject any case that isn’t a slam dunk, but to prosecute men based on the litany of rationalizations, as proffered by the “experts” who teach the jury what they’re to believe to be fact, when the evidence at best fails to establish proof beyond a reasonable doubt is a deliberate abuse of power. Ironically, it’s the same abuse complained of by reform prosecutors in any other prosecution not involving an accusation of sexual assault. Go figure.

Irving said herself that she “would rather show a victim that we will fight for them, than [rejecting a case] because it’s too hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Right there, Irving equates accusers to victims. This bias is prevalent in campus sexual assault policies and #MeToo victimology. Everyone who makes an allegation is immediately considered a victim or a “survivor,” no matter the evidence. It turns “innocent until proven guilty” on its head and implies that since the person is being called a victim, the accused must be guilty.

“We don’t want law enforcement or prosecutors to ever think that something is a ‘he said she said,’” Irving added.

But many if not most allegations of sexual assault are a “he said, she said” situation.

Greenfield explained what the result will be of Irving’s #MeToo style “reform”: