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Jeff A. Taylor stands up and proudly defends the rights of the railroaded Duke lacrosse team.
|6.26.06 @ 3:41PM|#
Even annoying, rich white boys deserve justice
Um...does Mr. Taylor know any of the defendants? Nothing I've seen
suggests that they are annoying. Or rich for that matter. I
attended an expensive school too - but I'm not rich. I got a lot of
student aid and worked my ass off to get a good education.
By suggesting that these guys are annoying and pointing out that
they are (possibly) rich and (definitely) white I think you play
right into the class warfare trap that Nifong has laid for
you.
Other than that the article was spot on.
|6.26.06 @ 3:46PM|#
This is nothing new... rape has always been a political tool and
and an important part of propoganda. Rape tends to create
irrational hysterics, and hysterical people are a lot easier to
manipulate and control than a calm rational public.
The only thing new about this case it is the accusation of a black
woman that is going to have a few rich white kids lynched, where as
in the past it typically the accusation of a white woman that got
poor black kids lynched.
|6.26.06 @ 4:11PM|#
Rex,
If the accounts in the media are true (granted a big IF), it looks
like these dopes hired a couple of stripers who showed up drunk and
unable to perform, some kind of argument insued, some rational
slurs were uttered, the most likely didn't pay her and viola, there
is a rape allegation.
Dave W.|6.26.06 @ 4:29PM|#
Nothing is more dangerous than a lunatic with government
letterhead.
Should read:
Nothing is more dangerous than a lunatic with government
anthrax.
Other than that the article was spot on.
|6.26.06 @ 4:32PM|#
Hey John:
I don't think the strippers showed up drunk. I believe the showed
up sober and the alleged victim consumed alcohol at the scene and
became intoxicated and unable to perform. Allegations/speculation
that the team slipped her a mickey were floated. I would wager $1
that when it comes to trial it will come to light that she was on
some sort of medication that was not to be taken with alcohol.
|6.26.06 @ 4:33PM|#
Nothing I've seen suggests that they are annoying. Or rich
for that matter.
Tuition and fees: $32,410
Room/board: $8,830
Guess it all depends on your definition of "rich."
I suspect their daddy's aren't poor.
|6.26.06 @ 4:40PM|#
I went to a school with similar prices. My parents weren't rich by any means. I was on academic scholarship for about 50% of my tuition. Do you know they weren't on academic scholarship? Does Duke give athletic scholarships for lacrosse? Lacrosse is a prepschool sport, it's quite possible they're good students in addition to being good athletes.
|6.26.06 @ 4:45PM|#
I'd like to be clearheaded about this, but the euphoric
schadenfreude I feel while watching these guys be brought low
clouds my judgement.
I know. I'm a bad person.
|6.26.06 @ 4:48PM|#
Maybe so Guy. My best guess is that they got into an argument and threw out some racial slurs and the stripper decided to take her revenge through the rape allegation.
|6.26.06 @ 4:52PM|#
ed,
Like I said, I went to an expensive school too and I'm not rich by
any stretch. I got a lot of aid and worked full time to pay the
difference.
And how exactly does their being "rich white boys" have anything to
do with the "facts" of the case?
Either they raped the girl or they didn't, and it's looking more
like they didn't every day. It certainly isn't helping them to get
off. In fact, I'd say that the perception that these guys are
country club stock is hurting them - at least with the prosecution
anyway.
|6.26.06 @ 4:54PM|#
3rd Policeman-Ok, you're not a rich snot. Nor is every kid who attends an expensive college. But the odds are that these guys are. While I may shed a tear over injustice, I'm not going to do so over these guys in particular.
|6.26.06 @ 5:07PM|#
Bitters:
I hope you work hard, earn a good deal of money, make sure your
kids work hard and do well in highschool, send your children to an
elite school, and then have them falsely accused of a heinous
crime. Further, I hope your children are used as tools of a
political campaign and are made to suffer in the court of public
opinion, while supposed feminists and other bitter folks take joy
in their suffering.
|6.26.06 @ 5:14PM|#
The article references the prosecuting attorney as "Mike Nifong", not "Matt Nifong." I think it kinda takes the bite out of the ol' righteous vitriol when Reason can't get a first name correct.
|6.26.06 @ 5:15PM|#
Bitters,
So a fit penalty for being born a rich white kid is prison on a
trumped up rape charge? I don't follow you.
|6.26.06 @ 5:16PM|#
That would be the hyperlinked article about the "rambling
letter," not the Reason article itself.
Shit, when is Reason going to get on board with the times and get
some software that allows you to edit posts, for the love
of Sweet Holy Infant Christ?
|6.26.06 @ 5:28PM|#
Ok, you're not a rich snot.
Gee, thanks. By conceding that, you concede the possibility, at
least that these guys are not rich snots.
My point though, is that their race and station should have nothing
to do with the case, and making snarky remarks about it just makes
the injustice all the more obvious.
If we were talking about a bunch of poor, black jocks from Cal
State San Bernardino who threw a kegger and then had apparently
spurious allegations leveled at them by white strippers would the
response be the same? Somehow, I don't think Jeff Taylor would
title his article "Even annoying poor black boys deserve
justive."
Which is not to say that these guys totally pure or anything.
What's clear to me is that these guys threw one hell of a
party that got really out of hand. And yeah, they probably
are a bunch of asshole jocks and more than a few of them have rich
parents, but SO WHAT? That doesn't make them rapists, and it
doesn't make this ordeal fair.
|6.26.06 @ 5:37PM|#
Bitters,
So a fit penalty for being born a rich white kid is prison on a
trumped up rape charge? I don't follow you.
Yup. That's exactly what I'm saying. No hyperbole here at all. I'm
certainly not making a snarky point about the fact that while I may
abhor the injustice, I still feel some shadenfruede about the whole
thing.
Your temperate and well-reasoned response demonstrates your clear
grasp of my point.
|6.26.06 @ 5:42PM|#
Tuition and fees: $32,410
Room/board: $8,830. Guess it all depends on your definition of
"rich." I suspect their daddy's aren't poor.
My brother received his PhD from UCLA and his Post-doc from
Columbia. We were working-class poor, but thanks to the generosity
of the NSF, my brother received an outstanding education.
I suspect both your parents are morons or at best, kinda
slow.
|6.26.06 @ 5:52PM|#
Bitters,
I don't see you have any point at all. I don't see how being rich
has anything to do with this. And I have no clue why anyone would
feel shadenfreude over this situation. That you do makes me think
you've got something wrong with you.
|6.26.06 @ 5:58PM|#
In this case, I think it has been fairly well established that all three kids came from upper-middle-class to upper-class backgrounds (I think at least two sets of parents live in neighborhoods full of million-dollar plus homes and work on Wall Street or in investment banking). Thus, Taylor's description of them as being rich is probably accurate by most standards, but still irrelevant to whether they are guilty or not, and all evidence I have seen seems to suggest they are innocent.
|6.26.06 @ 5:58PM|#
I'm fairly rich and not touchy about it. I am touchy that some people apparently think that rich people have it coming to them when they're falsely accused of crimes.
|6.26.06 @ 5:58PM|#
Geof- Do you have any idea how entertaining it is to needle you?
How amusing it is to me that you keep acting as though I really
think they deserve to get railroaded for being rich even though
I've said in at least two posts that the situation is unjust? How
much I'm looking forward to your next paroxysm? I await your next
jememiad. Oh, and I'll help- railroaded or not, the odds are that
the players are a bunch of overpriveledged, frat-boy
assholes.
Enjoy.
|6.26.06 @ 6:12PM|#
Well, SOME of the accused are definitely rich. Going to prep school and having a daddy lawyer and a mommy lobbyist would qualify as rich to 99% of reasonable standards. They are also PROBABLY annoying and snotty. I mean, I went to school, I know people like them. It aint hard to tell. However, the point is even though they are white, probably rich, and possibly annoying ( in that snobby rich whiteboy lacrosse player sorta way), they should not be charged. Aas surely there should be no law against being an annoying jerk.
|6.26.06 @ 6:20PM|#
For some interesting info on the case, go here:
http://www.thebigtalker1210.com/pages/14043.php
Scroll down to the podcast in the left-hand column, Michael
Smerconish . . . Buzz Bissinger.
|6.26.06 @ 6:32PM|#
Guy said:
I would wager $1 that when it comes to trial it will come to
light that she was on some sort of medication that was not to be
taken with alcohol.
The accounts I've been reading have said the stripper was taking
'Flexor' or something, a prescription muscle relaxant.
|6.26.06 @ 6:45PM|#
it is very telling that Reason didn't touch this story until it
was safe to say the assault didn't happen -- but is it really that
clear? has anyone on the Reason staff been raped? when it happened
to me, i was too traumatized at first to tell if it was man, 10
men, an alien... thank god i didn't employ Nifong. instead, i kept
silent because i imagined a trial would create even more
distress
But what can I expect from website that dispayed a 50s anachronism
of sexism -- those nauseating "give the gift of Reason for Father's
Day!" ads (with no Mother's Day equivalency the month before,
naturally) -- just two weeks ago?
No wonder no women read this magazine.
|6.26.06 @ 7:29PM|#
the drug would be flexeril
i took some once when i had a nasty sprinting injury
fwiw, this case smelled from the beginning
i read (i guess im a masochist) several feminist blogs, and in the
beginning, it was all rahrah identity politics and theyu were SO
stoked these rich white frat boy racist capitalist imperialist
fascist patriarchal... (you get the point) men were gonna "get
theirs" for oppressing a blackwomanvictim(tm)
the amount of cognitive dissonance, ignoring of evidence, and
treatment of individuals as symbols was AMAZING
truly
now, this case is barely ever mentioned, and that is proof positive
of what a loser it is. when it's biggest cheerleaders aren't even
TRYING to support the ALLEGED victim in this case, but are trying
to ignore it compltely - that's a hyooge tell
i'm not saying it didn't happen. i am saying if it DID happen, this
"victim" is the victim of the most galactically huge amalgamation
of bad luck that ever befell a legitimate victim. the evidence just
is all conspiring against her (rolls eyes)
what is/was disgusting is the way ideologues cannot look at the
facts of the case, but instead only concentrate on people as
symbols (oppressor, oppressed), etc.
several comments made about how even if it wasn't the case that
these "boys" raped her, that they got what they had coming (arrest,
name dragged through the press, etc.) because they were racist
patriarchal frat boys.
i kid you not
|6.26.06 @ 7:39PM|#
lib feminist,
I'm sorry to hear what happened to you, but that doesn't change the
facts of this case. I'll assume that your case didn't involve you
being an underpaid, drug using stripper with a prior conviction for
blackmail and a time line that would have put one of the guys who
may have done it at an ATM 5 minutes into the rape.
Was she raped? We'll never know for sure. Is virtually all the
available evidence against her story being true? Yes it is.
|6.26.06 @ 7:45PM|#
Heh. No one who wasn't there that evening can really know what
really happened. I'm amused by how much the defense story has been
changing as well as the stripper's story.
So far I've heard from the defense that nothing at all happened,
that the victim showed up beaten and drunk, that she got drunk
there, that the accused weren't there, that one of the accused was
picked up by a taxi driver while the crime was supposedly being
comitted, that he was picked up by the taxi driver after the crime
was supposedly comitted, etc.
Have you noticed that the defense has recently added a detail about
the victim performing a sex act with a "device"? And in the same
breath they are saying she was unable to perform for them. That's
about creating reasonable doubt about the possibility that she was
raped with an object, as apperently she and the other dancer were
threatened.
Whatever happened there that evening, it was exceedingly unpleasant
by all accounts. Under the best of scenarios, the guys come off
like complete creeps. Criminal, I have no idea. I'll wait for the
case to be tried, if it ever comes to that. But in any case, only
an insane prosecutor would take on a case with such purportedly
flimsy evidence, and decide to prosecute some smart, well-liked,
well respected, well-funded defendants for fun. Because if there's
anything a rape jury loves, it's a single mother working as a
stripper. I'd be shocked if there weren't more to the story than
the defense is currently leaking to the press.
|6.26.06 @ 8:22PM|#
Aside from real prep schools of the Andover type, the hotbeds of
high school lacrosse have long been Maryland and Long Island, NY.
Here'a a list
of teams just from Nassau and Suffolk counties on LI. Notice that
private schools - religious or otherwise - are in the
minority.
Rich kids are probably overrepresented on college lacrosse teams in
comparison to their % in the general population. That's probably
true of golf, equestrian sport, crew and sailing. Basketball
certainly skews to the other end of the socio-economic scale, and
has had its own problems. Sometimes the poor accused are found
not guilty.
Kevin
Kara|6.26.06 @ 8:58PM|#
Guy,
Actually I did read an account where the "victim" says that she is
taking muscle relaxers.
***
I dont care if the guys are rich or not. Who cares? Injustice is
injustice no matter how much their mommy's and daddy's make.
On a side note, I supported that basketball guy. And in that case
the "victim" was not poor.
|6.26.06 @ 9:52PM|#
Everyone is speculating here. The accused may well have raped the accuser, and she may nonetheless have given multiple stories. She may be playing a game of blackmail and revenge on people who did nothing worse than utter some slurs. The defence is in a strong position to fight the case in the media because they do not operate under the same constraints as the prosecution. It's noteworthy that the stripper's multiple stories are taken as evidence that she's lying, but the defences multiple stories are not taken as evidence that the defence is full of shit. As it currently stands the opinions people are expressing say a hell of a lot more about their own biases and predispositions than they do about the guilt or innocence of the accused.
|6.26.06 @ 10:50PM|#
Serafina,
The accuser used the "device" in front of a couple who paid her in
a hotel room BEFORE she went to the Lacrosse house. The defense
never said she used a device at the party. The source is the
accuser herself. It's in the statement by the Durham PD
Invetigating Officer detailing his meeting with her.
The reason the defense "added" this detail is because the DA was
witholding it, along with 400+ pages of discovery, until Nifong had
to release it last week after a defense motion. This was after
Nifong had said he had released all the information and evidence he
had.
The accuser also said she had a 24 oz. beer and Flexeril before
going to the house. Again, the defense didn't know about this
because Nifong was sitting on it. Alcohol and muscle relaxants are
a BAD combo. They also take time to take full effect.
|6.26.06 @ 11:48PM|#
the point is that IF she was raped by THESE men, there would be
(99%+ chance) far more convincing evidence at this point
that aint conjecture. that's fact.
she changed her story a bunch of times. the physical evidence is
largely exculpatory, her partner called the claim of rape a "crock"
then recanted after contacting a frigging public relations firm and
claiming she wanted to make money!, but MOST importantly, the
witnesses who tend to exculpate the lacrosse players tend to be the
DISINTERESTED witnesses - iow, those w/o a nexus to victim or
suspects - that is telling, furthermore it's just another cosmic
coincidence that she happened to be gang raped by 3 men 10 years
ago, but the case never went to trial (rolls eyes). hey, i wasn't
abducted by aliens ONCE, but twice. anal probes EACH time.
:p
mark, thank you for correcting serafina. i suggest people "bone up"
on the facts BEFORE starting to make an opinion. amazing how
unfamiliar people are with any facts of the case but are all ready
to jump to conclusions
the prosecutors conduct is scandalous, but typical of a politician.
DA's are not lawyers first. they are POLITICANs first. it's like
the difference between the average cop (who is a cop) and a police
chief (who is a politician)
btw, the former overwhelmingly support right to carry, the latter
don't - because they are politicians who must please their mayoral
bosses
|6.27.06 @ 2:05AM|#
Libertarian feminist: with all due respect, there's a crucial
difference between being too traumatized to say how many there were
and just what happened, and giving widely varying accounts and
numbers at different times.
One killer detail that nobody here has mentioned: apparently the
victim identified the accused by picking them out of a photo array
that only had pictures of members of the lacrosse team.
Top-notch police work, that! The defense attorneys must have
giggled with glee when they heard that.
|6.27.06 @ 2:27AM|#
it is very telling that Reason didn't touch this story until
it was safe to say the assault didn't happen -- but is it really
that clear? has anyone on the Reason staff been raped? when it
happened to me, i was too traumatized at first to tell if it was
man, 10 men, an alien...
OK, I will feed the troll.
If you are too traumatized to tell who raped you, or even if it was
some alien, how did you know a rape occured? If your brain has been
so altered to make by your own admission your memory completly
unreliable, then why shouldn't we be a bit skeptical?
Sorry, but the obligation is on the accuser to make a compelling
case with their accusation - and it is especially moral, rational,
and compassionate to challenge an accusation that could put an
innocent person in jail! In a case when a person claims they can't
remember even the most basic details of the crime, yet are certain
the crime occured, it is in no way sexist or insensitive to assume
the accuser is lying or halucinating.
Why should we throw people in jail for rape on a standard of
evidence that wouldn't even warrant an investigation for any other
crime?
|6.27.06 @ 9:37AM|#
>>A prosecutor is supposed to be more than a
career-boosting opportunist.
OK
>>The system only works if he or she puts the truth ahead of
a conviction and works diligently to dig out that truth.
This is Ridiculous. The 'system' is set up to leverage to just
advantage the fact that the first statement is so much unattainable
idealism. This is how precedent, the jury pool, and total confusion
at least partially manage to trump the inevitable and extreme abuse
that would ensue, were cases to be tried only on their own
merits.
>>a drop of bitters: 'I await your next jememiad' (the 'm'
key is rather far from the 'r')
I think you mean jeRemiad...
If you are going to use silly obscure words, you should double
check your spelling.
joe
|6.27.06 @ 9:51AM|#
I suspect both your parents are morons or at best, kinda
slow.
Neither of the above, Tom. And yes, you are right: It's entirely
unreasonable to suspect that a good number of students at a pricey
private university might just have well-to-do parents. By the way,
your resort to ad hominem makes you the
moron.
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