Lynx Between Disparate Concepts

Recently there has been a particularly nasty rape case at Duke University. In brief, the Lacrosse team had a heavily alchol-fuelled party at an off-campus house, hired a couple of strippers, then three of them allegedly raped one of the strippers for half an hour. Complicating factors are that the Lacrosse team are primarily rich white kids and the rape victim is a poor black single-mother-of-two (and a stripper). The race and financial status things prejudices people, almost inevitably. Which direction it prejudices reactions in depends on your prejudices before hand.

Predictably enough, many "conservatives" such as Limbaugh and the like, have had a field day trashing the alleged victim. Less predictably, many "liberals" have also had a go, like the blog TalkLeft.

Is there doubt? Certainly.

Unfortunately, medical evidence collected from the woman seemed to support the allegation that a rape happened (video at http://www.wral.com/news/8820200/detail.html#, "Evidence From Rape Kit Doesn't Always Help Investigators"), no matter what the defense attorney over at TalkLeft said about it. However, DNA evidence failed to link any of the Duke players, specifically, with the incident. And the defense attorneys have been extremely active at muddying the waters with lots of doubt about the reliability of the accuser and the statements of witnesses. Meanwhile, there has been large amounts of very vocal outrage at how "the poor boys" have had their names dragged through the mud, and the fact that they have already been punished by having their season suspended. Also, the coach has resigned.

So, let's look at this a bit. The alcohol-fuelled party, the hiring of strippers, and the shouting of vile racial slurs at several blacks are not under dispute. Neither is the fact that one of the Lacrosse players sent an absolutely vile email. Now, to me, that right there is enough cause to have the team's season suspended while they go through a little bit of training about what is, and isn't, acceptable behavior for human beings who ought to know better. I'm not prepared to say they have been treated unfairly at all, simply because we know that they have done some things worth a bit of punishment and re-education. No, we do NOT know they are rapists. In fact, we do not know ANY of them are rapists. But I'm saying that they haven't been particularly badly treated so far. Certainly for "boys whose names have been dragged through the mud", I haven't seen nearly as many seriously ugly statements about them as I have about the victim.

For the DNA issue -- well, one of the writers of Alas, A blog went the extra mile, and did some excellent research on what DNA evidence can and cannot prove. I can't improve on what Ampersand wrote, I can only point you over there.

And for all the doubt coming out in the press -- this is an extraordinarily good, clever tactic by the defense attorneys. When the case eventually comes to trial, the attorneys on both sides will look for "unprejudiced jurors". Because of how well flooded the media is becoming, one of two things will happen at this stage:

They will eliminate everyone from the jury who pays any attention to the media at all, which in practice generally boils down to eliminating all the people with a decent education who have any interest in the world around them -- leaving people with poor education and thinking skills and little interest in the world around them, who are consequently going to be less than good at evaluating complex evidence and more likely than anyone else to be swayed by slick rhetoric;

Or they will get people who have been in contact with the media stories after all, who have already had lots of doubts about the accuser planted in their minds.

Cynical? Oooh yes. But I've seen it happen before. It works, so people will keep using this tactic. And the sad, ugly part of it is, it practically guarantees that there will NOT be "a fair trial", and there is not a bloody thing the prosecuting attorney can do about it.

For more about this particular case, I can recommend the "justice4twosisters" blog, which is pretty much JUST covering the case, as well as more links off Alas, A blog.

Is there doubt? Yes, there is doubt. Plenty of doubt, and at least some of it will be legitimate. But do we really know what is going on? No, and from what is available in the media, we will not be able to find out, either. And I have a few things I would like to say about testimony and reactions tomorrow.