The People of California v. Dana Rivers UPDATE
The People of California v. Dana Rivers UPDATE
October 18, 2022
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The case of California v. Dana Rivers started yesterday and getting information about it has been next to impossible. I posted this background piece about it last week. Much more comprehensive information on the background of the case is available at the fantastic feminist publication Reduxx here (side note: please follow Reduxx on its homepage, Facebook and Twitter; it provides some of the most comprehensive coverage of feminist news available anywhere).
All of what follows is coming to me from two individual women who have been sitting in the courtroom and doing their best to obtain information about what is going on in the trial (all information is being shared anonymously and with permission). There has been virtually no mainstream media coverage of the trial. People Magazine and The Daily Mail published some information about the case last week here and here, but I have not seen anything from either of them this week about trial updates. I hope they both will continue to report on it.
I get victim advocate notifications via email, and yesterday I received this:
Updates like this were reasonably helpful while the case was bumping along waiting for the trial to start, but they tell me nothing about what’s actually going on in the trial. All this tells me is that the court plans to entertain proceedings on Thursday of this week, in addition to Monday through Wednesday.
We were told at one point that the trial would be livestreamed, but it seems now that is not the case. I don’t know enough about this particular court to make any guesses as to whether that is typical or not.
Here is what I received yesterday afternoon via Twitter DM from one of the women sitting in the courtroom:
Just spoke with the court reporter - they are getting started today at 1:30, going to be motions. Jury selection begins next week. Opening statements will take place on Halloween. Will most likely not be able to watch jury selection - courtroom is small and pool will take up all of the space.
This makes sense to me. It is saying that they are doing pretrial motions this week. Each side has an opportunity to file pretrial motions about the types of evidence they will be able to present and the types of arguments they will be able to make. The motions will be argued and the judge will enter rulings. All of this is normal for a criminal trial, so everyone knows what to expect before they are actually before a jury.
Jury selection will begin next week, and the court reporter is saying that there probably won’t be room for spectators. This makes sense too. The jury pool will sit in the main area and the actual jurors will be selected from among the pool, over the course of a week.
Opening statements will begin on Monday October 31, and as of last night, I learned that the last witness will be called December 20th. At some point after that (I assume after the holidays), there will be closing statements and then, jury deliberations and a verdict.
I will be traveling between tomorrow and next week and most likely will not be able to post any updates. Since that’s jury selection and there won’t be any room for spectators in the courtroom, I wouldn’t be likely to receive any updates anyway.
I’ll do my best to post updates once opening statements start on the 31st.
If you haven’t, please consider signing the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights. You can find the U.S. chapter of Women’s Declaration International here.
Check out my book The Abolition of Sex: How the ‘Transgender’ Agenda Harms Women and Girls, also available on Audible.