Duke Lacrosse Players Cleared Of All Charges
| April 12th, 2007From the New York Times:
RALEIGH, N.C., April 11 — North Carolina’s attorney general declared three former Duke University lacrosse players accused of sexually assaulting a stripper innocent of all charges on Wednesday, ending a prosecution that provoked bitter debate over race, class and the tactics of the Durham County district attorney. [...]
“We believe that these cases were the result of a tragic rush to accuse and a failure to verify serious allegations,” Mr. Cooper said at a news conference.
“We have no credible evidence that an attack occurred,” he added.
Mr. Cooper said he had considered but ultimately rejected the possibility of bringing criminal charges against the accuser, who continues to insist she was attacked at a team party on March 13, 2006, and asked him to go forward with the case. Mr. Cooper said his investigators had told him that the woman “may actually believe the many different stories that she has been telling.” He said his decision not to charge her with making false accusations was also based on a review of sealed court files, which include records of the woman’s mental health history.
Mr. Cooper reserved his harshest criticism for the Durham County district attorney, Michael B. Nifong, at one point even depicting him as a “rogue prosecutor.” [...]
The North Carolina chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. released a statement saying it respected and accepted the work of the attorney general’s office. Irving Joyner, a law professor at North Carolina Central University, who had been monitoring the case for the N.A.A.C.P., echoed that theme, saying, “Based on my personal knowledge of him and high respect of him, I accept his conclusions.”
Likewise, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, one of the largest such groups in the nation, released a statement saying it was satisfied with the attorney general’s decision to drop all charges.
A few points:
1) Race, Class and The Duke False Accusation1
(This is rewritten from a post I wrote in February.)
It’s tempting to compare the Duke case to the Long Beach Beating case and the famous Central Park Rape case of the 1980s. In all three cases, a horrible crime was reported; in all three cases, there was enormous pressure from the public for arrests and convictions; and in all three cases, police and prosecutors used biased and unfair procedures to concoct a case against a group of young people.
But let’s not overlook one enormously significant difference: The Duke players were ultimately exonerated. That doesn’t make the unjust suffering the Duke players went through all right, of course. But what we’ve seen here is that the kind of railroaded conviction of poor, black suspects that happened in the Central Park rape case, and which I strongly suspect went on in Long Beach, simply doesn’t fly when the defendants are rich and white.
I’ve seen some conservatives imply that looking at these cases shows that white institutional power — and racism — are myths. But what I see is that the system pretty much works the way it’s supposed to for white defendants, or at least for white defendants with some money; for us, the system doesn’t convict without sufficient evidence. That’s simply not true for black defendants. And that’s why comparing these cases convinces me that institutional racism is still treating non-whites like crap, and still matters, and still needs to be fought.
2) I’m still not naming names.
I’ve already had demands that I blog the name and photo of the Duke accuser, as some other bloggers have done. I’m not going to do that.2
I certainly agree that a tremendous injustice was done to these three men by broadcasting their names and images all over the country. But publishing the name of their accuser will not undo that harm. As I argued a year ago, neither the names or faces of the accuser or of the accused should be made public in criminal cases.3
Obviously, some suffering is an inevitable result of being arrested. But having your names and images broadcast on network news is not inevitable; it’s a result of an irresponsible decision made by the news media. If someone is found guilty of a crime, then the harm done by deferring broadcasting their names and faces until the trial is over is minimal; but when an accused person is innocent, the harm done to them by having their names and faces made public is both avoidable and significant.
3) Why Does The “Presumption Of Innocence” Not Apply To The Accuser?
As Marcella notes, many commenters who, a year ago, were saying that it’s wrong for anyone to believe a rape accusation without a “guilty” verdict in a court of law, are now saying that the accuser made false rape allegations.
This is obviously a double-standard. If it’s wrong to conclude that someone is a rapist before he’s had a trial, then it’s also wrong to conclude that someone has made a false rape accusation before she’s had a trial.
- Whether or not the Duke accuser was attacked, it’s clear that the three particular men put on trial were falsely accused. (back)
- Nor have I ever blogged the names or images of the three accused players, that I can recall. (back)
- I can imagine particular circumstances in which there’s a genuine public interest in knowing the name of the accused before the trial is over — for instance, if the accused criminal is a politician. But that’s not the case in the overwhelming majority of cases. (back)
April 12th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
Your coverage of this story has been exemplary in its fair-mindedness.
But you’re still a dirty hippie.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Crystal Gail Mangum is indeed innocent until proven guilty.
However, she levied accusations that the courts have deemed unworthy of pursuing.
Thus these allegations are false, as she alleged something that is not even going to trial.
Now if one were to say she committed a crime, THEN you would need to prosecute her and say she is guilty of said crime.
No, she made a false allegation. Whether she is guilty of that crime remains to be proven. It is the difference between lying and perjury. She lied. But did she perjure? Different standard.
This comment was written by Steven.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Mr. Cooper answered that question when he explained why his office decided against charging this woman with a crime. Her allegations were untrue, no sexual assault took place. As he said, the woman’s mental state was such that it was improbably that she would be held acceptable for her actions.
Here is an excerpt which you failed to note:
We approached this case with the understanding that rape and sexual assault victims often have some inconsistencies in their accounts of a traumatic event. However, in this case, the inconsistencies were so significant and so contrary to the evidence that we have no credible evidence that an attack occurred in that house that night
Link for Mr. Cooper’s entire statement
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55149
This comment was written by Michael.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
She made unprovable accusations. Unless you have evidence that clearly makes them false.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Mr. Moderator:
Please redact comment #2 - names named once again by some shit head.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Jake — in the past, I’ve done that, but I’m not sure there’s any point anymore. Her name is now being printed not just all over the blogosphere, but also in major newspapers and on TV news. I disagree with that, but it has happened.
I’m not going to blog her name myself, but I no longer see any point in editing the comments in the way I’ve done in the past.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Technically, an accusation that the courts or police elect not to pursue is not a false accusation, but an unfounded accusation. They’re not the same thing.
Michael, a statement from a DA is not the same as a trial. And having no evidence an assault occurred is not the same as having proof a false accusation was made.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
I love your point #1, Amp.
I think that some people think of racism and classism as just manifesting in how the accused is treated by police and prosecutors . . . which is one place that racism often manifests. One of the things that this shows is that even if the police and prosecutors act in an equitable (though fucked up) manner, there’s still a huge difference in outcome. That is, wealthy white folks are far more likely to be able to withstand prejudicial treatment than poorer black folks . . . and that’s racism and classism.
Steven? Very classy of you to name names after Amp’s point #2. Were I Amp, I would find that very insulting. It’s a little like smoking in someone’s house after they’ve asked you not to. Or maybe like using their forum in a blatant attempt to fuck up someone’s life after they’ve asked you not to.
I believe in the concept of innocent until proven guilty. I believe in this in part because I come from a family of defense lawyers (which also contributes to my healthy distrust of prosecutors and cops, but I digress . . .). One of the things that was pounded into my head from early on is that the defendant being found not guilty doesn’t mean that the accuser is lying. The accuser could be mistaken or could be manipulated by prosecutors, there could have been extenuating circumstances . . . there are a thousand possibilities. The same thing holds true when charges are dropped.
If the authorities believe that she lodged a false complaint, she will be prosecuted. If she’s innocent she will hopefully be acquitted, and if she’s guilty she will hopefully be convicted. Until then, chill out. Seriously.
And yeah, it chaps my ass that so many people seem to just believe in ‘innocent until proven guilty’ when it’s their ’side’ on the line, but such is the way of the world, I guess.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
I agree with the vindicated Colin Finnerty’s parents, who stated they had some sympathy for CGM. It seems that there’s enough evidence that her life has been chaotic, and sadly she seems engaged in risky sexual behavior (going by the DNA evidence) which further indicates some psychological disturbance. Whether she’s malicious or just mentally ill can only be guessed at. Nifong is the real villain, followed by the potbangers, etc., and we can go all the way down the line in a long line of villains way before CGM.
This comment was written by Joe Ty.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Amp said:
As Marcella notes, many commenters who, a year ago, were saying that it’s wrong for anyone to believe a rape accusation without a “guilty” verdict in a court of law, are now saying that the accuser made false rape allegations. This is obviously a double-standard. If it’s wrong to conclude that someone is a rapist before he’s had a trial, then it’s also wrong to conclude that someone has made a false rape accusation before she’s had a trial.
and
Technically, an accusation that the courts or police elect not to pursue is not a false accusation, but an unfounded accusation. They’re not the same thing. Michael, a statement from a DA is not the same as a trial. And having no evidence an assault occurred is not the same as having proof a false accusation was made.
If dropping the charges was the only thing that was done and said here, I would fully agree with all this. However, if you go back to the actual statement that the State’s Attorney Cooper made, you’ll find this:
I have seen charges dropped in many cases. I have never seen a State’s Attorney say that they believed someone who had been previously charged was, in fact, innocent, except in some civil rights cases going way back where the Feds started looking at State actions in the south.
If Cooper thinks that these young men are innocent, then he must believe that the accuser made false charges. Now, I had asked in the other thread why she was not being charged for at least having made a false police report. I now see that the answer is that Cooper judges that her mental state would provide an adequate defense that she was not accountable for her actions. I accept that. But false charges clearly were made. How much responsibility that District Attorney Nifong has for that will hopefully be revealed at his trial. This woman may yet prove to be a victim here, but instead of being a victim of the Duke LAX players, she may well have been a victim of Nifong.
I’m trying to think when I have ever seen a set of criminal charges result in the exoneration of the charged individuals and a trial of the prosecutor.
Oh, and what Robert said. Not that I didn’t have my hippie period ….
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
RonF, that these three men (boys? I’m not really sure of their ages) are innocent of the charges doesn’t logically preclude the possibility that someone who wasn’t one of these three men raped or assaulted the accuser.
Remember, the police used bad photo ID procedures to get her to ID these three men; the reason bad ID or line-up procedures are so dangerous is that they can lead to mistaken accusations even if the crime actually happened.
I stand by my original point: people who said a year ago that it was wrong to say that someone has committed a crime before a “guilty” verdict is rendered, but who nonetheless are now saying this woman committed the crime of making a false accusation, are being hypocritical. Saying “but the DA says she’s guilty” doesn’t cut it.
But thanks for the compliment. :-)
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
Let us see if you complain when I mention that the players Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans were pronounced innocent by the N.C. AG.
Actually, they always WERE innocent. They were NEVER guilty.
Notice I don’t resort to ad hominem name calling as you do.
Put up an argument, but for heavens sake, insults?
This comment was written by Steven.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
I’ve already had demands that I blog the name and photo of the Duke accuser,
Oh hell Amp. This is your blog, and you are not required to either meet demands or explain why you won’t. Tell ‘em to FOAD.
Myca:
And yeah, it chaps my ass that so many people seem to just believe in ‘innocent until proven guilty’ when it’s their ’side’ on the line, but such is the way of the world, I guess.
And when people complained about the rush to judgement early in this case, the supporters of this woman explained their contention that a rape occurred in one of two ways:
a) Always believe a woman who says she was raped (and this case doesn’t help that philosophy), or
b) You can believe that someone is guilty of something without necessarily being able to prove it in a court of law.
That’s why I picked
c) Let’s wait until the facts are revealed.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
Ampersand said :
Michael, a statement from a DA is not the same as a trial. And having no evidence an assault occurred is not the same as having proof a false accusation was made
Sure , and anyone can claim anything regardless of how rediculous the claim might be . In this particular case,I was not one to say that the court of public opinion should be closed n .
When I saw several Bloggers claiming that this case would be swept under the rug due to the class differences of those involved it caught my attention. I found the premise to be rediculous.Rants involving the history of slavery were only tangentially related to this case. I saw too that there were some who actually wanted these players to be guilty more than they wanted to look at the evidence in question. Even a cursory examination of the facts revealed giant flaws. Most of the who believed the accuser latched on to the notion that she had massive physical bruises as a result of being beaten. They tried to combine several old stereotypes of white males to characterize the events. As each piece of evidence unfolded it was clear to see that this woman was trying simply to avoid arrest and matters got ou of hand for her She was caught in a web of her own lies and could not extricate herslef from them .
But as each piece of evidence came in those wanting desperately to hold on to the notion these kids were guilty tried to look for explanations as to how it would be possible for the accuser to be telling the truth rather than looking to where the evidence most likely pointed . People had a vested interest in believing what they wanted.
Most of my posts were made at Rachel’stavern where I correctly predicted most aspects of the case. I clearly stated that the case would not go to trial and that the players would be vindicated. The facts were clear. There was no way the woman could present her case in court. Several people held to the notion that Nifong must have had something that he wasn’t telling. Understanding the legal system (many layers in the family) I knew that not to be the case. In addition, I knew where this woman worked and what she had done prior to showing up at the party. I stated at Rachels blog that her involvement with her prior clients that afternoon would easily explain the minor swelling noted by the nurse following her arrest.
Without getting into other particulars let me just say the evidence was overwhelmingly against her. The case had no chance of going to court. Some might try to hold on to the sliver of possibility that something may have happened to her but that is simply once again turning away from the clear evidence.
You won’t see this woman attempt to sue the players in civil court where the burden of proof is much lower. She wants no part of a jury trial. This woman’s case is a sad one. But it has nothing to do with how race and gender intersect. Rather it has to do with poor choices in life and their consequences. Crystal will long be remembered as Tawana Brawley Redux .
This comment was written by Michael.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
But what I see is that the system pretty much works the way it’s supposed to for white defendants
Going through what these 3 young men and their families have gone through this last year is not the way the system is supposed to work. The way the system is supposed to work is that the DA follows proper, established procedure in investigating crimes and does not bring charges against someone for whom there’s no evidence they committed a crime.
I say there was racism here. Yes, it’s unusual that racism has this kind of effect on white individuals. That makes it no less racism.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
[...] Amp brings up a good point about all of this too. I’m more skeptical about the innoncence of these men than he seems to be, but his point about institutional racism is right on. 1) Race, Class and The Duke False Accusation1 [...]
This comment was written by Slant Truth » Thoughts on the Duke Lacrosse Players Being Cleared.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
I suppose in the ideal misogynist world, a woman would never make a rape accusation unless she is sure that the defendents will be found guilty, or she’s going to jail herself.
Which would make rape de facto legal, since no one can guarantee that she will have a rock solid case, especially in an environment where rapists can be found not guilty even with the crime on videotape.
So either the people who scream for prosecuting victims who fail to get justice either are stupid or want rape to be legal.
Probably both.
This comment was written by Amanda Marcotte.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
RonF said :
I now see that the answer is that Cooper judges that her mental state would provide an adequate defense that she was not accountable for her actions. I accept that.
Correct with one distinction. At the time of the event she had taken more medication than was at first supposed. She had also imbibed more than originally believed. Both her own recollections and that of her driver. In addition to this, she had taken something to relax herself so that she could get over her anxiety of dancing infonet a group. It is also known that she has several prescribed medications for a mental disorder. There is a question as to whether she took those medications which were prescribed. Any combination of the drugs which she has known to have taken along with the alcohol would have put this small woman in a really bad state. The absence of the medication prescribed for her mental illness would have been even more problematic. I have a feeling this will be in the documentation Mr. Cooper will be releasing next week.
This comment was written by Michael.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Based upon her claims, yes it does.
None of the evidence. NONE, warrants charging those three. The AG of N.C. said so.
What part of that do you not understand?
She did not claim that someone *else* raped her, she claimed it was some of the lacrosse players, at that party, on that evening, in a given time window that SHE claims. She made detailed claims, which I will not repeat here. She made them. Not Nifong. She stuck to those accusations of rape against the lacrosse players, and the lacrosse players alone.
When the s*m*n was collected she did not say that someone else, who belonged to that semen, raped her, at some other place or date or time. She continued to claim it was one or more of those Young Men (all 19 and older).
You are lightening quick to want to hang a white man like Imus out to dry, but when the innocence of 3 railroaded white men is demonstrably upheld, you are reluctant to recant.
“…doesn’t logically preclude the possibility that someone who wasn’t one of these three men raped or assaulted the accuser.”
I don’t know who it was who first observed this, but they certainly are correct in this instance:
Many White Liberals exhibit explicit signs of self race hatred and self-loathing.
AKA bias and prejudice against people who look like them, only because they have white skin.
Yes Amp, I *am* referring to you.
This comment was written by Steven.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Can I just throw in here quick that I admire Ampersand (although I disagree with her ideas on everything) for allowing posts like Michael’s to remain on her blog? It shows she has some integrity (unlike most left-wing bloggers- including Amanda Marcotte above- who wrote that the lax players committed rape and then rushed back to delete it).
This comment was written by Joe Ty.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
Amanda actualy wrote :
So either the people who scream for prosecuting victims who fail to get justice either are stupid or want rape to be legal.
Probably both.
Amanda , that comment wreaks of massive denial . But you are wrong on all the facts . NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON asked that a VICTIM be prosecuted . Not one .
This comment was written by Michael.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
Yes, Ampersand is not afraid of contrary opinions. Nor am I. As a matter of fact, I fear the absence of them.
This comment was written by Michael.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
No one wants to make the world ‘the ideal misogynist world’.
How about this:
If a sexual assault, rape, harassment, etc. charge is levied, the identities of BOTH Plaintiff and Defendant are withheld.
-If the defendant is acquitted then the accuser is named.
-If the defendant is found guilty, then they are named.
No Amanda, it would not. In your hypothetical, those who are guilty and can be proved as such would be incarcerated. Thus rape would not be legal.
Unless you are arguing that if only one woman anywhere loses her case is then equivalent to rape being de facto legal.
You are incapable of rebuttal without levying an insult.
*are stupid*
I am not stupid and I do not wish rape to be legal.
No Amanda, those who insist that we prosecute those who falsely accuse (not _victims_ they cannot be a victim unless the crime was proven to have occurred), like myself, want justice for all, regardless of the sex of the accused.
It is called accountability.
Currently we don’t have that, and Amp’s insistent refusal to name the accuser is a symptom of that. That isn’t fair, it isn’t justice, and it isn’t right.
This comment was written by Steven.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
StephenSteven, quoting me, wrote:Steven, is there some typo or a missing word or something in what you wrote here? Because your argument doesn’t make sense.
Nothing in what I wrote is contradicted by what you wrote. That there is no evidence which warrants charging those three does not logically mean that no crime was committed; nor does it preclude the possibility that someone other than those three assaulted or raped the accuser.
I already suggested a mechanism by which a false accusation could have been made (the bad police ID procedure). That such procedures can produce sincere, mistaken IDs is well-documented in criminology journals.
It’s also possible that she made a malicious false accusation. I do not deny the possibility, nor do I blanketly criticize people who have come to that conclusion. I merely point out that if you were one of the people who said “what about presumption of innocence!” when the three Lacrosse players were the ones accused, then you’re a hypocrite if you don’t say the same thing when the accuser is accused of a crime.
Back in 2006, I wrote that if I were on the jury at a trial of the three accused Lacrosse players, I would vote “not guilty.” I stand by that opinion, not because I care what you think of me, but because I think it was the right opinion to hold. What more do you want from me, exactly?
Finally, regarding the accusation of my being a self-hating white, I think that if you had more substantial, logical arguments to make, you wouldn’t have to resort to personal attacks.
[Edited to fix wording and correct my misspelling of Steven's name.]
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
You know, what, bucko? It’s his blog, not yours.
It takes a hell of a lot of gall to some into someone’s house, presume to insult him, smear shit on the walls, and tell him what to have for dinner.
Amp didn’t blog the names of the accused, which I think was the right and moral thing to do.
He’s not blogging the names of the accuser, which I also think is the right and moral thing to do.
Relax and have a little courtesy. You’re a guest.
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
Jo, thanks for the compliment.
Nonetheless, I must remind you that personal attacks on other comment-writers here, including Amanda, are against the rules of “Alas.” Please don’t do it again.
(And for the record, I think Amanda has loads of integrity.)
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
Steven wrote:
I disagree with this, because the implication of this rule is that having ones name revealed is a sort of punishment, and therefore that accusers can rightfully be punished when defendants are acquitted. However, punishing someone who has not been tried, and who has not had the opportunity to present a defense in court, is wrong. It goes entirely against the core of “innocent until proven guilty” to punish someone without giving them the opportunity for a trial.
I think that the defendant at a trial should be named against her (or his) will only once the trial is over, and only if they’ve been found guilty. The accuser at a trial should never be named against her (or his) will. If the DA thinks an accuser should be punished for making a false allegation, then let the DA prove it in a courtroom.
[Edited to add in the phrase "and only if they've been found guilty," which was actually pretty important.]
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
Thus these allegations are false, as she alleged something that is not even going to trial.
Steven, you have zero understanding of how the criminal justice system works.
For starters, an accuser in a criminal case is not the “plaintiff”.
Shall I go on? You’d probably be better off sticking to your real thesis, “women who cry rape are probably liars”.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
RonF:
I agree with your choice.
When I said that it chapped my ass that people only seemed to believe in ‘innocent until proven guilty’ for their side, I meant it for both for the supporters of the accuser and the supporters of the accused.
This is serious shit, and we’re all ignorant bystanders.
God knows the system isn’t perfect (or even close) but it beats ‘trial-by-torch-and-pitchfork’ by a hell of a long way.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
RonF wrote:
Point well taken.
Nonetheless, I think it’s still true — and I think this case illustrates — that it’s much easier to railroad poor black defendants than well-off white defendants.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Is it more a case of rich and poor versus black and white?
This comment was written by Beanboy.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
“If it’s wrong to conclude that someone is a rapist before he’s had a trial, then it’s also wrong to conclude that someone has made a false rape accusation before she’s had a trial. ”
That is ridiculous. In such case, all accusations of any crime should be forced to go to trial, despite evidence or lack thereof? They may have flown in Soviet Russia, not here.
This comment was written by Bernadett Kojnok.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
How about this:
If a sexual assault, rape, harassment, etc. charge is levied, the identities of BOTH Plaintiff and Defendant are withheld.
If you were around when this case was first being discussed here, you may have noticed that I was a proponent of this idea. I’m also fairly sure I put forth such a suggestion online years before this case, but I don’t know where.
You may have noticed that I have not mentioned the names of the lacrosse players nor the hired dancer. Further, it is custom not to reveal the name of the victim (or alleged victim) of sexual assault while that custom does not currently exist for the (alleged) perpetrator of sexual assault. Thus, while complaints about revealing the alleged victim’s name will be taken seriously so that even the halfway measure of current custom will hold sway, no such thing will happen if I ask that some random shithead’s comment be redacted to eliminate mention of the alleged perpetrator’s. I hope that answers your question.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Ampersand: Regarding your statement that it would be easier to railroad poor black defendents…….Yes, and even the lax 3, in their speeches once the charges were dropped, said as much. Especially Seligmann : “..it is frightening to think what they (a corrupt DA and police dept.) could do to those who do not have the resources to defend themselves.” (Personally, I think it was an admirable position to take the opportunity to draw attention to a larger issue beyond himself. This was the guy who had had his face plastered on a vigilante poster and had the New Black Panthers threatening his life). Will Durham County learn a lesson from him?
This comment was written by Joe Ty.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
I admit I don’t really understand the hairsplitting that I end up seeing about this case after the AG’s statement. Truth is a boolean, isn’t it? If something isn’t true, then it’s false by definition in objective reality. When people refer to the accuser as a false accuser, that seems like a proper definition to me. She made accusations that were patently false. She may have believed them herself whether due to delusion, mental health issues, psychoactive substances or whatever, but her accusation that those three specific men raped her was untrue. Objecting to people calling her a liar on the otherhand, might be a bit more defensible but false accuser seems to be simply a statement of facts.*
*Unless you’re one of those people who despite all the evidence still think that the three players accused did rape her pretty much as she described.
This comment was written by Henwy.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
So the 3 men whose names were spread all over the media were not punished by this? So men who are falsely accused are not punished by events similar to this?
Their reputations were ruined, their family finances severely strained by $3million in attorney costs, their lacrosse season was called off, their coach dismissed, they were suspended, their teachers wrote a letter vilifying them…
What exactly *would* you consider punishment?
These men were the recipients of multiple aspects of accountability for wrongful actions; wrongful actions they did not commit. They have borne the brunt these negative consequences, yet they did nothing to warrant being responsible for said consequences.
If reaping negative consequences in retribution for ones actions isn’t punishment, then I do not know what is.
They were punished by these consequences, and they were NOT tried.
Thus they were guilty until proven innocent, as many touted over the past year.
So why do they get punished, but she does not? Why is it acceptable to punish them via the ways listed, but it is not acceptable to simply publicly cite her name? Why is she the recipient of anonymity, but the men are not? Why are they accountable and she is not?
What is it about her that she is the benefit of a superior moral stance and the men are not? Why is she - or any woman who accuses - worthy of such a superior moral position?
This woman needs to be held publicly accountable, regardless of excuses of mental illness.
She deserves to be treated just as the men were. Their punishments were not in the court of law but in the court of public opinion.
Hers should be as well.
This comment was written by Steven.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
[...] Extras: Porn for Designers How Stella Lost Her Damn Mind Marvin Gaye’s Anthem Duke Lacrosse Players Cleared of All Charges Thoughts on the Duke Lacrosse Players Being Cleared Warren Chisum and “Women Who Try Things On Their Own” Itty Bitty Titty Committee, the movie [...]
This comment was written by What I’m Reading When I’m Not Busy Doing Twelve Zillion Other Things at Faux Real.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
One thing that people really do have to admit is that these three ended up suffering harm quite a bit more than average due to the media frenzy. Crime is usually ubiquitous enough that most people indicted by the criminal justice system still have almost complete anonymity. In this case, these three men were hoisted up as epitomes of racism, sexism, and whatever other -ism that someone with an ax to grind could come up with. Heck, Jesse jackson and the black panther party came down and marched around to put the knot on the bow. It’s unlikely they’ll ever be able to go through life without an asterisks by their name no matter what they choose to do in the future.
This comment was written by Henwy.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
This woman needs to be held publicly accountable, regardless of excuses of mental illness.
Yes! Someone must be punished because the DA was an unscrupulous fuck who saw the opportunity to use this to boost his chances at reelection. And that someone should obviously be the exotic dancer! Not only that, mental illness should never be considered a mitigating circumstance in any situation, criminal or otherwise. Neither should age! Whether you are 8 or 28 or 82, murder is murder and you should receive exactly the same punishment.
/disbelieving sarcasm
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
As others have pointed out, there’s a whole “presumption of innocence” thing missing from one side of this. The logic here is:
-dog forbid the accused is slandered in the press before he’s had his full day in court, and
-since the accuser isn’t likely to have a day in court to wait for (what with “lacking sufficient evidence” not being a crime and all), it’s imperative that we do our utmost - hell, let’s make it a law! - to slander the accuser in the press.
Leaving aside the reasoning behind making “being named” the big threat [somehow the connection between names and addresses comes to mind], this line of thinking makes perfect sense if you think that denying men’s right to sex-on-demand(-or-force) is a crime against humanity and see rape trials as similar to getting caught with one’s hand in the cookie jar.
This comment was written by defenestrated.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
In a purely mathematical sense you’re right, Henwy. We’re not talking about math, however, and in a legal sense, ‘making a false accusation’ implies deliberate choice, rather than confusion or coercion.
Think of it like perjury. Perjury is ‘making false statements before the court,’ right? Well, no . . . because then saying things that you believe to be true (but are not) would be perjury. Perjury is ‘knowingly making false statements before the court’.
As others have pointed out, it seems likely that the real villain here is Nifong, and from everything I’ve heard, both confusion, coercion, manipulation, etc., likely came into play in producing her accusation against these three specific students.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Oh Hallelujah Amp!
This comment was written by Steven (an earlier one).Thank you for #2
Finally, the truth will set us all free.
Hallelujah!
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April 12th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
Amp:
RonF, that these three men (boys? I’m not really sure of their ages) are innocent of the charges doesn’t logically preclude the possibility that someone who wasn’t one of these three men raped or assaulted the accuser.
True. But the false charges I’m talking about are those that involved these three young men. As I have stated repeatedly she may well have been assaulted by someone else (although the State’s Attorney statement that there is no credible evidence that any such attack took place now casts grave doubt on that), but the issue of false charges involves the allegations against these three young men in particular, not a general allegation of assault by unnamed persons.
These young men were college juniors and seniors when the incident occurred, so they’d be about 20 to 22. Young men would, I think, be the appropriate term.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
Amp:
Saying “but the DA says she’s guilty” doesn’t cut it.
Saying that “since the State’s Attorney says she’s guilty, then she must be guilty” assuredly doesn’t cut it, and would be especially hypocritical if one had said “just because the DA says those young men raped her doesn’t mean they did” earlier in this case. OTOH, saying “If the State’s Attorney says she’s guilty, why doesn’t he charge her” is a legitimate question (that has since been answered).
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
She deserves to be treated just as the men were. Their punishments were not in the court of law but in the court of public opinion.
So the death threats, harassment, and so on were not in themselves wrong–they were just pointed in the wrong direction, is that it?
Funny how Steve is more interested in punishing the accuser than Nifong. But then, he’s a man.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
Yes, the accuser does bear some blame for this whole fiasco because her recounting of the alleged rape varied wildly from the very beginning. But do I believe that she should be criminally prosecuted? No. Because I don’t think that this woman had malicious intent.
The bulk of my ire is reserved for DA Nifong, who should have never let this mess get as far as it did. Nifong should have been worried by the different stories the accuser told of what happened that night–she was assaulted by 20 men then only 3, no condoms were used and then there were condoms used, she was sodomized and then she wasn’t. While examining evidence, questioning witnesses, delving into the alleged victims questionable past and present, Nifong should have recognized that this case would not-no, could not-go forward. He should have encouraged the accuser to get help. But nooooooo, instead Nifong allowed himself to become a puppet of the folks who wanted to make these into a national headline about race, class, and privilege when the only thing he should have been concerned about was justice.
This story was allowed to play out for this long because Nifong lost control and didn’t know how to regain it. The bulk of the blame should be laid at the feet of Nifong and I hope he pays for the mess he created.
This comment was written by Jamila Akil.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
Mythago
On the other hand you don’t think she should be treated with kid gloves just because her class/race/gender do you? What ever Nifong did, it all started with her accusation. If she knowingly lied should she be held accountable?
This comment was written by FormerlyLarry.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
If she knowingly lied should she be held accountable?
If there is enough evidence that she knowingly lied for her to be charged with perjury and making a false report to the police? Yes. Or by “held accountable” did you mean the extrajudicial harassment and threats that the accused lacrosse players suffered? Do you think that it is “kid gloves” to say gee, maybe vigilante justice isn’t a good idea for her either?
Let’s not forget that Nifong didn’t merely let this case roll along: he concealed exculpatory evidence from the defense, and he apparently played rather fast and loose with identification. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the accuser’s story was shaped more than a little by Nifong, either.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 9:37 pm
That might be the case. He certainly became the maestro in that malicious orchestration. But no, I was talking legally not about being lambasted in the media like the Duke students were.
This comment was written by FormerlyLarry.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
The DA used her testimony, her accusations, her version of events.
If she doesn’t accuse, this doesn’t happen, Nifong has nothing to trump up and use for political purposes. Thus she should be held accountable.
This comment was written by Steven.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
Cooper’s being interviewed on 60-minutes. CBS released a snippet of the interview and it’s pretty remarkable. The accuser is mentally disturbed beyond what has been suggested seems to be the takehome point. Her stories seem to be nothing short of delusional. I simply don’t see how anyone who spoke to her would have failed to notice that sort of disconnect with reality. I mean, jesus, a levitating gang rape?
“He says contradictions in the accuser’s earlier statements clearly indicated that an attack never occurred, but neither Nifong nor his staff challenged her. “We don’t think that any of these tough questions were asked of her,” says Cooper. What’s more, says Cooper, the accuser’s story continued to change as his investigators talked to her. “We started out knowing we had a problem…and the way it turned out, it was much worse than we thought.” Cooper’s team also thought she was possibly inebriated. “Our investigative team who was to meet her that day believed that she was under the influence of something.”
Among the new stories the accuser told was a fantastic account of the rape in which she contradicts the account she gave Nifong that led to him dropping rape charges back in December. “She was suspended in mid air and was being assaulted by all three of them in the bathroom,” Cooper recalls the accuser saying. “And I’ve been in that bathroom and it was very difficult for me to see how that could have occurred.” Cooper’s investigators were shocked by the situation. “A number of them said to me, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this.’ It was amazing how she could continue to tell different stories.”
When the accuser was confronted with pictures from the night of the party that contradicted her statements, she answered irrationally. “It was usually that the picture was doctored or ‘that just can’t be true,’ or ‘Duke University paid someone off,’” Cooper says. The accuser has a history of mental illness and Cooper and his staff viewed her medical file; he refuses to reveal its contents, but says he believes the woman is getting help.
Cooper says he used the word “innocent” to describe the three young men “because it wasn’t a situation where it was just insufficient evidence… because what had gone on for so long was a tragedy. It should never have happened.”
This comment was written by Henwy.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
If she deserves the right to privacy, then he does as well.
My reasoning has NOTHING to do with the supposition that”… one thinks that denying men’s right to sex-on-demand(-or-force) is a crime against humanity.” This is a mis-characterisation of my point that approaches intellectual dishonesty. You disagree and then suppose the most hysterical and emotional scenario possible, regardless of its connection to my point.
If the crime is prosecuted and proven, and 90,000 rape cases are in the U.S. each year, then he is named. It is good for society to know who the rapists are.
If the crime is prosecuted and not proven, and many rape accusations in the U.S. are not, then she is named. It is good for society to know who raises unproven allegations.
I merely call for rapists to be named, and the accused to not be.
I merely call for the proven victims to remain anonymous, and those who accuse and lose to be named.
Those who levy non-rape false allegations are a matter of public, searchable record, and they are innocent of a crime.
Those who levy false allegations should be held to the same transparency.
This is merely an administrative detail, to reveal who was on the docket.
This comment was written by Steven.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
To recap, Steven, you believe that in a rape prosecution, if the defendant pleads or is found guilty, then the accuser is telling the truth; otherwise, it’s a summary conviction of the accuser for perjury. And the punishment for that perjury is death threats and harassment.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 12:04 am
Heh, Steven, you’re really killing me here:
My reasoning has NOTHING to do with the supposition that”… one thinks that denying men’s right to sex-on-demand(-or-force) is a crime against humanity.” This is a mis-characterisation of my point that approaches intellectual dishonesty. You disagree and then suppose the most hysterical and emotional scenario possible, regardless of its connection to my point.
re the wider discussion, these (ok, all) binaries are bullshit. before, either you knew for fucking sure that the duke lax players were guilty, or you knew for fucking sure that the accuser was a lying slut. now, either it was all a giant misunderstanding or the slut needs to pay. i think that people on both sides can actually manage to agree with that premise, and no one seems to like it. yet we keep arguing within it.
the bogus prosecutor, with all his bogusosity (is too a word), took the case of someone who increasingly appears to be ill, defied legal ethics, and ran with it in order to serve his career. the rape apologists who want to make this case their holy grail of arguments fail to notice that the only person who stood to really gain by knowingly making a false accusation was the prosecutor, who’s un-coincidentally not a woman and who, rather ironically, is probably never going to have this case thrown in his face as categorical proof that he’s lying - unlike the bashing that pretty much every single woman who ever brings up the topic of rape, either in a personal-experience or an abstract-discussion way, is going to get at some point or another.
if he had won the case, his career would have been hugely bolstered, while the accuser would not be any better off in any real sense. having the case dismissed, on the other hand, carries only minimal consequences for him (can’t win ‘em all, right?) but makes it easier for all wannabe rapists to shut down survivors’ voices.
for some, shutting them down isn’t enough; they want names, they want personal info. Steven said “If she deserves the right to privacy, then he does as well,” but people here have told him repeatedly that that’s not in dispute. Everybody’s privacy should be respected, and nobody’s arguing otherwise that I’ve seen. He doesn’t hear, though, because it’s not useful to his narrative, which ends with the Blameless Men being left the hell alone and the Lying Whore getting what’s coming to her.
This comment was written by defenestrated.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 12:06 am
I notice that she doesn’t actually name any. I certainly recall a lot of people a year ago calling for the defendants to be presumed innocent, and I was one of them. I can see a lot of people denouncing the complainant now as a false accuser. I would be hard pressed to match, on an individual level, those speaking back then, with those speaking now.
But what of feminists? Back then, (not to mention much more recently) I saw many feminists calling these innocent men rapists. More recently, as the winds of public opinion, not to mention the evidence, turned against the complainant, I’m hearing many feminists saying that it is wrong to rush to judgement, because, y’know, it hasn’t been proven that no assualt took place.
I couldn’t say for certain whether the feminists who are saying this now are the same individuals who rushed to judgement back then. But I’m pretty certain I never saw them complaining about feminists rushing to judgement, because I don’t recall any accepted feminists doing this. (Cathy Young did, but you do not accept her as a feminist.) You in particular declined my invitation to criticise Marcotte’s slander.
Within feminism, rushing to judgement against those accused of rape appears to be acceptable, but rushing to judgement against those who appear to have made false accusations isn’t. I think that makes your house a little too transparent for you to be lobbing stones at other people’s double standards.
Moreover there’s a considerable difference in moral standing between the two sides. There was never a time when the information available to the public strongly indicated that an assault had taken place, let alone that the three accused were guilty of it. Now we have a very strong indication, in the form of an extraordinary announcement by the Prosecutor, not only that the three defendants are innocent, but that all the men at the party were innocent, because no assault took place.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable, now, to call her a false accuser.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 12:10 am
“pretty much every single woman”: ‘every single’ woman, not every ’single woman.’
Sometimes I wish we spoke in math. Then I could’ve phrased that as “(every single) woman,” not “every (single woman),” and not forced the poor little quotation marks into that role.
This comment was written by defenestrated.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 12:36 am
I have no real data to back up what I’m about to say. I don’t know who said what.
But in my binary setup, I saw feminists who argued A but not B. Now I only see feminists arguing B, none arguing A.
Now, I’m not saying that I took the time to read what every feminist everywhere said, but I think it’s clear to all of us that it’s the feminists’ fault.
This comment was written by defenestrated.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 1:44 am
*fangirls Defenestrated*
*
Oh, wait, was I supposed to generate content and not just fangirl?
I don’t feel like I can respond to the Duke case in eloquent soundbites, and writing much more only opens cans of worms. It’s a tangle, for me.
What I find most shocking is not even the case itself, but the vitriol it released - the people just waiting for an opportunity to slam poor black women, to slam sex workers, to rip into this woman as if they were starving dogs and she raw meat. Very like that, in fact, given the recent rash of men discussing women’s bodies in just such a fashion.
The facts of the case are almost irrelevant in the face of that onslaught. That hatred had nothing to do with whether these boys were guilty — and they aren’t — because none of us had enough facts to work with to determine that from the beginning. They were just sheer hate, and deeply saddening.
I think it’s impossible for me to discuss the Duke case without discussing that — without looking at how the society is so poisonous, our reactions so overblown and uncontrolled, that the rape is less a crime than an organizing symbol, a way for… for what?
Some kind of catharsis, but not a kind I understand.
This comment was written by mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 3:36 am
Following mandolin’s comments: This is really the only reason I can see for the extensive and widespread media coverage of this case. Granted, there are sensational elements of race, class, a stripper and college athletes; yet none of these factors justifies to me the insistence by TV and radio commentators and news shows on registering opinions of the case until it was either dismissed or went to trial. Liberal and conservative pundit-types felt absurdly confident in pronouncing innocence or guilt, in reviling the accuser or in running to her defense.
Two important principles should have been respected by both the prosecutor and the so-called MSM:
1) Rape is a crime. Anyone reporting said crime should be respected and their claims taken seriously by police. They should be scrutinized for internal consistency and for meeting the facts. The first job of police is to determine if a crime has taken place at all.
2) Everyone is innocent until proven guilty. I don’t think one can stress that enough. It’s fundamental to our system of justice.
I don’t believe these principles are incompatible. Provided everyone keeps a cool head, the facts should speak for themselves.
However, as mandolin observed, hotheads took over from the get-go, making the situation worse; in my view, they contributed to the intense atmosphere surrounding the case and encouraging the so-called rogue prosecution. No one had any business trashing the reputations of either accuser or the accused. Fortunately the innocence of the latter has been confirmed. Yet this case is still incredibly sad, given the N.C. A.G.’s strong implication that the accuser suffers some form of mental illness — which, if true, deserves our compassion, not the heap of scorn laid on her from the moment she made the accusation.
This comment was written by Kevin Moore.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 4:16 am
I can run to the defense of Mary Doe — and I do — without implying that there should be no trial.
There was a trial. It sounds like things got buffaloed up from A to Z.
But I think Mary Doe should have been treated with dignity from day 1. No one should ever have felt the need to impugn her for her race, her sex, her employment, her number of children, or her willingness to report a crime.
When I say I support Mary Doe, in many ways that’s what I mean. I support her dignity. I support her dignified treatment. I support people respecting her, and giving her claim the respect they would give to a less politically charged claim, and not rushing to villainize her.
The men in this case were probably villainized too. I don’t know who they are, because, to be totally honest, I haven’t been following the particulars of the trial. I don’t know who did what to who and why and what prosecutorial misconduct has to do with it. Bearing that in mind, of course, my comments are restricted in their utility.
Still, I certainly find it regrettable that these boys were made out to be villains. I’m sure it has damaged their lives.
It would be nice if both sides didn’t feel the need to make villains of the other in order to defend their own. Surely we can respect the dignity of Mary Doe without punching her attackers in the metaphorical face. Surely we can respect the dignity of the boys involved without needing to make Mary Doe into a lying (racial slur) slut.
That’s how I feel about it on a personal level.
On a political level, these people seem, to me, to cease being individuals and become symbols. On the political level, therefore, the comments about black women and strippers and whores and poor women and women with kids who are seeking an education — all these comments, coming from pundits, and we who are ignorant — all those comments strike me as much worse than any overreaction on the liberal side.
The abstraction of telling poor black sex workers that they are liars who will never be believed seems, to me, to be much worse than the abstraction of telling white men that they will be prosecuted. The latter upholds the system. The former disenfranchises an entire community.
I don’t think it’s possible to really comment on this situation without making some separations between the case as it happened to individuals, and the case as it was treated in political abstracts. Both are tragedies, but they seem to me to have different composition.
I apologize if this has wandered. I more or less wanted to respond to Kevin by thanking him for his agreement, but pointing out some ways in which we disagree.
I haven’t yet found the way to articulate the boundaries I’m trying to draw.
This comment was written by mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 4:32 am
I think I’m on the same page as Mandolin. I will say that I like really like and appreciate the statements of AG cooper because i hope they’ll allow the accused to feel vindicated and exonerated. This isn’t just out of concern for them. If the accused (everyone at that house) are still under a cloud of suspicion the only tools they’ll have to clear their names all involve attacking their accuser in one way or another.
In the same vein, insisting that ’something happened’ or that ‘only these three are cleared’. Invites an attack on the credibility of the complaining witness.
In general I think this case has as much to do with rape and rape trial in general as Heley’s comet does with tonight’s sky.
This comment was written by Joe.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 4:53 am
Balko has a great take on this that summarizes how I feel better than I’d be able to
This comment was written by Joe.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 6:56 am
First, we should separate between the “House” and “Lacrosse Team”, and the three students who were accused of committing a specific crime. We know from the events of the past day or so that the three students who were accused of a SPECIFIC CRIME are innocent of that SPECIFIC CRIME. The legal system does not judge if someone is a nice person, or a pawn of patriarchy — only that a SPECIFIC CRIME has or has not been committed. The legal system compares laws to facts, it does not deal with philosophies or belief systems or individual codes of conduct. People can’t (in theory — in reality there are all manner of injustices, but that’s beside the point) be tried for vague meanness or being pawns of patriarchy or having bad judgement or engaging in lawful acts that we find offensive.
What we do know, with absolute certainty, is that the Duke Lacrosse team hired several women (two, as I recall) to act as the “entertainment” by engaging in some collection of sexualized behaviors. This isn’t in dispute — the accuser was hired to attend the party as a striper. So far as I know, no one disputes this. She didn’t crash the party, she wasn’t there as some team member’s date, she wasn’t there because her car broke down and she wanted to use the phone. She was hired to sexually gratify the men who were there.
That alone, which isn’t in dispute, is reason enough to conclude that those three students, and the rest of the Duke Lacrosse team who attended the party, are not “nice boys”.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 7:05 am
[...] Amp brings up a good point about all of this too. I’m more skeptical about the innoncence of these men than he seems to be, but his point about institutional racism is right on. 1) Race, Class and The Duke False Accusation1 [...]
This comment was written by Taking Place » Blog Archive » Thoughts on the Duke Lacrosse Players Being Cleared.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 7:17 am
Sorry, Steven, but making rape de facto legal is something not done in the name of “justice”. Why is legalizing rape justice, unless you think that there’s nothing wrong with rape?
This comment was written by Amanda Marcotte.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 7:22 am
Unless of course you’re willing to use the standard that no crime should be prosecutable unless you can absolutely make sure that no false accusations could ever be brought forth. Which is absurd.
Unless, of course, you’re a sexist monster who wants men to have special protection against accusations by women.
Perhaps you’d be satisfied with making a woman’s testimony 1/4th of a man’s? Probably not—still too high, still too much of a threat to male privilege.
Better to make rape legal, then.
This comment was written by Amanda Marcotte.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 7:34 am
Wow. I’ll admit I didn’t follow the whole blowup with Amanda and what caused her to get pushed out of her job with the Edwards campaign, but it’s hard not to read the above and come to the conclusion it was probably a good decision on their part. That’s some of the most tortured and offensive logic I think I’ve seen yet in response to the conclusion of this case. Every one of her comments should be flagged with ’straw man’.
This comment was written by Henwy.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 8:03 am
Henwy,
Have you read Steven’s comments? If so, where is the straw man in Amanda’s comments?
If this:
I merely call for rapists to be named, and the accused to not be.
I merely call for the proven victims to remain anonymous, and those who accuse and lose to be named.
isn’t a blatant attempt to keep rape victims from coming forward, I don’t know what is. Would you consider legalizing rape to be the only way to silence victims?
That one statement alone (never mind the rest of his comments here) is a sure sign of misogyny. It seems to me that Amanda’s responses are entirely appropriate and on target in this case while you appear to be an apologist for a misogynist.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 8:27 am
Time for a reality check here. All you need to do is look at the archives of this and other sites. Early on a certain segment claimed that this was a case which proved everything they had to say about rape, gender, race, and class in this society. They latched on to the word of the accuser as if it were the holy grail. The Lacrosse team was held up as a symbol of all that was evil. I could past dozens of examples of people claiming that these students felt entitled to do whatever they wished to this woman and the nexus was racism in America. Usually this was accompanied by a lengthy historical perspective which was held as PROOF in THIS PARTICULAR EVENT.
Were there racist nutcases who latched on to this particular case to spew their brand on nonsense. Of course. But most telling was the utter denial of well reasoned comments which recognized the inconsistencies in the accusers story. Any deviation from how they wanted this story to play out was met with accusations and innuendo involving those who simply showed better acumen when it came to understanding and assessing this case.
What this case clearly showed was that some people are so invested in their own politics that they refuse to look at any situation without a filter which will inevitably blind them to reality and bring them to the conclusion they had prior to the event.
There have been a few exceptions. Henry linked to an article by Jemele Hill in which she apologized to the Duke players. Some people have shown a refusal to learn anything from these events. But those few are left twisting in the wind and looking absurd.
This comment was written by Michael.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 8:37 am
Jake Squid Writes:
April 13th, 2007 at 8:03 am Henwy,
That one statement alone (never mind the rest of his comments here) is a sure sign of misogyny. It seems to me that Amanda’s responses are entirely appropriate and on target in this case while you appear to be an apologist for a misogynist
I knew some people were having withdrawal symptoms as a result of not being able to call people apologists or misogynists.
Jake what do you call a person who says this :
Amanda Marcotte said :
In the meantime, I’ve been sort of casually listening to CNN blaring throughout the waiting area and good fucking god is that channel pure evil. For awhile, I had to listen to how the poor dear lacrosse players at Duke are being persecuted just because they held someone down and fucked her against her will—not rape, of course, because the charges have been thrown out.
Can’t a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all wound up about it?
So unfair.
Yes, how dare a rape victim act confused and bewildered like she was raped or something.
Natalia, do you know the details of the case? If so, why do you think a women enthusiastically jumped into a sexual situation with men making slavery jokes at her? Furthermore, what is your theory on why she supposedly looooooved having sex with guys holding her facedown on the bathroom floor? There’s no “if” they behaved in a disrespectful manner. We have conclusive evidence that happened.
This is about race and class and gender in every way, and there’s basically no way this woman was going to see justice. In her part of the country, both women and black people are seen as subhuman objects to be used and abused by white men.
Yeah, I know, Alon. Which is why I’m frustrated that people are pretending ‘can’t identify which one raped her” somehow equals ‘wasn’t raped’. I had some initial confusion about exactly who was assaulting me when I was assaulted, but that doesn’t mean that his hands weren’t actually where they were.
Plus, the media is acting like these men are exonerated!
This comment was written by Michael.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 8:52 am
Have you read Steven’s comments? If so, where is the straw man in Amanda’s comments?
I can only assume from your followup comments that the reason you see no logical fallacies in her statements is because you’ve already bought into them hook line and sinker. To wit, her statement that “Perhaps you’d be satisfied with making a woman’s testimony 1/4th of a man’s?” is about as clear a strawman as possible. She’s attacking a position that at no point he has taken. She also commits false dichotomy fallacy in suggesting that the choice is either to not name false accusers or declare rape to be legal. Frankly, it’d be easier to read through her comment and find portions that aren’t fallacies. It’d be a shorter list. Almost everything she has said features nothing but rhetorical hyperbole and a misrepresentation of what’s stated.
This comment was written by Henwy.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 8:53 am
Michael, I suggest that you learn how to use blockquotes. Or italics. Or regular quotes. Or something, for Christ’s sake, so that people can tell who’s saying what in your quotes without having to reread an entire thread.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 8:59 am
I call that someone who believed that the alleged victim was telling the truth. Why? What do you call that?
Also, have you noticed how a person’s life experience might predispose them to give the alleged victim the benefit of the doubt? This paragraph that quoted from Amanda might just possibly be the teeniest bit relevant to the message (that you seem to have missed) in her post:
Yeah, I know, Alon. Which is why I’m frustrated that people are pretending ‘can’t identify which one raped her” somehow equals ‘wasn’t raped’. I had some initial confusion about exactly who was assaulting me when I was assaulted, but that doesn’t mean that his hands weren’t actually where they were.
Did you not find that piece to be commenting on how the alleged victim was immediately dismissed as a liar? Did you think that it was solely an attack on the good names of the Duke lacrosse players? If so, you are clearly in error.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 9:00 am
Henwy, threatening rape victims with jail time just in case the accused aren’t found guilty is just one more - arguably the strongest - disincentive against their coming forward. Hence, de facto amnesty for rapists. Is this difficult to understand?
This comment was written by dresseuse.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 9:12 am
Henwy,
You seem to be having some reading comprehension problems.
To wit, her statement that “Perhaps you’d be satisfied with making a woman’s testimony 1/4th of a man’s?” is about as clear a strawman as possible. She’s attacking a position that at no point he has taken.
See, when Amanda asked if Steven would be satisfied with making a woman’s testimony one quarter of a man’s, she was, in fact, asking a question and not, as you mistakenly assume, attacking Steven for holding that position.
Let me give you an example of what a straw man argument would have looked like had Amanda so engaged:
Steven, on what rational basis do you advocate making a woman’s testimony worth only a quarter of the testimony of a man?
See how that works? I have stated that Steven advocates making a woman’s testimony worth one quarter of a man’s testimony even though he never said any such thing. Now, compare that to what you quoted from Amanda. Can you spot the difference? Can you see why my example is a straw man argument? Can you see why the bit that you quoted from Amanda is a question that implies misogyny on the part of Steven, yet is not a straw man argument? I hope that helps.
Your lack of understanding of the difference between asking a question (granted, one that implies that Steven is a misogynist) and attacking a non-existent position (making believe that Steven said that a woman’s testimony should only be worth 1/4 of a man’s testimony) makes your condescension pretty funny. Given your lack of reading comprehension, I’m not sure that there is any possible purpose served in engaging you other than to point out the aforesaid lack of reading comprehension.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 9:15 am
Is this difficult to understand?
Apparently it is. He isn’t talking about threatening victims with jail time; he’s suggesting that accusers whose cases are discovered to be unfounded lose their anonymity. That may not be a good idea (I don’t think it would be a good idea), but it’s hardly the same thing as throwing accusers in the slammer if their cases turn out to be unprovable.
False accusations which turn out to have been made maliciously ought to be prosecuted, of course, but that’s a tiny fraction of all cases, and “we didn’t convict the person accused” doesn’t come close to establishing a malicious accusation.
I think that in general the principle of believing those who say they were victimized is a good one. Few people lie about such things, and the harm done (and the disincentive to report) by a presumption of skepticism would outweigh the benefit of making it a little harder to maliciously accuse. At the same time, we have to recognize that there are some cases of malicious accusation, or (as in this case) crazy people making shit up.
The problem with Amanda’s position isn’t where she started out, which was to take a position of presumptively believing the accuser. That’s fair enough; we have to presumptively believe somebody, or presumptively assume that everybody is lying. The problem comes in when evidence begins to mount that this is, indeed, one of the relatively rare cases where the accuser is a crazy person making shit up. Amanda’s resistance to that evidence is remarkably persistent, and indicative of an emotional commitment to a defined narrative, rather than an analytical openness to data.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 9:24 am
Jake Squid writes, including various quotes:
I agree — 100% — with your analysis, if it’s a case where an accused’s testimony, and the evidence gathered by the police, fails to meet the “beyond a reasonable doublt” level required for a conviction. Definitely — publishing the names of rape victims who’s rape doesn’t have the level of evidence for a conviction will have a horribly chilling effect on rape victims who have any doubt at all that their case will result in a conviction.
But what about false accusations or malicious prosecutions? What about the not-mentally-ill woman who claims that a rape happened, when all the evidence says no rape happened? It’s no less a crime to knowingly and maliciously make a false accusation of a crime than it is to commit a crime. That’s a crime, and if that’s what happens, it becomes a double standard to say that one criminal’s identity is known, and a second criminal’s identity is not known simply because of the crime that is committed.
In the case at hand, it doesn’t seem that the accuser had criminal intent. It also seems that she was pressured by various people for various reasons. For this reason, and probably a few others in varying degrees of significance, it would seem that Nifong is now going to face the music. How much civil exposure he and the City of Durham will face remains to be seen. To say nothing of the various media talking heads. This is as it should be — it would appear that Nifong violated some number of laws and procedures, and lo and behold, he now gets to face the music.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 9:33 am
Julie,
But what about false accusations or malicious prosecutions?
We publicize those names now, don’t we? Tawana Brawley comes to mind as an example (even though she was, what? 14 at the time and has since had to change her name to avoid harassment).
What about the not-mentally-ill woman who claims that a rape happened, when all the evidence says no rape happened?
In this case we don’t reveal the name of the alleged victim. Although there is no evidence to support her allegation, neither is there evidence of false accusation. Thus, we don’t reveal her name.
It is currently the custom to not reveal the name of an alleged rape victim, even if charges are not ultimately filed and it is currently the custom to reveal the name of someone charged with filing a false rape accusation. I don’t recall anybody saying that we should not reveal the name of a person charged with filing a false accusation, so I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make with that paragraph.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 9:33 am
The suggestion made by Steven and others is that people who report rapes and do not win in court ought to be punished with our mass media version of the pillory. If I misinterpreted “false accusations” to mean deliberate false accusations, I apologize. The eagerness shown by some for punishing accusers in cases where charges are dropped suggested to me that they were assuming malice on the part of the accusers.
This comment was written by dresseuse.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 9:41 am
The suggestion made by Steven and others is that people who report rapes and do not win in court ought to be punished with our mass media version of the pillory.
That’s dubious, frankly. There isn’t space in the mass media to pillory those women. I think it’s a bit disingenous to say that an obviously physically-impossible consequence of a course of action must be the secret goal of the people advocating that course of action.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 9:44 am
I Believe Her: All I Need to Know About the Duke Rape Case, and What It Has to Do with Imus
This comment was written by Women's Space/The Margins.The woman who brought rape charges against the Duke LaCrosse players was a young, black, hardworking single mother of two small children, a veteran of the U.S. military. She was summoned to a gathering comprised of young, strong, athletic, big, r…
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April 13th, 2007 at 9:48 am
Robert,
Threatening to reveal the name of an alleged rape victim is worse than threatening with jail time in some obvious and well-documented ways. The death threats that inevitably follow, for example.
As to your problem with Amanda’s position… I think that, first, you need to look at when she wrote what she wrote. If I’m not mistaken, everything quoted of her writing on the subject took place before yesterday - the day that charges were dropped and the DA’s office stated that they believed the 3 men charged are innocent. Secondly, labeling Amanda’s resistance to the evidence as “remarkably persistent” is debatable. As many have noted, here and elsewhere, the only evidence that we heard came from the defense attorneys - hardly an unbiased source. Many people were waiting to hear from the DA before backing away from believing the alleged victim. I don’t find that position to be unreasonable. Now, if she, or anybody else, insists from this point forward that the evidence implicating these 3 men is overwhelming, then, yeah, their resistance to the evidence would be notable.
I think that there has been room, almost from the beginning of the publicity on this case, to have good faith disagreements on what happened. There is still room, but I don’t think that there is much question that there is currently no evidence to support charges against the 3 men accused.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 9:48 am
There isn’t space in the mass media to pillory those women.
How exactly does the current fallout not indicate that there will be both space and time for it? Or maybe that room is just reserved for poor black women who accuse rich white men. Obviously somebody thinks that outing accusers will cause *some* kind of epistemological ripple, otherwise they wouldn’t be so enthused about the prospect.
This comment was written by dresseuse.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 9:50 am
Jake Squid Writes:
April 13th, 2007 at 8:59 am I call that someone who believed that the alleged victim was telling the truth. Why? What do you call that?
Also, have you noticed how a person’s life experience might predispose them to give the alleged victim the benefit of the doubt
Jake ,
Amanda made that comment just a few months back, long after enough evidence had come in to cast doubt as to the accuser’s story. It shows me that Amanda is irrational and unable to look at the situation realistically. I would day that Amanda is displaying much more than giving the accuser the benefit of the doubt. There is quite a bit of difference between saying that the accuser may be telling the truth and unequivocally stating that some Duke players held her down and raped her. You know the difference between the two I hope .
This comment was written by Michael.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 10:01 am
Other than implying that I want to legalize rape, that I think doing so is justice, an that I want to make rape de facto legal, what does this have to do with my reply?
This simply appears to be an attempt to assign values and opinions to me by allusion and query. This tactic is old hat, and I for one find it, at a minimum, intellectually dishonest. Any critique of current rape law, its administration, and how the parties involved are treated is a plea to ‘make rape de facto legal’.
I will quote myself:
“My reasoning has NOTHING to do with the supposition that”… one thinks that denying men’s right to sex-on-demand(-or-force) is a crime against humanity.” This is a mis-characterisation of my point that approaches intellectual dishonesty. You disagree and then suppose the most hysterical and emotional scenario possible, regardless of its connection to my point.
If the crime is prosecuted and proven, and 90,000 rape cases are in the U.S. each year, then he is named. It is good for society to know who the rapists are.”
Where in this, or any of my comments, do you see me making a plea for legalizing rape?
I’m sorry you were assaulted, but your prejudice has sent your posts into full blown bias and sexism.
This comment was written by Steven.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 10:03 am
Threatening to reveal the name of an alleged rape victim is worse than threatening with jail time in some obvious and well-documented ways.
Quite possibly so. However, “is worse than” is not the same thing as “is the same as”. Revealing a name is not putting someone in jail; saying “you want to put these women in jail” is an outright false statement.
As for Amanda’s position, I’m sure she can and will let us know when she changes her mind. My impression gathered to date from her postings at Pandagon and her comments in other places is that she hasn’t changed her mind.
How exactly does the current fallout not indicate that there will be both space and time for it?
Come on. The last stats I saw showed something like 200,000 annual reports of rape and/or sexual assault in the US. Less than half of those result in convictions. That means there are at minimum 100,000 cases or so that would fall under Steven’s suggestion.
Tell me how the media are going to report on 100,000 separate cases in such a way that there is any discernible fallout to the vast majority of these victims, let alone a “pillorying”. They don’t have TIME or SPACE to pillory the population of a small city. They can barely keep up with the celebrity-case fringe, let alone the masses. They couldn’t do 10,000. They couldn’t do 1,000. 100, maybe, could be done - and at that, people would be sick of it on about story #4.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 10:10 am
Jake,
Sorry if I read more into what was being discussed. It read to me like you never, under any circumstances, what the name of someone who makes a false accusation published. If that’s not the case (and it appears to not be the case …) I withdraw my comments.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 10:14 am
Tell me how the media are going to report on 100,000 separate cases in such a way that there is any discernible fallout to the vast majority of these victims, let alone a “pillorying”.
It doesn’t have to be on CNN to have discernible fallout. You only need the “Podunk Plains Weekly” to mention the alleged victim’s name and, chances are, they will be forced to move out of Podunk. I think that this may be what dresseuse is getting at. If so, I think that the point is indisputable.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 10:15 am
Robert, that’s an obviously dishonest response. Nobody said that every single dropped charge would be plastered all over the news; the threat and viability of it happening - not to mention the precedents under discussion - would, I’m sure, be quite sufficient to scare the crap out of any rape victim.
This comment was written by dresseuse.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 10:20 am
Yeah, there would be a disincentive effect. I noted that in #76, as part of noting why I don’t think it’s a good idea. But a disincentive effect is not the same thing as being pilloried in the mass media. You guys are wanting to make extremely strong claims, and then backing them up with the evidence that supports the much weaker claim that you ought to be making, but which isn’t as rhetorically satisfying or attractive.
But the strong claims fail.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 10:21 am
Jake’s point is a good one, too. This frankly scary desire to publicize names of accusers comes from somewhere - there has to be some belief, or perhaps just hope, on the part of people calling for this that some sort of public shaming or worse will come out of it.
This comment was written by dresseuse.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 10:37 am
There is a HUGE difference between unproven allegations and false allegations, but here (and elsewhere in this thread) they’re lumped together.
By this standard, if (heaven forfend) I were raped and wanted to press charges, I’d better make sure to get raped in a well-lighted place, in front of as many impartial and credible witnesses as possible, while cold sober and not under medical treatment of any kind, without a condom, and heaven help me if I’d ever so much as set foot in a psychotherapist’s or office for any reason. And I’d better make sure I screamed and struggled, even if the rapist showed a weapon and threatened to use it. Otherwise not only would I be called a slut (that would happen anyway, no matter how ironclad the evidence and even if the rapist were convicted), I’d have my name and face plastered all over the media and be liable to criminal prosecution if the DA decided to go forward with the case and then couldn’t prove it in court.
This is why so few rapes are reported, and why so many reported rapes don’t result in prosecutions: most DAs aren’t about to try a case (of rape or any other crime) on evidence too thin to support a conviction. This is why rape-shield laws and policies were invented, and why feminists tend to believe women who say they were raped: the disincentives to claim rape are so strong that you’d have to be crazy or desperate to do it falsely.
The trouble arises, of course, when belief in rape claims on one side is set against the presumption of innocence on the other. I among many others would like to do both, but logically, it would seem, if you believe a woman who says “X raped me,” then you presume that X is guilty. The only way out of this one that I can think of is to translate “X raped me” into “I was raped, possibly by X.” That’s not entirely satisfactory, though, and I don’t know any good way around the dilemma.
This comment was written by Lu.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 10:42 am
The legal presumption of innocence does not apply to individual conscience. In my capacity as private citizen I can believe that Alex raped Francine because Francine says he did; in my capacity as town magistrate, I cannot summarily throw Alex in jail for life on the basis of that belief. For the state to take permanent action, it must acquire and articulate sufficient evidence that Alex actually committed the crime.
That’s how you get around the dilemna.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 10:51 am
Those who disagree with you are on to your tactics, and we simply don’t fall for it anymore. This is just your version of the question “When did you stop beating your wife?” You ask a question to a strawman supposition that you posit I may have, one that is as offensive, manipulative and emotional as you can possibly construe. One designed to arouse deep emotions of sympathy and outrage, but completely lacking in logic or reason.
Amanda, you don’t reply to my points, and then allude that “…you’re willing to use the standard that no crime should be prosecutable unless you can absolutely make sure that no false accusations could ever be brought forth..” which is not a point I have made, and is patently untrue.
Jake alludes that “…Would you consider legalizing rape to be the only way to silence victims?”
Implying that I want to legalize rape and that I want to silence victims. Untrue, again.
Amanda then goes Ad Hominem Abusive with “Unless, of course, you’re a sexist monster who wants men to have special protection against accusations by women.” Alluding that I am “…a sexist monster…” This is pure insult, attack the arguer not the argument.
Alluding that I want “…men to have special protection against accusations by women.” Also not a point I am making.
There isn’t a cogent, non-fallacious point in either post.
Just smear and volume and emotion. If your points are so air-tight and obvious, then why do you resort to smear, insults and emotional logical fallacies?
This comment was written by Steven.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 11:05 am
There are two different parties in a criminal accusation — there’s the victim of the crime, and the accused. I don’t have a problem holding both the status of the victim as a victim, and the status of the accused as “innocent until proven guilty”, in my head at the same time.
There’s no requirement that I villify the accused in order to meet the needs of the victim. If the victim has medical or psychological needs, I can meet those needs with constantly harping on how the accused is a big meanie. There’s also no requirement that I ignore the victim’s real concerns when I treat the accused as innocent unti they are proven guilty, should that be the eventual outcome. The accused has no legitimate right to have access to the victim. Indeed, it would be in their own best interest to stay as far from the victim as possible.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 11:05 am
Robert, you’re right, of course, that private individuals aren’t bound by the legal presumption of innocence. If, however, I think “innocent until proven guilty” is a good standard and want to hold myself to it, as I do, I’ll still find myself in that dilemma.
This comment was written by Lu.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 11:07 am
Threatening to reveal the name of an alleged rape victim is worse than threatening with jail time in some obvious and well-documented ways. The death threats that inevitably follow, for example.
There is a perception that its just too damned easy to ruin someone’s life (at least financially) by making baseless accusations without any consequences. It’s this perception that also generates a large following for a loser-pays rule in lawsuits. I think that most people simply want justice (however subjective that might be).
This comment was written by FormerlyLarry.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 11:11 am
He isn’t talking about threatening victims with jail time; he’s suggesting that accusers whose cases are discovered to be unfounded lose their anonymity.
Actually, Robert, if you read #36, Steven listed a catalog of the abuses the accused Duke students suffered, and summed up with “She deserves to be treated just as the men were. ”
He also thinks that an accuser is a “plaintiff”, that all criminal charges result in either an acquittal or a conviction, and that if an accusation of rape does not result in a conviction, the accuser is lying.
It’s also worth noting that the “anonymity” is one voluntarily imposed by certain media organizations. It’s not a law saying that someone accusing another person of a crime must remain anonymous. It’s also the case that any adult convicted of a crime gets their name reported–rape is not special.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 11:12 am
So the young men who hired the stripper are morally suspect, but the stripper herself is not morally suspect?
or is it::
The young men who hired the stripper are not “nice boys”, but the stripper herself is a “nice girl”?
If a young woman can be a stripper, and it is an acceptable sign of her empowerment and womanhood, then it must follow that it is acceptable for men to hire a stripper.
This comment was written by Steven.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 11:14 am
and it is an acceptable sign of her empowerment and womanhood
What, is that like in City of Heroes or LoTRO, where you get a badge?
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 11:15 am
“So the young men who hired the stripper are morally suspect, but the stripper herself is not morally suspect?”
I don’t necessarily agree that hiring a stripper is a morally suspect act.
However:
To the extent that blame needs to be apportioned, it is the person who hires the sex worker who holds that blame.
Or, more pithily: Yup.
This comment was written by mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 11:20 am
Urph –
“needs with constantly” should be “needs without constantly”
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 11:55 am
Steven says:
Jake alludes that “…Would you consider legalizing rape to be the only way to silence victims?”
Implying that I want to legalize rape and that I want to silence victims. Untrue, again.
I don’t allude to anything in the above quoted quote. I asked you a direct question. The reason I asked you a direct question, that direct question, is because your proposal is the best way, short of legalizing rape, to silence victims of rape. So, since your proposal functions mainly to silence rape victims, I wanted to know whether you considered anything other than legalizing rape to be capable of silencing rape victims.
My comment (#68) doesn’t imply that you want to silence rape victims - it fucking says that bright as day. (Airs are really much easier to maintain if you know the definitions of the words that you are using). The followup question serves the function of directly (again, no alluding or implying contained in my comment) a) asking you if you think anything other than legalizing will function to silence rape victims while b) allowing you to claim that you don’t want to silence rape victims even though that will be the major effect of your proposal from comment #52.
You are woefully ignorant about what a straw man argument is, but if you will go back and read my comment #75, you might find that helpful. It might also be helpful if you learned the difference between an alluding to something, implying something and directly addressing something.
Just smear and volume and emotion.
I’m not sure you could follow logic if it stapled a chain to your penis and tried dragging you along. Plus, that sentence of yours is one of the classic silencing tactics. “Oh, you’re so emotional. You can’t be taken seriously.” Let me tell you something. A person can be emotional and logical and that is precisely what you’re up against. People who can understand what you write, understand the consequences of your proposal, understand the common underlying reasons that someone would propose such a thing and call you on your crap. Your statements are so outrageous, misogynist and offensive that emotions will unquestionably be raised. Yet, as we have seen, heightened emotions don’t mean a lack of logic.
Now, if you’d like to calm down and take a moment to realize that the substance of your proposal about revealing the names of accusers of unproven rape has been logically addressed, we’d be happy to debate any counterpoints you might have. Really looking at the problematic issues of your proposal and calmly offering any logical or factual counters will lead to a much more productive discussion than if you continue to wildly fling about unsubstantiated emotional accusations based an a faulty understanding of moderately common terms.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 11:57 am
For being a stripper?
Damn.
MMOs sure have changed from my day.
;->
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Robert discussed one of Amanda’s posts, saying:
The problem with Amanda’s position isn’t where she started out, which was to take a position of presumptively believing the accuser. That’s fair enough; we have to presumptively believe somebody, or presumptively assume that everybody is lying.
I disagree. In point of fact, you don’t have to presumptively believe anyone, or presumptively assume that everyone is lying. What you can do is say, “I know that people are making conflicting claims, and I don’t know what the facts are, so I’ll suspend judgement until the facts come out.”
But no. People don’t suspend judgement. The accuser’s friends and family, and the feminists and socialists and the poverty pimps all started beating the drums about the evil white kids from Duke. The accused’s family, teammates and classmates, and the MRAs and racists and all started beating the drums about the crazy stripper. Now, I can understand the people who knew the accused or the accuser personally saying “Whatever they say, I believe it”. But why were the rest so unwilling to suspend judgement?
Mandolin nailed it:
To the feminists and socialists and MRAs and racists and poverty pimps these are not people; they are clubs to be used on each other, and the effect on them be damned. The opportunity to take a shot at their opponent far outweighs the humanity of the people involved. And if it turns out they are wrong, if the club becomes damaged or if it turns out they were fighting the wrong battle they just drop it, discard these people without a concern, and charge off to the next battle. Why wait for the facts? If we do that, we might lose an opportunity to score some points.
No apologies necessary. After all, maybe the particular people involved turned out not to have been guilty in this case, but enough of their class is guilty of something, so too bad. It’s another blow for the class struggle! Individuals don’t matter.
I exempt neither side from this. One side might be on the side of the angels in one case, but they’ll be on the side of the damned in the next. In neither case will they have the grace to feel or express any shame.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
My proposal is not the best way to silence victims. It would merely make their names publicly available, just as those who are accused have their names made publicly available.
My proposal does not function to silence rape victims, it serves to allow the public to know who accuses. This is accountability. Accuse away, and if you lose then someone can go and find out who levied the charge. This is done with murder, civil suits, small claims court; almost all other legal matters allow the accusers name to be a matter of public record.
I do not wish to legalize rape.
I will not answer your last question, as it is of the version of:
“When did you stop beating your wife.”
Get to logic and cease being a manipulative
Now that you have explicitly admitted that you believe I want to silence rape victims, let me state again so that you can comprehend, given your apparent limited ability to read for content and comprehension, my position on your supposition.
I do not want to silence rape victims.
Get it? Can you read? Good.
Now stop putting words in my mouth and assigning opinions to me that I do not hold.
These techniques of The Left, Feminists, etal. are old. They are emotive, rhetorically misleading, logically fallacious, and dishonest.
I do not expect better from someone who disagrees with my opinions, as many who do have exhibited these same traits. I have seen them for decades, and when I was like you I used them as well, as they have been used to shut down and manipulate debate. Leftists, Feminists, Liberals, Pro-Abortionists have all used these techniques at one time or another.
Considering the tone of that comment, you seem incapable of reasoned discourse.
Back away from the Ad Hominems and insults and step away from the keyboard.
It is not that your argument is emotional AND logical. It is that it appeals ONLY to emotion. Look to Amanda’s statements for further proof of the concept. Emotion, outrage, and more logical fallacy than one thinks possible.
Except that the underlying reason you assume is INCORRECT.
Can you read? Your assumption is WRONG. Get it? I know the underlying reason that I would propose such a thing, you don’t, and it is *not* because I want to silence rape victims, I want the names of rape accusers available to the public.
I do not want to silence rape victims.
Can you read?
This is yet another example of the massive bias filters and outright prejudice of Feminists, The Left, and people who agree with your ideas.
You cannot argue upon merit, but MUST resort to a multitude of logical fallacies, appeals to emotion, efc.
This comment was written by Steven.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Steven,
Let’s try this differently. If your sister (or mother, or wife, or aunt, or daughter, or girlfriend, or grandmother) were raped, and came forward, and lost her case due to any of the number of reasons why women who have been raped lose their cases, are you really sure that you would feel it was right and good that they should lose their privacy, and that the world be told that they said they were raped but a jury didn’t agree with them? Can you see how a woman who knew that if she lost her case, everyone would find out that it was her who was raped, might have the effect of discouraging women from coming forward and bringing cases against their rapists?
This comment was written by ADS.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
I’m thinking this out as I go, but here are some more of my reactions:
Writes RonF: “In neither case will they have the grace to feel or express any shame.”
I don’t actually feel they need to.
The level of political discourse in this nation is pretty abstracted. The Duke case is a good sounding ground for figuring out what people think.
Some people think: Black women are unlikely to get a fair shake in the justice system; it is important to voice support for them.
Others think: Bitches lie about rape to hurt nice boys.
Yeah, there’s bias in that breakdown. (Mine, I mean.)
It’s unfortunate that there are individuals involved. But the facts of the case have been irrelevant to the arguments — I think that’s what I’m trying to say here. Not only that they have been, and that’s bad, but that the arguments *aren’t about this case*.
They’re about hypotheticals of this case. “If a black woman is raped by socially priveleged white men, what should happen?” “If a stripper unfairly accuses some nice kids of rape, what should happen?”
We’re basically talking about a lot of hypotheticals, in these blogs in general — with occasional things that get to us on another level. Is it okay to send two teenagers to jail for child pornography, if they have been sending pornography to each other on private email accounts? If a woman posts a tech blog, is it reasonable for her to receive death threats? Etc, etc.
If we didn’t enjoy discussing those as abstract concepts, we wouldn’t be here arguing.
The other goal in the discussion of current events seems to be to create a mental picture of the shape of society, which will better affect one’s argumentation about abstract concepts. If you know that stranger pedophiles are less likely to assault children than members of their own family, you have a tool for understanding and judging legislation about pedophiles.
Fact is certainly more important, here. It’s important to know that the Duke boys were found not guilty because of a lack of evidence. However, facts are still contested — some take that to mean there’s a false conviction, others take that to mean - as I do - that there’s a potential that this woman was still raped.
I guess my point is, though, that at this level of discussion, I don’t think the individuals *can* matter. Even the people professing their desire for fairness, or to focus on the individual facts rather than the philosophies that underly their response, are propounding a philosophy.
We can engage our sympathy for individuals who are involved in these cases, but we’re engaging sympathy for a hastily constructed mental model, cobbled together on few facts. We judge their situations to the best of our abilities. However, our judgments should never substitute for a contextual assessment of what’s actually going on, by informed individuals involved in the situation.
That may be something damning about the way we talk about current events, but as long as they are stimulants for abstract political discussion, I don’t see how this is inevitable. The middle is just as guilty of abstraction as either “side” — or to use a less linear model, all the points on the spectrum are guilty, except those closest to the situation. It would certainly be desirable to find a way to protect individuals caught in this matrix.
But it seems to me that the abstraction of holistic events into a few comprehensible traits, in order to set up real-but-argumentatively-hypothetical scenarios, is part of the way politics has to work in a large country where there’s no possibility of a holistic understanding of all the events and people. I guess I’m just repeating Durkheim on some level here (IIRC, it’s been a few years).
This comment was written by mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
I do not want to silence rape victims.
Then why are you making a proposal that would silence rape victims?
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
And, to go one step further, tell me if you understand/agree with the following points.
1) The fact that women who come forward about being raped have their privacy and identities protected by the media helps encourage women who would otherwise be to embarassed to do so to come forward.
2) Not every woman who loses her rape case has made false accusations.
3) Rape cases are incredibly difficult to prosecute, in part because they very often come down to “he said, she said.”
4) Women (and men, for that matter) often find it very embarassing to have to admit that they’ve been raped, and would be less likely to come forward if they knew everyone would know about it.
If you can agree with all of those four points, maybe you can also conclude with me that
5) Therefore, if women know that, if they lose their cases, everyone will know that they’ve been raped, they will probably be less likely to come forward for fear of losing and having their identities announced.
Can you see how your proposal would, therefore, have the effect of silencing rape victims?
This comment was written by ADS.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
It always amazes me how so many feminists (not all, but many) will bend over backwards and engage in the most tortured, convoluted logic in order to avoid assigning any blame whatsoever to those women who are actually caught making false accusations of rape, as the accuser in the Duke case almost certainly has been. Nothing, it seems, is EVER the fault of a woman, no matter what the facts are. Even in this case, as this thread has made painfully obvious, we get a vigorous defense of this pitiful woman and sympathy for her plight, and a vigorous attack on Mike Nifong as the true villian.
Mike Nifong is most certainly A villian in this case, but far from the only one. To read some of the posts here, one would think that Nifong spent his nights cruising the streets of Durham, looking for poor black women to recruit to bring false charges against rich, privileged white boys in order to advance his career, and offering all sorts of inducements to them to do so. Get a grip, please. The fact is that no one forced, coerced, persuaded, or encouraged the accuser in this case to do what she did. She went to the police, they didn’t come to her. She claimed to have been raped. She told a fabulous tale of what happened, where it happened, and who had done it. She pointed the finger of accusation, and even as the evidence contradicted her story, and even as the plausibility of her tale crumbled, she stuck to her story and continued to push for criminal charges and a trial (while at the same time, of course, changing her story so frequently and in so many fundamental ways that she destroyed any shred of credibility she once had). Even when the North Carolina AG and his staff interviewed her after Nifong had recused himself, and even after it had become clear that there was no hope of taking this case to trial and securing a conviction, she was determined to see it go to trial and for these young men to go to prison, as even the AG has admitted. In other words, she was being malicious. There’s no other explanation. When confronted with the abundant evidence that contradicted her story or made it not just unlikely, but impossible, she confabulated more and stuck to her guns. She was a liar who had been caught in a massive lie with enormous consequences, and she did everything she could to support and maintain that lie against all the odds. Seeing these young men being sentenced to lengthy prison terms was more important to her than admitting that she was mistaken, confused, hurt and angry, or that she’d made the whole thing up, and suffering the consequences such an admission would have for her reputation. What more evidence does one need of a false accusation motivated by malice?
As for it being a false accusation, rather than merely one with insufficient evidence to support it, the statement of the AG is pretty clear on that. he stated clearly that the men are INNOCENT and that they believe that NO ATTACK OCCURRED on the accuser. What more do you want? From a legal perspective, that’s awfully strong stuff, as any lawyer will tell you.
Once she made her accusation, and got the ball rolling, there were many more villians to add to the list: the police, investigators, DA staff, and most definitely Nifong himself. BUT SHE STARTED THAT BALL ROLLING. As such, she deserves a share of the blame for this fiasco, and it’s unfair to cast all the blame on Nifong (but very telling that so many here wish to do so). Thus, the accuser is definitely A villian of this story, along with Nifong and others. Not THE villian, but one of many.
Yes, yes, I know, she’s mentally ill. But her mental illness is being used as a convenient excuse to avoid prosecuting her for filing a false report and obstructing justice. The AG just wants this case to go away as quickly as possible, and has allowed his chivalry to get the better of him. “She might actually believe” the multiple, contradictory tales that she told investigators? Oh please, give me a break. If she’s that far gone, that deluded, that mentally ill, that divorced from reality, then why aren’t people calling for her children to be taken away from her and placed in foster care while she gets intensive inpatient treatment? Aren’t they in some danger being in her care? Probably because although she might have mental health issues, she’s not that crazy, and she knows she wasn’t raped. Reading between the lines, the AG’s statement boils down to this: “The accuser is a liar and a big mess, but I want this case to disappear and I think she’s been humiliated enough, so I won’t bring misdemeanor charges against her, and I’ll use the convenient excuse that she’s crazy to preclude any criticism of my decision.”
Mental health problems are the automatic excuse offered for any woman charged with criminal or highly unethical behavior. Honestly, whenever a woman is charged with something, the “she’s crazy” excuse comes out almost immediately, from both male and female defenders. It’s tiresome, it’s a cliche, but it often works. It seems to never occur to people that such assumptions are sexist to the core, and allowing so many women to evade accountability for their actions by using the “crazy” excuse just perpetuates inequality. Infantilizing women who do bad things is no way to fight for a just, equal society!
Mental health problems very rarely prevent charges from being filed against MALE defendants, BTW. Often, men who are quite clearly batsh*t insane face criminal charges and punishments as if they were stone cold sober. But it’s different for women, as we all know. Women are special.
Do I think the accuser should be criminally charged? Not necessarily. Her life is a mess and she has been publicly shamed and humiliated, and what would putting her on probation or tossing her in jail for a few months prove or accomplish? Precious little. But let’s not go to the extreme of absolving her of responsibility for this case or making excuses for her. She told lies that could have, in a different context, caused innocent men to go to prison for decades. That is not something that should be minimized or ignored in the headlong rush to heap opprobrium on Mike Nifong, although he deserves PLENTY of opprobrium!
This comment was written by Chris.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Now that you have explicitly admitted that you believe I want to silence rape victims…
Dude, I explicitly stated (not admitted) that at comment # 68. Somehow you thought that I was alluding to it and now, at comment # 106 you finally understand that I clearly stated my position from the outset? And even then, you use the word “admit” to make it seem as if you have won some bit of this argument? Wow, that’s just sad.
Please note that I never “admitted” (as if I were hiding something) that you want to silence rape victims. I stated that your proposal does exactly that. I will, however, admit to explicitly stating that your proposal is, “… a blatant attempt to keep rape victims from coming forward…” (that quote is from comment #68 - the one that you were saying “alludes” itself - hmmm, the more I look at what you write, the more I’m convinced that you make almost no sense. Oh, well - you are an irresistible widdle twoll, so I’ll continue…)
I’m not sure that you have the ability to understand nuance and, therefore, the difference between, “When did you stop beating your wife?” and, “Would you consider legalizing rape to be the only way to silence victims?” but I’ll try to explain it in the simplest terms that I can.
There is no good answer to “When did you stop beating your wife?” Any answer implies that, at some point in the past - if not currently, you have done a horrible thing.
There are however a multitude of answers to “Would you consider legalizing rape to be the only way to silence victims?” that in no way imply that you are doing, or have ever done, a horrible thing. An example of one of those multitude of answers is, “No.” Another example of an answer to this question that in no way suggests that you are a horrible person is, “Of course not. Merely releasing the name of anybody who makes an unproven accusation of rape would serve that purpose nearly as well.”
Did that make it clear for you? I hope so. I hope this will help you to avoid using the tactics of horrible, misogynist, diversionists in the future. I hope that you will stop attempting to divert this discussion from the horrible proposal that you are making that will serve to silence rape victims. For thingssake, man, even Robert clearly stated (see his comments #76 & #90) that your proposal would have a chilling effect - and Robert will disagree with me at every opportunity.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
It’s important to know that the Duke boys were found not guilty because of a lack of evidence.
No. They were not found not guilty. “Not guilty” means that there is insufficient evidence to establish, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the accused are guilty of a crime. There is still room in that to believe that the accused did, in fact, commit the crime, but for one reason or another it cannot be proved.
However, in this case, the three young men were declared innocent; a positive affirmation that they did not commit this crime. That is much different than “not guilty”.
It was also declared that “We have no credible evidence that an attack occurred,”. This is not a positive declaration that no attack occurred, but it’s fairly presumptive of that position. In the face of that, any assertion that an attack actually occurred is based on assumptions or beliefs, not facts.
In general, yes. But not in this case. In this case these young men were specifically pilloried, held up as insensitive privileged youth who acted in a sexist and racist and privileged fashion and then tried to cover it up. It’s true that the discussions then were extended to the more abstract level, but there was quite a bit of focus on them in particular.
It was entirely legitimate to support this woman; to make sure that she was not ignored, that she got the resources to pursue her case. I have no problem with people who said “Here’s a poor black woman who has been wronged, let’s make sure she gets the resources she needs for her day in court.” Jesse Jackson is a good example of that. But attacking the people she accused, criticizing their acts and motives, criticizing the people who said “let’s see what the facts are”, etc. was not support, was not legitimate, and in the end turned out to be simply wrong.
We are now seeing all kinds of rationalizations as to why people don’t need to apologize for that. Blaming the victim (i.e., the accused Duke players) or even denying they were victims is going on as vociferously by the left as I have seen it go on from the right when discussing rape victims. I’ve actually seen “well, they shouldn’t have been at that party”, just like you’d see “well, she shouldn’t have gotten drunk at that party.” In private communications about a given feminist or two I’ve been told “this person may sometimes be over the top, but they have integrity.” Now we’ll see.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Robert will disagree with me at every opportunity.
No I won’t.
Oops. Blast!
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
I think Chris (a few posts above me) nailed it.
I know this is a left-wing site, but up to this point I didn’t believe that it was a denial-of-reality-site-to-promote-our-cause.
Or something like that. At a certain point, you just have to acknowledge reality. Then you can ignore the issue (for the cause) and move on to the points specific to your movement.
I find it a bit scary that so many left-wing sites want to deny reality. I mean really scary when I think about juries and legislation and the like.
This comment was written by Nemo.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Quick Thoughts on the Duke Lacrosse Case and Other
LGM documents what happens to innocent men who aren’t rich enough to afford top-flight legal talent and don’t have DNA evidence that can “prove” their innocence. Fernando Bermudez was ID’d in a shooting by five witnesses. The problem is they were …
This comment was written by The Debate Link.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Nemo, could you back up some of your attacks with specific quotes from my post that you disagree with, and why? Where, specifically, do you think my post “denies reality”?
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
“Nemo, could you back up some of your attacks with specific quotes from my post that you disagree with, and why? Where, specifically, do you think my post “denies reality”?”
———————————————————————
Hello Ampersand, I think I was referring to posts that came after your headline topic. I know that you can’t answer for individual posters, but I was talking about them.
This comment was written by Nemo.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
I said this earlier . Go to the archives and view the opinions when this case first became public .
Here are a few examples :
http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2006/04/03/duke-rape-case-regarding-innocent-until-proven-guilty/
At this time, unless new evidence completely changes this case, it seems clear that a brutal pack rape happened. That deserves our moral outrage, even without a court’s verdict.
What Jerelyn doesn’t mention (and perhaps doesn’t know) is that the girl was beaten up. As the girl’s father told a TV news reporter:
The man described what his daughter looked like when she was released from a hospital. “Her face was all swollen up, her jaw. She couldn’t half walk. One of her legs was hurt.”
To me, that kind of injury doesn’t sound like the result of consensual sex for anyone but an extreme BDSMer. It sounds particularly unlikely for a stripper, who depends on her looks to feed herself and her children. (Maybe the father was lying - but it would be a very stupid lie, since the police would have taken photographs…
But at this moment, the evidence that a rape took place is pretty straightforward and convincing, whereas the evidence that a false accusation took place is… I’m not even sure what it is. “A couple of 911 calls were not perfectly consistent, therefore a false accusation has taken place!” seems to be the gist of it. That’s not convincing. That’s not anything
Rachel S Writes:
April 3rd, 2006 at 6:41 am
…Moreover, some of the things they are bringing up I haven’t seen anywhere–such as the argument that she was high. The security guard at Krogers is the one who suggested that, but this woman had not idea exactly what was going on. Plus, that has nothing to do with whether or not this woman was raped.
Q Grrl Writes:
April 3rd, 2006 at 7:36 am “But the DA, Mike Nifong, seems to be going out of his way to demonize the entire Duke LAX team. ”And? The entire Duke lacrosse team has shat on the community for years — turn around is fair play
evil_fizz Writes:
April 3rd, 2006 at 8:05 am But the DA, Mike Nifong, seems to be going out of his way to demonize the entire Duke LAX team.You mean the attendees of a party where a woman was gang raped? It’s not because they’re the lacrosse team. It’s because of the crime.
decon Writes:
April 3rd, 2006 at 8:23 am
It’s because of the crime.
Your claim, if I understand it correctly, is that prosecutorial misconduct is acceptable when rape is alleged?
evil_fizz Writes:
April 3rd, 2006 at 8:35 am is that prosecutorial misconduct is acceptable when rape is alleged?I’m going to bet dollars to donuts that you have no idea what constitutes prosecutorial misconduct. It’s a legal standard, not a rhetorical flourish. And no, it’s my contention that when the authorities have probable cause to suspect that a violent crime has been committed, they can pursue the perpetrators and those who may have aided and abetted them.Try not to derail the thread 10 comments in, hm?
Q Grrl Writes:
April 3rd, 2006 at 8:38 am Decon: what part of the crime do you disbelieve? Barring non-consensual sex, what about the beating and strangulation?These men, specifically the lacrosse team, have proven, year after year after year, their willingness to engage in illegal and disruptive behavior, with little to no regard to the consequences. Suddenly, when the crimes escalate (or are finally reported) these men are innocent until proven guilty? Honey, they’ve been proving their guilt for years. Hell, they’ve already copped to criminal activity the night of the party, so I’m really not sure what “innocence” of theirs you’re trying to shore up.
geoduck2 Writes:
April 3rd, 2006 at 10:05 am What is disturbing to me is the silence. Somebody saw something at that party. But the entire team refuses to talk to the police
Charles said :
It seems to me that there are two possibilities: either everyone at the party was basically aware of what was happening and therefore chooses to remain silent rather than implicate themselves, or everyone at the party believes that someone at the party commited the rape, but that their team should be above or outside the law. I have a very hard time constructing a scenario in which every single player is remaining silent under advice of council that does not involve everyone present being aware of the rape when it happened….
They have chosen to stand with their rapist team mates rather than with the the victim and with the rest of civil society. Even if (and I don’t believe it for a second) no rape occurred and this is all the product of some bizarre conspiracy, everyone who was at that party who refuses to provide evidence to the police has chosen to stand with their rapist team mates. The choice to refuse to help the police figure out what happened has to be based in the assumption that their team mates committed rape and should get away with it. It certainly isn’t based in a rational fear that rich, white Duke students won’t get a fair trial in Durham
Thomas Writes:
April 3rd, 2006 at 11:39 am
So far, the inconsistencies that Merritt has pointed to don’t give me any pause. I think she went back into that party and got gang-raped, strangled, beaten and robbed just like she said. So far we know that she was sexually penetrated, that she had lost some fingernails, and that an (interested) witness says her face and bodily movements were consistent with a beating
Q Grrl Writes:
April 5th, 2006 at 11:36 am Well, fuck them all.Innocence my ass.This from the campus newspaper The Chronicle (www.dukechronicle.com)
Radfem Writes:
April 5th, 2006 at 4:44 pm
I’ve had most of the shock knocked out of me by now. As awful and offensive as I think what the guy wrote was, most of me was thinking at least he was stupid enough to get caught at it and it’s out there for the world to see. Now, maybe the University will get smart and take action against the lacrosse team, but most likely, not
chaka Writes:
April 6th, 2006 at 5:26 am I wonder what Ryan’s mommy has to say about her poor baby now! He was just joking, you people can’t take a joke. What a sick little boy! Of course he would never do anythng so bad, perhaps the police or the accuser planted the e-mail too. Someone will come up with that one after while, since so many people think thiis is a grad conspriracy.
Q Grrl Writes:
April 6th, 2006 at 9:33 am
I believe in “innocent until proven guilty” both inside and outside the courtroom.
That’s because you don’t have to live with lifelong reminders that you are the rapeable one, no matter who you are, what you do, or how truthfully you live your own life. Innocent until proven guilty isn’t so much about justice in this instance: it’s a means of putting blinders on women’s judgements and self-protective instincts.
goodcharity Writes:
April 6th, 2006 at 6:37 pm Personally I think they where guilty no doubt about it.They are high class (white) boys who can afford almost anything they want and i guess they thought since they got away with most things and where decieving others as “star players” and “good boys”, anything they did wouldn’t matter.It would be the (black) exotic dancers word against thier fancy act word.
I think these and other posts would make a great teaching tool .
Q Grrl Writes:
This comment was written by Michael.April 3rd, 2006 at 8:38 am Decon: what part of the crime do you disbelieve? Barring non-consensual sex, what about the beating and strangulation?These men, specifically the lacrosse team, have proven, year after year after year, their willingness to engage in illegal and disruptive behavior, with little to no regard to the consequences. Suddenly, when the crimes escalate (or are finally reported) these men are innocent until proven guilty? Honey, they’ve been proving their guilt for years. Hell, they’ve already copped to criminal activity the night of the party, so I’m really not sure what “innocence” of theirs you’re trying to shore up.
Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
I’d like to also add (if it gets through):
It is difficult to post when every post comes up with “Your comment is awaiting moderation”. Maybe the idea is that I will eventually give up, and that idea is pretty much on target. I don’t have much interest in writing anything intensive, or with a great deal of thought, when it will just get nixed at the blink of an eye.
This comment was written by Nemo.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
Amp,
In response to your query in post #117, the impression I got from Nemo’s post was that he was referring to some of the comments posted by others on this thread, that could be construed by some to be avoiding or denying reality, rather than to anything specific that you wrote. But, I could be wrong, and hopefully Nemo will post in response to clarify!
This comment was written by Chris.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
“But, I could be wrong, and hopefully Nemo will post in response to clarify!”
—————————————————————
I’m trying to communicate, but every post is blocked with “Awaiting moderation”.
Since I can’t answer to questions about my post, I think I have to stop posting - otherwise my posts can be torn apart, with the naive question, “why doesn’t he answer??”.
If this eventually gets through - it is my last post.
This comment was written by Nemo.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
Nemo, sorry about that. For some reason the spam-blocker is thinking you’re spam today, so they sit in moderation until I get to it and approve. I don’t know why it’s doing that today, but just so you know, you’re not being targeted on purpose.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
Nemo, sorry about that. For some reason the spam-blocker is thinking you’re spam today, so they sit in moderation until I get to it and approve. I don’t know why it’s doing that today, but just so you know, you’re not being targeted on purpose.
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Hello, I appreciate your concern, Ampersand. On the other hand, I have noted that every single post I have made on your board (even quasi-old ones) have always been subject to moderation. In every single case, ever since I started posting, no matter what the topic.
I guess it’s just one of those silly things that happen. I don’t have enough word-power to punch through. LOL
Yes, I will give up.
This comment was written by Nemo.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
I feel they should lose their privacy just as if my brother (or father, or uncle, or son, or male friend, or male co-worker) who was accused of rape, and then the world be told that they were accused of rape but a jury hadn’t even heard the case yet.
It is called Fairness, and that is what motivates my idea. Not legalising rape, or silencing rape victims.
Why would I want a different standard for my male friends and relatives than for my female ones? What we have now is exactly that, and it needs to change.
Why should we protect the identity of women and not men? What is so morally superior about a woman who alleges rape that unlike almost any other crime, she and she alone is given the right of anonymity compared to other plaintiffs and accusers?
This comment was written by Steven.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
No such luck. This is what I mean when I say that The Left slanders and resorts to fallacy. Instead of addressing my points, you just go on in detail about your assesment that I lack the ability to see nuance.
You posted this:
No it doesn’t say it bright as day; what you did was ask a question:
Explicitly stating it (bright as day, perhaps) is this:
It appears that you do not have the ability to understand nuance.
Lastly::
As I am neither horrible, a misogynist, nor have I used diversionist tactics.
I do not want to silence rape victims, and I think the Fairness of this concept::
Is worth pursuing.
I stand by the post.
Good day and Good Bye.
This comment was written by Steven.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
Steven,
Ever hear the old saying, “Two wrongs don’t make a right?” That, by your own admission, is what you are now advocating. Go back and read comment # 33 in which I agree theoretically w/ the proposition that nobody should be named.
However, rather than be satisfied that some left-wing feminist agreed with you, you went on (in typical twollish manner) to promote a policy that silences rape victims. You followed that up by spending incredible amounts of pixels ignoring the well-thought out objections to that outrageous strategy and instead being outraged that left-wing feminists should think you an odious entity for proposing a policy that will silence rape victims.
Of course, it is possible that you never felt that naming neither victim nor perpetrator is an acceptable alternative. In that case I’m wrong about your change of policy promoting. Nonetheless, it is evident, no matter how much you cry that you don’t want to do such a thing, that the policy you are currently promoting will function, mainly, to silence victims of rape. Given that that is the case, yet you continue to promote the policy of naming the victim should the allegation end up unproven (not a false accusation, merely unproven), I believe that the conclusion that you do, in fact, want to silence rape victims is both valid and likely.
So, now, instead of promoting the fair(er) policy of not naming either the alleged victim or the alleged perpetrator (for which there are also well-reasoned arguments against), you continue to shill for an odious policy as if it were the only valid measure, totally ignoring your initial implied proposal (in comment #12 I see an implication that neither should be named - but I may have misinterpreted you) to name neither the victim nor the perpetrator until conviction of the latter. (Unless, of course, I’m wrong and you won’t support a policy that never names victim and only names a perpetrator after conviction).
Oh, did I forget to mention that you immediately named the alleged victim in a post that specifically and obviously is against such a thing? And you followed that up with, oh, such outrage that your action encouraged someone (me) to call you a shithead. Classic trolling.
Given that this is textbook trolling, I feel safe in referring to you as a troll without fear of engaging in an ad hom.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
Steven:
You posted this:
My comment (#68) doesn’t imply that you want to silence rape victims - it fucking says that bright as day. (Airs are really much easier to maintain if you know the definitions of the words that you are using).
No it doesn’t say it bright as day; what you did was ask a question:
Would you consider legalizing rape to be the only way to silence victims?
You are either lacking in reading comprehension or lying. Here is the relevant “bright as day” passage from comment #68:
If this:
I merely call for rapists to be named, and the accused to not be.
I merely call for the proven victims to remain anonymous, and those who accuse and lose to be named.
isn’t a blatant attempt to keep rape victims from coming forward, I don’t know what is. Would you consider legalizing rape to be the only way to silence victims?
See the bit where I say that your proposal is “… a blatant attempt to keep rape victims from coming forward“? That is the direct accusation that you want to silence rape victims.
Yet more Steven:
I do not want to silence rape victims, and I think the Fairness of this concept::
If a sexual assault, rape, harassment, etc. charge is levied, the identities of BOTH Plaintiff and Defendant are withheld.
-If the defendant is acquitted then the accuser is named.
-If the defendant is found guilty, then they are named.
Is worth pursuing.
Steven, that policy functions to silence rape victims. Let me ask you one final time:
If you don’t want to silence rape victims, why are you promoting a concept that undeniably functions mainly to silence rape victims?
If you can answer that direct question without resorting to faux hurt feelings, obfuscation and diversion, I may reconsider my classification of you as a troll. Until then, you are a troll that wants to silence rape victims. (There, is that direct enough for you?)
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
Steven, I’m unclear on why you think that if the defendants are found not guilty, it must, of necessity, mean that the accuser lied, and has earned exposure.
Is there seriously no middle ground?
I think it’s entirely possible for a rape defendant to be honestly innocent and for the accuser to honestly believe he is guilty. No malicious intent, nothing wrong or evil on either side, just a simple mistake. This happens.
I believe that keeping the names of the defendants private until the conclusion of a trial is probably a good idea, both to avoid the later stigma of accusation and to prevent a mob mentality. I believe this because I don’t think that the accused should suffer for things that they have not been convicted of.
Similarly, I support 100% the idea of releasing the name of an accuser if she is later charged and convicted of making false accusations, but I cannot support any sort of punitive action against someone uncharged and unconvicted of any crime.
We should not be punishing people before finding out if they’re guilty. It goes against all decency.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to Steven and others for insisting that words be used according to their definition in a medium in which the only method of communication is the written word. Steven’s entirely proper objection to my insistence was in no way diversion from the substance of the debate.
I would also like to apologize for criticizing Steven for comparing a question that was in no way similar, except for also being a question, to the classic, “When did you stop beating your wife?” This was also, clearly, not a classic anti-feminist troll tactic which attempts to create insult when there was none nor a was it a classic anti-feminist troll tactic designed to create a distraction in the hopes that he could get away with not answering the question.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
I think that in general withholding the names of accused is a bad idea. I can think of a many situations where publicity is a good thing for both justice and public safety. Secret justice isn’t. However, this depends on giving people the benefit of the doubt and accepting a defendants innocence at the end of the process.
I think rape shield laws are absolutely necessary.
The only rule I think justified by this case would be one limiting the power of the prosecutors office in some way. I think that almost any other rule based on the duke case will be a mistake. This case was odd.
This comment was written by Joe.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Well, you don’t always post from the same IP or use the same name, so that can’t be it. Maybe you should experiment with changing your email address; there might be some letter combination in your email address which is somehow setting off the spam filter.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
You have valid points, Joe. In theory, both naming the accused and not naming the accused until conviction work. In reality, however, both have obvious flaws. It is a question of which is less flawed as there is a real possible danger in both methods.
Perhaps allowing the accused to decide whether to be named or not? Nah, that has the same drawback as not naming, I think. It is a tough question, though.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
No. They were not found not guilty.
They were not FOUND anything. There was no trial. The prosecutor dropped all charges and stated that he believed (based on the evidence he reviewed) that they were innocent of the crimes of which they had been accused.
FFS, people, if you’re going to go on about the criminal justice system, at least act as though you’ve watched Court TV once or twice. Next somebody will be talking about the accuser as the “plaintiff” again.
Why should we protect the identity of women and not men?
Your slip is showing. Do you believe that a male rape victim should have his name published? That a female accused of rape shouldn’t?
RonF, kindly drop the “I’m up on a golden throne and the rest of you are acting out of selfishness” routine.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 8:58 pm
So we have arrived at a point where we protect the identity of an accuser only in one situation. Since most rapes happen to women this is a sexist decision by definition. So all sexism isn’t wrong, only in certain cases. I don’t like that concept at all. I have two daughters and a son. I think they deserve equal protection under the law. Separate but equal in how a law is applied does not seem like a good thing to me. The fact that some people have ancient notions about victims of sexual assault is not a convincing argument for me either. To say that the stigma of a sexual assault trumps the stigma of unfairly being branded a beast is equally specious.
But I would like to remind everyone that the idea of naming the accused was actually meant to protect them against unfounded accusations by the state. You know, taking you away in the middle of the night without anyone every knowing. So some would argue that the Duke players were being done a favor.
This comment was written by Michael.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
So if your son was raped, you’d want his name all over the papers?
And Im sorry, when the majority of women are the ones RAPED, your bitch is that protecting them afterwards is unfair to men? Because they’re the ones doing the raping, but the outcome of it is unfair to them.
Yeah. That makes sense.
Jesus jumped up christ.
This comment was written by pheeno.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
I hesitate to jump in to the debate about naming/not naming rape defendants and accusers, as it has appeared to become quite nasty. I can see valid points in many of the posts arguing both sides above, invective aside. So, with trepidation, my two cents:
If rape defendants are shielded from public exposure (at least until they’re convicted) then the same privilege should be accorded to ALL defendants facing criminal charges, no matter the crime. Rape defendants should not be singled out for special treatment or protection, as that will lead to an unequal system of justice. So, it’s either anonymity for all defendants (unless/until they’re convicted) or it’s anonymity for NO defendants.
The media custom of anonymity for rape accusers should be abolished. Rape accusers (I’m deliberately using “accusers” as not all those who accuse others of rape are actual “victims” as this Duke case has amply demonstrated) should not be accorded special rights and privileges that other accusers/victims are denied. So, either we keep all those who accuse others of crimes anonymous to the public, or we name all of them. The current system is unequal and unfair. Note that child victims are NOT included in this assessment–they’d still be kept anonymous in all cases, except for murder, as per current custom).
If one decides to name or keep anonymous either criminal defendants or accusers, one should in fairness accord the same status to the other (i.e. if defendants are named, so are accusers; if defendants are kept anonymous, so are accusers).
With that said, IMO the idea of keeping people anonymous in the criminal justice system is a very bad idea. A secret court system is an invitation for abuse and it smacks of police state totalitarianism. Openness and oversight are key to having a fair, impartial, and just system. Also, it’s quite easy to think of scenarios where naming accusers and accused would further the interests of justice, and where keeping them anonymous would hinder justice. To keep the discussion focused on rape, and just to provide one example of each: Naming an accused man possibly allows other, prior victims to come forward to authorities. Naming an accuser might prompt others with information on a previous false accusation, for example, to come forward–or some other information that might be highly relevant to the case.
So, to sum up, I feel that everyone involved in criminal cases–accusers and accused–should be named in press accounts of cases. There should be no special exceptions or privileges accorded sex crimes (again, unless the alleged victim or the alleged perp is a child).
Refusing to name accusers in rape cases only makes it easier for false, erroneous, or exaggerated accusations to be made. Furthermore, the very concept undermines the legitimate drive to destigmatize rape victims. It’s pretty hard to argue that something should not be a cause for shame or stigmatization and then turn around and argue that that very thing is so uniquely horrible and traumatic and shameful that victims of it (or those who claim to be victims of it) should be kept anonymous! It’s analogous to declaring that redheads should not be ashamed to have red hair, that there’s nothing wrong with it, but that they should nevertheless always wear headgear or scarves to conceal their red hair so others won’t know. It’s internally inconsistent thinking that works at cross-purposes. The effort to destigmatize rape survivors is undermined by some of the very things done or advocated by those who supposedly wish to destigmatize rape survivors!
This comment was written by Chris.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
“Why would I want a different standard for my male friends and relatives than for my female ones? What we have now is exactly that, and it needs to change.”
That would be true if male rape victims had their names published while female rape victims did not.
Females accused of rape (or child molestation) have their names published. Male victims of rape do not.
Whats unfair isnt who gets their name published, its who keeps being the victims of rape.
This comment was written by pheeno.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 10:20 pm
Oh, and another thing I should have added to my last post: It seems to me that the biggest problem lies not in naming people or shielding their identities, but in the way the media covers so many of these stories. It’s often grossly irresponsible and prejudicial. Less hysteria, less fearmongering, less sensationalism, less trial by media, less presumed guilty until proven innocent, less wild speculation, less “if it bleeds it leads”, less voyeurism–all would help in these matters tremendously. Too often the media and the public see news from the criminal justice system as salacious entertainment and competitive sport and forget that the lives and reputations of real people are st stake. Naming rape defendants, for example, would be less of an issue if the media were to keep coverage fair, impartial, objective, responsible, minimal, and sober. Alas, that often doesn’t happen, and early coverage of the Duke case is a perfect example (the print media do a better job than broadcast media, but of course most people get their news from the broadcast media!)
This comment was written by Chris.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
It seems to me that the biggest problem is that rape is still rampant.
This comment was written by pheeno.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
We’re talking about different things, so your retort is a non sequitir.
This comment was written by Chris.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 10:54 pm
Much of this entire arguement wouldnt even be necessary if we actually started addressing the real problem. Rape. It would be a bit difficult for some people to continue claiming its unfair because the majority of rapists are male so they get their names published more often. Of course, they ignore the fact that females get their names published when accused of rape, but evidently their problem lies with the ratio and who gets named because of it. I’d rather fight the source of the whole problem than slap bandaides on it. Many of the side issues would clear up pretty quick.
This comment was written by pheeno.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 11:00 pm
Oh and just an aside
I dont really find it unfair that my rapist had his name in the newspapers while I was taking sitz baths to keep the swelling around the stitches down, because he ripped me open from the vagina to anus. Im not inclined to believe HE got the short end of the stick in the fairness game.
This comment was written by pheeno.Report this comment to the moderators
April 13th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Since most rapes happen to women this is a sexist decision by definition.
Are you really sure you want to agree that disparate impact without discriminatory intent is sexism?
But I would like to remind everyone that the idea of naming the accused was actually meant to protect them against unfounded accusations by the state.
You are confusing the Constitutional right to face one’s accuser in court with individual decisions made by newspapers, television stations, and bloggers not to publish the names of alleged victims of sex crimes.
You’re just bound and determined to whine about how women have it all, aren’t you?
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 12:15 am
I’m not sure there’s much point in discussing this anywhere, but I feel obligated to try.
There are many reasons to believe that the accuser did not lie when making her statements. She claimed the assault lasted half an hour, but her partner insists she wasn’t in the house nearly that long. Why the inconsistency?
Why did she flee the house, leaving behind valuables? Was this to establish cover for her lies?
Why were there so many inconsistencies? One sign of a well planned lie is that it is very consistent, more consistent than one would expect.
Why did she make claims that a few minutes thought would tell a person could get her in trouble? e.g., she’d claimed to have been penetrated by men not wearing a condom; couldn’t she have guessed that a rape exam would likely disprove that, if it had been part of a made up story?
Why did she appear drugged, yet respond shortly after a police officer started questioning her?
Add in one other fact: she reported having been gang-raped in a previous incident. No action was taken because the report was old and there wasn’t sufficient evidence for the police to investigate.
What happened? Well, something happened in the house to make her panic; if she had been gang-raped previously, she could well have had a traumatic flashback. During such an episode, she could easily lose track of time, panic, and be confused as to what was a recent memory, and what was part of the flashback to the gang rape she’d suffered years before.
It is entirely possible that she reported the truth as best as she was able.
There are many people who are eager to punish her; what they may end up punishing her for is the crime of having been raped, and suffering consequent PTSD.
If this hypothesis of mine is correct - and I confess I’m not a professional doctor or psychologist, but I am an educated layperson - the fault should lay more strongly on Nifong, for not letting the evidence he could gather dictate his actions.
This comment was written by Longhairedweirdo.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 2:10 am
Ouch! I’m getting sympathy pains in places I don’t even have. :-(
I agree that your rapist didn’t get the short end of the stick.
But we’re not talking about your rapist, or even rapists in general, but a wider group of people which includes some rapists, as well as some people who are actually innocent. It’s the innocent ones we’re concerned about, but it’s not always possible to distinguish them from the rapists.
The Duke case is an exceptional one in that we can. The defendants were innocent, and yes, they did get the short end of the stick.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 8:02 am
“But we’re not talking about your rapist, or even rapists in general, but a wider group of people which includes some rapists, as well as some people who are actually innocent.”
Which includes mine. This isnt a hypothetical. So Im applying the idea its unfair to him as well.
” It’s the innocent ones we’re concerned about”
Well, without trying to sound snarky, I dont feel all that concern ya’ll have. Or does my innocence not count?
This comment was written by pheeno.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 9:46 am
What does your innocence have to do with this case? As far as I know you have no connection to the Duke case. Or are you saying that every accused male, especially some perceived privileged one, is automatically guilty because you were a victim? Or that because you were a victim you have special incite into the facts of this case that AG and his investigative staff missed? Look women are just as capable of lying as men. It can both be true that women are raped and some women lie about it. Latter might be less frequent, but it certainly occurs.
When an accusation is made should the system be set up to try to pin it on someone regardless of the evidence? Do you really want to abandon the principle that it is “Better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer?”
Lots of crimes go unsolved. If you commit the perfect murder you will get away with it. It’s sad. It sucks. But in this new world of mass media presumed innocence of the accused is more important then it ever was.
This comment was written by FormerlyLarry.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 10:41 am
To believe “Women Don’t Lie” about rape is nonsense, but I understand it happens with much greater frequency today than it did in my generation when rape was virtually “unreported” . If fact, it went so “unreported” that there are no statistics available on rape in that era (1960’s).
The Duke Three-ers, certainly not lily white with stellar reputations, are INNOCENT of all 3 charges.
This comment was written by georgia tech rape victim.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 10:52 am
pheeno (”quoting me”):
I can understand you applying the idea in that way. (I guess it’s a bit like the way I and others apply to ourselves a lot of negative ideas about “men” expressed by feminists.) But I’m not sure what there is to do about that.
It’s my fault, I suppose, for saying “we” without being clear about who I meant. “We” doesn’t include Steven, for example, whose silly suggestion that rape complainants be named when a defendant is acquitted certainly shows no concern for innocent rape victims.
Pardon me if I retreat to “I” at this point, and leave it to others to show their own concern.
I haven’t shown much concern for you specifically, because, to my recollection, I’ve never discussed your rape before. I’m also cautious about expressing concern toward individual survivors on Alas or in other places where I’m regarded as adversarial to them, mistaken though that view is. I’d rather not have my genuine concern dismissed as insincere, so I tend not to express it.
As evidence of my concern more generally, I would point to this comment in which I said:
I stand by that. The only change in my position since then is that at that time I would only say that the defendents had “looking increasingly actually innocent with each new revelation“. Now I say they are actually innocent. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to call her guilty. It’s possible, even likely, that she’s mentally disturbed to the point of not being responsible for her own actions, but that aside, she’s still entitled to be presumed innocent unless and until found guilty of something.
I hope that clarifies my position.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 11:03 am
but I understand it happens with much greater frequency today than it did in my generation when rape was virtually “unreported”
These young girls today, why, they’ll lie about rape at the drop of a hat! Back when I was young, if you wanted to lie about rape, you had to walk five miles uphill in the snow!
FormerlyLarry, I believe pheeno’s point was that the people screaming OMG THE POOR ACCUSED don’t seem to have similar concerns for rape victims. By the way, “presumption of innocence” is a legal term applying to criminal proceedings; it’s not a law that says it’s a thoughtcrime to believe somebody has committed a crime before they plead guilty or are convicted.
I’d note, without blaming the three accused men or suggested they ‘asked for’ or ‘deserved’ what happened to them, that part of the reason people were so willing to believe the accuser were the circumstances of the party. When the two strippers left, partygoers shouted racist insults after them. One of the fraternity residents sent a now-infamous email about how he’d like to skin and kill a stripper. Given those circumstances on top of Nifong’s misconduct, it is unsurprising that people gave the accuser credence.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 11:33 am
Yes, one or more of the party-goers and a stripper may have exchanged insults (just going from memory of the 60 min interview). Do we absolutely know for sure who that was? I somewhat recall the email thing, but I don’t remember if he was one of the 3 accused.
I am not sure that I would want to be tainted by everything that other people say for every party I attend, do you? There is such a tendency to broad brush these things by just throwing everyone into convenient groups. We have the party goers, the lacrosse team, the jocks, the privileged white males, the rich, the males. These people are individuals accountable for their own actions.
This comment was written by FormerlyLarry.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Pheeno,
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that what you MEANT to write was: “when the majority of those who are raped are women”; the idea that the majority of women suffer rape is ludicrous, but I wouldn’t put it past some of the more deluded extremist feminists in the rape cult of victimhood to insist on such a preposterous notion.
You’re also mischaracterizing the debate in this thread over naming/not naming rape accusers and accused. You’re assuming (wrongly) that all women who accuse men of rape are being truthful and are actual rape victims, and thus that all men who are accused of rape are guilty. The actual crux of the debate, however, was that given the social and cultural climate surrounding sex crimes, is it really fair to defendants to drag their names throught the mud and tarnish them with intensive media coverage of their alleged crimes, only to eventually find some of them not guilty? A not guilty verdict does not mean that the man is able to go back to his former life as if nothing happened–he’ll always be tarnished with the accusation and its after-effects. Thus, the idea is to protect possibly innocent defendants from such an outcome by shielding them from exposure unless and until they are duly convicted of their crimes in courts of law. If they are convicted, then the point would be no longer applicable. Also, there are plenty of reasonable scenarios that would speak against the justice of keeping accusers anonymous as the press currently does, as I outlined in a previous post. It’s unfair to characterize this as a debate that says current practice is gender discriminatory–that’s not really the point.
Also:
You’re assuming that the vast majority of sexual assault victims are women. That proposition is dubious, at best. In recent years, the US has averaged between 80-90,000 official rape reports to law enforcement authorities annually, according to the Dept of Justice. Of course, not all those reports are truthful and accurate, but no one on any side of this debate knows precisely what percentage are false, so we won’t even get into that. Also, not all those official reports are from women, although the overwhelming majority are. And of course the number of official reports understates the number of true rapes, since many go unreported. Again, no one on any side of the debate knows precisely what percentage of rapes go unreported, but let’s assume for the sake of argument that it’s 2/3 to 3/4 of all actual rapes. For purposes of illustration ONLY, let’s go with the high figure of annual police reports (90,000) and let’s further assume that all those reports came from women and all were truthful accounts of actual rapes, and that 3/4 of actual annual rapes go unreported, and furthermore that all the unreported rapes are also suffered by women. Even though I think it’s pretty clear that those assumptions are seriously OVERSTATING the actual annual incidence of rape in this country, we’ll go with them as part of this little thought experiment. That gives us approximately 360,000 women being raped annually in the US. OK, with me so far? Academic studies have estimated that approximately 290,000 males are victims of sexual assault in the US every year in jails and prisons alone (See the group Stop Prisoner Rape for more details). One can argue that those findings are exaggerated, but then of course so is our hypothetical 360,000 annual female victims of rape. The point is that while it may be valid to argue that the majority of sexual assault victims are women, they don’t comprise a large majority, and it’s quite likely that the numbers of men and women who experience sexual assault every year in the US are quite similar. In that respect, sexual assault is just as much a men’s issue as a women’s issue, but not in the traditional way that most people think.
Again, that’s a serious mischracterization of the arguments of those who advocate shielding the identities of rape defendants unless/until they’re convicted of their alleged crimes. Gender imbalances and proportion have nothing to do with it (or shouldn’t). It’s a question of unfairly tarnishing and stigmatizing someone who may actually be innocent of the charges.
I don’t doubt you when you say you are a rape survivor, and I’m not going to accuse you of exaggerating your ordeal in order to score emotional points in a debate that is already highly emotionalized. I DO find your statement rather curious, however. Are we to assume that your rapist took a knife or other weapon and sliced you open from your vagina to your anus? If so, you have my deepest sympathies, as that is horrific. If not, how exactly was such a severe injury caused? The perineum isn’t tiny, it’s a significant stretch from vagina to anus (or in my case, from scrotum to anus). That stretch is not made of tissue paper, but of skin, subcutaneous fat, and muscle. Thus, for the perineum to tear along its entire length would require an attack of rather savage violence, and if it didn’t involve a knife or other sharp cutting implement, it must have involved the rapist biting and tearing with his teeth and hands along that entire stretch of tissue, while you did…what, exactly? Certainly an erect penis thrusting into one of your perineal orifices would not cause such an injury, no matter how big it was, how unlubricated and unwilling you were, and how much you fought back. Most women don’t even suffer the “ripping open” of their entire perineum from vagina to anus during childbirth, let alone during penile intercourse, even if it was nonconsensual. So, further clarification of your ordeal would be most welcome.
Longhairedweirdo, with all due respect your last post was one long rationalization of the accuser’s behavior, and a perfect example of how some feminists engage in the most tortured pretzel logic and verbal gymnastics to avoid blaming a woman for anything, even for what appears almost certainly to be a false rape accusation, probably motivated by malice. To review:
1) The accuser’s other alleged gang rape by three men in 1996 was investigated at the time, but the evidence was weak, to put it mildly, and she refused to cooperate with investigators, so no charges were brought. Her own father has gone public with his contention that she lied then, and fabricated the attack.
2) The accuser was not just a stripper–evidence and testimony gathered during the investigation revealed that she was a prostitute as well, and had performed hardcore sexual acts with and for clients the same day she stripped at the lacrosse party. The fact that the semen of SIX MEN was found in her vagina and on her underwear (and of course none of the six matched the DNA of any of the lacrosse players) should be an eye-opener, but of course that’s something that her feminist defenders always wish to sweep under the rug.
3) The accuser was a drug abuser and a drinker and was by all accounts intoxicated the night of the party. In fact, the testimony of the lacrosse players was that one reason they got so upset with her and cut the performance short, and thus one reason she was only at the house for a short period of time, was precisely because she was so intoxicated that she could barely walk, let alone do what they had paid her to do, that is strip and dance.
4) The accuser first made her claim of rape when she was approached by a police officer who’d been called because she was passed out in her friend’s car in a supermarket parking lot. The accuser has a prior arrest record and was on probation at the time, and perhaps saw an opportunity to play victim and avoid trouble herself, by making accusations about the loutish white Duke boys from the night before. Who knows? It’s certainly a more plausible scenario than what she eventually alleged, and what you postulated in your post!
5) Once she made the accusation, she was taken in for a rape kit, medical exam, and questioning by officers, and she had to give them a story, so she did.
6) That initial story pretty quickly fell apart under examination, so she changed it. Then that story also became untenable, so she changed it again. She changed her story multiple times and in very fundamental ways over the course of months, and each time it was because the evidence wasn’t supporting what she’d said before, and also due to fault memory. Not faulty memory of actual events, but faulty recollection of previous lies she’d told. As it’s often been pointed out, it’s easy to tell a lie, but it’s very difficult to maintain that lie into the future without contradicting yourself, without inconsistencies, without consciously or unconsciously changing details. That’s why most liars (at least those who lie about big things) are eventually unmasked.
7) This is why your question about why her well-planned lie wasn’t perfectyl consistent was off-base: Her lie wasn’t well-planned or thought out in detail in advance, it was a quick spur of the moment thing, that she had to flesh out the details of later. When pressed for details, she had to concoct some, and then when those details were shown to be problematic, she kept revising them. She did this for months, her last major “revision” being in December when she told Nifong that on second thought she probably wasn’t ever penetrated by a penis, which led him to drop the rape charges but keep the others.
8) At any point in this process, once it became clear that the evidence was greatly at odds with her story(ies), the accuser could have backed away from her allegation, admitted that it was a fabrication, said she was so intoxicated that she was deeply confused and maybe imagining things that didn’t happen or couldn’t remember key details well enough to press ahead, or just refused to cooperate any further with the DA and refused to testify at trial, which would have meant the end of the case. She did none of those things, even though she had many outs. Thus it’s pretty clear to me that her motivations were primarily malicious and self-protective and not due to being so mentally ill that she was completely divorced from reality and truly believed she’d been savagely raped, choked, and beaten when nothing of the sort really happened. As I said in a previous post, if she’s truly that mentally disturbed, she shouldn’t be raising children, and the fact that no one is calling for her to be treated at an inpatient psych facility is telling. The Attorney General’s reliance on her mental illness as an excuse for not charging her with filing a false report is merely his euphemistic and chivalrous way of saying that although she lied, she’s so messy and has suffered enough from this process that he didn’t see any need to kick her while she’s down by filing misdemeanor charges against her. What would that accomplish? Nothing. It would merely prolong a case that he desperately wants to GO AWAY as quickly as possible, as it’s been a huge embarrassment to his state.
I can’t state wiht 100% certainty that the accuser lied and did so out of malice, and of course she hasn’t been convicted of such in a court of law, but I think the evidence that she did is pretty convincing. Feminists who insist on defending her and making excuses for her are only doing themselves and their cause a huge disservice, and giving ammunition to those who argue that much of feminist rape theory and policy is coming from a position of dogmatic ideological rigidity and religious faith than from evidence, fact, logic, and reason.
georgia tech rape victim,
Your first point is correct, and kudos to you for saying so! You’re also right to think that false allegations ARE more frequent than they were decades ago, for a variety of reasons, and there’s evidence that supports such a contention. However, I take issue with your assertion that rape was virtually unreported as late as the 1960s. That’s simply untrue. There were tens of thousands of annual rape reports made in the 1960s, and plenty of research was done on rape at the time, although the statistics got better and the research more detailed in the 1970s. Incidentally, stats show that many more offical rape reports were filed with authorities annually in the 1970s than are now–the annual number averaged around 100,000 or more for the nation in the 1970s, whereas now it’s hovering closer to 80,000 annually. The US population now is much larger than it was in the 1970s, so that means that either far fewer rape victims are reporting their assaults than did in the 1970s, or that the per capita rape rate in the US over the last 30 years has plummeted. The first possibility frankly defies common sense, given the destigmatization of rape victims, the development of a huge support network, the increasing pressure to report assaults, the implementation of numerous victim-friendly laws, and the cultural changes that have occurred over those three decades. So, it’s virtually certain to be because rape has become much less common than it was 30 years ago. And that’s extremely encouraging and positive news!
One other thing to chew on, in re rape being almost unreported in past decades: For most of the 20th century, most states that had the death penalty allowed executions for rape convictions. More men were executed in US history for rape than for murder, and of course a disproportionate number of them were black and in the South. I’m sure they’d be quite surprised to learn that rape was almost never reported prior to the 1970s!
mythago,
That’s a really harsh and unfair characterization of the point they’re making. It’s entirely possible to be both very caring and concerned with rape victims, and also to be concerned about the potential effects that a rape accusation might have on an innocent man. In fact, I think decency requires such an attitude!
This comment was written by Chris.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
Chris:
I’m not even going to bother trying to explain to you why your list of reasons why the accuser should never have been believed in the first place is ridiculous and vile, but I really wanted to tell you that this passage:
strikes me as being beyond the pale.
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
I never said the accuser should never have been believed in the first place, so stop putting words in my mouth. I merely listed some reasons why her credibility was eventually and justifiably called into question, and provided a plausible narrative for how her false allegation was first made and then took shape. She lied over and over and over again–that, or she’s so deeply mentally ill that she shouldn’t be raising children and should probably be treated in an inpatient facility. Those are the only two realistic scenarios here–honest and mentally stable people don’t just accidentally imagine or get confused about a brutal, violent gang rape! If no attack occurred but she honestly believes that she was a victim of a violent gang rape, then she needs intensive psychiatric help, and I’ve heard no one suggest that she’s receiving it, or that she should receive it. Thus, malicious falsehood is the only reasonable fallback position. Her credibility about the alleged attack at the lacrosse party was about zero, for many reasons, most of which I didn’t take the time to list. Those who continue to rush to her defense and make excuses for her are suffering from serious reality-denial, most likely caused by their dogmatic belief in feminist rape orthodoxy. That’s their (your) problem, not mine. It is a pity, though, that so many on the feminist left have had their minds so clouded by dogmatic theory that they’re unable to recognize reality when it’s staring them in the face, and continue to reject common sense for the comforting embrace of myths.
As for being beyond the pale, that’s your opinion, and I validate that. I personally think it’s a legitimate question. I didn’t bring the topic up, she did, and in a very emotional way to drive home a point she was making. I only sought clarification. For an injury like that to occur, the only conceivable way I can envision is for it to have been a deliberate act of mutilation by a rapist wielding a weapon–and if that were the case, as I said she has my deepest sympathies, as such a thing is horrible to even contemplate. But barring such a savage attack, I’m quite bewildered as to how such an injury could occur during a “normal” rape (i.e. one with forced, nonconsensual penile penetration of the vagina or rectum). I confess to finding it highly unlikely, as the penis is not a sharp, cutting instrument. If you disagree with that assessment, might I suggest taking an anatomy class or two?
This comment was written by Chris.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 7:41 pm
Chris,
While you are skilled in maintaining a nominally polite tone, you are a repugnant troll of the first order. You drip condescension and thinly veiled contempt and abuse with every word you write.
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
Furthermore, Charles, NOBODY deserves to be automatically believed or disbelieved immediately upon making an accusation. All they deserve is to be taken seriously and for their allegation to be investigated thoroughly, rigorously, and in an unbiased fashion that seeks justice and truth as its only acceptable end result. There’s a huge difference between that approach, and reflexively believing someone as soon as they make an allegation. Can you see it and understand it?
Had the police, investigators, and prosecutors followed my approach, this case would have been over long ago with far less harm done to all concerned. But no, they followed your approach (and, by extension, the approach of too many feminists) of BELIEVING…the faith-based approach to rape allegations, that radical feminism has fought so hard to inculcate in all of us, and look where it got them. Shamed, disgraced, humiliated, made to look like fools. As, of course, they were. It’s a pity, really. I’m sure they’re nice enough folks, but when you embrace BELIEF and reject logic, facts, evidence, and reason, you’re setting yourself up for a mighty fall.
This comment was written by Chris.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
Chris, your response to Pheeno was disgusting and abusive. You are an asshat. I hope the other posters recognize you for the evil troll you are and cease responding to you.
This comment was written by mousehounde.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Charles,
Oh please, take a Valium already! Why am I a repugnant troll? Because I state the obvious about the Duke lacrosse accuser? Because I’m not rushing to make excuses for her inexcusable behavior? Because I question some of the more loopy assumptions and beliefs of some on this site? Because I ask for clarification or explanation of improbable stories?
We all know that “troll” is defined as: Someone who disagrees with me and won’t kiss my ass, and who makes arguments that I have difficulty refuting.
There are plenty of commenters here who make all sorts of nasty and disparaging remarks about others–calling them stupid, insensitive, rape apologists (one of my faves **Sigh**), and on and on and on. Mr. Jake Squid even had the decency to refer to a commenter with whom he was debating a point a “shithead” further up this thread! It’s impossible not to notice that the only commenters who are ever criticized for their tone or choice of words on this blog are those who have minority viewpoints here. Very telling. So Jake Squid calls someone with a legitimate point a “shithead” and no one says a thing, but I get to be a “repugnant troll” for making logical arguments, for pointing out the flaws in others’ arguments, and for calling a troubled liar…a troubled liar! LOL
As for “dripping condescension and thinly-veiled contempt” I’d say that describes many, many comments that I’ve read on this blog over time, from many different people–but again, only those with minority viewpoints, or those who are critical of the prevailing orthodoxy at the site, are ever criticized for it. And I fail to see how it describes my posts on this thread, or how they’re any worse than any number of others. Oh, yeah, I remember now–because I disagree with some elements of the group-think here!
This comment was written by Chris.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
For clarification, (I wont even bother pointing out the shit that sentence alone tells me about your character)
He didnt use a knife, he used a pistol. After he used fingers and his dick. He then made me list off reasons I wasnt worth a bullet, with the pistol still inside me.
Speaking of giving birth, since you feel entitled to intimate details, I ripped open then as well.
Wanna know when my next period is?
This comment was written by pheeno.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
mousehounde,
I’m so NOT evil it’s not even funny. I’m about as harmless as they come. But if someone insists on beating others over the head with an emotional non sequitir argument based on a highly implausible story, you’d better be prepared to be questioned on it, and have reasonable answers ready.
This comment was written by Chris.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
“Because I state the obvious about the Duke lacrosse accuser? Because I’m not rushing to make excuses for her inexcusable behavior?”
Wow, you really need to call the AG and tell him the secret info only you are privvy to! He seems to have decided upon a rather justifable excuse for her behavior.
This comment was written by pheeno.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
“I don’t doubt you when you say you are a rape survivor, and I’m not going to accuse you of exaggerating your ordeal in order to score emotional points in a debate that is already highly emotionalized. ”
“But if someone insists on beating others over the head with an emotional non sequitir argument based on a highly implausible story, you’d better be prepared to be questioned on it, and have reasonable answers ready. ”
Thats pretty funny.
This comment was written by pheeno.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
Chris, for what it’s worth, based on what you wrote to pheeno, i think you’re either a troll or a twisted jerk. I hope you’re just a troll, that would be less odious.
This comment was written by Joe.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
Chris,
You are hereby banned from this site. Please desist from posting here.
[yes, I do have that authority.]
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
pheeno,
No I don’t want to know about your period, and I don’t feel “entitled to intimate details.” I seem to recall that you offered unsolicited graphic intimate details earlier all on your own, to use as an emotional bludgeon in a debate. I only questioned what you meant, as you didn’t provide full details, and made it sound as if he did all that damage with his penis (I’ve heard many women over the years use the phrase “he ripped me open” in much more casual and euphemistic senses that did NOT refer to rape, and they were not talking about the savage tearing of their entire perineum). The fact that you offered the additional detail of being stitched up along your entire perineum caused my jaw to drop in shock, as I couldn’t imagine such an injury being caused by a “normal” rape (i.e. forced penile penetration that does not involve deliberate mutilation, etc.) I didn’t know whether you were exaggerating for effect and emotional wallop (as many, many, MANY people are wont to do on the Internet) or if you had suffered a more savage mutilation attack involving a knife or what have you.
I should have kept my questions to myself, and I apologize for asking you about it.
What you suffered is a horrible, revolting thing. I hope the man who did it to you is locked away and will be for a long, long time.
This comment was written by Chris.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 9:00 pm
With pleasure! I have better things to do with my time than debate with ideologues. But FWIW…many of you could take a good long look in the mirror when it comes to impolite and condescending and contemptuous commentary…but I doubt that you will. Smug self-righteousness is so much easier.
This comment was written by Chris.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Pheeno, I’m so sorry that that happened to you.
This comment was written by Joe.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Thank you.
What he didnt get was my point. Which was, whenever rape victims hear ” but the accused might be innocent so they shouldnt have their names published” the implication is that their possible innocence is more important than our definite innocence.
This comment was written by pheeno.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Oh and my secondary point
All these issues, including should the accused be named, should we protect the accuser ect, all of these are brought to you by your local, friendly neighborhood rapist.
Focusing on stopping rapists and changing a culture that promotes rape would render many of the arguements moot.
This comment was written by pheeno.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Most issues regarding due process rights of victims and accused wouldn’t be issues if there weren’t crime. Is debate of due process rights and procedure an offensive distraction from the stopping of violent crime?
This comment was written by Megalodon.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 10:03 pm
I have to say that was either it was very inappropriate morbid curiosity or downright mean. Its also too bad for the topic because the guy made some good points and now they will be lost.
This comment was written by FormerlyLarry.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
” Is debate of due process rights and procedure an offensive distraction from the stopping of violent crime? ”
When it gets used to distract from the source of the problem in an attempt to lay blame (again) at the feet of the rape victims or those who would strive to protect them, yes.
This comment was written by pheeno.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
There’s a very real need to conceal the identities of accused precisely because of the work by groups like the Innocence Project and articles like this.
There’s no inconsistency between saying that 98% of rape accusations are true, and less than 98% of the accused are guilty of the crimes. Unless the accused is known to the victim (which is the case entirely too often — all three of the men who raped me as a teen were known to me), or the accused went from committing the offense directly into police custody (which seldom happens with rape), there’s always the potential for an incorrect ID. From that point, unless the accused has a solid alibi, or there is DNA evidence that excludes the accused, an incorrect ID can result in a conviction.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
pheeno writes:
Amein v’amein!
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
“I seem to recall that you offered unsolicited graphic intimate details earlier all on your own, to use as an emotional bludgeon in a debate. ”
Speaking of your rape = emotional bludgeon
Attacking rape victims = not emotional bludgeon
…
This comment was written by mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
You’re a repugnant troll because of your disgusting fantasy about pheeno’s injuries. Either you’re totally clueless about appropriately responding to a survivor’s disclosure, or you were intentionally being as offensive, hurtful, and abusive as you could. Either way, there’s no place you in any civil discussion.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 11:16 pm
How is it that typos become visible the instant you click ’submit’? That should be “…there’s no place for you…”
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
April 14th, 2007 at 11:18 pm
By “attempt to lay blame,” do you mean debate that asserts conclusions like “she shouldn’t have been there” and “she was asking for it,” or do you also mean debate about due process that countenances possibilities like “some victims may be mistaken” or “some persons may lie, though rarely.”
Some arguments for due process probably entertain the latter two possibilities as a basis for having required procedure and defendant rights (though certainly not the only basis). Does entertaining that basis as grounds for certain legal or judicial policy constitute victim blaming on face? Or does emphasis on those possibilities have to reach a threshhold to constitute victim blaming and obfuscation?
This comment was written by Megalodon.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2007 at 12:20 am
In addition to Charles’ banning of Chris — which I fully approve of — I’ve also banned Steven, since I felt he was adding more heat than light to the conversation.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2007 at 12:27 am
By “attempt to lay blame,” do you mean debate that asserts conclusions like “she shouldn’t have been there” and “she was asking for it,” or do you also mean debate about due process that countenances possibilities like “some victims may be mistaken” or “some persons may lie, though rarely.”
Neither. I mean those on this blog who are engaging in “debate” soley for the purposes of making the victims to blame for any bad press the accused might recieve.
This comment was written by pheeno.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2007 at 7:37 am
Re rape shield laws, an explanation for those who dislike them:
Rape is one of the most difficult crimes to prove in court. Absent evidence of violence, even strangers seem to have the ability to claim consent. In the vast majority of other crimes, there evidence tends to be more one-sided; it supports the accused or the accuser.* In rape, the best and most obvious evidence (sex) can be claimed by the accused under the veil of consent.
THAT means that “non-violent rape”** is one of the crimes where the likelihood of proving ACTUAL GUILT is extraordinarily low.
Y’all with me so far?
Now: A woman who brings a rape assault charge to the police is–almost always–exposed to a much higher level of privacy violation than the accused. This may seem odd. But the criminal laws prevent going into9 detail of the defendant’s personal history. So while the questions “who did you sleep with earlier that week?” or “earlier that month?” or “in your life?” etc are probably relevant, we can’t ask the DEFENDANT those questions, under the laws of evidence.
We can (absent rape shield laws), however, ask the ACCUSER those questions. And we did. in fact, for decades (if not centuries) it was common practice to force women to relive and repeat their entire sexual life (under oath) on the stand. Do they watch porn? masturbate? Did they have an affair? Did they (shudder) “”sleep around?”. It was pretty much the old “slut defense”: provs she’s a “slut” and you win the case for the accused.
It shouldn’t take a feminist to realize that this sucks. If a woman has just suffered rape trauma, asking her to do that on the stand may be too much for her. In fact, a lot of old data I’ve read in the past suggests that many women who were, unquestionably, raped, would STILL refuse to testify. The experience was so unpleasant they would just not do it at all. And, of course, we all (hopefully) know that a woman’s PRIOR sexual history with someone ELSE doesn’t necessarily have a lot of bearing on what she does with someone NOW.
In fact, because the rape itself can still be discussed (even under most rape shield laws AFAIK) some folks believe that this is still a problem, even now. It’s a catch-22: the more horrible the experience for the woman (and therefore, the “more guilty” the defendant) the less likely she is to want to discuss it or testify about it in graphic detail on the stand.
Anyway. Both pre- and post-rape shield laws, accusers had/have a choice. They can go to court and face an unpleasant experience, or not. If they DO go to court, the unpleasantness is the “negative” and the chance of seeing the accused convicted is the “positive.”
There’s not a whole lot we can do to change the “positive” aspects and make it easier to convict actual rapists. We’re limited by the Constitution in some cases, and by other factors as well.
However, we can reduce the “negative” aspects through rape shield laws. We do that by limiting the scope of the unpleasantness the accused has to endure. So her prior sexual history is generally inadmissible.
that’s the good part.
Now: There are two pretty obvious problems with rape shield laws which it’s also important to acknowledge:
1) Rape shield laws increase the absolute number of false convictions by increasing the number of false accusations that go to court. If the percentage of would-be false accusers who get convictions remains constant, then anything that makes it easier for people to accuse others is going to increase the absolute number of accusers–and, thus, the absolute number of false convictions.
2) Rape shield laws increase the number of false convictions by withholding potentially relevant evidence. this is because our evidentiary rules aren’t perfect. Sometimes we exclude things that are relevant. And because rape shield laws selectively exclude testimony that could only be helpful to the accused defendant, they are–at some point–going to hurt someone’s case.
Are these ‘real’ problems? Sure. I find it distasteful when folks refuse to acknowledge these problems. I think it’s better to admit them and say rape shield laws are still a good idea notwithstanding those costs. We have to look at both sides of the argument. If rape shield laws can vastly increase the %age of convictions for real rapists, then a small % increase in false convictions may be worth it. I’ll admit there are aspects of rape shield laws that make me uncomfortable (I’m biased towards all criminal defendants), but overall I think they’re doing their job.
After all, we don’t expect our criminal justice system to be “perfect” anywhere ELSE. We try to balance the desire to convict folks who are actually guilty with the risks of convicting innocent people. And I don’t see rape shield laws moving far away from that standard. One things seems to be true: They seems to have made it a LOT more possible for someone who was raped to get justice. And isn’t that a good thing?
* I use “accused” and “accuser” instead of “victim” and “rapist” intentionally. FWIW, if more feminists used this tactic, I suspect it would do a lot to get MRAs off our case. Personally, I think that the percentage of wrongly-accused defendants is higher than the percentage of maliciously-accusing complainants. But there’s the same result: The vast majority of accusers are victims–but not all, and the vast majority of accused are rapists–but certainly not all.
** (by “non-violent rape” I mean “rape that doesn’t involve physical violence to the victim that shows up in scars, bruising, or other objectively verifiable evidence”–all rape is inherently violent and I’m happy to use a better term if anyone wants to suggest one. And I’m only making this distinction because of its relevance in the judicial process, not because one kind of rape is “better” or “worse.”)
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2007 at 9:41 am
Sailerman,
Good post. You should probably make that a post of its own on your blog, as well.
The one thing I’d suggest adding is that judges do have the ability to admit evidence contrary to rape sheild laws, if the judge decides the evidence is genuinely relevant.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2007 at 9:44 am
Non violent rape is far better than the “normal rape “Chris used.
This comment was written by pheeno.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Yeah, so the prosecutor botches the case and that means we get to name names all over the place? There’s no case against those three guys, so that means she was never assaulted? And also, all those multiple reports about them yelling racist slurs at folks walking by - those didn’t happen either?
I love the mental health thing. It makes me feel so good about possible outcomes if I ever - gods forbid - need to file a complaint in the US. Also, people who take medication - totally asking for it, right? Cuz that’s what I’m reading between the lines.
This comment was written by Les.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
The NC Attorney General did not just say there was insufficient evidence to convict the 3 defendants, he expressed his office’s opinion that they were innocent and that there was “no credible evidence” that an assault took place at all.
That being said, this case is so atypical of most rape cases that it may not be wise to use it as a basis for changing policies about revealing the name of the accused or not disclosing the name of the accuser.
This comment was written by Paul1552.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2007 at 6:05 am
Nemo, if you want to find some people disconnected from reality, check out the link behind the poster of #81.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2007 at 6:12 am
They were not FOUND anything. There was no trial. The prosecutor dropped all charges and stated that he believed (based on the evidence he reviewed) that they were innocent of the crimes of which they had been accused.
Myca, although I used the word in this paragraph, I was quoting the original poster; I’m well aware of the legal implications of the word and I didn’t use it myself to define the legal status of these young men.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2007 at 9:27 am
I think you mean Mythago.
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2007 at 10:21 am
Though you did use it to imply that my characterization that the boys weren’t guilty of the crimes was incorrect.
This comment was written by mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2007 at 10:41 am
Let’s please, pretty please not call them “boys.” They are men.
Once you are 18 you are a man in the eyes of the law.
That’s a pet peeve of mine about this case.
This comment was written by Rachel S..Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2007 at 11:11 am
“Let’s please, pretty please not call them “boys.” They are men.
Once you are 18 you are a man in the eyes of the law.”
Sorry. I try to correct that when I notice it, but I’ve read it so much it got into the bottom of my brain… Will try to do better.
This comment was written by mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
Myca, mandolin, sorry about the name mixup. Sometimes I throw mythago in there too. I apparently have a problem with the letter “m”.
Longhairedlarry:
“Why did she flee the house, leaving behind valuables? Was this to establish cover for her lies?”
My frat house used to host parties a lot. It was not unusual for at least one drunk/stoned female guest who had done nothing more than drink and dance (fully clothed) all night to leave a purse behind. It’s consistent with her stories, but it’s also consistent with a lot of other things.
To all:
I would not advocate changing rape shield laws based on a case like this. However, if after charges are dropped in a rape case the prosecutor believes that charges of filing a false police report or otherwise deliberately lying about the rape accusation are sustainable, the accuser’s name should then be released just like anyone else who is charged with a crime.
I think there are some lessons that people should take away from this case. Even though a rape case may exhibit characteristics that fit into your world view of disparity between races, genders or economic classes, and even if there are other activities going on that you may disapprove of (such as hiring and enjoying the services of a stripper), the actual facts may well differ. “Always believe a woman who accuses a man of rape” is just not sustainable. That doesn’t mean that disparities in power don’t exist. It doesn’t mean that an accuser shouldn’t be supported in getting her day in court. It doesn’t mean that you yourself shouldn’t be involved in the mission of helping such people. But be open to the fact that every day people do things against what you think is their own best interests, and that includes making accusations of rape. You can help someone without judging either them or the people they are accusing.
I think Jesus had a few things to say about that. I have found, upon reflection, that when you read Scripture a lot of the things said in there aren’t just things that pertain to a specific religous doctrine; very often, they are sound practical advice.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Les, while there have been some very high-profile cases where people get away with crimes because of some kind of mental or emotional disease or problem, in point of fact very few defendants escape prosecution or punishment for that reason.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Sailorman:
But our criminal justice system is supposed to be designed to put the interests of the defendant above the interests of the accusers; to make its top priority to ensure that no person loses their liberty unjustly. A small increase in false convictions is no small matter, and whether the increase of convictions for real rapists makes that justifiable is highly debatable.
This is the heart of many arguments about rape law; the idea advanced by many rape victim advocates that, since “non-violent” rape is so hard to prove, we should relax the standards for conviction. Getting the guilty into jail is more important in rape’s case than in other crimes, and that convictions of the innocent is somehow less horrible or important. I think the meme of “if a woman claims she’s been raped, believe her” is advanced in part to lessen this; to make it seem as though this isn’t much of a risk because all accused are guilty anyway. This case shows us different.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
“But be open to the fact that every day people do things against what you think is their own best interests, and that includes making accusations of rape. You can help someone without judging either them or the people they are accusing.”
I think there’s a lot of confusion about what it means to believe women when they say they were raped. Maybe it’s not a clear concept.
I believe women when they say they were raped.
I believe women when they say they were robbed.
I believe women when they say they went to the grocery store this morning.
I believe women when they say they recently got a haircut.
Sometimes women turn out to be lying, and that’s sad and shocking. But just because a man once lied about being robbed doesn’t mean that all other men are viewed with suspicion when they say they were robbed. The police should check for evidence that the robbery occured, but I, as a private citizen and internet layabout, am not obliged to do likewise.
I am allowed to believe people, being not a court of law. Sometimes I wish I were a court of law, but I would probably get annoyed and bored, not to mention getting sick of not being able to move around and being perpetually full of juries and judges and lawyers.
I’m further allowed to do this, because I don’t hold other things to the standard of evidence that is required by a court of law. I don’t demand that my fiance show me the quart of milk and the receipt before I believe him that he bought milk. Nor do I demand that my father prove he was robbed at knife point when he was seventeen.
Nor did I demand, when I was eighteen, that my mother prove her story to me when she lends me a wide leather belt for a costume and sighed, “That’s the belt I was wearing when I was raped.” I don’t need to see the church where it happened. I don’t need to heft the gun that was held to her head. I don’t need the man’s DNA.
That doesn’t mean there’s no ambiguity around individual circumstances. It means that while our culture views rape charges with inherent suspicion, I do my best not to treat a description of rape differently than I would a description of any other kind of crime.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
O.K., mandolin, that I can go along with.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2007 at 7:19 pm
I think someone else may have discussed this on this or on a related thread, but there still seems to be some confusion about what rape shield laws are.
Rape shield laws are laws adopted in most states in the U.S. (and possibly in other jurisdictions) that restricts the defense from examining the accuser on her past sexual history. There are some exceptions to this restriction, which vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
The rape shield laws have nothing to do with what the news media may disclose. Most news organizations in the U.S. have a policy of not disclosing the name of the accuser. Many also have a policy of not revealing the name of the accused until he has been indicted. However, to the best of my knowledge, at least in the U.S., these are voluntary policies, and the news organizations under no legal prohibition from publishing this information if they choose to do so.
This comment was written by Paul1552.Report this comment to the moderators
April 17th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
RonF writes:
I don’t know anyone (… which doesn’t mean they don’t exist …) who wants to convict more innocent people just because rape is so hard to prove.
The problem is that “rape” is inherently hard to prove in many instances because it isn’t like robbery, fraud, arson, etc. There might be physical evidence that sexual intercourse occurred, but there’s generally no physical evidence that consent did or didn’t occur.
The legal question comes down to consent — did she or didn’t she? If she did, it’s not rape, and if she didn’t, it is. What this means is that rape trials historically have been nothing more than a trial of the accuser, because she has to prove that she didn’t consent.
This is unlike all manner of crimes in which physical evidence DOES exist. Unless I ransack your house, I could (but I’d be laughed out of court …) claim that you told me to stop by and take your VCR for my party. Or that you offered to lend me your car, so I stopped by to take your car. Or, gee, you forgot your purse on the subway, and I was just rummaging through it to call you up and return it, but, gee, I just got distracted. Go figure.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 17th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
Someone on this thread, and it may even have been you, RonF (I confess I’m too lazy to go through all the comments to find it), has already pointed out that generalizing from this case is probably a bad idea.
Julie HOC has also pointed out that it’s possible at the same time to say you believe a woman was raped and to support her as a rape survivor and to say to the accused rapist “I will presume that you’re innocent unless and until you’re convicted.” It’s not easy, but it’s doable. For the reasons I gave in my comment #92, I think that absent strong evidence to the contrary, we should believe a woman who claims rape simply because, even with rape-shield laws and anonymity policies, the deck is still stacked against her.
It’s also been mentioned that if the rapist is unknown to the victim, a rape may very well have taken place and the rapist misidentified.
I can think of at least one well-known case where the rape survivor went public, I think even before her trial, because she felt that all the anonymity tended to reinforce the idea that she might have done something wrong. I admire her, but I don’t know that I would do it in her place, and I sure don’t think every rape survivor should be forced into the limelight.
This comment was written by Lu.Report this comment to the moderators
April 17th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
[Deleted by Amp, and banned.]
This comment was written by anon.Report this comment to the moderators
April 17th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
I also wanted to say to pheeno: I am so sorry. What a horrible thing to go through. I wish you all the best.
This comment was written by Lu.Report this comment to the moderators
April 17th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Just for the record, I didn’t see comment #202 until after I’d posted #203.
This comment was written by Lu.Report this comment to the moderators
April 17th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
I missed it completely.
Was it to me or something?
And thanks Lu *S*
This comment was written by pheeno.Report this comment to the moderators
April 17th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
You’re welcome. (And let’s just say I’m glad you missed it.)
This comment was written by Lu.Report this comment to the moderators
April 17th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
Bah, some idiot on the net who cant even come up with a fake name wouldn’t ever bother me. It’s too pathetic, and Im far too much of a bitch to give a shit, other than find it amusing I annoyed someone so much they had to post. Anons are entertainment for the days Im bored. Takes a while for them to clue in on that, but its fun to watch when they finally do.
heh
This comment was written by pheeno.Report this comment to the moderators
April 17th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
Pheeno.
I’m just logging on to this thread and after having read all the way through, I am sorry to hear of your ordeal and the cruelty shown to you by Chris. His attack on you was just as savage as what that “thing” did to you.
And as for “normal rape”.
If you are reading, Chris, there is no such thing as normal rape.
Rape is the most contemptible form of hatred a man can show a woman.
And Chris, as for women reporting less rape, pre-1960:
It depended on the race of the victim as well as the race of the accused.
That many black men were executed for “supposed rapes” in the South tells very well who the victims were (who were believed) as opposed to the victims were (who were not believed).
And it goes without saying, to those who know the history of the South:
If you were a white woman you would receive justice for rape if the accused was a black man.
But, on the other hand, if you were a black woman, you would have received NO JUSTICE for rape if the accused was a white man.
This comment was written by Ann.Report this comment to the moderators
April 18th, 2007 at 2:33 am
RonF writes:
I don’t know if what I have to say applies in the USA but here in the UK feminists are doing nothing of the sort. What we are demanding is that rapes be properly investigated and the law properly applied.
Conviction rates for rapes vary enormously around the country and detailed evaluations have shown that the *majority* of rape cases fail due to the poor reponses from the police and prosecutors. In London, 80% of reported rapes never even get as far as the prosecutors office.
Moreover ‘adopt a believing response’ is not and never has been a legal demand but a response to the tendency of huge swathes of the general public to begin from a position that all rape vicitms should be treated with suspicion.
This comment was written by Spicy.Report this comment to the moderators
April 18th, 2007 at 6:17 am
I don’t know anyone (… which doesn’t mean they don’t exist …) who wants to convict more innocent people just because rape is so hard to prove.
I don’t think that anyone wants to convict more innocent people in order to also convict more rapists; I just think they see it as very unfortunate but acceptable collateral damage in order to achieve the objective of convicting more rapists.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
April 18th, 2007 at 6:51 am
nope. That “no person” is simply wrong. There’s a balance to be struck. If we really wanted “no person” to ever be convicted wrongly, we’d probably have to chuck the entire judicial system.
The system is already strongly biased towards release of the guilty over imprisonment of the innocent. And that’s how it should be. Rape shield laws, well drafted, don’t change the fact that the bias exists. They do change the balance somewhat, but 1) only a little, and 2) for a worthy cause (discussed below)
What does a general claim like “no small matter” really mean? It’s worthless unless you ALSO consider the benefits of the increased convictions.
It’s important to understand what rape shield laws do, and don’t protect against.
they don’t prevent the defendant from giving evidence relating to prior relations with the accuser. They don’t limit the defenses the defendant can raise–from misidentification to malice. they don’t preclude a claim of consent. They don’t prevent the defendant from exploring the intimate details of the case at hand.
What do they do? really, not much (depending on your viewpoint): they basically prevent the defendant from discussing the prior sexual history of the accuser without first proving that the evidence would be highly relevant to the case. They cut off the “sluts deserve it” defense.
Now, the rapes are still going to be just about as hard to prove. There are still the issues of consent, for example–that’s probably the biggest defense there is. And rape shield laws don’t affect the accused’s ability to claim consent. ALL THEY DO is to prevent the argument that the accuser consented because she did ____ in the past.
So they don’t do much there. But the benefit is large. What’s the benefit? By making the cost of bringing a rape charge less onerous, they vastly increase the chance that the court system will SEE THE RAPE CASE AT ALL.
The main effect of a rape shield law is not, as some think, in actually changing the outcome of a case once it is in court. No, the main effect of rape shield laws is improving the %age of worthy cases that make t to court at all And that benefit is so large that the small possibility of convicting the odd defendant incorrectly is well worth it.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
April 18th, 2007 at 8:24 am
For everyone who wants rape to be treated “like any other crime,” here’s another way of looking at it: suppose a man says he was walking through a bad neighborhood at night and he got mugged. We assume a priori that he did in fact get mugged, and we keep believing that absent strong evidence to the contrary. We don’t ask what he was doing in that neighborhood anyway, or if he might have done something to encourage the mugger, or what he was wearing that made the mugger think him an easy mark, or if he’s ever been mugged before. And if he admits that he handed over his wallet without struggle or protest because the mugger claimed to have a gun, we don’t decide that that somehow mitigates the crime; in fact we add the charge (if there’s someone to charge) of assault with a deadly weapon.
If he identifies the mugger, we may doubt that identification for various reasons, but we don’t (again, absent strong evidence to the contrary) dispute that the mugging took place.
This comment was written by Lu.Report this comment to the moderators
April 18th, 2007 at 10:06 am
So, Lu, what it seems to me that you’re saying is that you do in fact want rape to be treated as any other crime. Like a male charging assault, a female charging rape should be presumed to have a valid reason for doing so, and the decision on how vigorously to investigate and prosecute the charge should not be affected by moral judgements on the circumstance. That makes sense to me, and it’s also clear to me that this has often not been (and on occasion, still isn’t) the case.
Sailorman:
Yes, there’s always a balance to be struck. And “no small matter” is my opinion, and not quantifiable; I put it in to symbolize the basis of our legal system. Many, many legal systems around the world either de jure or de facto are not so based.
The main effect of a rape shield law is not, as some think, in actually changing the outcome of a case once it is in court. No, the main effect of rape shield laws is improving the %age of worthy cases that make t to court at all …
I haven’t asserted otherwise, and would not, as I am not all that familiar with rape shield laws other than the general points that have been discussed above. I’m thinking more of those who would advocate changing existing law than of those defending it. I’ve followed some links lately on various “radical feminist” blogs and have seen a number of posts that think present law is way too unfavorable towards complainants in rape cases and seem to desire to carve out an exception for the legal concept (I’m not talking moral/personal here) of “presumption of innocence” in rape cases.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
April 18th, 2007 at 11:36 am
RonF,
Our system really does do a poor job taking care of victims. And it really does do a pretty shitty job of convicting actual rapists. So a lot of people want to fix those problems.
There are two main categories of suggested improvements. The suggesting people don’t always categorize them right which is how arguments start:
1) Solutions which have benefits, but no legal costs; and
2) Solutions which have both benefits and costs in a legal sense.
the first category is important, though not so obvious. It’s ENTIRELY possible to improve problems with rape cases, without taking any of the defendants’ rights away. It costs money, but real solutions exist.
Three easy examples are 1 ) Better/more police investigative services for rapes (helps find ‘real’ rapists and separate them from the falsely accused) 2) better/more rape crisis counselors (helps victims without hurting defendants); 3) Better scientific testing and/or scientific process (there’s really no excuse for not having easy, functional, bulletproof, nice-as-possible rape kits, for example)
Oddly enough, this type of solution is rarely discussed. However when pressed I have rarely met anyone who doesn’t support these types of improvements. i wish the two sides who disagree with the stuff below would realize that there’s a whole category of things they could agree on.
The second type are not really “solutions” but are more accurately “trade offs.” they usually involve some sort of re-balancing of innocence, guilt, evidence, etc etc. As a lawyer, I don’t generally support these, for a variety of reasons. Rape shield laws are (for me) a rare exception, where the benefits so vastly exceed the costs IMO that it’s worth it.
The main arguments I’ve gotten in with folks is that when i say “that’s really a trade off, you know, with pretty serious legal implications–are you sure you want to do that?” they call me a rape apologist. So I just stopped arguing with them; it’s a waste of both our time. It took me a while to figure that out, though ;)
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
June 5th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
Two issues: One is that a rape accuser whose case is tried and the perpetrator convicted will have her name published. Is that right? Other than reducing the room for speculation that she was either mistaken or malicious, how does that reduce her embarrasment and humiliation?
The other is Sailor’s view that increased investigative resources will help find the real rapist in case of a mistaken identification. That presumes cops, having seen an accuser point to the guy, will go on investigating, looking for somebody else. Based on what? Where would you start? And then, if the cops bring in some other guy they think more likely than the one the accuser named and say, we think this guy is a better bet than Fred over there, now what? The accuser has a problem, doesn’t she?
This comment was written by Richard Aubrey.The only thing that the increased investigation would do is to find against the accuser’s identification. Working against the accuser. Proving her wrong That ought to play well.
How long do you think a police department could keep that up?
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June 12th, 2007 at 7:20 am
The North Carolina bar is now prosecuting Nifong, the state prosecutor who brought charges against the lacrosse players.
From the Washington Post:
Read the whole thing yourself.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
June 12th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
I’ve been waiting for this Nifong case. I want to see on public record exactly how far he went in inventing this case. Did he suborn perjury? Did he hide testimony? Did he hide evidence? Did he manufacture evidence? I suspect that the farther this trial goes, the more it will become evident that these guys were in fact totally innocent of the charges brought.
I also wonder if the end result of this case will be a massive civil suit brought by the three young men involved. It’s hard to win civil cases against the State, but not impossible in cases of egregious wrongdoing.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 12th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
[...] (Curtsy to a comment left by Sailorman). [...]
This comment was written by Alas, a blog » Blog Archive » Duke Case: Nifong’s Trial Has Begun.Report this comment to the moderators
August 27th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-08/w-ftc082708.php
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators