Posted on 07/14/2006 1:06:32 AM PDT by albyjimc2
This is not the Duke lacrosse team.
There are no fancy lawyers, no committee set up to support the players, no Bob Bennett on board to spin the press. There have been no national press conferences, no visiting anchorpeople clamoring for interviews. The team isn't ranked, the players weren't stars -- no one has any money. And it's ugly.
When six prospective members of the Fresno City College football team arrived at the Fresno, Calif., Police Station to be questioned about the alleged rape of an 11-year-old runaway, the only advice they had came from a lawyer whose son once played for the team.
For free, he told them that if they didn't do anything wrong, they should provide statements to the police -- and if they had done "something to be concerned with, even if it was consensual, or if they had done something to abet or aid, they might want to exercise their Fifth Amendment rights." This, according to the local paper.
The police do not always get roadmaps so easily. The Duke boys didn't give them statements. They don't give roadmaps to the police. They never talk to the police without having their own lawyers present.
Two men have already been arrested and are in custody. The Duke defendants are all out on bail.
The police were called last Saturday night after the girl left an apartment that had apparently been rented for the players, most of whom come from out-of-state, where two-year colleges routinely don't offer football. The sheriff has said that evidence at the scene supported the girl's story. According to the lawyer, the boys said "she was tall and had some development. ... They all said she 'looked like she was 18 or 19 to me.'"
Maybe so. But as the lawyer told them, it's no defense to child molestation that you don't know it's a child -- and no defense to oral copulation with a child under 18 that you don't know her age.
The girl had run away from a group home. Her life no doubt wasn't very good to begin with. For the boys, convictions will likely ruin the chance they had to escape. The two-year college scholarship might have lead to another one, to a four-year school, to a degree, to a different life.
All for what?
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. It wasn't a party. They were going back and forth between apartments.
According to the sheriff, "as many as 10 men" may have been involved in the assault.
Ten men and one girl.
It doesn't matter if she's tall or small. It doesn't matter if she looks older than her age or not. Practice was scheduled to begin in August. These guys had everything to lose and so little to gain.
Why would 10 men assault one girl?
They're football players. She's a girl. There are 10 of them and one of her.
Why would anyone do nothing and let it happen?
Can we teach this?
Yes, of course, she shouldn't be there, the group home should be better, someone should be helping her -- but she is there, and is there one of them who has a sister, who can see a disaster, a horror show, a human spectacle about to unfold? Is there one human being who stops a travesty from happening not only because it will end up ruining their lives, but also because it will ruin hers?
How many stories like this have to happen, how many teams have to go down, how many chances have to go up in smoke, first?
In that respect, it is like Duke, only these boys will pay and pay.
Will conservatives defend them, too?
But what got me was the final line:
"Will conservatives defend them, too?"
I am just dumbfounded. That cheap shot was completely left field and completely unwarranted. It disgusts me.
It might help to know the races are reversed in this case.
Conservatives in the Duke case assume that there was no rape. This article suggests that there was, in fact, a statutory rape in this case. Some would consider the little difference between there being "no rape" and "statutory rape" to be a significant difference in circumstances but, heck, why not turn it into an opportunity for class baiting, instead?
Hey Susan Estrich, does Juanita Broderick ring a bell, hmmm?
If it was Estrich, it couldn't possibly be rape, or sex of any kind.
Susan needs to understand that conservatives respect the actual "Truth". Meaning what is really "True". Related to being "Honest". For instance we do not consider it a trivial matter to lie under oath "about sex".
If this other rape case turns out to be another irrational persecution of the obviously innocent, then we conservatives will certainly come to their defense.
Susan Estrich has once again shown herself to be a moral imbecile with this inanity.
Can the woman not follow a thought to its conclusion? Can she not distinguish between true and false? Or between right and wrong? Nope.
Yes. If the evidence points in their direction. So far it ain't looking so good.
"Conservatives", whatever that is supposed to mean, started coming to the defense of the Duke lacrosse players when it began to appear that the charges against them were a crock and they were being railroaded by the prosecuter for political reasons.
If there is evidence in the Fresno case, or if any of the players have admitted to the assault, they SHOULD be arrested.
Asshole.
Susan ought to have used the case of Juanita Broaddrick as a comparable.......Lawyer Bennett trying to spin the truth into something unrecognizable because his client was the President of the United States. Or the case of Paula Jones being slurred and slammed because she was the victim of a rich and powerful President.
Supposedly Ms. Estrich is an attorney, yet she has concluded that the Duke players are guilty.
I dont agree that it was out of left field...I think the whole article was pretty much going that direction.
From the first sentence the subtext was that the Duke team players were white privilaged boys who were given every advantage.
The artcle fails of course to mention that basically the Duke players are almost certanily falsly accused and noone knows enough about the fresno case to draw any conclusions.
IF this idiot who wrote this article wants someone to blame they can blame the liberal press. They make front page news out of the Lacrosse team because at first it looked like white boys gang raped a black woman..that was news to them...I cant help but notice that there is no mention of the "race" of the football players...porobably a significant number of them were black and so this isnt a story...nothing to see here.
What was the first one?
Certainly, if they're innocent.
Whose side did Estrich take regarding Juanita Broaderick?
Seems to me that every Bill Clinton loving democrat - and Estrich is among the most vocal -- is on record as supporting serial sexual harrassment and rape by excusing Clinton.
Okay, what in the hell is Estrich's point?
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