Kobe Bryant charged with felony sexual assault

Great Debates
101

If she’s delusional, or is a pathological liar, etc., you should be able to impeach their testimony as not being credible.

I agree completely. And to be fair, I wouldn’t apply the normal statistical odds to this situation, because there’s the additional element of possible financial gain for the accuser, which isn’t a motive possibility for most false rape accusations.

One element that hasn’t been discussed here: the third scenario possibility of withdrawn consent (ie consent retracted prior to intercourse but was ignored). This is more difficult for the prosecution to prove, so I’m not sure they’d attempt it unless there’s evidence that implies consent at any point.

This reminds me of the Tyson/Washington rape case, in that I believe that Mike Tyson believed he was innocent (whether he was or not). Is it possible that celebrities develop an altered perception of what consent is? Or do certain personality types differ in their perception of what consent is? Could this be a factor in this case, possibly for both accused and accuser?

102

I haven’t heard anything to that effect, but maybe you know something I don’t. I’m not sure why a DA would tell her to keep quiet.

103

I don’t see why this is more difficult. If she said no, it’s rape, it’s rather simple that way. She may have gone to his room to have sex with him for all we know. But if she changed her mind and he beat her or held her down or whatever, it doesn’t matter what she did beforehand. I’m not sure the prosecution needs to prove this, as it really WOULD be he said/she said.

104

I’m not sure the prosecution needs to prove this, as it really WOULD be he said/she said.

I’m not a lawyer, but I’d think the last thing the prosecution wants is it to boil down to he said/she said. Because unless defense credibility is tarnished in a significant way, reasonable doubt would dictate towards acquittal. Without substantial corroborating evidence, he said/she said favours the defendant.

105

You’re 100% correct. The little we know indicates that they took a ‘rape kit’ from the girl, which should include sperm and DNA samples. And if the friends are telling the truth about bruising and such, they’ve got more than he said/she said to go on. If all they had was the girl’s word, I don’t think it would have gotten this far.

What I meant was that the prosecution does not really need to prove that she gave and withdrew consent if that’s what happened. The giving part is irrelevant from their standpoint; I was disagreeing with your assessment that it’s more difficult for them to prove. If they have the girl’s word that she withdrew or didn’t give consent and the physical evidence to back it up, it may not matter.

106

OFF TOPIC

Marley23, your memory fails you:

Think back to the OJ trial for a minute: remember all the business with Mark Fuhrman and the word “nigger?” The defense was just trying to make it look like he was a racist to reduce his credibility. Now, who’s really going to believe that he was so racist he somehow stole OJ’s glove and samples of his blood and DNA and planted them? Nobody that I can think of. But it doesn’t matter. It’s more of a shady, innuendo kind of thing. Damaging credibility is the goal.

In fact, Fuhrman stated that he hated blacks in his application for a disability pension. He so hated blacks, he claimed, that he could no longer stand to work as a police officer. Working as a cop in black and Latino neighborhoods was driving him, in his words, “crazy”.

Fuhrman expressed similar hostilities on tape when he was interviewed by a writer doing research for a screenplay. He said that he hated blacks, that he particularly hated to see black men and white women together, and would find any pretext to stop such couples. He also said that he would plant evidence if neccessary to make a case against a known criminal.

There are only two possibilities: either Fuhrman really was a racist, or he lied on official documents to get a desired outcome. His credibility is ruined either way.

ON TOPIC

Kobe is a prize fool for becoming involved with this woman in any way. The NBA has for years now conducted mandatory seminars for incoming players to help them avoid problems with women - paternity suits, accusations of sexual harrassment and assault, etc. Maybe he wasn’t paying attention. Maybe he just forgot. Still, every NBA player knows that he’s a big, moving target for unscrupulous women.

He also failed to learn anything from the example of another Laker great, who was beloved by the fans, who had a clean-cut, family guy image, who had lots of unprotected sex with strange women, who contracted HIV.

Kobe didn’t know this woman at all. He could’ve brought any number of ugly diseases back to his wife - herpes, chlamydia, Hep C, warts - whatever.

This woman - the accuser - has a pattern of behavior that is associated with survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Survivors often have a damaged sense of self -preservation and danger, so they put themselves in dangerous situations. They will gravitate to situations where they are likely to be abused, and remain in those situations long after an emotionally healthy person would have fled or sought help. One answer to the question: Why did she go to Kobe’s hotel room late at night if she didn’t want sex?

Abuse survivors can learn to deal with powerful men by seducing them, manipulating men with sexuality, even as they despise sex. Flirtation, manipulation, seduction become their way of dealing with the world.

Her recent behavior - attending a party and speaking inappropriately about her assault -“boasting,” and publicly describing her alleged rapist’s genitalia, are indications of desensitization. It’s common for abuse survivors to speak of their abuse with inappropriate ease or jocularity, because the capacity to connect with deeper, more appropriate emotional expression is lacking.

Also fitting the profile of abuse survivor is her tendency, reported by friends, to get excited and strip naked at parties. Suicide attempts and substance abuse are also common among abuse survivors. Her pursuit of fame and her desire to associate with celebrities may be attempts to repair a damaged psyche, to fill up the hole inside her.

I could imagine Susan Smith making a false rape accusation. A nice girl, from a good, Christian family with high social standing in their small town. A nice girl who was sleeping with her stepfather.

Unfortunately, none of this really speaks to Kobe’s guilt or innocence. As others have noted, even if the woman is disturbed, that doesn’t mean she can’t be raped. If she is disturbed, she’s quite capable of fabricating a rape story, wounding herself and tearing her clothes to make it seem credible. She may not be entirely sure in her own mind whether she wanted to have sex with Kobe or not. She may be using Kobe as a proxy for the man who really hurt her, a man she either can not or will not accuse.

107

Below, I just didn’t remember that much about the case (it ended when I was in… was it 8th grade? Frighteningly long ago. ;))

His credibility is justifiably ruined in either case, although I think it may support my point a little bit anyway: the defense didn’t need to (or try to) prove that he really planted the evidence. The fact that he was a racist and apparently unscrupulous cop was enough.

108

Marley23:
Well, I agree with you in theory. But remember, the sperm/DNA doesn’t mean anything if defense is claiming consensual sex. Even some vaginal tearing and minor bruising is inconclusive - it can be seen as consistent with consensual sex. In general, I think the withdrawn consent argument places a bigger burden on the physical evidence, and has a negative effect on the jury’s perception of the accuser. But it’s just a layman’s hunch on my part, and I still don’t know enough for a more informed opinion.

Belowjob2.0: Where are you getting this from?

This woman - the accuser - has a pattern of behavior that is associated with survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

Cite?

109

I would imagine that the nature and extent of the bruising, tearing, etc. will be in question. (If her friends are being honest when they say her injuries are still visible three weeks later, they may not be ‘minor’). Some of that is absolutely possible during consensual sex, but if it’s an egregious amount, that may be different.

110

cowgirl

No, they don’t, any more than people that question Bush’s credibility are asserting that Iraq was incapable of having WMD.

If a woman who is known to have made a false accusation accuses someone of rape, you would refuse to take the previous accusation into account? I don’t see how anyone can claim to know how common false accusations are, and giving Bryant the benefit of the doubt is not assuming that the woman is lying.

pravnik

[Nitpcik]In Munchausen’s syndrome, the person makes themself sick to elicit sympathy. You’re thinking of Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy.
[/quote]

111

Some interested events over the evening.

Apparently our victim was bragging about her conquest…Bragging

Mother told victim she was raped:
“It was her mother that knew right away what happened,” Bray said. It was her mother, Bray said, who told the woman, “You were raped.”
Mom

And of course the Race card:Fear of sex with a black man

I think combined, these can create quite a bit of resonable doubt…The mother story bothers me, only because the young woman has a history of “incidents”, related to men. Her OD was apparently caused by a break-up, here’s Kobe ‘rejecting’ her again. Perhaps her mother has undue influence on her, I don’t know and this may be my ignorance as a man, but wouldn’t a person know that they were Raped? If she said, “no” and he forced her, wouldn’t that mean rape? Would they need to be told that they were raped?

Further, I could see her mother having a “problem” with Kobe’s blackness and telling her daughter…she MUST have be raped in order to have sex with a black man…and her daughter who has a history of “impulsive” behaviour agreed and here we are.

Of course, YMMV.

112

Damn straight my mileage varies. Your post is a poorly constructed cut-and-paste of various aspects of the issue, with a narrative (constructed by you) that ties them together as if each follows logically from the one before.

You imply that the victim was “bragging” before her mother told her it was rape, but this is completely false. The alleged bragging occurred three days before charges were filed, while the alleged incident with the mother occurred the morning after the alleged sexual assault. And why is it that your are willing to uncritically accept testimony that supports Bryant? If you are skeptical of the young woman’s story, and of those who are supplying supporting evidence, isn’t it logical to be just as skeptical of those who provide contrary evidence? Or is that just inconvenient for you?

There is, so far as we know, one person who makes the bragging claim, but even he does not expand on this. What exactly was she bragging about? Apparently Bryant’s anatomy was up for discussion, but we don’t know what was said about it. Another person alleges that she was still pretty “shaken up” at the time.

Your piece about the mother implies that the young woman was under the impression that she had just had a fun sex romp, and that her mother convinced her otherwise. You ignore the paragraph in the same story in which the young woman is desribed a hysterial and visibly upset when she left the lodge to drive home that evening. The fact that she waited until the next morning to tell her mother, and that her mother told her she was raped, is hardly evidence that the sex was consensual. The woman might still have been confused, or in denial that something like this could have happened to her.

And your “Race card” argument is ridiculous. You provide a link, but absolutely no context in your post, leaving us with the impression that the girl herself is playing the race card.

In fact, the race card is being played by a lawyer (let’s call him Pinhead) who represents athletes in trials like this one. Writing an Op-Ed piece, Pinhead makes the following argument:

His gut feeling? Yeah, great fucking evidence.

The author of this crappy little “think piece” makes this comment after discussing a completely different case over a thousand miles away in Georgia, in which a high school athlete has been sentenced to 15 years for raping a classmate. Pinhead argues:

Well, firstly, whether he’s right about that case or not, it hardly bears on what is happening in Colorado, half a country away. Secondly, anyone who thinks that an honor student with good SATs is incapable of committing rape is a fucking idiot. How many times do people have to be told that rapists come from all sections of society, all colors, all social classes, etc., etc.? Pinhead is complaining about the stereotype of the black rapist, and it is true that this is an unfortunate stereotype, but Pinhead constructs another stereotype of his own–the unimpeachable honor student who is, by definition, incapable of sexual assault.

His argument that the young woman is worried about her reputation also contains a rather large flaw–if this was her only concern, why not just keep quiet about the sex? Surely she knew that Kobe Bryant wasn’t going to run around the town bragging about it, so if she had said nothing then no-one need ever have known.

And you, holmes, “could see her mother having a 'problem” with Kobe’s blackness,’ could you? And your insight into this woman’s alleged racism comes from where? Out of your ass, it seems.

I will conclude by repeating something i’ve said in other places: it is indeed possible that the young woman is lying, and that Bryant is being set up. It is also possible she is telling the truth, and that Bryant is guilty. I choose to wait for the trial.

But holmes, your apparent crusade to paint this young woman in the worst possible light is rather pathetic. Worse, your disingenuous construction of your “argument” serves to misrepresent the media articles that you draw on for evidence, providing a story that is your own fantasy.

113

Whoa, calm down partner. I thought this was a place for honest debate, even if you don’t like the direction the debate is heading. Even if those opinions are spawned from the anus.

You accuse me of being disingenous, yet i provide a means for you to either agree of disagree. I posted cites for you or anyone to have a look at and respond to, because I do think this is an interesting case and while you and others may not agree…I’m not so sure that Race, Money and Power aren’t at the root of this. I merely posted some links and quick narrative to tie it together.

You don’t agree and have opinions of your own. Isn’t that what a debate is about? I don’t have to show all sides to an issue. How did I, by not pulling ALL aspects of the cites I link( considering that many of that information has already been touched upon?) hindered an honest discussion? You read them and posted a different rationale.

Not in context…? Maybe, you read the cites and pulled out the quotes you deemed important, isnt that how this works? I see the problem…I read an entire thread and assume that everyone else does too. There was a couple of posts concerning Race and I wanted to add a little background into it.

You could of course asked me to clarify what I meant, before accusing me of being disingenuous, but it’s clear that this issue is a hot one and I’ll be a bit more organized before I post of series of loosely linked thoughts.

holmes

114

It doesn’t? You have a black sportsman, with a good reputation being accused of raping a white girl, after having what he considers concensual sex. In a county of mostly white residents and he’s doing 15 years, based on what appears to be he said/she said evidence. No, nothing similar here.

No one is saying that honour students can’t be rapists, what’s being said is how likely will a honour student be a rapist? How is this any different than saying “It’s unlikely that women lie about being raped?”

Aren’t both assumptions based on some form of statistical data? I don’t have a cite on how many honour students are rapists, so don’t ask. But I would imagine that the majority aren’t.

This is problem that I have with the defenders of this case, automatically she is to be believed; yet if it’s suggested that a honour student based on the stereotype of honour students, is mostly likely not a rapist, you’re a pinhead.

Or maybe it just me.

115

It’s just you.

An honor student has the same statistical chance of being a rapist as a non-honor student. There is no correlation between acadmeic achievement and the potential to rape. Ted Bundy was an honor student.

To say that an honor student doesn’t “fit the profile” of a rapist is an ignorant statement because there isacademic component to the profile of a rapist - as a matter of fact there’s not much of a profile at all.

116

What I meant to say, of course, was that there is no academic component. :smack:

117

From Canada:
sex offenders I doubt the states will be much different.

Statistically where does a Black honour student fall? Of course he could be a rapist…anyone can be a rapist. No one is saying anything different…

But if it turns how that less than 2 percent of black honour students are rapists, do we have to believe him to be innocent?

118

:sigh:

You don’t quite get it, do you? I never argued that there were no similarities between the cases. The point i was making is that the facts of that particular case have no relevance to the facts of this one.

The fact that the guy was found guilty in Georgia doesn’t mean that Bryant should be found guilty in Colorado. And the fact that some people believe that the woman in Georgia made up her story does not mean that the woman in Colorado made up her story. Note, also, that there was evidently enough evidence in the Georgia case to convict the guy, despite Pinhead’s own feelings on the issue.

All i’m saying is that Pinhead’s use of his knowledge about the specifics of one case to draw a conclusion about the specifics of another is pretty stupid. Yes, we all know that sometimes false rape accusations are made, but the fact that they are does not automatically mean that this particular woman is lying.

What do you mean “don’t ask” for a cite? If you’re going to throw around statistical claims in GD, be prepared to back them up.

And even if you find statistics showing that most honour students don’t rape, so what? Simply making the argument that “the majority” of honour students aren’t rapists is pointless. “The majority” of members the male sex are not rapists, either. Does that mean we should dismiss all allegations of rape made against any man?

Yes, it is.

Never once have i said that she is automatically to be believed; if you can find a place where i’ve said that, point it out. The argument i’ve been making is that she should not automatically be disbelieved, or dismissed as a gold-digger or a racist or a liar, simply for making an allegation of sexual assault.

119

You’re missing the point. No is doubting the potential for a honour student to be a rapist. What’s being suggested is based on the number of convictions, how many were Black, honour students. If the number is less than 2%, can I now say that it is unlikely that a black honour student is a rapist?

Not that he isn’t, but is unlikely.

120

You doubt the US will be much different? Really? On what do you base this assumption?

Your sample consists of 26 inmates in a Canadian province in which roughly 14 per cent of the population is of aboriginal origin (Inuit, Metis, or North American Indian). How does this compare to the US?

Also, from your link:

While child molestation is a heinous crime, it is different in many ways from the rapes we are talking about here. Your sample does not even fall into the appropriate offence type. Not all sexual offences are the same, you know.

Averages can hide a lot, also, In the study you cite, the “average” age of the offenders is 38. Does that mean Kobe Bryant is more likely to be innocent because he’s only 24? Same thing could well apply to the issue of educational levels.

I’m getting the picture now–your problem isn’t just your attitude to this case, it’s your ignorance of statistical method.

You need to adjust the figures relative to a whole bunch of other factors that you haven’t even considered, such as the percentage of black honour students in the population at large, the percentage of other demographic groups that commit rape, etc., etc., etc., ad nauseum.

To construct a very simple example, based on your own assertion:

If 2% of rapists are black honour students (this is your figure, not mine), but only 1% of the population are black honour students, then does this not indicate that a black honour student is, in fact, more likely to be a rapist that an “average” member of the population? But if 4% of the population are black honour students, then this group is less likely than average to be a rapist.*******

Your made-up figures are totally irrelevant to the issue. As i said before, the majority of men do not commit rape; this does not mean that all allegations of rape are to be dismissed.

*** I cannot emphasize enough that this is merely a statistical illustration using holmes’s own figures. I am actually quite uncomfortable using “black” and “rapist” in the same sentence so often, as it does tend to perpetuate ignorant stereotypes.