From 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. [↩]
- Nor have I ever blogged the names or images of the three accused players, that I can recall. [↩]
- 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. [↩]
Your coverage of this story has been exemplary in its fair-mindedness.
But you’re still a dirty hippie.
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.
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
She made unprovable accusations. Unless you have evidence that clearly makes them false.
Mr. Moderator:
Please redact comment #2 – names named once again by some shit head.
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.
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.
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
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.
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 ….
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. :-)
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?
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.
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 .
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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).
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 .
Yes, Ampersand is not afraid of contrary opinions. Nor am I. As a matter of fact, I fear the absence of them.
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.
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.]
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.
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.)
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.]
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”.
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
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.
Is it more a case of rich and poor versus black and white?
“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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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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 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
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.
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
Oh Hallelujah Amp!
Thank you for #2
Finally, the truth will set us all free.
Hallelujah!
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.
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).
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
*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.
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.
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.
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.
Balko has a great take on this that summarizes how I feel better than I’d be able to
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”.
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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?
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.
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’.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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 .
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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?