Posted on 02/26/2008 6:01:21 AM PST by TexasCajun
Newsday's Glenn Thrush has that rarest of things: A new chapter to the Hillary's biography, and one that cuts sharply against a central part of her image: that she's spent her whole career fighting for children:
[T]here is a little-known episode Clinton doesn't mention in her standard campaign speech in which those two principles collided. In 1975, a 27-year-old Hillary Rodham, acting as a court-appointed attorney, attacked the credibility of a 12-year-old girl in mounting an aggressive defense for an indigent client accused of rape in Arkansas — using her child development background to help the defendant.
[snip]
[Clinton's] account leaves out a significant aspect of her defense strategy — attempting to impugn the credibility of the victim, according to a Newsday examination of court and investigative files and interviews with witnesses, law enforcement officials and the victim.
Rodham, records show, questioned the sixth grader's honesty and claimed she had made false accusations in the past. She implied that the girl often fantasized and sought out "older men" like Taylor, according to a July 1975 affidavit signed "Hillary D. Rodham" in compact cursive.
Clinton's aides point out, accurately, that she was bound to present her indigent client the best defense available, which she did: He was able to plead down to a much lesser offense.
But read the whole story. Thrush reconstructs the crime, Clinton's role as a legal "bulldog," and her defense through court and police documents, and interviews a range of parties, including the alleged victim.
It's really an astonishingly good piece of reporting.
So 32 years ago, she did her job as a court appointed lawyer.
Off with her head.
By law she may have owed him her best. When she stands before the Great Throne, that will not suffice for what she did.
Officer of the Court, indeed. Bovine Feces, Mrs. C. I wonder if your client struck again?
Doesn’t say if she won or lost the case.
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He was able to plead down to a much lesser offense.
Probably something like ...He was in the same state as his victim at the time of the rape
What else could she have done? If she’d had any character at all, she would have either refused this case or made sure the guy pled guilty.
Right. Wrong. It’s binary. Don’t forget, Hitler’s guys followed the law and did their best.
Who knows where they’re from ?
That tells me right there he really was guilty. Hillary doesn't even mind destroying a child for her own benefit. I don't know what the heck kind of "child development background" two bit lawyer like Herself could have, but I know my own child development background and wonder whatever happened to the girl.
Come on, Arkansas is a nice place.
So getting a fair trial is wrong?
Do you even know what the heck you are talking about?
It’s not a defense attorney’s job to help the prosecution. I’ll give her a pass on this one (but only on this one).
I agree. I have made this type of statement many times. However, the case in question was kind of complicated. The girl willingly jumped in a truck and went off drinking and driving with some people. She apparently wanted to have sex with one of the participants, but not the defendant, and she and her mother apparently doctored her story. It was not the slam-dunk case implied in the title and introduction.
it is proven FALSE by Snopes...Snopes even calls out the fact that the sender of the email is hoping most readers WON’T check out their site and will just take it at face value...
http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/panthers.asp
I understand where you are coming from, but you have to understand that our entire criminal justice system stands or falls based on the defendant getting adequate representation. Without it, you might as well let the prosecutors just tell the judge who is guilty and what kind of sentence they should get, and forget about trials. When attorneys are appointed to defend someone, it is because nobody else wants to do it.
Note too, that during the impeachment the use of affidavits to silence or squelch stories was frequent.
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