DNA testing failed to connect any members of the Duke University lacrosse team to the alleged rape of a stripper, attorneys for the athletes said Monday.
Citing DNA test results delivered by the state crime lab to police and prosecutors a few hours earlier, the attorneys said the test results prove their clients did not sexually assault and beat a stripper hired to perform at a March 13 team party.
No charges have been filed in the case.
“No DNA material from any young man was present on the body of this complaining woman,” said defense attorney Wade Smith.
The alleged victim, a 27-year-old student at a nearby college, told police she and another woman were hired to dance at the party. The woman told police that three men at the party dragged her into a bathroom, choked her, raped her and sodomized her.
Authorities ordered 46 of the 47 players on Duke’s lacrosse team to submit DNA samples to investigators. Because the woman said her attackers were white, the team’s sole black player was not tested.
District Attorney Mike Nifong stopped speaking with reporters last week after initially talking openly about the case, including stating publicly that he was confident a crime occurred. He went on to say he would have other evidence to make his case should the DNA analysis prove inconclusive or fail to match a member of the team.
An amazing number of people have already posted in the comments, although I haven’t been letting the comments through because of their nasty tone. Some of the comments are openly racist, such as this one:
Why do you colored people always got to play the race card? Why can’t it just be an issue for all races and nationalitys? Now that the sisters been made out to be nothing but a lying bitch its time for the IRS to investigate her ass because we all no she aint paying any taxes on her nasty ass. plus all that those poor students on the team have been through: ( a linching is in order.”
Others are merely gloating in tone. Most fall somewhere between.
However, the DNA evidence doesn’t prove that the woman made a false accusation, as many are suggesting. The DNA evidence can’t rule out the possibility that there were men at the party who were not members of the LAX team (a possibility I brought up last week). Nor, to my knowledge, can any evidence released so far rule out the possibility that the rapists used condoms. Finally, the reasons I stated last week for believing that a rape probably did take place, have not changed.
The defense announcement about the DNA is certainly something anyone following the case should be aware of, and that’s why I’m posting the story on “Alas.” But to conclude from the lack of DNA results that the accusation has been proved fiction is unwarranted.
UPDATE: See also Amanda’s post on this subject. And this post by zong4assata at Justice 4 Two Sisters. And this comment at Ginmar’s, written by a lab tech who works with DNA. And this post at Emboldened.
This thread is open to feminist, pro-feminist and feminist-friendly posters only. If you don’t think you fall into Amp’s definition of “feminist, pro-feminist and feminist-friendly,” and you wish to make a comment, you may do so at the cross-post on Creative Destruction.
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Indeed, it makes prosecution more difficult but by no means does it “prove” nothing happened. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, as the old saying goes.
It’s likley that other residue would have been found indicating use of a condom (latex, spermicide, lubricant, etc).
Experts aleady said that in the case that multiple mens DNA is mixed it would be near impossible to pick out the rapists. That three mens DNA doesn’t lead to three matches but confounds the results and probably ends in no matches.
The DNA of two of the boys was found on the floor and on a towel in the bathroom. Apparently the defense wouldn’t answer when asked if it was sperm.
Apparently, gang rapists are more likely to use condoms than most. Something to consider.
It’s proof that there’s no DNA evidence to be found on the woman’s body, which is wildly different.
I’m nauseated by that comment, incidentially. There is nothing that would justify such bile.
The lawyers hired by the captains of the lacrosse team have done a good job of at putting the idea into the minds of the not so politically savvy and those not learned in the ways of the criminal justice system that “lack of DNA inside the womans vagina or on her body” equals “innocent”.
I am not saying that the men raped her and I am not saying that the woman is a liar. I am saying that all of the evidence has yet to come out and that the lawyers for the team are attempting to play the media and public opinion like banjos.
As we all know, the men could have easily used condoms and three men can hold a women down pretty well so that she would not be able to tell if they wore condoms or didn’t.
Don’t know if anyone has been following the Imette St Guillien case, but the first DNA tests they conducted came back “inconclusive,” as well. Interesting to note the difference in reactions!
The news release comes from a defense attorney who does not directly represent all the players. Other than to the DA, the comprehensive test results were not disclosed. Each player received their own results. Most likely, the defense attorney cannot know the results of all the tests.
A defense attorney who represents a client whose results came back negative can go out and say the DNA results for the lacrosse players came back negative. That same lawyer can also make as many bold blanket statements as they want about how no evidence has connected the players to a crime. That defense lawyer has nothing to lose and everything to gain by making such a press release in order to build public pressure on the DA to collapse the investigation.
Please note that in last week’s City Council meeting, one of the coucil members said they heard that some of the players’ parents had shipped thier sons out of state and overseas in order to avoid the DNA warrants. Please note that there are many headlines from the press (spoon fed by defense attorneys) about 46 DNA samples. The police and DA have never said that they obtained 46 samples, only that they had warrants for them.
Amp, Thanks for posting; you beat me to it.
Yes, I’m currently inclined to think that the DA has further evidence, and the lack of DNA (as reported by the defense attorney’s) doesn’t mean nothing happened. The defense is hired to put a favorable spin and create reasonale doubt, so I think they are just doing their job. I’m inclined to agree with posts #6&7.
If you want to see ignorant comments feel free to come over to my blog. The MRAs and rape apologists are really trying to take over.
unfortunately, it sounds like the DA is not as skilled at playing the media instrument as are the high-powered defense lawyers (why would he be?). the whole “absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence” idea should be logically obvious, but it apparently isn’t being touted. just another part of how class is playing into this: the woman’s side of the story is being championed by the DA, not a professional PR machine like big lawyers have. too bad some generous PR company won’t donate some pro bono work to counter the defense campaign. (i only say “PR company” instead of “lawyer” because the victim of a crime ought not need a lawyer, but it might take a lawyer to navigate the nuances of the defence lawyer’s attacks.)
Well, anyone who is claiming that this proves that no rape took place are of course quite wrong. There could still be people guilty of raping this woman on the Duke lacrosse team. But what it does do is make it much more difficult to prove anyone’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in a courtroom.
The DA earlier stated that he had evidence other than DNA evidence that he could use to prove a rape. It now seems that he’ll need it. If this boils down to the woman’s word against the word of whoever she accuses of rape, there’ll be no case sustainable in court. I’m no lawyer, but it seems to me that there will have to be some kind of forensic evidence or testimonies from third parties that will tie specific individuals to any assault to get a conviction. Such evidence could exist, and I doubt it’s in the DA’s interest to reveal what it is right now.
I wish people would go back and re-read #6 and #8, above. We have NO IDEA what the evidence actually says. All we know is the defense attorneys’ spin on things. Perhaps they are telling the unvarnished truth. We will know when the DNA test results are all released. In the meantime, there’s no point in saying “the tests were inconclusive” because a defense attorney said they were.
Concur, like crazy. Especially, the defense’s extraordinary presumptions have a lot more to do with making sure the case gets venue-changed to East of Mars; they’re doing their best to lead everybody into jumping to conclusions.
Just playing devil’s advocate here…what if she DID lie? It’s not like it’s unprecendented in the whole of human histroy. At what point does that become a possiblity everyone here is willing to consider?
So…what would everyone here say about how this has played out if it turns out this was a shakedown?
John, if she did lie, then she’s a criminal, and a lot of feminists, acting out of genuine hatred of rape and concern for women, been taken in by a con. (And of course I acknowledge that’s a possibility – and so do most feminists, as far as I can tell). If it is ever proved that this is a false rape accusation, of course I’ll post to let my readers know.
However, if that’s the case, then I’d say the moral responsibility for what happened lies with the person who lied, not the people taken in by the lie.
I’m convinced that real rapes are a LOT more common than false rape accusations. I’m convinced that women not being believed is a much bigger problem than false rape accusations. So although I’d condemn anyone who’d make a false rape accusation, I don’t think feminists are wrong to make outrage against rape their primary concern when cases like this come up.
Occam’s razor, anybody? She’s been dancing for years, in the same town for years, and all of a sudden she up and figures out a way to get stragulation bruises on her own neck (Oh, yeah. Right. She “fell.”) and pops herself in the eye hard enough that she can’t see out of it all just because she wants to spend the next ten years of her life being called a lying whore. Yeah, that’s likely.
You know, if the Anxious Masculinity Squad spent 1% of the time they spend worrying about false rape accusations dealing with rape realities, the world would have been back to normal long time ago.
Ampersand – of course I agree. Rapes are much more serious and (sadly) astronomically more common than false rape accusations. I hope my comment was not construed to suggest otherwise.
I am only speaking about this one case. Because I’m starting to think there has been an egregious rush to judgement. And I think it might be worth backing off these guys until more of the facts come out.
If Kell wants to apply Occam’s razor to this case…OK, what’s more likely? Is she lying or not.
I think it would require a near religious level of faith to believe the word of a stripper with a rap sheet, against the consistent denials of few dozen young men (many of whom have behaved badly when drunk, but none of whom have a arrests for violence) who are now backed up by a lack of DNA evidence and these time-stamped photos I keep hearing about.
This is a progressive blog, is it not? Are we going to discount science? Who here wants to teach creationism, or even intelligent design in the schools? The lack of DNA, latex, or lubricant found by the rape kit should be extremely troubling to anyone with an open mind.
Let’s all just stop railing against these guys until they’re at least CHARGED with something.
If there was actual DNA evidence (i.e. semen, right?), and it doesn’t match the defendants’ DNA, doesn’t it strongly suggest that the defendants didn’t commit the rape? That doesn’t mean the woman is lying, which I don’t think she has any reason to do. Eyewitnesses, including victims, misidentify people all the time, especially in unimaginably stressful situations like violent gang rape. If, as seems likely, there were people at the party not on the lacrosse team, they would be the ones guilty.
Apologies if I’m misunderstanding the facts of the case.
Oh, I missed that no charges have been filed. Still, doesn’t this strongly suggest that whoever the rapists were, they weren’t on the lacrosse team? It was *somebody*’s semen that was used in the DNA test.
From all I have read, NO semen was found. Which is why I am so skeptical at this point. Apologies if I have the facts incorrect. But please post a link if you think I do.
John,
You are not even making sense. Obviously, there must have either been semen or tissue found, or there woulf have been nothing against which to attempt a DNA match.
Up thread of where you first started commenting, the following points were made:
1) This is the defense attorney for a single player making this claim, which it is not clear the attorney would have had sufficient information to legitimately make.
2) Mixed DNA from multiple rapists will not necessarily match the individual DNA of any of the rapists, so multiple rapists not using condoms may be unidentifiable.
3) It is unclear that all of the lacrosse players were successfully tested. Some of them may have fled.
If you think it is irrational to trust a (black) stripper with a rap sheet over some nice (white, rich) boys who have a long history of abuse towards their community (go back and read Q Grrl’s comments on previous threads) and rap sheets, but have never before been convicted of rape or other violent crimes, when there is clear and pretty much indistuptable evidence that she was raped by someone, and an unclear claim that DNA matches have not been made against at least some of the players, well, I have to question whether you should really be calling yourself feminist or pro-feminist.
Also, “These time stamped photos I’ve been hearing about” is crap evidence for this discussion (I know nothing of the actual evidence but, apparently, neither do you). If you are going to discount a substantial rape accusation on the basis of some vague reference to some evidence that supposedly disproves the allegation, without bothering to even find out exactly what that evidence is, or how exactly it is supposed to disprove the allegation, or providing a link to that evidence and an explaination of why it is exculpatory, I think it is pretty obvious what your position is, and probably what it was yesterday, and I have to question why you are on this thread.
Tony,
Look up thread for the discussions I mentioned in my response to John. I appreciate that you are not leaping to his conclusion, but I think the earlier discussion on this thread makes even your conclusion uncertain.
Also, as you mention, no one has been charged, as they haven’t yet succeeded in identifying the 3 rapists. I believe that she was unable to identify her assailants more clearly than three white guys at the party.
yet another class disadvantage: when people from lower economic classes are charged with a crime, they are much more likely to have inadequate or merely adequate legal representation. when wealthy people are charged with a crime, they have many more resources available to them to be acquitted or get their records wiped clean. thus the presence a rap sheet might be evidence of a person’s credibility and it might not. and the absence of a rap sheet might indicate a lack of law-breaking, and it might not.
i’d say, just looking at motive, that the treatment being meted out towards this woman is an excellent reason for her to discontinue a lie, if that’s what it really is. and the consequences of a rape conviction are an excellent reason for the accused to continue to lie, if that’s what it really is. also, it’s easily possible that everyone is telling the truth: the woman was brutally raped at that party, but just not by the boys whose lawyers have spoken up.
i think occam’s razor cuts in favor of the woman, a rap sheet notwithstanding.
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As it turns out: http://www.wral.com/news/8600601/detail.html
DNA was found in the bathroom where the rape happened.
I’d also like to say that rich white boy rapists often target people they know will not be believed and prey on them at will. It’s just that when it happens to men or does not contain the sexual element of rape, the victim is given more leeway. Why? If the woman had merely stated she was beaten and robbed, these guys would be in jail already. she would be believed. She has bruises, she has injuries. Some of those injuries indicate rape. I don’t believe for one minute that the charge of rape is regarded as some kind of stain on a guy’s reputation—at least among certain groups of guys—-so why the sudden schism? Why the resentment when a woman files a rape charge and not an assault charge?
If the DNA conclusively clears the lacrosse players, then why have they remained silent about who did assault her? Something happened that night, and at the very, very least, these boys are criminally negligent in not reporting it.
For all we know, there could have been lacrosse recruits at that party. I’m not trying to get all conspiratol, but we just don’t know. This is the quote from one of the defense attorneys:
That’s a lot of words. A lot of words to say that there was no conclusive DNA match to the lacrosse team members. Interesting how he sets up the dichotomy of “young man” to “complaining woman”. Why not just come out and call her a shrew?
oh, my source for that was wral.com, the local news station, and not the AP release.
The new disclosures (the photographs, the partial DNA results) shed little light on what happened. Apparently, there is some evidence that some suspects ejaculated in that bathroom, and there is no evidence that they ejaculated inside Mary Doe. That’s not very informative. It means that the assailants, if they penetrated her vaginally with their penises, did so using condoms, or did not ejaculate during penetration. It rules out very little. Regarding the photos, we have only very general descriptions. We don’t know if they fix a timeline for the loss of her fingernails (which, barring the bizarre, were lost in the bathroom along with her phone). Apparently, the photos show bruises on her legs; but reports have her face and neck bruised and there is no word on whether the photos show this.
The defense is peddling the story that she showed up too drunk to dance (which, if true, would be consistent with bruises on the legs from falling). If that’s true, Big Fat So What? If she’s got a substance problem, or if she is so burned out from sex work that she gets loaded to get through the day, that’s either a personal problem or an indictment of sex work. It’s certainly not evidence that she wasn’t raped. In fact, it provides motive: she’s drunk, vulnerable, can be talked into returning to the house despite threats and racial slurs, may not remember what happened and may not be believed if she does. Also, if she was too drunk to dance a full set (if; I have not seen the photos and nobody is unbiased about what they show) then the rapists may have been motivated to rape her because they were angry about a shortened performance.
So the effect of the developments trumpeted by the defense are a broad neutral and add little, in my view.
I’m really in a state of shock over some of the things I’ve been reading on this board. This movement has a lot of growing up to do. Other than prosecuting this woman to the full extent of the law, this case is over. This woman and all the posters who have stood up for her have done imeasurable harm to the movement. Those that are still standing up and defending this woman at this late date, in the face of all reason and common sense, are just beyond irresponsible. Do you have so little regard for this movement that you are willing to toss away all our credibility in a pique of stuborness and stupidity?
Teamrican, if you have actual arguments or counter-arguments to make, please make them. I’m interested in hearing what you have to say. But what you just posted isn’t an argument; it’s just you saying that you think you’re a better person than anyone who disagrees with you. You don’t make a single logical argument in support of your views.
People in this thread have made solid arguments for why this case isn’t necessarily over. The DA has announced that he still plans to press charges. That you don’t agree with all of that is valid. That you seem to think that no person could possibly disagree with your opinion, however, is not reasonable. Nor is it reasonable that you expect us all to agree with you without you giving any arguments in support of your beliefs.
As for the DNA evidence, keep in mind that you’ve only heard so far from the defense attorneys. It’s premature to leap to judgment on the DNA based on having heard only from one side of the debate.
(You may claim I made the same mistake from the other perspective. But that’s not true; I read and took seriously Jeralyn Merritt’s arguments, for example, and took the time to explain why I disagreed. I also acknowledged, in posts like this one, the possibility that I might be wrong. Judging from your comment #30, however, you don’t seem to believe that there’s any chance you could be wrong).
Right back atcha, Teamrican. The last I checked, this has been a Big Fat Trial by Media, which doesn’t count in a court of law. You can speculate on the guilt or innocence of each person involved, as can we, but nobody here knows the full story (including you). The men on the team are only getting the same kind of treatment here as Mary Doe is getting elsewhere, so I guess the shoe doesn’t feel so nice when it’s on the other foot. If you feel that this kind of discussion is unfair, then maybe it should occur to you that something is seriously wrong with our society when a defense attorney thinks it’s OK to hold press conferences before charges have even been brought. Or that it’s OK for a grown man to be spirited out of the country by his parents so he won’t have to give evidence about something that never happened (according to him).
Big Clue in a Lead Pipe: we believe Mary Doe’s story until proven definitively otherwise because a rape trial automatically puts the victim on trial – the only kind of criminal proceeding I can think of where the person who was assaulted is blamed for what happened to her. I don’t see (for instance) Skilling’s attorney holding a press conference about how stupid the Enron employees were for owning company stock, do you?
Charles,
1) Post a link that backs up your claim that semen was found. The statement made by defense attorneys yesterday suggested that there was no evidence the woman had sex at all. OF COURSE defense attorneys spin the facts, but given all the media scrutiny, and the fact that the DNA report WILL be made public at some point, I doubt very much they are stupid enough to lie about it.
2) It wasn’t just one defense lawyer representing one man. Every defense lawyer on the case was there, representing the entire team.
3) The New York Times reported that all 46 players gave samples. It’s wishful thinking to believe that every news outlet in America has somehow missed this possibility. The DA’s office had warrants to get the swabs. If they didn’t get swabs from everyone, don’t you think they would have made that public? Get real.
And lastly, how dare you attack me and suggest I am not a feminist. This movement will get nowhere by loudly championing an accuser if it is later determined that she is lying. It will set the movement back. That’s my concern. I’m not saying we should all apologize to these assholes. I’m saying it might be time to stay mum until the facts are in (as you suggest, and then turn around and ignore).
Though it may or may not be wise to withhold judgment, I do think there are some misunderstandings worth clearing up. Firstly, the DA has not said that he will definitely file charges. Instead, he has warned the defense attorneys that he will continue his investigation. It is also false to claim that the defense attorneys are only representing individual clients and, as a result, only know the DNA tests from their individual clients. In this particular case, there has been a high degree of cooperation among the attorneys representing the players. Indeed, at yesterday’s press conference in front of the Durham County Courthouse many of the individual attorneys representing much of the upper echelon of the Raleigh-Durham defense bar were present. At this point, they appear to have thrown their lot in together. We also do not know that semen was found anywhere. In fact, the attorneys for the players did say that semen was not found anywhere. What they did say was the DNA matching two players, both residents of the house where the incident is alleged to have occurred, was found on a towel or towels in the bathroom. DNA is present in most human cells and can be transferred by lots different types of tissue. It is also untrue that a DNA test requires semen for a comparative match. Even if no semen were found inside or on a victim, DNA from other cells might transfer. After a rape, a nurse need not find semen to prepare a rape kit for investigation. Instead, she will swab all the surfaces where genetic material may have transferred. It is these swabs–and not semen–which was, according to the defense attorneys, tested in this case. None of those matched any of the players tested, says the defense. It is also untrue that “mixed DNA from multiple rapists” will not match to one. DNA from inside a victim must always be separated into the perpetrator’s DNA and the victim’s otherwise the test would be worthless. This is possible because DNA is a stable molecule that does not “mix” together all that easily.
If I sound like counsel for the defense, I sincerely apologize. This case certainly could go either way, with much of it hinging on important facts that we do not yet know. There were many witnesses to the events, whatever they were, and we know very little about what those witnesses have told police, if anything. Obviously these statements are a crucial piece we know very little about, and they, along with the results of the hospital exam, will form the basis of any case should one be brought. We also only know the self-serving version of the DNA reports. In my opinion, any comments as to the truth or falsity of these claims rest on a misplaced faith. If the DA does not yet know what happen to the extent necessary to either bring charges or cease his investigation, I am not quite sure how anyone not affiliated with this case could claim such knowledge.
The article found here. doesn’t quote the DA planning to press charges. It quotes him as planning to move forward with the investigation.
Unlike the defense attorneys, I just want to spread a little caution and care around as we spread the “facts” about this case.
Point well taken.
Teamrican, if you have actual arguments or counter-arguments to make, please make them. I’m interested in hearing what you have to say. But what you just posted isn’t an argument; it’s just you saying that you think you’re a better person than anyone who disagrees with you. You don’t make a single logical argument in support of your views.
Well, lets review the evidence. As soon as the story went public the DA was all over the media claiming he knew that a crime had been committed and he was just waiting for the DNA to press charges. As someone who worked in the legal profession in a previous life, this struck me as kind of an odd stance for a district attorney to take. Then we heard about the 911 call. It seemed incriminating at first, but then the timeline raised serious questions about it. The DA however, seemed oblivious, and released a statement saying they had no idea who the caller was. This is critical, because they had already interviewd both of the prostitutes. So not only was ***** lying in the original 911 call, but she then must have denied making the call at all to the DA and police. Huge Red Flag #1. The second Red flag came when we found out that contrary to the DA’s claims of uncooperation, at least two of the players named by the prostitute as having raped her volunteered to give DNA and a polygraph. Things got even more suspicious when every single lawyer for the players started going on TV and unequivically stating that the DNA would clear their clients. That’s a huge piece of evidence. If a gang rape took place, there is no way that the attorneys are going to go out on a limb like that. If they did brutally rape, sodomize, and beat a woman in a bathroom for a half an hour, there is no way the players would be saying anything. They’d wait for the DNA, and if it was positive they’d claim it was consensual and if not then, and only then, would they argue no sex whatsoever happened that night. This is Red Flag #2, and at this point the DA seemed to realize he may have made a huge mistake. His national media tour ended completely, and the man who at first claimed all he was waiting on was DNA to file charges was now releasing a statement that he wasn’t even going to make the resluts of the DNA public and that his case didn’t really hinge on DNA at all. The DNA results themselves were Red Flag #3. A brutal gang rape in a bathroom. Three men ram their dicks into her mouth, vagina, and anus. She suffers cuts and bruises. She claims to have been strangled. Yet not s single strand of blood, spit, semen, or skin anywhere on her body. No latex, no lube, no nothing. Red Flag #4 is the defense assertion that photographic evidence will prove she arrived at the party blitzed out of her mind and bruised. This really doesn’t go to prove she is lying as much as it provides the defesne with a strong argument that whatever happened to her happened before the party, but since charges are never going to be filed its sort of irrelevent. Red Flg #5 is the demeanor of the team. 30 minutes after a supposed gang rape, the players are exchanging emails which don’t suggest at all that a gang rape took place, and completely jive with thier story that the dispute was essentially over their claim that a payment was made for services that were incompetley or inadequately rendered. The police wasted 2 days in getting a search warrant for the house, yet when they finally do, they find all of the accuser’s belongings, including finger nails, laying around in plain view. 2 days later. For the love of God, please explain to me why that stuff is still sitting around if they committed this crime? It flies in the face of all reason and common sense.
To counter all these points we have only the word of the accuser, and this brings us to Red Flag #6- her credibility. She is employed as a Prostitute. She has drug convicitons. In her previous job, as a stripper, she was convicted of stealing from one of her clients in an even more egregious manner than the incident the Duke boys describe. Durring this theft she led police on a high speed chase at the conclusion of which she was charged with assualting a police officer.
And this is what you want us to hang our hats on. As someone who cares passionately about rape victims and domestic violence policy, I say you are insane and you are destroying the hard work and dedication of countless advocates who came before you. As advocates we have a solemn resposiblity. Our credibility becomes necessarily intertwined with that of the movement we represent. Our reputation is all we have. Lose it and you are nothing more than Al Sharpton in a skirt. When the next case comes along, and it is a real case with a real victim, people are going to google back and look at the statements you made about the Duke Lacrosse Saga. For people like TalkLeft, that is only going to enhance her credibitlty in the future. But sadly, for many others, it is going to serve as a disqualifier against ever taking them seriously again.
For me, every detail that comes via defense attorneys has to be viewed as propaganda designed to create the impression they want to create.
Spin, baby, spin.
I’m not sure if there are any ethical standards regarding the accuracy and completeness of information and accusations contained in these types of statements.
Unfortunately, most people won’t question the accuracy of statements made by defense attorneys. And even if all the evidence that IS found supports the alleged victim’s account, most distant observers will never know it.
And the defense attorneys keep saying accused rapists are at a horrible disadvantage. Meaning: Not all of them are found not guilty.
Someone please tell me how a person who thinks that the sheer fact of being a prostitute (or a “Prostitute”) is damaging to a woman’s credibility can possibly be called “feminist”?
As to the evidence, I don’t see what’s so hard about realizing that multiple rapists yield confused DNA results. I also don’t see what’s so hard about realizing that the defense attorney is engaging in strenuous advocacy. As an attorney he has an ethical duty not to lie to or mislead the court, but not necessarily the public. He only (under the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, though I don’t have the applicable NC rule in front of me) has a duty not to give statements that he knows or reasonably should know have a SUBSTANTIAL likelihood of MATERIALLY PREJUDICING the case. There’s a lot of wiggle room in those words “substantial” and “materially.”
If that is your reading of the email in question, you need help. Or to rid yourself of your patriarchally tinted glasses. There is no “their story” from the lacrosse team. If you haven’t noticed, these boys have not said anything. That’s part of the issue (and also why I said that at the least, these boys are criminally negiligent for not reporting this woman’s assault). The email talked specifically of murdering and skinning erotic dancers — how you can say that exonerates them, is, well, quite dubious.
Mary –
I don’t believe the accuser in this case was a prostitute. She was an exotic dancer/escort. It’s a gray line, but I’m willing to draw it. So the rest of this post is not about this Duke Lacrosse Rape Scandal.
However, let’s please discuss this statement of yours:
Being a prostitute isn’t damaging to one’s crediblity? Let’s not all pretend that a prostitute has the same credibility as a doctor, a housewife, a waitress, etc. They don’t. They break the law every time they do their “job.”
AND ,ost prostitutes have substance abuse problems, which goes hand in hand with deceit.
For those of us who consider ourselves pro-feminists, but also citizens of the real world, I’d appreciate the latitude to make distinctions about the quality of a person’s character.
All people are created equal and deserve the same rights. That doesn’t mean all everyone’s word is worth the same. Character CAN be defined by a persons actions. And there isn’t anything noble about prostitution.
40: The horrific e-mail you speak of was sent by one of the players before the party. I haven’t heard about the e-mails teamrican is referring to. teamrican, where can we read about these e-mails?
Of course you’re entitled to your opinions about prostitution in general. But it may surprise you to learn that some of us just don’t care that a woman is a prostitute, because we’re not in the habit of making superficial judgments about people based on a single known fact. I don’t know this woman, and neither do you. For me, it takes more than just knowing what a person does to make money to decide whether they’re credible or not. Also, for a “pro-feminist” you’re dangerously close to suggesting that there is a correlation between a woman’s station in life and her propensity to lie about something as serious as rape. Classism in the guise of concern about “character” is not a feminist value.
Well, Teamrican has certainly gone out on a limb with its “evidence.” Let’s review it point by point.
Red Flag # 1: As soon as the story went public the DA was all over the media claiming he knew that a crime had been committed and he was just waiting for the DNA to press charges.”
As I recall, the DA said he was waiting for the DNA but that even without out it there was enough evidence to move forward. But the apologists will jump on me with this one if my memory is wrong on this point.
Red Flag #2: Things got even more suspicious when every single lawyer for the players started going on TV and unequivically stating that the DNA would clear their clients. That’s a huge piece of evidence.
Strangely enough, this is not evidence. This is the job of a defense attorney when an incident is played out in the media. Remember Bush unequivocally stating that didn’t know how Plame’s name was leaked to the media? Yeah.
Red Flag #3: The DNA results themselves were Red Flag #3.
I’m not so sure about this. I have heard conflicting explanations of how DNA results are determined & the difficulties in different situations. Also, we have not heard the official line on the DNA results. Pardon me if I’m a bit sceptical of the statements by defense attorneys. I think that judgement must be reserved on the DNA at this moment.
Red Flag #4: Red Flag #4 is the defense assertion that photographic evidence will prove she arrived at the party blitzed out of her mind and bruised.
Again, I am sceptical about the statements of defense attorneys wrt crimes/investigations played out in the media. Until that photographic evidence is produced I’m not sure how this can be a red flag. I’m also uncertain about how, precisely, photographs can prove that a person was blitzed out of their mind. Video? Sure. Still photos? I’m not so sure. Also, date/time stamps, as well as images themselves, are easily manipulable. So, until they are produced & their authenticity verified I think we must, once again, reserve judgement.
Red Flag #5: Red Flg #5 is the demeanor of the team.
First, what QGrrl said. Second, what is the proper demeanor of a rapist after a rape?
Red Flag #6: …her credibility. She is employed as a Prostitute.
She is employed as a prostitute? And here I thought she was a stripper. Can you cite a reference for your claim? I don’t see that her credibility is any different than that of those team members with criminal records. Also, from what I have read thus far, I suspect that calling her a prostitute is a lie meant to degrade her & reduce her credibility. But, if there is proof that she is a prostitute, I’m willing to concede that the assertion is not a lie.
And, finally:
This is critical, because they had already interviewd both of the prostitutes. So not only was XXX lying in the original 911 call, but she then must have denied making the call at all to the DA and police.
Perhaps you need to lay out the version of the timeline & supporting evidence for your statements here as I am unfamiliar with what you’re talking about. Second, why do you call them prostitutes? Are you aware that stripper does not equal prostitute? Third, why the fuck are you using her name? I don’t have words for how immoral or disgusting I find that.
Imani –
I went out of my way at the top of my post to make it clear that I was not referring to the accuser in this case.
I wanted to address the issue of whether prostitutes have the same credibility as law abiding women, regardless of class. And I don’t think they do. Because their actions demonstrate that they have no respect for the law.
Again – that has nothing to do with this Duke case because nobody is saying this woman was a prostitute. My statement should be considered and weighed as a hypothetical.
I’m a big fan of feminist ideals. I’m also a fan of common sense. And Mary’s post struck me as outlandish.
Evaluating credibility is not an exact science. Most people would probably place exotic dancers at the lower end of the credibility spectrum for reasons that have little to do with their actual credibility. More importantly, a person’s credibility has nothing to do whatsoever with whether an actual event happened. It either did or didn’t. We can choose to believe or disbelieve whomever we wish. What we ought to remember is that whom we choose to believe often reflects more about what kind of people we are than those whose credibility we are assessing in the first place.
The email in question occurred shortly after the rape accusation at about 2:00 am.
Teamrican, try not to call people who disagree with you “insane.” Thanks.
Teamrican wrote:
And these serious questions are….?
I assume you mean the alleged rape victim? If so, I must point out that no one claims she made either 911 call. Some people claim that the second dancer is the most likely person to have made the first call, and that’s possible. But whether or not the other dancer made the first call doesn’t logically prove that the alleged victim, whom I’ll call Mary Doe, is a liar.
In general, I find all of the fuss around the 911 calls completely unpersuasive. The argument seems to me that IF Mary Doe was involved in those calls in any way, that proves that she didn’t act in an entirely consistent, calm and logical fashion, with the implication being that therefore she’s lying about being raped. The question then becomes, is it true that no actual rape victim would ever act in an inconsistent, non-calm or illogical fashion in the time period immediately following being brutally raped?
I think it’s likely that in the period shortly after Mary Doe got out of the house, she sat in the car in shock while the other dancer, who may or may not have been aware of the rape at that moment, called 911 and reported the guys for making racist remarks. Nothing about that scenario is something that would never have happened if a rape actually occurred.
Mary Doe didn’t name any particular players as having raped her. She said she heard them use particular names, but she had no way of knowing if the names being used were their actual names or not.
How do you know for a fact that there are no lawyers for the players apart from the ones who have been talking to the press on TV?
You seem to take every word the defense lawyers utter as Holy Writ. It’s possible that the rapists were party guests who were not team members; it’s possible that team members lied to their lawyers (defendants do sometimes do stupid things like lie to their lawyers); it’s possible that not every player’s lawyer has spoken.
It’s possible – and even likely – that if a rape did take place, not every player knows about it.
I agree that the DA has acted foolishly; I suspect he agrees, since long before the results of the DNA tests came back he backtracked and said (correctly) that DNA results aren’t everything.
However, I disagree with the implication that if the DA screws up or says something foolish and has to backtrack, that somehow proves that a false rape accusation has been made. The accusation is true, or not true, regardless of what the DA says or does.
How do you know this? This news story quotes one of the defendant’s lawyers as saying there was DNA on Mary Doe (emphasis added):
So are you saying that this story misquoted Cheshire, or that Chesire misspoke? Or that the DNA evidence found on Mary Doe wasn’t “blood, spit, semen, or skin”? And in any case, what’s the source of your information?
If the defense says so, it must be true. But all the defense actually said is that the photos will establish that there are scrapes on her legs before she entered the party; if that description is accurate, then the photos still won’t explain the bruising on her face.
And I suspect the photos really aren’t all that great, or the defense might have released them. But the truth is, neither of us really knows what’s on the photos, because the defense hasn’t released them.
First of all, the email (singular, not plural, as far as I know only one email has been released) you refer to also seems to establish that there’s a serious culture of extreme woman-hating among at least some of the team. To me, that makes the rape claim seem more credible, not less. (Although as courtroom evidence, I don’t think the email proves anything either way).
Second of all, at best the email suggests that if a rape took place, the writer of the email was not one of the rapists.
Third, what Q Grrl said in post #40.
Because no criminals in world history have ever acted stupidly? Therefore, if there’s evidence of a crime, that proves the criminals are innocent?
I have no idea why the rapists (if a rape took place) left the evidence. Perhaps they’re dumb. Perhaps they’ve deluded themselves into believing that no rape took place, and there is therefore no crime to cover up (a lot of rapists don’t think of what they did as rape). Perhaps they were scared that they’d get caught trying to clean up the crime scene. Perhaps they were in denial and not thinking about it. Perhaps their lawyers advised them not to make things worse by trying to remove evidence. Perhaps the rapists were not among the three team members who actually reside in the house, and so didn’t have access.
I find all of that more plausible than your logic, which says that if evidence of a crime exists, that’s a red flag showing that no crime took place.
(I’m ignoring the question of whether or not Mary Doe is a prostitute, as some have alleged, because I don’t find “red flag #6” a credible argument even if Mary Doe is a prostitute.)
The end result of your logic, if our legal system took it seriously, would be that prostitutes and people with rap sheets would become legally unrapable, because any rape charges brought forward by such people would be automatically dismissed as not credible. I think that’s a very bad idea indeed.
There is no truth to the implication that prostitutes cannot be raped, or should always be assumed to be liars if they accuse someone of having raped them. Just because someone is not a “person of note” does not mean that they are never crime victims. (In fact, I suspect the opposite might be true).
I do think that if she had a history of making false rape accusations, that would make me agree that she’s not a credible witness. But that’s because in that case, what she had done in the past would be directly relevant to the question of if she would make a false rape accusation. In this case, none of the character smears you bring up have any logical relevance. You’re just trying to say that because she’s a hooker, she must be a liar and a false accuser. But that’s just illogical, not to mention prejudicial.
Ah, the sweet irony of this coming from a man whose on-line name is “John”.
In other words, John is of the mind that prostitues can’t be raped. He just doesn’t have the guts to out-and-out say it.
Because their actions demonstrate that they have no respect for the law.
And, to take the statement to its logical conclusion, those who drive faster than the posted speed limit have limited credibility because they have no respect for the law. Those that fudge the numbers on their tax returns have limited credibility because they have no respect for the law. As Kurt Vonnegut would write, and on and on. Apparently, John is one of 3 people in the country who never go above the posted speed limit. Bully for you!
John-
Fair enough–you did establish that you weren’t referring to the accuser in the Duke case. My bad. But if we’re just talking about a hypothetical prostitute making an accusation of rape (although of course such women AREN’T really hypothetical, and who’s to say we won’t find ourselves debating a real-life case at some point?), everything I said in my post still stands. Your “hypothetical” prostitute will become a real one at some point, and you’re already rehearsing what you’re going to say about her.
“Credibility” is an elusive concept for me, and my assessments of a person’s credibility are based on a number of factors, often amounting to little more than gut feeling. In fact, with my quasi-Marxist understanding, possession of ostentatious wealth often functions to make a person LESS credible in my eyes than someone who has had contact with the grimy underside of life. So, my bias seems to run in a counter-normative direction.
Also, “These time stamped photos I’ve been hearing about” is crap evidence for this discussion (I know nothing of the actual evidence but, apparently, neither do you)
According to StarNewsOnline
Bill Thomas, a defense attorney told news reporters some unnamed person took a photo showing the dancer had extensive bruises on her knees when she arrived at the party; the photo is evidently timestamped. In one of the articles I read (but didn’t save) he also stated the camera’s clock has been calibrated to verify its accuracy.
The reporters were not shown the photo and the name of the photographer was not provided. The defense attorney didn’tstate whether the photographer was a member of the LaCross team.
Since I know digital information is generally easy to change, I googled a bit. Not surprisingly, it is possible to purchase software that alters the timestamp on photographs taken with digital camera. I also found a fair number of discussions about modifying time stamps on digital photographs for a variety of legitimate purposes. Obviously, if the technology exists, it can be applied for both legitimate and illegitimate purposes. I also read a few pages discussing how to change the timestamps and it reads as though it’s fairly easy to do. (However, I didn’t try it myself and so don’t know for sure.)
If tampering with the date is as easy as it seems to be then digital time stamps on digital photographs unearthed nearly a month after the incident aren’t going to tell us much.
Depending on the actual content of the photos, and the testimony surrounding them, the photos themselves may tell us something. But, I think we need to wait for the the defense attorney to show people the photos and tell us who took them before we can guess whether these photos tell us anything at all.
This thread is open to feminist, pro-feminist and feminist-friendly posters only.
Is all this feminist infighting and “I’m more feminist than you” postering too divisive for the movement? If Amp didn’t try to be the pro-feminist police then maybe pro-feminists like John and teamrican wouldn’t knee-jerk as defensively as they are against what he’s saying. Can’t all we feminists just get along?
Sorry, I couldn’t help myself in the face of such folks as John and teamrican calling themselves feminist, pro-feminist and feminist-friendly. Every pimp, pornographer and John these days thinks feminism is a shield to hide behind when expressing anti-woman sentiments, and it’s only slightly less grating to me than folks who whine about “the feminist police” when a difference of genuine feminist opinion is presented.
Yeah Jake Squid – breaking the speed limit is the same thing as having sex for money. Totaly fair analogy. Take your arguement in the other direction and you’ll end up suggesting that people who rob banks have the same credibility as anyone else. You have to draw a line somewhere. I choose to draw it on one side of selling my body, but you’re entitled to draw it anywhere you like.
QGrrrl – suggesting that I think that prostitutes can’t be raped is so disgusting, I don’t even know where to begin. You should be ashamed of yourself.
I thought people here could recognize a nuanced point of view – that rape occurs to women from all walks of life. That it’s horrid. That victims must be protected. But that it is POSSIBLE for some accusers to be lying. And that when troubling inconsistencies do occur, it is not unfair to take a second look at the accuser and weigh who they are when choosing whether to believe them or not. Not all men are evil. Not all women tell the truth. Want to disagree with that statement?
Anybody with Photoshop can fake a timestamp. The photos will likely be thrown out as evidence, other than perhaps showing who was at the party at some unknown point…
Jlo,
You are incorrect about this point. (If you have knowledge of forensic DNA analysis to indicate otherwise, please share.) The readout of the analysis is when the victim’s and perpetrator’s DNA pattern is separated. In the case of only two people’s DNA, the victim’s and perpetrator’s, removing the victim’s pattern will leave you with the perpetrator’s which can then be matched with suspects. In the cases where there are more than just two people, things become more complex.
Subtracting out the victim’s pattern still leaves you with the patterns of the other’s DNA. However, their patterns will be mixed and thus making a definite match more difficult. The more people’s DNA that is mixed up, the more difficult it is to make a match. If you know whose DNA it is, it can still be matched up, but the room for error and uncertainty is increased greatly which should lead most honest investigators to flag the results as inconclusive.
I realize this is nitpicking, but it’s a pet peeve of mine to see scientific fallacies. With all this said, I rather suspect the results of the tests came back inconclusive.
John, no one here has said that all men are evil, nor has anyone said that no women ever tell lies.
However, there are all sorts of reasons to be a prostitute, but the most common one is that it’s (for some, anyway) a decent-paying job available to young women who might not have access to good jobs or the skills to get a good job. I might not think that being a prostitute is a wise choice, but I can easily imagine how it could seem like the best choice available for someone without a wide range of attractive choices available. And I really don’t see how being a prostitute makes someone more likely to be a false accuser.
John, just out of curiosity, do you agree that sexism is a major problem in our present-day society that, on the whole, disadvantages women?
…breaking the speed limit is the same thing as having sex for money. Totaly fair analogy.
How is it different? How about cheating on taxes? Is that different? If so, how?
Remember, I’m going off of what you wrote, not what you were thinking. You wrote, “Because their actions demonstrate that they have no respect for the law.” How is speeding or cheating on taxes showing more “respect for the law” than prostituting oneself?
Oh, then you write:
You have to draw a line somewhere. I choose to draw it on one side of selling my body, but you’re entitled to draw it anywhere you like.
What does selling one’s body have to do with credibility? What does robbing banks have to do with credibility? Personally, I think a bank robber is probably more credible than a salesperson. Lying is part of the job of sales. Is lying part of the job of robbery or prostitution? Do strippers have less credibility than speeders? Why? Perhaps you can detail your idea of the correlation (or causation?) of occupation & credibility. I’d like to see you list of occupations with a credibility percentage next to them so I can understand what it is that you find trustworthy & what you don’t.
Mostly I would guess that you find people who don’t conform to your moral values to be less credible (that is to be less truthful) than those who do conform to your moral values. And, said to say, that is a nonsensical position to hold.
D. (post #55),
With all due respect, I obviously don’t have the expertise to know if you’re right or wrong in what you say. Do you have any citations or references to support your point? If so, I’d really appreciate you sharing them.
About the bruises on her knees, in another thread on another board, someone who had worked as a stripper noted that bruised knees are pretty common in the stripper world, so if we take her word for it, that means nothing. I note the attorney emphasizes her knees and not her face.
Ampersand – I absolutely agree that sexism is a major problem in our society and culture today, and that on the whole it leaves women at a disadvantage. I am, as I have asserted elsewhere, very much pro-feminist.
You and Jake Squid seem to have a problem with the fact that I am making a moral judgement against choosing to be a prostitute. I’ll cop to it – I don’t think choosing to be a prostitute is a terribly impressive way to get by in this world. I don’t think it’s as bad as stealing, but I think that on the whole, the profession of prostitution has a lot of problems. How you choose to conduct yourself while on this planet says something about who you are.
That said, I think that most prostitues are very likely disadvantaged women who suffered abuse earlier in their lives and battle addiction. I certainly don’t condemn them.
But I don’t think all feminists and pro-feminists should be expected to be moral reletavists.
Jake Squid –
How about necrophilia? How about blowing up buildings for political purposes? How about kicking dogs?
None of the above have anything to do with truth-telling. But they speak to a person’s CHARACTER. And character and credibility go hand in hand.
Just for the nitwits out there – I’m not equating prostitution, or the woman in this case to any of the above. Just making an intellectual point.
John, I’m more concerned about the policy implications of your suggestion. I think that specific evidence that someone has made false accusation is a legitimate strike against an accusors’ credibility in a rape trial.
However, I am not at all convinced that being a prostitute is similarly a legitimate strike against credibility. For one thing, if your view becomes widespread (well, okay, it already is widespread), the result is that a class of people – prostitutes – will be in effect given less protection of the law than all other people, based on a dubious chain of logic.
In this way Q Grrl is right. Although you are not literally saying that you think prostitutes are unrapable, you are saying that they should in effect be given less legal protection against rape than other rape victims; that it should require a higher standard of evidence to convict someone of raping a prostitute than it would require to convict someone of raping anyone else. Since prostitutes are frequently among the least privileged women in society, don’t y0u find that outcome of your argument disquieting, as a feminist?
I also think Jake is making a good point. You can’t say “well, prostitutes should be taken as less credible in courtrooms because their profession shows a disregard for the law,” and then not say the same thing about other lawbreakers such as tax frauds, pot smokers, or people who practice civil disobedience, unless you can show why the distinction makes sense. I’m not sure it does. For one thing, it’s clear that at least some prostitutes are prostitutes not because they make bad choices but because they lack choice. Other prostitutes may believe, as an ethical matter, that “victimless” crimes such as prostitution and drug-using are not legitimate laws; but that doesn’t mean that they believe that laws against false accusations are illegitimate.
And so on. My point is that the linkage between “prostitute” and “not credible witness” seems dubious.
moral reletavists
John, to quote a character from The Princess Bride, “I do not think it means what you think it means.” You seem to be using the term to mean someone whose moral views don’t condemn something you condemn. If I’m wrong, please define the term as you are using it.
I agree with you that prostitution is a bad idea, IMO for all parties involved. However, as we speak, there’s a panel discussion in the BookTV archives where a handful of people who call themselves “feminists” talk for over two hours about how prostitution (and “exotic dancing”) are viable, reasonable choices for women. One black guy even goes on and on about how it’s a great opportunity for women without marketable skills. And, then there’s that judge in Nevada who sentenced a woman to working in a brothel in lieu of receiving State welfare payments (that ruling didn’t last, btw.) And, then there’s the Susie Bright crowd going on and on about how bloody “empowering” the sex industry is for women.
Society is quite schizophrenic about prostitution at the moment, especially within the Black community. Many, many people are not being metaphorical when they glamourize “pimp” culture. Before you use this as evidence of a single woman’s character, how about condemning the entire porn and prostitution industries, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, and all those pro-“sex” (cough) folks who’ll never be forced to turn a trick in their lives, but want to make it appear that poor folks doing so is a form of urban revitalization?
Amp,
The best I can do is give you what Google gives me.
A rather general overview, it doesn’t address the increased complexity from mixed samples though.
At the bottom of that page they give a number of other links.
This one gives a good picture of one of the patterns I was speaking of.
I don’t know any place that specifically addresses the added complexity of mixed samples. But perhaps you can see from the figure in the previous link how having a semen sample that is a mixture complicates things. In the figure shown you only have to match band A and B in the sample to band A and B for the suspect. But if the sample has bands A-F, they might match to suspects 1-3 that have bands A & B, C & D and E & F respectively or they could match suspects 4-6 that have bands B & C, D & E and F & A respectively. All of the methods used for analysis suffer from this problem.
There are of course various factors which can help simplify things. For example, relative abundance of one person’s cells vs another’s or one of the perpetrators having a very unique pattern.
You might also note that in the figure the victim’s sample is separate from the semen sample. The differences in the types of cells allow this to be possible. If it were a mixed blood sample it would not be possible to separate the cells, and thus the DNA, prior to analysis. This would hold true for a semen mixture or skin cell mixture as well. To my knowledge there is no practical way to separate the cells of the same type (I’ll gladly be corrected on this).
Funny funny John. A certain building in Oklahoma got blown up precisely because a couple of asshole White men thought they had a right to kill some folks whose careers they didn’t approve of.
But I guess you wouldn’t have minded if McVeigh and his pals had just become serial rapists who targeted Federal Employees. After all, those Fed. Employees didn’t make very moral choices, did they ?
I look forward to your impassioned defense of prison rape. After all, convicted felons made bad choices, whether they be male or female. Who cares if they have any bodily autonomy at all ? Hell, even after they get out of jail, let’s amend the law so anyone can rape them anytime they feel like it ? Rape is so routine in prisons that they’ll scarcely notice the difference anyway.
Whoopee.
Ampersand –
I think alleged victims, whoever they are and whatever they do for a living, should be believed when they step forward.
But I think that further down the road, if the physical evidence raises questions about the validity of their story, at some point it is fair to look at the accuser’s personal history to see if there is some reason to be skeptical of whether they are telling the truth.
This does not preclude continuing with an investigation, pressing charges, and letting everyone have their day in court.
But if I were on a jury, I would have to consider what I know about the accuser’s character when deciding how much weight to lend to their claims. And in this case, I may well believe the young woman. As noted repeatedly, I’m talking about hypotheticals. And I’m saying you have to take it case by case. Of course.
A society has the right to judge some activities to be moral and others to be immoral. To say otherwise would be to contend that opposing moral positions have no truth – that’s moral relativism. Our society has made prostitution illegal because MOST people find it to be immoral.
A question to everyone out there – you have to choose a babysitter for your children between two anonymous people. Person A is a prostitute. Person B is doctor. That’s ALL you know. Who do you pick?
I’d suggest that very few sane people would be going with Person A. So why is it wrong to wonder if a hypothetical prostitute has a character/credibility issue?
FYI, the NCCU community forum is up in its entirety at the WRAL site: http://www.nbc17.com/index.html
I would suggest that part of the definition of being a feminist or pro-feminist is that you don’t allow yourself the luxury of only defending the “right” kind of women. Your concern is with women as a class, with the concomitant understanding that ANY woman could become the “wrong” kind of woman under the right circumstances. After all, it’s not as if a woman sets out at birth to become a prostitute; any number of fickle circumstances can lead to such an outcome.
And if there’s anything that feminists are NOT, it’s “moral relativists.” (As an aside, the Moral Relativist is a chimerical creature that I have yet to encounter in the real world, and I often wonder if he serves purely to scare the rest of us into accepting the unacceptable). What feminists contest is not morality per se, but the framing of morality in purely sexual terms, as well as the patriarchal tendency to divvy up women into those who are virtuous and “good” and…all the others.
Also, John, the claim you made that I objected to didn’t involve abstract prostitutes, terrorists or necrophiliacs. It involved a specific person who worked as an escort/stripper, and who had committed a crime at some point in the past, and who you choose to disbelieve more than a group of nice college boys, some of whom had also committed crimes, and most of whom have a history of abusive behavior towards their community, merely on the basis that none of their DNA were successfully matched against the DNA found on her body.
So, what is it about strippers that makes you disbelieve their testimony, even when it is combined with extensive physical evidence? Or what is it about abusive nice college boys that makes you believe their claims, even over extensive physical evidence?
And I’ll cop to not knowing if the DNA source that was tested against was semen or some other material, being unsure if all team members were indeed sampled (and, yes, I agree that I’d expect to have heard more about it from the DA if some of the suspects had fled), and being unsure whether mixed DNA samples are a problem or not.
Nonetheless, I find this:
absurd and offensive.
Actually, I take that back. There might really be moral relativists in the world, but they tend to be found among the extremely powerful (think Hitler and Stalin). Thus, one might argue that the true cure for moral relativism is restraint of the powerful, not heaping further calumny on the already downtrodden.
“Fickle circumstance”… you make it sound like becoming a prostitute is no more likely to be someone’s own choice than tripping on the stairs.
Besides, I’m not failing to defend prostitutes. They deserve every legal protection from rape that there is.
I’m saying that when it comes to he said/she said cases, there are some “shes” out there that have a tougher row to hoe because life choices they’ve made expose their poor character. That’s the world we live in and it’s not likely to change. But more to the point… should it?
I do not understand this issue of “creditability”. To me people in general, including myself, are so arbitrary about whom and what we attach creditability too it is essentially meaningless. From what I can tell from television the people who have the most “creditability” are those who have more money and fame than other people e.g. the way it is portrayed is that corporate CEOs are like modern King Solomon’s and celebrities are modern day gods. The only time an issue of creditability should come up is when largely disinterested third parties are testifying based upon their expertise and/or a person has a significant creditability issue based upon their record compared to the other party. What they do for a living, unless they are causing direct harm to people, should be largely meaningless in a trial. What is more important is the actual evidence of the case, which in this case points to the fact that the victim was at least assaulted (unless you believe she beat herself up like in Fight Club) and likely raped, the only issue really outstanding is finding out who exactly is the perpetrator(s). As for “creditability”, well that more of what in a person’s mind, which often comes from things such as advertisements (i.e. corporate fed bullshit), and just as shit goes in the mind so does it come out the mind. In my opinion, people who often use creditability to make it seem that they are superior to other people are often doing so to just justify their own “assholish” behavior.
Umm, being an over-priveleged jock asshole who at the very least hires and verbally abuses strippers, and who participates in a wall of silence against a police investigation exposes poor character less than working as a stripper?
Really?
Not exactly what I’m saying, but if you were to press me on it I guess I’d have to say, yes, life is in many ways a crap shoot. Sorry if that sounds too nihilistic for you, but it’s what I’ve always felt. You can try to find the one essential characteristic that separates prostitutes from everyone else (or even just prostitutes from all other troubled women), but I’m not holding my breath.
And to say that prostitutes should have “every legal protection” from rape is hardly going out on a limb. Women are ALREADY “legally protected” against rape, but having legal protection doesn’t amount to jack if one believes a priori that a given class of women is eminently less believable about anything and everything.
And once we give a green light to “character” judgments of this sort, where does it stop? For some, a woman being a single parent is a sign of poor character. For others, it’s her having an abortion. Or having an abortion and not feeling guilty. Or having lots of sex partners. Or that she works long hours outside the home and has no intention of cutting back. There will always be something making a woman less-than-ideal from a character standpoint, in SOMEONE’S eyes.
John,
The major difficulty I have is that you are inconsistent in applying your standard for assessing who is likely to lie. Sure, the guys were never convicted of violent assaults. But, they have been charged with crime. This would certainly suggest they may not have a stupendously high respect for the rule of law!
So, if you are going to take peoples’ known or suspected priors into consideration when assessing believability, and if your concern is their level of respect for the rule of law, why give the lacrosse player a pass simply because their crimes don’t happen to be violent? Why would prostitution on the part of a likely low income woman put her on the wrong side of the “likely truthful” vs. “possibly untruthful” divide, while drunk driving, general rowdiness and general anti-social beahvior by economically advantaged men is not?
I do consider people past choices, taking them in context, and I have to say that I would tend to be dubious of protestations of innoncence on the part of guys who are known to have exhibited extremely rowdy behavior leading to charges of public drunkeness etc. Sure, these guys might not have raped a woman, and if they haven’t, the evidence will show that. I would examine it to see if I thought there was a reasonable doubt. But, simply taking their word for it in a she said/ he ssaid? If I were on a jury, I’d tend to give their word a relatively low value. Of course, that’s just me.
Charles, I was having a broader discussion about prostitutes and credibility (which I was not linking to the Duke case).
But since you want to talk Duke – a question…what “wall of silence”? There have been no complaints by the DA or the police about a lack of cooperation. Whatsoever. My understanding is that players asked for polygraph testing and were turned away. They’ve been advised by council not to speak about the case in public, but have all said they are innocent. And if that’s the case…what do you want them to say, exactly?
I’m not be a fan of what you call “over-priveledged jock assholes” and I wouldn’t believe everything they have to say. But that’s just the point – they aren’t the ones doing the talking. The accuser is the one who’s story is looking inconsistent.
I hate to mention the Tawana Brawley situation. But I bet you were the last person off of her bandwagon too.
In addition to years of destruction and arrogance and overall low impulse control, one member of the team has been convicted of assault (“gay bashing” in this case, which certainly is a fellow traveller with misogyny.)
Lucia –
Point taken, and agreed with. I can’t imagine weighing the player’s testimony or protestations very heavily either. And since I would be distrustful of both sides, I’d have to weight the physical evidence, and that’s not looking good for the accuser. Her injuries could well have been sustained prior to the party. The lack of DNA is VERY damning.
A small point – drunken, boorish behavior IS in fact significantly less damning to a person’s character than working as an “escort” after mothering two out-of-wedlock children by different fathers, and stealing a car and leading police on a high speed chase while intoxicated. As this accuser reportedly did.
Says who? They’ve done arrogant, dangerous, abusive crimes for years at a level which she’s done only once (the business with the car and the cop, which was resolved successfully enough that the prosecutors involved are praising her character. Try again.) A bunch of loser white boys doing semi-tough guy B. S. to intimidate women (kicking in a fence in the middle of a fight with a girlfriend, for instance), and destroying other people’s property, and ruining an entire neighborhood, and DRIVING DRUNK FREQUENTLY. Are you kidding? And by the way, working as an escort is not nearly as pathetic, anti-social, damning, indicate of being human slime as HIRING an escort. Do you really think that white men are entitled to act like marathon assholes???? Don’t you get how often the rest of us are laughing at you, and locking are doors when you start this garbage?
Kell –
Hiring a stripper (the pre-text she was hired under in this case) is worse than actually BEING an escort (which she also worked as – though not in this case)? No sale.
As for prosecutors praising her character? What the hell else are they going to do?
The woman stole a car, drove drunk, and tried to run over a cop. These are the facts.
Acting like drunken assholes means these guys would be on my shit list if they were my neighbor. It does not, however, mean that they forfeit the presumption of innocence. Check your Bill of Rights.
As for what you think of me? I couldn’t care less. I know who I am and I’m a champion of real victims, and women as a group.
What do you think most people think of you? You’re actually flying in the face of science, not to mention praying that the truth of the situation is that a woman was raped.
John:
(Yawn.) Find a new cause. Your kind of championing, we don’t need. Let’s start with your desire to rank women and decide which ones have earned a fair trial, a rather transparent attempt to pit us against one another for a privilege that ought to be a right. Let’s continue with your stated declaration that you don’t actually care at all about the impression you yourself are making upon most of the women on this thread.
That’s “championing” feminism ? You can keep it.
Gee, Amp. I’m so glad that the new policy is cutting down on the misogyny on this board. Samantha nailed it. I guess from now on, as long as misogynists say they’re feminists and CHAMPIONS of women, it’s business as usual.
Being an escort is not a mental illness, like necrophilia, nor does it indicate a depraved indifference to pain and harm caused to others, like bombing buildings and kicking dogs. Someone with a depraved indifference to human pain would clearly hesitate less to falsely accuse someone of a crime than a normal person, so yes, I would find those things blows to credibility.
But I’m still waiting for a reason why being an escort logically means one is more likely to make a false accusation. I just don’t see it, and an appeal to morality doesn’t explain it.
By the way, the “nitwits” line was way out of line. So was the line about praying for rape (and that was totally unsupported by anything Kell said – not to mention one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen said about another poster in this forum). That other people aren’t respecting the forum’s moderation rules doesn’t excuse you escalating to such a large degree.
I think you’ve had a chance to state your case here, and everyone reading here has a fair chance to consider your case. But saying that people who disagree with you are praying for rape seems more like an extremist anti-feminist cliche than like something a feminist would say. I think you should stop posting on “Alas.”
Only to those wishing to damn beforehand. Or perhaps those buying into the end all be all fallacy of DNA evidence. Lack of matching DNA evidence to someone is very similar to lack of an identifying photo. It may be a relevant piece of the puzzle, but present or missing, one may very well be able to see the picture the puzzle makes.
To go back to the DNA evidence a la the defense, I find most interesting the claim that the results indicate that Mary Doe did not have intercourse that night, nor the days preceding. I actually believe this statement because unless there was evidence in the report to indicate sexual activity with one of the defendants, evidence of sex would be beneficial for the defenses’ case. I think this is interesting because it conflicts with the rape nurse’s report. This tells me that it is very possible for sex to leave no DNA evidence, contrary to the defense’s claim.
In short, lack of DNA evidence is not exonerating. Lack of DNA evidence is simply lack of incrimination at one point.
Kell:
Kell, I think you’re making a much better case than John, but please try to respect the moderation policies here. Thanks.
You know, Amp, this
only works when you enforce it. You’ve been rather good about this in previous threads. Why the lack now?
…actually BEING an escort (which she also worked as – though not in this case)…
Citation please.
John, you just don’t get it. Your judgement of the morals of a person have nothing to do with that person’s credibility. Your ranking of strippers as less credible than privileged young white men with long histories of intimidation, violence and law breaking is hardly a feminist position. Just because you claim to be feminist doesn’t make you so. The contradictions in your self-proclaimed feminism and the vile misogyny that you have spouted in this thread have been pointed out by a whole bunch of people (many of them women). Have you even thought, “Hey, perhaps there is something to what they’re saying. I should think about this & perhaps ask questions for clarification?” No. Rather, you have tried to shout over them.
Frankly, I find your moral values to be questionable and your application of those values to others to be repugnant. alsis has it right in her last sentence.
Your hateful victim blaming/looking for any way to hold up the virtue of a group of extremely priviliged young men is victim blaming in its classic, ugly glory.
Tawana Brawley? Dude, do you know anything about the Tawana Brawley case? She was not a prostitute. Not even a stripper. She is not the one who concocted the story, but she was intimidated into going along with it. As somebody who grew up in the area and was well acquainted with people involved in the case, I feel confident in saying what the fuck are you talking about?
Charles, I was having a broader discussion about prostitutes and credibility (which I was not linking to the Duke case).
All I can say to this is, what utter bullshit! You have been making a thinly veiled “hypothetical” in order to blame the victim throughout your comments here.
Just for the nitwits out there – I’m not equating prostitution, or the woman in this case to any of the above. Just making an intellectual point.
Oh. If you say so then, sure, I’ll believe that your thinly veiled victim blaming is “just an intellectual point.”
How about necrophilia? How about blowing up buildings for political purposes? How about kicking dogs?
None of the above have anything to do with truth-telling. But they speak to a person’s CHARACTER. And character and credibility go hand in hand.
Do you even know what credibility means? If you do, then you realize that your last paragraph makes no sense at all.
Given that I do know what credibility means, I will say that none of the activities you mention lessens credibility. With the possible exception of those people’s assertions that, although they had done it in the past, in this case they are innocent. Which is why past crimes are not easily admissable.
I can’t believe I actually had to write that.
Hiring a stripper (the pre-text she was hired under in this case) is worse than actually BEING an escort (which she also worked as – though not in this case)?
And there goes the last shred of your credibility as a “feminist.” If you had the vaguest feminist inklings, even if you lacked all knowledge of basic feminist tenets, I think you might ask why feminists feel this way. You might even consider the explanation (which you were given) to have some merit. But, noooooooo. You know so much better having researched sex work so much more than the people who you are ignoring.
You need to do some research into what feminism is, what it does and the positions that it holds before declaring yourself to be a feminist. When credible feminists tell you that you are wrong, you might want to look into it some, is what I’m saying.
Lauren, moderation of a busy board isn’t always as easy or obvious from the point of view of the moderator, as blog-readers tend to assume. I think you probably know that as well as I do. Life gets in the way, and one slips up now and again. One reason these threads have been worse than most is that they’ve been absolutely flooded with people I’m turning away. You see the couple I let through but not the dozens I haven’t let through.
In retrospect, maybe I should have banned John and Teamrican right away, rather than taking their words that they were feminists. But hindsight is 20-20, and I’d rather err on the side of giving people a chance.
I hate moderating and was wondering how the feminist-only business was working out, but that’s OT so I’ll quit. That’s well enough. Just asking.
Hi Ampersand, you have actually, perhaps inadvertently, brought and interesting point. I personally would not considered an escort to have less creditability that the average person based upon her job especially given my opinion of creditability I wrote in comment 73. The thing is in case of mental illness I wonder what people’s opinion would be in terms of it affecting a person’s creditability. The reason why I am particularly interested in this is that I am myself suffer from mental illness in terms of having bipolar (manic-depressive) disease. Now, I have only had one episode of mania, during which I was aware of my surroundings, but I was acting somewhat irrationally based on deluded and grandiose thoughts and sometimes during my mania episode I was occasionally hearing voices (i.e. having auditory hallucinations). Now, I believe compared to most bipolar people my mental illness is mild; however, I wonder how much of a creditability issue would people assign to my mental illness (I suppose it would vary depending if I was going through mania or not)
John, did you mean to write, “boorish behavior IS, in my opinion, … “? My opinion is the opposite of yours, though I recognize mine just that: an opinion about credibility. In my experience, people who urinate in public (as has been alleged) tend to to have boundary issues, to think they own the world and all that is in it. They also tend to be, let’s just say, aggressive and grabby. Just my experience, based on having been around borish, aggressive grabby guys.
Based on my opinion, I’ve always done my best to avoid being alone with large boorish men– and the reasons are both that I don’t like theirecompany and I wanted to protect my 130 lb self from physical harm.
If I were on a jury, I would take my experiences with me and rely on them when assessing credibility. Evidently you would take yours. I guess that’s one purpose of having 12 people on a jury.
Although totally differ on your assessment of credibility, I would like to say, I’ve drawn no conclusions about this case. I’m just following the story as it unfolds. Given my personality, the physical evidence and expert testimony would weigh more heavily with me than the he said/ she said testimony, so individual credibility may not be a heavy issue for me.
Lack of DNA evidence is a problem for me not because I think it impugns the dancer’s story, but because it means we don’t know which 3 of the 30 men at the party might be the rapists. Evidently, the dancer can’t say for sure. That uncertaintly is going to introduce a reaonable doubt in the case against any individual. It also means failure to convict will not be exoneration.
It sounds like the investigation is on going and DNA tests are continuuing. This is from the McNeil Lehrer news hour (bold mine).
Actually Lauren mentioning about moderation brought up an interesting idea. Amp have you ever thought of creating a list of bullet points in terms of beliefs that a person must adhere to (or a certain number must adhere) to in order to be consider feminist, pro-feminist and feminist-friendly by your own or website definition. For example, lets take the current rape case, would you say in general is there any sort of thing that you actually consider feminism that would actually state that a sex worker should not be given the same level of creditability compared to normal people in a trial. In other words would consider you considered the following statement (or something along it line) as to be fundamentally apart of your definition as feminist, pro-feminist and feminist-friendly…
To be considered feminist, pro-feminist and feminist-friendly you must believe that people (both female, male, and transgender) who work in the sex industry, such as prostitutes, strippers, and porn stars, must have the right to a fair trial and be given the same creditability as a normal citizen, and this right especially applies to sex workers who are an accuser in a rape trial.
After you right up the list you can refer it to people so that they can see, if they fall under the definition or not.
John (if you haven’t been banned) –
“Hiring a stripper (the pre-text she was hired under in this case) is worse than actually BEING an escort (which she also worked as – though not in this case)? No sale.”
On what values have you based that judgment? What factors have made you decide that being an escort is worse than hiring one?