Excellent blog devoted to the Duke Rape Hoax, by an NYC history professor.
People who profess a devotion to "justice" surely must seek it even for the people they dispise. If rich white guys can get railroaded like this, what will stop DAs from employing these unfair, unethical, and illegal tactics again, next time to somebody you (Nadir!) care about? Will it be too late then to speak up? What moral authority will you have then?
3 comments:
Wow.
Rich white guys have lawyers who are more capable of speaking for them than I am. It will only be too late for me or someone I care about if we don't have the money to hire a rich lawyer like these rich white kids do.
I didn't speak up for Kobe, OJ, Tyson, or Tupac either. All of them had the ability to hire rich lawyers who either succeeded or failed to get them off. But I wasn't in the chorus on any of those cases.
Y'all are picking on Michael Jackson though.
"I want to love you, PYT, pretty young thang!"
Nadir: If these rich white guys get successfully prosecuted -- with the silence or support of "community activists" like you -- this will surely make it easier for this to happen later to people who lack their resources. For one thing, your "voice of justice" will be weak and illogical should you ever speak up on behalf of a non-wealthy or non-white person getting railroaded in this way. The president set already of charges proceding in this case may make it more likely that charges will procede elsewhere at a later date against people who lack these resources.
It may very well be true that in this case were these guys non-wealthy the DA would not have bothered to railroad them. However, it is surely clear that without money for the best private legal team, these guys would be rotting in prison like the Scottsboro Boys. Prosecuters around the country see that if they ever to get some non-rich guys accused like this, they can surely get away with proceeding with charges anyway.
And no thanks to your "voice of justice." Mike Tyson got railroaded almost as badly as these guys. I hope you spoke out then, despite his wealth. His preposterous and unjust prosecution demonstrated to lawmen that if any woman cries rape and the accused admits to consensual sex, they can get a conviction. Kobe was in a nearly identical situation, but had the good sense to hire a local criminal defense team (Tyson used his existing civil attornies), and perhaps simply had better fortune in having an accuser more willing to accept a payout. These two cases (Tyson and Kobe) illustrated a frightening hole in our legal system, a hole that innocent non-wealthy men can get tossed into. A non-wealthy guy in Kobe's position would very likely be in prison today.
Though Kobe may only got accused becuase of his wealth and fortune, other women in other situations have other reasons for falsely accusing men of rape. Kobe may indeed of analy raped a girl whom was engaging in consensual oral and vaginal sex. The problem with this case is that the evidence was indistinguishable from a false accusation.
If people like you remain silent when wealthy guys get railroaded, you will help create a climate that invites the same abuse visitted on the non-wealthy. And your expression of outrage will be hollow. The best chance we justice-seekers have of achieving it, Nadir, is surely when the accused has money for a legal team. Then when your cousin gets accused, his public defender will have a legal precident, and the cops and prosecuters may be less likely to attempt a railroad in the first place.
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