This is true, and I don’t think we would expect the DA to present exculpatory evidence, even a non-dumbfuck DA, because that’s not the way it’s done. But, the sum total of evidence he DOES present still has to meet some level of believability before you agree to indict. What evidence did he have to present? He’s got a statement from Mangum, maybe a statement from the other stripper, and that’s about it.
If that’s all it takes to get past the GJ, then the ham sandwich line from Wachtler is right, and the people on the GJ should be embarassed that they rubber stamp the DA’s requests instead of doing the job they’re charged with doing.
It just occured to me this morning that the GJ is supposed to be a check on the DA, ensuring that this kind of crap doesn’t happen, and it pissed me off that nobody really mentions them as having dropped the ball.
A black man is charged with raping a white woman. He spends a million dollars on his defense. The faculty of his college issue statements assuming his guilt.
It turns out later that the whole thing was malicious prosecution by a racist DA. The charges are dropped, and the whole matter blows over.*
Justice has been served, with no further action by anyone.
I never believed “LWCM”, as such. I believed Nifong. I assumed, wrongly, that the DA had properly investigated the case and found it credible enough to go forward with.
This is why I hate this whole “let’s judge by what we heard in the media” mentality. We don’t know all the facts. We can’t tell who is lying and who is telling the truth by what we see in a ten second snippet in the evening news, or even in an in-depth article in the New York Times. I rely on our justice system to ferret out the facts, because that’s what prosecutors and defense attorneys are paid for. And I also assume that a prosecutor will make sure there’s at least a certain minimum level of evidence at hand before proceeding with a case, and that he won’t lie to a fucking judge in order to avoid getting a completely bogus case tossed out of court.
It’s Nifong who has my ire and condemnation. Crystal, psh. A “lying whore”, as Huerta88 loves to say, can be counted on to, well, lie.
I’ve been thinking about this whole sad affair in terms of “lynch mob mentality”.
Imagine if a similar situation had happened a hundred years ago, only with a white girl and young black men. We all know what would have happened. The three men would have been lynched immediately. Anyone close to them would have fled for their lives. The university – which, at the time would have been an all black university – would have vociferously defended the lynchings, simply out of fear of reprisal from the locals. Should the woman have later recanted her story, people would merely have shrugged and said something like, “well, they had it coming to them anyway.” It was a scary time to be black in America, and I think we all agree that it’s good that this sort of occurrence is relegated to the past.
Or is it?
Thank God America has moved past actual lynchings. But the mentality remains, firmly rooted in, of all places, the black community. It’s a willingness to prejudge, in lieu of the facts, and an unwillingness to accept that the facts contradict their views when those facts later come to light.
What exactly are the implications of this? I’m not sure. I’m still thinking about it.
Ironically it was because the charge was so implausible (white on black gang rape) that people were so eager to believe it, because it contradicted the unsavory reality that black on white crime is far more common.
At first I was torn between saying “bullshit” or simply asking for a cite. Instead, I think Malacandra has the right idea here. Let’s not even go there.
Complete bullshit. You can talk about philosophy all you want, but in reality, it has to work that way. In a sexual assault case, there is often no DNA to test, no witnesses to the crime, and no overwhelming physical evidence. Should we not believe anybody who reports a crime like this? The alternative is much worse.
Many cases don’t involve DNA. DNA is not the end all be all. No DA will agree to that standard. It can be compelling, but it is not the only important thing.
DAs don’t arrest people they don’t think are guilty. Directly stating or implying otherwise would be the problem.
The “line-up” was a problem, but not too bad in my opinion. The DNA stuff came later, and was obviously completely unethical.
Cite? I very well could be wrong about this, but I don’t remember it being reported this way.
No, but in the real world that fact would certainly influence how, and if, you proceed in this case, and the plausibility of such an occurrence.
But there was evidence. Initially, we had her statements, her injuries, and apparent medical evidence. While there may have been a rush to judgment, people on both sides did it. If you are against the practice of doing that, fine. But be consistent about it. Plenty of people were calling her a lying whore before all the facts came out too.
And your mother, in all likelihood, is a cocksucker, but it doesn’t mean anyone should refer to her as such. I don’t contest the technical accuracy of the remark, just that it doesn’t advance the discussion. It’s juvenile, crass, and detracts from the other good arguments you have made.
No.
Or you can donate money or time to places like the innocence project. You can start an awareness campaign to alert people the alarming rates of false reporting. You can push for prosecutions in such cases, or appeal for tougher sentences to your local officials or congressman. Any of those things would help. So yeah, you can do more than vent about it. Esp. when said venting is the type of hateful, selective outrage that I’ve seen in this case, and those people deny their outrage has anything to do with the racial facts of this case. There is a situation like this going on everyday, and it usually doesn’t have this good an outcome, yet I don’t hear all these people (on both sides) picking sides, or even giving a shit. If you want to be pissed fine, but don’t try to pretend it’s because you grossly offended by the perversion of justice. You’re just mad because some white dudes got fucked by a “lying whore” “cum dumpster” black stripper. If those weren’t the circumstances of this case, you probably never would have heard about it, and you would be bitching about he weather instead.
Fascinating. You’re ready to conclude that there might be a racist component to the putative attack, and this should influence your willingness to proceed with a prosecution; but not that there might be a racist component to the accusation.
There were no injuries, there was no medical evidence of a rape, and she gave at least five contradictory statements on the night of the party. The DA had fuck-all from day one, and he should have known it, but he did not even speak with her until seven months after the party.
Certainly not, but we can make educated guesses based on the evidence available.
a) She was an employee of an escort service. Many such places employ prostitutes.
b) She was willing to strip for money.
c) Shortly before stripping for money, she had sex with four different men in a short period of time. This is consistant with the actions of a prostitute.
d) At least some of those men were hour-long dates in a hotel room. Once again, consistant with hooking.
One may certainly conclude that she was just playing the field, but there is a good 90% confidence that she was, in fact, having sex for money. I don’t feel terribly bad for going out on that particular limb.
It may strike some people as illogical that someone would rape a prostitute instead of just paying for the service, but it happens often enough. I see no reason to consider “she was a prostitute” to be in any sense supporting evidence for “she wasn’t telling the truth when she said she was lying”.
Granted, in this case she was lying through whatever remains of her teeth, but her whorehood seems to be an irrelevant herring of the crimson persuasion here.
No. Plenty of cases are prosecuted without controversy in the absence of these things.
What the hell are you talking about? You have a right to confront your accuser during a trial. These kids never went to trial. Your rambling aside, this has nothing to do with the discussion.
Yes, young men they thought were guilty and were using to make a larger point. It was unfair to them obviously.
The tactic is not new, and it has proved to be a very effective instrument for change. Bus boycotts would ave been far less effective if it were not for the staged arrest of Rosa Parks. It would have been harder to create tighter restrictions on sex offenders if it were not for lawmakers using the death of Megan Kanka. Would steriods in baseball be a big issue without Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire? Sorry, but using someone as an example is effective. It’s a wake-up call. The ethics of doing so is another discussion, but let’s not pretend that people don’t do this all the time.
No, I’m suggesting the plausibility of a story is related to the frequency with which it happens. If I report that my laptop was stolen by the president, I doubt they will take it as seriously as if I said ex-girlfriend did it. If you are trying to rehash the whole black/white rape thing, don’t bother.
No, I’m saying that the political implications of not proceeding with the case are different in Durham, than they would be in other places. Also, I’d find hard to believe that the accuser in this case was trying to make a larger point by sticking it to her “oppressors”. As we later found out, she has accused other, non-white men of sexual assault, so I doubt race alone had anything to do with it. It would be pretty atypical for a powerless black women to try to take down the white power structure by accusing a few rich white dudes of rape. It could happen, but I doubt it. Any black woman in her right mind would realize her claims would be more closely scrutinized, her life would be torn to shreds, and they would likely get off, even if they were guilty.
For everything in that particular quote box. Go back and re-read it.
Then who spoke to her that night? Someone on that side had to have. Also, cite that there were no injuries and that she gave 5 contradictory statements that night.
