Straus-Kahn case falling apart. Duke lacrosse, etc.?

[Kobal2]

@ElvisL1ves

But they’re still off-target by thinking it was done especially for a French guy. It’s the usual practice with *any *high-profile arrest in the US. He did *not *get special treatment in that regard.

I don’t think this has been a focal point, really. It might (I really don’t follow the news) but from my hazy, background noise of living in France perspective, the “outrage” if you can call it that was that we were made aware of perp walks being a thing that happens across the pond, which we previously either did not know or did not care one bit about. Now that it’s been done to someone some of us do seem to care about, well, we care about perp walks by translation :).

But I haven’t seen any article saying “they only did this to him 'cause he’s French and they hate us for our freedom” (;)). I haven’t really looked either, of course. But I’m relatively confident that’s not the editorial line of this story in any serious publication this side of the water.

[QUOTE=Martin Hyde]
Now, here is what does bother me about this thread. A few of the French posters are going on about how the French public is totally fine with their leaders having affairs and that Americans are puritans. I find it deeply troubling you think that is even relevant to this case. DSK was not arrested on the charge of adultery. He was arrested for forcible sexual assault, I sincerely hope that in France people don’t view rape as something that only a puritan country should care about.
[/QUOTE]

Sorry for having missed this in the wall of text :). I wasn’t saying this. Of course there should be an investigation, and if it does turn out he raped her, then nobody will have a problem with him being punished for it, not even here.

My point was never that DSK had been singled out or incarcerated for puritanical reasons - just that brickbacon’s line of argument (that no matter what really happened he shouldn’t be in politics or head of the IMF if he’s the kind of guy who dips in random strange) was silly and driven by puritanism. That’s what doesn’t matter. Rape is still rape, I thought that much was obvious.

DSK basically should have and did know how things work here in the United States. He knew that if anything like this ever happened it would be extremely publicized in the papers. Hell, I think there have even been news reports that DSK feared getting trapped by a “honey pot” by his political enemies. In spite of that, he comes on to a random maid in a hotel room? If I was a French voter I probably wouldn’t care one way or the other about who my politicians had consensual sex with–as an American voter I don’t care about such things; but I would have serious questions about a man who has now repeatedly in his life been on trial for serious crimes and even if 100% innocent has shown undeniably bad judgment in getting into those situations. Is that the kind of man you want overseeing one of the world’s most powerful military forces / nuclear arsenals?

And here you’re doing it too. What does it matter ? So he thinks with his dick when there’s a woman in the room. Most men do IME. Once again, as long as he’s proven innocent it should not matter. It should most certainly not matter if it turns out she’s been bullshitting the whole time.
Also, just because he makes bad decisions when it comes to women, doesn’t mean he makes bad decisions across the board. That’s just as silly as thinking that just because I’m bad at math I must be horrible at spelling too. What, he’s going to give the maid the nuclear codes in order to sleep with her ? She might ask him to invade Poland before she agrees to blow him ? What’s the horrible scenario here ?

If a given sleazeball makes or made bad professional decisions, by all means, hammer on them to prove he’s not the right man for the job. But insinuating that his bad personal decisions (or worse, his “morals”) are an indicator he’s going to make bad professional ones is the mark of rubbish thinking & sleazy politics.

[Capitaine_Zombie]

@ElvisL1ves

In fairness, the French reaction to DSK’s perp walk does seem to have inspired some recognition here about how prejudicial, not to mention unnecessarily humiliating, that practice is. It may eventually lead to perp walks staged for news cameras being banned altogether. If that happens, yes, we should recognize who helped us realize the problem and why.

But they’re still off-target by thinking it was done especially for a French guy. It’s the usual practice with *any *high-profile arrest in the US. He did *not *get special treatment in that regard.

It is also not a high-profile arrest because of his being a foreign politician - knowledge and interest in any other country’s domestic politics in the US is whale-shit low. It’s high profile because of concern for justice - we have a history, as does most of the planet, of the wealthy being able to get away with crimes that ordinary people cannot. We have a strong cultural view, often violated though it may be, that no one is above the law. When the suspect is wealthy and appears to have that attitude, the sense of retribution is strong. It really has nothing to do with his being French.

I dont think the French consider that it was a special humiliating treatment reserved to French suspects. I havent read anything like that on this forum and it certainly isnt the prevalent feeling here.
The feeling is more that the case, if there was a case, should have been handled with care, not the morgenstern approach chosen by the NYPD, that is coming back today to bite them (and all the self appointed moralists) in the ass.

That said, “When the suspect is wealthy and appears to have that attitude”: how could DSK have ever inspired that feeling when most of the American public got to know him through his perpwalk?

[Capitaine_Zombie]

@Martin_Hyde

As for DSK’s arrest, by and large it looks like there was strong evidence supporting an arrest. In the American system you can be arrested and charged based on probable cause, and you can be detained for questioning if necessary on lesser grounds. In a rape case in which a woman reports a rape immediately after it occurred, has signs of physical trauma, and there isn’t anything immediately apparent to make you question her story in pretty much all fifty states the person she accused would be arrested immediately. DSK was special because France is essentially a place where, if you commit the most heinous crimes in the world here in the U.S. you can 100% escape punishment by just going home to France, so there was special circumstances that justified the extensive bail conditions.

Sorry for the multiple posts, but that had slipped out of my mind. Martin Hyde, I was under the (wrong?) impression that you were a lawyer. Do you have a cite for this?
I hear this meme time and again, and you seem to say alongside, that no French national, under investigation or being condemned by a US court is ever extradited to the US? Are you sure? Isnt it that the extradition has to be approved by the French courts? I’d appreciate a serious cite on this. Thanks.

P.S:btw, it is always nice to know what is the “essence” of France, that is, a place to escape heinous crimes comitted in the US.

[ElvisL1ves]

@Capitaine_Zombie

the morgenstern approach

Um, qu’est-ce que c’est?

That said, “When the suspect is wealthy and appears to have that attitude”: how could DSK have ever inspired that feeling when most of the American public got to know him through his perpwalk?

We found out who he is soon enough.

As to your reply to Martin, what do you think the likelihood of his extradition back here would have been?

[orcenio]

@athelas

You know, as we saw with the Duke lacrosse case, on a personal level, it’s generally a good idea to stay away from strippers and hookers. Yeah, it’s unfair when they make up accusations against you, but, you’re safest from phony rape charges when they haven’t ever met you. You have a better chance of avoiding folks like this lady who seem skilled only at working the system.

This is not going down in the history books as an impressive performance by either the prestige or tabloid presses. Back in May, there quickly emerged questions about why this woman was living in an apartment building for AIDS sufferers (I read it in the Daily Telegraph – the Brits tend to be better at scandal than us), but then those questions just went away because … I guess everybody really, really wants to find the real life Great White Defendant like we’ve seen on Law & Order for 20 years.

(By the way, the prosecutors say they haven’t found any evidence that a political conspiracy was behind it.)

@athelas

Yes. This is a symptom of a huge *systemic *failure on the part of our nation’s law enforcement. We arrested a guy who was possibly the future leader of France because of some lying woman’s story. The people of France have every right to be pissed at us.

@athelas

Why are we letting these scumbags, like the con-artist who first immigrated through asylum fraud and then falsely accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of rape, into the country? You’d think we would have a better screening process in place to weed out bad apples. Or is that racist?

athelas I levied some damning accusations at you in the pit.

[Capitaine_Zombie]

@ElvisL1ves

Um, qu’est-ce que c’est?

Don’t be rude ;). Morgenstern. That’s my weapon of choice for a ham-fisted approach.

@ElvisL1ves

We found out who he is soon enough.

I dont see how him doing his perp walk, or looking like a groggy bum on his first hearing with the judge (his two, and most covered public appearances) made him look arrogant.

@ElvisL1ves

As to your reply to Martin, what do you think the likelihood of his extradition back here would have been?

We’re dealing with hypotheticals here. That’s why I wanted Martin’s legal knowledge on this. But if it is a court decision (and if there’s possibility of extradition, it’s probably under authority of the judiciary) who knows? I dont know the criteria used to grant extradition.

[clairobscur]

@ElvisL1ves

As to your reply to Martin, what do you think the likelihood of his extradition back here would have been?

Zero. France doesn’t extradite her own citizens. He would have had to come back willingly.

He could have been prosecuted and tried in France for the New-York rape, though.

[Marquez]

@astro

Now she’s a hooker who pimps pyramid schemes on the side!? Man the shoes don’t stop dropping in this case!

Not that you should really be trusting what the NYP says under normal circumstances, but DSK’s defence team have hired a PR consultancy to insert false stories about the maid in the press. Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the hotel maid turns into a PR battle | Dominique Strauss-Kahn | The Guardian

[Capitaine_Zombie]

@clairobscur

Zero. France doesn’t extradite her own citizens. He would have had to come back willingly.

He could have been prosecuted and tried in France for the New-York rape, though.

From what I checked, that seems to be the truth (was misled by the Noriega extradition, I thought the no extradition between France and US was a myth, but no, it’s the truth in the case of a French citizen). As the treaty is usually refered as a bilateral treaty, do the same terms apply in a reverse case (the US wouldnt extradite a US citizen to France)?

A trial in France would have been a joke. But him coming back isnt that far fetched considering his job as head of IMF and his intent of running for President of France.

[ElvisL1ves]

@Capitaine_Zombie

I dont see how him doing his perp walk, or looking like a groggy bum on his first hearing with the judge (his two, and most covered public appearances) made him look arrogant.

Arrogance is assumed to follow from being wealthy, powerful, and an apparent rapist apparently hastily attempting to flee to a place where he’d be free from the threat of extradition or even serious prosecution.

The current (2002) extradition treaty

Thus it includes: a pledge of mutual obligation to extradite fugitives in certain serious criminal matters; detailed procedures for such transfers; and exceptions from extradition, for certain offenses of a political nature, and for capital offenses absent assurances that the fugitive will not be subjected to the death penalty if convicted.

So why the initial claim that no such treaty exists?

Presumably it arose from the fact that this treaty – again, following a template – does not obligate either state to surrender its own national. The U.S. Executive Branch may do so “if, in its discretion, it deems it proper to do so.” No mention of the French executive; as stated in a French legal dictionary,
[E]n principe la France n’extrade pas ses nationaux, mais les juge elle-même.

that is,
In principle, France does not extradite its nationals; rather, they are tried before French courts.

Thus the claim was wrong on the whole, yet right in the precise circumstance:
Had Dominique Strauss-Kahn, then but not now the head of the International Monetary Fund, not been seized from an Air France jet moments before it left for Paris 2 weeks ago, there could not have been – as to him – any France-U.S. extradition.

Bolding added. Do I need to tell you what we would have expected would actually happen to him in France?

[clairobscur]

@Capitaine_Zombie

From what I checked, that seems to be the truth (was misled by the Noriega extradition, I thought the no extradition between France and US was a myth, but no, it’s the truth in the case of a French citizen). As the treaty is usually refered as a bilateral treaty, do the same terms apply in a reverse case (the US wouldnt extradite a US citizen to France)?
.

There’s an extradition treaty between France and the USA. But French law forbids the extradition of French citizens, regardless of the country (with the exception, now, of some EU countries for specific categories of generally minor crimes). On the other hand French courts are competent for crimes commited in France, of course, but also against French citizens and by French citizens, regardless where the crime was commited (providing it’s a crime in both countries. Obviously the case for rape).

On the other hand, I don’t think that American courts are competent for crimes commited by their citizens outside the USA (except for child rape, IIRC). And as result, I believe that the USA will extradite an American citizen prosecuted in France for a crime commited in France. But American posters will probably know better than me on this.

[Capitaine_Zombie]

@ElvisL1ves

Arrogance is assumed to follow from being wealthy, powerful, and an apparent rapist apparently hastily attempting to flee to a place where he’d be free from the threat of extradition or even serious prosecution.

The current (2002) extradition treatyBolding added. Do I need to tell you what we would have expected would actually happen to him in France?

Due process, no perpwalk, him being treated like a presumed innocent?

[ElvisL1ves]

And a whitewash.

[Marley23]

A French writer is going to file charges accusing Straus-Kahn of sexually assaulting her in 2003.

[Kobal2]

@ElvisL1ves

And a whitewash.

Why ? Leaving aside the broad (and offensive) subtext that you think French courts are corrupt or partial; he’s a prominent Socialist candidate under a hardcore (and thoroughly unencumbered with scruples) right wing president. Why would you possibly think the case, if proven factual, would be swept under the rug ?

[Martin_Hyde]

@Capitaine_Zombie

I can not fathom how you managed to draw that conclusion from what I wrote. The Puritan charge was not against DSK being prosecuted for serious (and backed) charges, it was for the hordes of American posters that find what happened to DSK completely OK, as he “was asking for it”.
Sorry, but if he didnt rape, then he deserved nothing of this. And, as a result of a seriously fucked up inquiry by the NY police, DSK will never be able to prove he’s innocent or not.

I drew that conclusion because honestly you just threw out some garbage statement about “American puritanism.” You’ve yet to substantiate your claim whatsoever the “puritanism” is why DSK was arrested. I tend to think he was arrested because a woman who had visible injuries reported an attempted rape / sexual assault shortly after the incident, and the immediate investigators (who have probably handled many, many sex crimes) viewed her injuries as warranting serious investigation of the matter. Since the man was preparing to leave the jurisdiction they had to quickly respond, that is very standard whether someone is flying to France or whether they are just an ordinary out of town visitor getting ready to fly back home to Montana. In the U.S. it’s a pain in the ass to get someone extradited from one state to another (even though it’s a routine procedure) and police like to avoid that if possible. In the case of France we would not have been able to get him extradited period.

I will only remind that to make an arrest, the police need probable cause. In all of Europe people are arrested because it is believed they committed a crime, but they are not considered convicted of that crime until a trial has happened. What that means is it is not the job of the police to only arrest people who are convicted. Conviction happens after arrest if enough evidence comes out to warrant it, arrests thus by their nature happen with less established evidence than what is required for a criminal conviction. The United States is not unique on this, and you’ve really not demonstrated at all that the NYPD messed up.

It is not their job to only arrest the factually guilty, it is their job to arrest people based on a probable cause that they committed the crime. It is the job of the court system to find out the final truth of a matter, and it isn’t just a rubber stamp process. Sometimes people arrested will be acquitted, but that doesn’t mean the police were wrong in their arrest. The police were right as long as probable cause existed, but there could easily be probable cause to support an arrest even if there isn’t enough evidence to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that the person was guilty.

Cite? Has DSK EVER been tried or even under investigation for any sex crime??? See, that’s what I was talking about. In a Puritan country you can throw moral mud at someone and know that, no matter what, it will stick. He’s not guilty? Doesnt matter, he is shady. When moral impression supersedes the truth (maybe he should say he has found Jesus, I hear it works).

Come back when can read my words.

I said:

I would have serious questions about a man who has now repeatedly in his life been on trial for serious crimes and even if 100% innocent has shown undeniably bad judgment in getting into those situations.

I didn’t say he has ever been under investigation for any sex crime. I said he has now repeatedly been on trial for serious crimes. If you recall he was tried for financial corruption some years ago (and acquitted), but to me that shows a pattern of getting one self into bad situations.

And while it happened after your post, there now appears to be moves to charge him with attempted rape in France as well based on an earlier incident.

[Martin_Hyde]

@Kobal2

If a given sleazeball makes or made bad professional decisions, by all means, hammer on them to prove he’s not the right man for the job. But insinuating that his bad personal decisions (or worse, his “morals”) are an indicator he’s going to make bad professional ones is the mark of rubbish thinking & sleazy politics.

Unfortunately it has been my observational experience that men who make bad decisions like this make many other bad decisions as well. I’m also talking about the earlier financial corruption trial of DSK. To me that is two criminal trials while he has been a public figure. We can either say “man, he’s unlucky” or “wow, he’s made some really bad decisions to get into these two situations.”

I do not know how expenses for French politicians are handled, but one of the things that really incenses American voters about our politicians having affairs is they often use public funds to visit / entertain their mistress and then because they do not want their wives or voters finding out about the affair they lie about their expenses. We tend to feel that if you have a major expense account as a politician we don’t want you lying about it.

Lying about your professional expenses and being reimbursed by them is a major issue, and it has felled many corporate CEOs. This is because anyone in a position of trust you do not want to find evidence they are lying about how they are spending money that was entrusted to their care. That is why boards don’t keep CEOs that lie on their expense reports and it’s often a very major factor in going after politicians that have committed adultery.

Back in the 50s just the moral aspects of adultery would be very bad for an American politician. However in the recent years I can think of several politicians that have committed adultery and then went on to continue their political careers without significant problems.

The ones who have suffered problems are the politicians who have done things like given their secret lovers prominent government jobs, used public resources to secretly visit their lovers, used public resources to perpetuate the secrecy and et cetera.

[Marley23]

@Martin_Hyde

I do not know how expenses for French politicians are handled, but one of the things that really incenses American voters about our politicians having affairs is they often use public funds to visit / entertain their mistress and then because they do not want their wives or voters finding out about the affair they lie about their expenses. We tend to feel that if you have a major expense account as a politician we don’t want you lying about it.

This is tangential so I don’t want to make a big argument about it, but I do not think this is true at all. I think the public funds issue is just what we point to justify our interest in these sex scandals. There was little evidence the public subsidized Anthony Weiner’s sexting in any way - he might’ve taken some calls at his office, but most of his messages were sent from his own BlackBerry - but the public was no less fascinated or opinionated about what he did. The public funding thing is an excuse. It’s the equivalent of saying “oh, I had to spy on my neighbor while he was having an affair. You see, he didn’t pull the blinds down all the way.” People love to gossip.

[Kobal2]

@Martin_Hyde

Unfortunately it has been my observational experience that men who make bad decisions like this make many other bad decisions as well. I’m also talking about the earlier financial corruption trial of DSK. To me that is two criminal trials while he has been a public figure. We can either say “man, he’s unlucky” or “wow, he’s made some really bad decisions to get into these two situations.”

“Where there’s smoke there’s fire” ? Please.

[Martin_Hyde]

@Marley23

This is tangential so I don’t want to make a big argument about it, but I do not think this is true at all. I think the public funds issue is just what we point to justify our interest in these sex scandals. There was little evidence the public subsidized Anthony Weiner’s sexting in any way - he might’ve taken some calls at his office, but most of his messages were sent from his own BlackBerry - but the public was no less fascinated or opinionated about what he did. The public funding thing is an excuse. It’s the equivalent of saying “oh, I had to spy on my neighbor while he was having an affair. You see, he didn’t pull the blinds down all the way.” People love to gossip.

Gossip != end of political career. It was well known Giuliani was having affairs and his career continued unabated.