Show me where I’ve said she is a liar. You can’t. I have declined, instead, to assume that she isn’t, in the face of evidence consistent with the possibility that she (and perhaps a larger number of complainants than is commonly thought) might have made false allegations.
It’s okay not to know Latin or the principles of argumentation. But your ignorance of these is not, as you seem to think, something that debars me from using tools that your meager toolbox may not contain.
Pretty rare? 8%, according to the FBI. That’s compared to 2% for overall crime.
The woman in this case is getting ripped because the facts, as they emerge, do not seem to be supporting the story she initially told. Assuming your best friend didn’t change HER story, I fail to see what relevance your best friend’s rape has to this case.
I should have said what I thought smart people would figure out but which apparently did not go unsaid: My application of probabilistic or pattern-based principles in determining how likely it was that this particular proposed fact pattern was true presumed an absence of other direct and credible evidence as to what fact pattern actually happened.
I supposed it was trivial to understand that my position was never “8% to 50% of rape reports are false, therefore pay no mind to defendant’s video labeled (and showing) ‘Me raping the stripper without her consent.’” Similarly, for all the nattering about DNA, the one thing we can be fairly sure of is that there is no affirmative DNA evidence clearly implicating these guys – so I declare the DNA issue (at best) a wash (from the prosecution’s side), and am left to fall back on my probabilistic models for “what might likely have happened or not happened” in the absence of more definitive proof of “what in fact happened.”
I wonder if you are aware that Campion is an attorney? She is poking fun at you using Latin to make it seem like you are smarter than you are. I believe her point it that just because you know some Latin doesn’t mean you know jack shit about evidence, or anything else for that matter.
So far you have missed the mark on the points she has made, making me lose confidence in your ablility to read or or acccurately present facts. Maybe you sure read her posts again, this time trying to understand the points she is making about the information the defense is not including in their statements. An indication that you understand other posters’ points would do much to improve my opinion of your posts.
bolding mine
I disagree it is is not improper. If such skepticism has the potential to affect whether justice is done, it is certainly improper. Not to mention, leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy. Having the attitude that “white-on-black rape is rare, therefore let’s not take this case seriously” probably leads to stats that support that very attitude.
What does race have to do with rape anyway? Unless we are specifically talking about racially-motivated rape crimes, stats on white-on-black rape have nothing to do with whether rape was plausible in this individual case. What you are doing is looking at two independent variables (race and rape) and suggesting that their relationship should determine probability (or plausibility). Surely you can see why this is problematic? If the crime stats on blonde-on-brunette rape was relatively low, would that make you skeptical of a brunette saying she was raped by a blonde?
Add to that, IMO women who work in the "sex’ industry are treated differently by men and are considered fair game.
I’ve been to a few ‘boy’s night outs’ and have seen men who were ‘normal’, respectable guys, treat the strippers like something they would scrape off the bottom of their shoes and when called on it, “Well, she’s a whore anyway…” was the typical response.
Point being, which is the more important statistic? Black-white rape or how women who would in the sex industry are perceived by men, regardless of their skin color?
Race and rape are not independant variables.
(Hypothetical) “information that is not includ[ed]” has, in my mind, no probative weight in favor of the accuser’s statements and no probative weight against the defendants’ stories. The defense has not mentioned that the defendants do not appear on a videotape documenting the “rape,” it has not “included” the “information” that they did not hose the “victim” down to remove “the DNA,” and has signally failed to state that the lacrosse team did not ritually devour the Lindbergh baby before their orgy of rape.
These are all telling omissions! All the matters not explicitly denied will be deemed “information . . . not includ[ed],” and point straight to defendants’ guilt! Why not mention it, unless they have something to hide!
If that’s “evidence” of anything (either of the credibility of accuser or detraction from the credibility of defendants) (as her posts seemed to suggest, or why mention it?), then I’ll take vanilla.
The burden of proof is the same regardless of other information that has nothing to do with my case. Such as crime stats. A white woman should not have to do less to prove her interracial rape case than a black woman. To me, this is so obvious that I don’t know why it needs to be stated. But in reading the last few posts of this thread, it seems like it should. And that scares me.
You haven’t convinced me that I’m wrong. Sorry.
Yeah it is, if it is not racially motivated.
In the absence of (or pending) other decisive evidence, and ceteris paribus (why not, since I’ve already been accused of Big Wordism?) – yes, what I would have to go on would be (uncorroborated statement as to statistically improbable event) plus (knowledge of statistical improbability), and if forced to make a decision or take an action (i.e., do I prosecute the blonde? Do I respond favorably to a demand that I get outraged about the “rape?”), I would not refuse to give weight to the significant (albeit far-from-infallible) information that I had and that I believed had relevance to resolving the otherwise unresolved proposition.
In the presence of other decisive evidence – it’s a whole different equation (as I have said, probabilistic models are proxies for definitive proof, which is preferable whenever it exists). If you have the video of the demon clown raping the kids with a knife in a secret chamber – sorry Mr. McMartin, I’ll pull the switch myself.
Tie-goes-to-the-runner doesn’t apply when the pitcher clearly tagged you eight feet from home plate.
If you’re talking about some sociological/psychological reason behind rape, then you shouldn’t be using statistical terms.
Race has a non-zero correlation with rape (both victim and violator). They’re not independent.
The defense lawyer’s statements also have no probative value. What do you expect him to say, “They got 'em dead to rights?” In a crime where consent is one of the elements, DNA can never prove someone’s guilt. So the statement that the DNA can’t do this has no value.
Independent doesn’t mean noncorrelative. Confounders exist.
IQ and race are correlated, too. Doesn’t mean that they are dependent.
Just for context, there are three basic defenses to rape:
[ol]
[li]She made the whole thing up[/li][li]It happened, but she consented[/li][li]It happened, but it wasn’t me[sup]*[/sup][/li][/ol]
DNA evidence can refute the first and third defenses.
[sup]*[/sup] The SODDI defense – “Some Other Dude Did It.”
And if the word “variable” gives you problems, use “factors” instead.
Sexual penetration by the defendant is one of the elements too. If they had DNA sufficient to clearly establish sexual penetration, the prosecution’s case would indisputably be closer to being proved, because one of X elements, as opposed to zero of X, would be pretty incontrovertibly established. Because they appear not to have such clear evidence, the DNA is (as I have suggested) at best a wash which does not move the prosecution’s case forward, and is at worst, suggestive of difficulties the prosecution may have in establishing sexual penetration by the defendant. If a video turns up tomorrow in which the defendant is porking her, then I will freely concede that the DNA is not, ultimately, exculpatory. But since I’ve never said it was, definitively, ultimately, going to be a defense, that doesn’t bother me, and the only remaining disagreement (if any) is my belief that the hypotetical “information the defense didn’t mention” has anything other than makeweight value as to what we should (in the absence of other information) believe occurred or will be proven.
to clarify.
So basically, long story short, the thing that decides whether or not you go to trial is whether or not you have evidence.
Thanks for the succinct reply.
It became (apparently) necessary to belabor the point because of Campion’s bizarre belaboring of the meaningless issue of hypothetical [“evidence” the defense did not mention] as being significant to our evaluation of this case.
By the way, the principle that in the absence of better evidence one resorts to the least-worst information available is one that has applicability well beyond this context, but is fairly often ignored in favor of theory or dogma.