Seems to me that before you even figure out what race to look for the most, you’d need to know where the crime took place. Was it in Detroit or was it in Salt Lake City? Hawaii or Alaska? Until you knew that information, it would be best not to bother estimating a probability for race. 'Cause it will inevitably be wrong.
It would probably be best not to bother with race at all. But hey, that’s just me.
hence my
If you have no other evidence, you simply have nothing to investigate. random screenings of folks based on demographics of other crimes is a foolish waste of police resources, and quite possibly unconstitutional (isn’t there some level of probability that this person here may have committed the crime necessary for some one to be investigated, and hopefully more than the “he’s a black man and black men are most often the perpetrator in this type of crime”???)
Here the “evidence” is pretty limited so far (testimony and a physical exam).
By the way, the whole point is that what actually happened in this case was a clear (and arguably constitutionally-suspect) case of racial profiling – of the white team members. Remember the context (they were forced to submit DNA and are threatened with arrest based on her allegation). My reason for noting the statistical rarity of white-on-black rapes was not to militate for a witch-hunt against possible black perps (if she wasn’t raped, there are no perps, white or black), but in fact was (with the two other factors I mentioned, the false-rape-report-rate and the possibly-dubious credibility of the complainant here) part of the thought-experiment I did in thinking: “Hmm, is the DA really justified in making the white guys submit these samples, or is the accusation, as made, not compelliingly-credible, due in part to its variance from common patterns?” That’s the real world way in which I broke this down. YMMV.
It is not profiling if the accuser said her attackers were white guys on the lacrosse team. The DA didn’t single them out because of their race. He singled them because the accuser said they did it.
actually, that’s not at all ‘limited’ in a rape case.
um, no. the woman said "I was gang raped by 3 white guys while I was at this house at a party held by the lacrosse team. The team members said only team members were there. all but one were white. therefore, the suspect pool in this particular case = white members of the lacross team. now, if the victim had given additional details like ‘they were all blonde’, then the suspect pool would have been smaller, I suspect. but that’s what they call ‘an investigation’
had she stated ‘it was 3 white guys’ period, the police would have been on shaky constitutional grounds to demand DNA samples of all white guys in the city, but that’s not what happened here. It is, coincidentally enough, what you seem to suggest should happen when you suggest that the police investigate based on stats of prior offenses. and that would, I think, be unconstitutional.
but if you think that it was somehow on shakey legal ground to look for DNA samples from the 40 or so suspect pool, then I’m no longer surprised by your lack of understanding of criminal procedures in general, not to mention the correct use of statitics.
With no suspects identified? With no charges filed? Forcing DNA from guys who had already left? Does this not seem like unreasonable search and seizure to you?
I will assume this is true, and will ignore the DNA and forensics that are no doubt available and compelling proof in many cases (but not apparently here).
Then maybe rape allegations, especially those that don’t fit common patterns, need to be given particularly serious scrutiny as to both their inherent and circumstantial credibility, especially in light of what appear to be anomalously high (shockingly high, to me) reported false-accusation rates.
suspects were identified “3 white guys who were at the party”. they were not named, but that’s not at all unusual, and definately doesn’t suddenly declassify them from being 'suspects. happens all the time “The suspect is identified as a white male between the ages of 30 and 35,” etc.
They cannot file charges, however, without the names of the accused (to differentiate it from ‘suspects’). so, no, it’s not at all unusual to compel physical evidence from a small (relatively) pool of suspects.
as for the ‘who’d already left’ part, well, how was that established? Frank said he’d left already? Frank, Jim and Brian said they’d all left? wouldn’t guilty parties say so?
They’d have been on shaky ground to compel samples from the entire white student body, for example, but “all the guys who fit the description who were in the area at the time of the attack”? It apparently sounded reasonable enough to the judge.
Anything’s possible. I’m not holding my breath.
Let’s start with the bad news. The race-hustlers or professional activists are never going to be satisfied. So a conviction, an acquittal, a decision not to prosecute it – none of it is going to stop a certain hard-core element from thinking that this was a symptom of some pervasive, racialist, woman-hating culture that we inhabit, where black women can’t walk outside for fear of Ol Massa jumping their bones. That this would not necessarily be the case even if this particular story turned out to be true is irrelevant – professional complainers can’t ever admit that the things about which they are complaining (e.g., a plague of white male sexualized violence against black women) are – Deo Gratias (oops) – not really big problems in modern day America.
For the reasonable middle, what can we hope for:
If these guys did what she alleges, without consent, there will be plausible evidence to support indictment and conviction, they go to jail for a long long time after a calm trial with no idiots marching in the street, etc. The system works, no need for agitation, no need to portray this crime (if it is one) as anything other than what would (fortunately) be a highly-anomalous outbreak of Dumb White Boys Gone Wild On The Sister. They’d pay for their sins, bigtime.
If these guys did not do what she alleges, the DA declines to be rushed to indict for political purposes, and indeed if she is flat out lying, he indicts her and seeks a maximal penalty against her for wasting the time and resources of the County. The kids sue her and get a large judgment that they can collect against whatever lapdance-related revenue she generates in future.
This complete scenario seems unlikely to come together even if the wheels fall off the prosecution’s case. More likely (in that situation) would be a slinking away with a muttered “Well, they were SO DAMN CLEVER they hid the evidence they raped her, and even if they didn’t, someone else did, and anyway . . . .” Would he prosecute her? Doubtful. Perversely, if he cannot deliver a conviction for any reason (including that there is no case if she lied) he will no doubt feel under pressure not to “betray the community” any further by being “mean” to the “victim” (remember, untold millions of people apparently still think O.J. innocent, and Spike Lee, a non-retarded man, was famous for his “Tawana Told The Truth” tag-line). Then too, when you’ve used a particular case or person as a vehicle for your entire racial cause, it is difficult to abandon the case/person without feeling like you’re abandoning your racial cause. Also, “the poor dear” syndrome kicks in as to any young female miscreant (unfortunately for this girl she’s not the ultimate in that species, a cute blonde girl gone wild, but I’m sure she’d still get some generalized sympathy even if she turned out to be fibbing).
Some Ancillary Benefits We Might Hope For:
Maybe the understanding that there isn’t a massive pattern of white-on-black sex assaults will indirectly lead people to become aware of, and do something about, the fact that there is a pretty significant problem of black-on-black sex assaults.
If the story turns out false, maybe society will figure out that for whatever reason rape allegations seem to be turning out to be bogus more often (according to the sources cited herein) than other allegations. Why? How do we deal with this reality in deciding the appropriate response to any given rape allegation. We had a fairly helpful national moment akin to this some years ago (too late to save the McMartins) – I think that many, if not most, people are now pretty skeptical of “recovered memory syndrome” and I am pretty sure that far fewer people today would agree with the statement “Children never get confused or lie about even the most awful sexual abuse stories” than might have agreed in say 1991. I think a lot of us roll our eyes at Satanic abuse stories that we might once have thought: “Oh my God, could it be?” about.
If fifty percent of rape allegations on campus are false (astonishing), fifty percent are still true, so I do not suggest the degree of skepticism that I would afford to Satanic ritual abuse claims (which are zero percent legitimate AFAIK and thus, in any particular case, get scant initial credibility from me until I see some real compelling proof). But a “women don’t ever lie about rape” mantra or mindset is unhelpful to women, in the long run and in view of the troubling fact that some women apparently do lie, sometimes, we need to calibrate our assumptions and our criminal justice system to recognize and not be misled by this reality (and importantly, so as to balance the rights of real victims and innocent accuseds). And anyone wasn’t raped needs to not be so incredibly selfish as to make a false claim that will make things harder for other women who really do need and deserve the protection of the justice system.
Fine . Bring them in. Interview them. Sort out who was where and when. Compare one story against another. Evaluate every story against the physical evidence. But to compel DNA on what was essentially a “he said/she said” case at the time (and still appears to be) is way over the top in my opinion. Perhaps a lawyer could pop in and comment. Campion, are you still around?
See above. That’s what detectives are for. It’s called “police work.”
It certainly did. But, I daresay every constitutional case seemed reasonable to a judge at some point. Were that not the case, we would not have any.
Fine . Bring them in. Interview them. Sort out who was where and when. Compare one story against another. Evaluate every story against the physical evidence. But to compel DNA on what was essentially a “he said/she said” case at the time (and still appears to be) is way over the top in my opinion. Perhaps a lawyer could pop in and comment. Campion, are you still around?
See above. Ask for alibis. Ask for witnesses to confirm the alibis. But do all that before an invasive search is demanded. That’s what detectives are for. It’s called “police work.”
It certainly did. But, I daresay every constitutional case seemed reasonable to a judge at some point. Were that not the case, we would not have any.
And you know that this wasn’t done because…?
Well, for one thing, out of 46 students, no one was eliminated. Even the ones who had left the party. If I search and find the police timeline that proves that DNA was demanded before any other evidence was gathered will you concede the point?
According to whom? The players themselves? Perhaps a relatively wide swath of people were sampled because the players allegedly hid their identities to the accuser by using false names. Perhaps it’s not 100% clear who was there and when.
There are a lot of things that we, as armchair spectators, do not know about this case. It seems like you put a lot of stock in what is coming from the defense and treating whatever they say as unquestionable truth. Just because you want to believe these guys doesn’t mean you should believe whatever they tell you. Just like the accuser’s claims should not be taken as gospel, theirs should be taken with a grain of truth as well.
And at some point, you’re going to have to trust that the DA and police know what they are doing. Okay
I doubt you can do that since “evidence” includes the accuser’s injuries. But go ahead.
Who asked for 100% clarity?
You have misjudged me. I have never stated that anything the defense said is unquestionable truth. You need to try to see things in less absolute terms. If I have a point to make it is that the DA tried this case in the press long before the defense lawyers did so.
Oh, I think they know what they are doing. I just think what they are doing is wrong.
Fair enough. That was poorly worded on my point. It was a bit of an elliptical phrase. I should have said "before any other evidence was gathered about the ‘suspects.’ OK?
And you, respectfully, need to be a little more discerning when determining what is trustworthy information.
I think both sides are trying to make this a media circus. Both of them are trying to get their messages out to the court of public opinion. Watch CNN and look at the insanity. We, the public, should have a little more objectivity.
If what they are doing is wrong, then the law will likely catch up with them. Right? The judge will throw out the case and everyone will get to go home and drink tea.
Okay.
No worries, then. Except that some of them might then be going home after losing months/years of their freedom and hundreds of thousands of dollars. If it were a bad case now, it should be scrutinized now and bounced now. A number of the falsely-accused guys mentioned in Cathy Young’s article, which is really worth a read http://www.salon.com/news/1999/03/cov_10news.html, got to go home and drink tea, albeit only after significant time in prison. That cannot be an acceptable outcome.
Some cultures don’t have the concept of zero. Ours, fortunately, does. A zero percent nationwide (in 2003) white-on-black rape report rate means a zero-percent rate in Kennebunkport, Kalamazoo, and Ketchikan. And, it will inevitably be correct to say the reported rate was zero percent in (say) Durham (that year, at least).
Problem solved, the statistics have whatever tie-breaking smell-test value (i.e., “does this story, as a whole, really sound highly likely in light of what we know about the world?”) they have everywhere!
But you said yourself that the “zero” was (or could have been?) achieved by rounding - I believe the number was 9 or less cases would show up as “zero percent” nationwide. If there are geographical changes in the distribution and they were clustered in a particular area, then obviously the percent would be higher in that area. Only when averaged across the large population of the US does it drop below “zero”.
The fact that he persists in thinking those stats can be used to predict the likelihood of an individual incident tells me that he has a particular agenda. Either that, or he’s just stuck on stupid.