Duke Prosecutor's Fourth Victim [Susan Estrich nails it]

Fox News ^ | January 1, 2007 | By Susan Estrich

[aculeus]

There are four victims of District Attorney Mike Nifong’s twisted tactics in the Duke Lacrosse case.

The first three, of course, are the young men who never would have been charged with anything had Nifong adhered to the standard practices in his own office. With luck, they will ultimately be exonerated, and be able to move on with their lives, albeit after having endured a chapter in hell.

The fourth victim is unlikely to be so lucky; she will not be exonerated at trial, and she will not be able to move on with her life. She will be destroyed by this case, and while she is partly to blame for that herself, the other part of the blame rests squarely on Mike Nifong’s shoulders.

The woman is a liar. That is the English translation of the latest round of maneuvers, in which the prosecution dismissed the rape charges because the woman could no longer say, as she once did, that she had intercourse with three men at the party. In other words, she lied when she said she did.

The challenge for defense attorneys, in dealing with a woman who can’t remember whether she had intercourse with three men on a day when she must have had it with two others (to judge from the DNA on her body and underwear), is not to hit so hard that you provoke sympathy.

If she can’t remember now, how come she was so sure then?

[Always Right]

Susan Estrich nails it

What you and Susan Estrich do in private is really none of our business.

[kcvl]

Susan, try that again. FIVE (5) OTHER men's DNA. You know what they call someone like that? A stupid hooker with a death wish!

It's not as if the woman hasn't LIED about rape before either!

[Always Right]

This woman should be outed as to what she really is, a whore and more!

Actually, it is probably an insult to whores.

[diogenes ghost]

It was a dark and dreary night, and the fog permeated throughout the graveyard, where Susan was just climbing from her crypt for an evening of fun. Suddenly, from the adjoining crypt, jumped.....

[Lorianne]

Susan Estrich is wrong. The Fourth Victim is all the women who will actually be raped and will be reluctant to testify because of the bungling of this case.

[misterrob]

Happy Hour too.

[ishabibble]

I agree with your assessment of this sad situation. But that's just too bad for this woman. She could have stopped this right from the beginning.

"Sow wickedness Reap the same" Book of Job.

I hope she spends her life in penance for what she has done to an entire nation. And she sure has.

[azhenfud]

Those ethically challenged DA's must be like old bananas - they're yellow with bad spots and come in bunches.

[sarasmom]

Susan Estrich is wrong. The Fourth Victim is all the women who will actually be raped and will be reluctant to testify because of the bungling of this case.

Worth repeating.

[John123]

FIVE (5) OTHER men's DNA.

Really???

[Kimmers]

And now you have nailed.....that is exactly what I was thinking.

[isthisnickcool]

Estrich was supposedly raped many years ago.

[Kimmers]

And now you have nailed.....that is exactly what I was thinking.

[Sue Perkick]

Crystal won't be "destroyed". She will move on & it will be business as usual.

But that title is really disturbing.

[starbase]

I always thought Estrich was kind of quacky, but this piece reveals a level of thought and honest dignity that I didn't know was there. I'm glad she provided this history in what read as a very fair way:

In the bad old days, before rape laws were reformed, a number of jurisdictions enforced a special corroboration rule in rape cases that provided that a case could not go to the jury on the uncorroborated testimony of the victim. The idea behind the rule was, as Sir Matthew Hale famously warned, that rape is a crime “easy to charge but hard to prove, and harder still to disprove” even by one who is innocent.

That was a fair reading. This statement, however, can probably be found in the Encyclopedia under "Mixing Apples With Oranges":

No study has ever found that women lie about rape any more often than men (and women) do about other crimes, but that doesn’t mean that every complaint belongs in a criminal trial.

To say that no special consideration is needed given how easy rape is to claim based on the (lack) of any study which basically shows men don't lie more often about parking tickets than women do, is of course mixing behaviors that are totally unrelated to one another.

While she was fair and honest throughout, this one line is sort of like pulling out her "Feminists of America" card and waving it around for all to see!

[doug from upland]

Estrich still has to answer for calling Broaddrick a liar and refusing to speak with her.

[arthurus]

Where can the poor wronged stripper/... go to get her reputation back? Who is going to hire her now? Her career is ruined!

[Suzy Quzy]

Sorry, but the fourth Victim is our JUSTICE SYSTEM!!! Why have NO OTHER PROSECUTORS DAMNED HIM??

[69ConvertibleFirebird]

Exactly.

She will be destroyed by this case, and while she is partly to blame for that herself,

The false accuser is completely to blame and needs to spend some time in jail for making false charges.

There are a plenty of men who have had their lives destroyed simply because a woman/girl makes a FALSE claim of rape, improper touching, etc. It happened to a local school teacher in Gaithersburg, MD a few years back. He was vilified by the press. A few weeks later the kids admitted that the charges were false but that didn't help the guy's ruined reputation. There were plenty of front page accusations. Not many front page exonerations.

[69ConvertibleFirebird]

But this case has nothing to do with rape other than false accusations of it. Would that really be dear to Susan's heart in this case?