{"id":3457,"date":"2007-06-12T13:26:20","date_gmt":"2007-06-12T20:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2007\/06\/12\/duke-case-nifongs-trial-has-begun\/"},"modified":"2007-06-12T13:26:20","modified_gmt":"2007-06-12T20:46:08","slug":"duke-case-nifongs-trial-has-begun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=3457","title":{"rendered":"Duke Case: Nifong's Trial Has Begun"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the Washington Post<\/em>:<\/a><\/p>\n

Durham District Attorney Michael B. Nifong, under fire from the North Carolina State Bar for his handling of the Duke lacrosse sexual assault case last year, appeared in court today to defend his own conduct on grounds it was a prosecutor’s duty to pursue a case if he believed a crime had occurred.<\/p>\n

“It is not unethical to pursue what some may see as an unwinnable case,” said Nifong’s lawyer, David Freedman, as his client sat at a table before a three-person panel of the bar’s Disciplinary Hearing Commission.<\/p>\n

Nifong is fighting to keep his law license. The allegations him include making pretrial inflammatory statements, withholding evidence helpful to the defense and lying about it to a judge.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If it can be proven that Nifong withheld evidence and lied to the judge, he should be disbarred and, ideally, put behind bars.<\/p>\n

The Post <\/em>article makes it sound as if the state bar’s attorney, Katherine Jean, is really emphasizing the “she changed her story” angle:<\/p>\n

At that time he learned that the accuser had already twice recanted to police and had given conflicting accounts of the number of men involved in the alleged assault, ranging from three to five to 20, Jean said. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The “she said she was raped by 20 men” claim is complete bullshit<\/a>, and Jean shouldn’t be using it. The only evidence Mary Doe ever claimed that “20 men” raped her claim was a thirdhand report from a police officer who never actually spoke to her; no police officer, or other witness, has said they heard her make this claim.<\/p>\n

Looking at this from a broader perspective, the expectation that a rape victim’s story will never change is an instance of “The Platonic Rape Victim Fallacy”<\/strong> – the belief that there is a single, correct fashion in which all True Rape Victims behave. If a rape victim acts in any other way — for example, in in the earliest hours after the alleged rape she fails to produce a simple, coherent, well-organized narrative when talking to police — then according to the Plationic Rape Victim Fallacy, she wasn\u2019t raped at all.<\/p>\n

Whether or not the Duke Lacrosse Players committed rape that night (I now believe they did not, although of course I could be mistaken), thinking that an inconsistent narrative shows no rape took place is wrong.<\/p>\n

I’m also bothered that (again, according to the Post <\/em>article, which may not be giving complete info) Jean is not attacking Nifong over the bad photo ID procedures used<\/a>, an example of genuine misconduct.<\/p>\n

(Curtsy to a comment left by Sailorman<\/a>).<\/p>\n

A NOTE ABOUT COMMENTS<\/strong>: With trepidation, I’m not limiting the comments here to feminists. However, obnoxious drive-by comments will not<\/em> be tolerated. If you have something intelligent to say, and you can say it without being belligerent, then go ahead; otherwise, please go away.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the Washington Post: Durham District Attorney Michael B. Nifong, under fire from the North Carolina State Bar for his handling of the Duke lacrosse sexual assault case last year, appeared in court today to defend his own conduct on … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-duke-rape-case"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3457\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}