Posted on 07/26/2003 7:48:48 PM PDT by Recourse
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ESPN.com: NBA | |
Saturday, July 26, 2003
Teen craves spotlight, but friends say not like this
EAGLE, Colo. -- The profile of the young woman emerges as if in silhouette.
Kobe Bryant's accuser remains anonymous, her identity protected as an alleged sexual assault victim, her voice not heard to tell her side of the story. Details of her life, coming from friends and police reports and cast in the half-light of reflected celebrity, create an enigmatic image.
Some see the slender 19-year-old with shoulder-length blond hair and a sweet smile as energetic, upbeat and confident -- a peppy cheerleader and spirited singer in school shows who had aspirations of stardom.
Others in this middle-class, Rocky Mountain town of 3,500 -- where bored teens hang out at the Texaco station, then drive off to party through the night in the hills -- describe her as a showoff, "a total starve for attention," as one ex-boyfriend put it.
"It doesn't matter if (the attention) was good or bad," Josh Putnam said. "It was always good to her."
| “ | I correlate it to throwing a pebble into a pond and then you have a ripple effect. When something's high-profile, your ripples get bigger and bigger and bigger. The higher profile it is, the greater the potential victim base. ” | |
| — Attorney Krista Flannigan |
Friends call her honest, trustworthy and strong, "one of the toughest people I know," according to Luke Bray, a 21-year-old construction worker whose wife has known her since second grade.
"She can't believe the things that people in her own town are saying about her," he said. "She's going to be a victim a second time, a third time, a fourth time, every day for the rest of her life. But she knows the truth and can handle it."
Yet several former friends doubt her allegations against Bryant, saying she is impulsive, vindictive and emotionally fragile.
Her freshman year at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, a farm community 60 miles north of Denver, was interrupted Feb. 25 when she was rushed to a hospital by ambulance. Campus police chief Terry Urista said his office received a call about 9 p.m. that night regarding a woman in a dormitory room.
"An officer determined she was a danger to herself," Urista said, identifying the woman by name but refusing to characterize the episode as a suicide attempt. "It's classified as a mental health issue," he said.
Lindsey McKinney, who lived at the woman's family's house this spring before the two had a falling out, said her former friend tried to kill herself at school by overdosing on sleeping pills and overdosed again at home in May, little more than a month before she alleged Bryant assaulted her.
The woman was distraught over a breakup with her boyfriend and the recent death of a girlfriend in a car accident, McKinney said.
The contrast between the gregarious, seemingly happy image so many friends have of the woman and the histrionic, troubled side others describe is stark and hard to reconcile.
She is less visible these days, her friends say, staying home most of the time, unless she's driving to meetings at her attorney's office in nearby Avon. She still visits friends but has been warned by authorities not to talk about the case.
Sexual assault victims often worry about being blamed, said Krista Flannigan, an attorney and victim advocate working for the district attorney in the Bryant case.
"Fear, anxiety, some form of guilt, sadness, anger, vulnerability-- those come and go," Flannigan said. "Some are more intense than others, depending on what their past life experiences have been, what their current support systems are, what their past support systems have been."
A high-profile case, she said, affects the victim and her community with greater intensity.
"I correlate it to throwing a pebble into a pond and then you have a ripple effect," Flannigan said. "When something's high-profile, your ripples get bigger and bigger and bigger. The higher profile it is, the greater the potential victim base."
In this case, the ripples are reaching far beyond the woman's family -- her retired father and mother and two brothers. They are touching virtually everyone in this tiny town, down the valley from resort-rich Vail.
What everyone agrees on is that she had a passion and talent for singing. She wrote songs and kept telling people she would be famous someday.
She traveled with McKinney last fall to Austin, Texas, to audition for the TV show "American Idol." The two slept outside for 12 hours to win wristbands that ensured audition spots.
Involved in an on-again, off-again relationship with a boyfriend from Eagle, the woman chose a song by country singer Rebecca Lynn Howard called "Forgive," about a woman stung by infidelity, wondering how to respond when her lover asks her to say she forgives him.
The refrain of the song is: "Well, that's a mighty big word for such a small man, and I'm not sure I can, 'cause I don't even know who I am, it's too soon for me to say forgive."
McKinney thought her friend's rendition was beautiful, but neither of them got past the first round.
Though many friends believe the woman is telling the truth when she says Bryant assaulted her June 30 in his room at the Lodge & Spa at Cordillera, where she recently had begun working at the front desk, McKinney has her doubts.
"I almost think she is doing it for the attention," she said. "She craves attention like no other. This is the bad kind of attention that she's going to get. I'm not saying it didn't happen. But it just doesn't fit the puzzle."
But Sara Dabner, 17, sees it differently. To her, Bryant's accuser is like a big sister, befriending her on a high school choir trip to Disneyland and helping her through personal problems. She and other friends took the woman out to see the movie "Bad Boys II" after charges were announced against Bryant.
The notion that the woman would make up the allegations strikes Dabner as preposterous.
"Why would a woman put herself through all of this -- having people call her names?" she said, noting that her friend didn't even know who Bryant was when he first arrived at the hotel. "She's not trying to drag him through the dirt," Dabner said. "She just wants justice."
For me that is enough doubt absent a major, obvious, character deficiency on the part of one of them. From I've seen, an alledged celebrity chaser vrs. an adulterer is a wash, thus enough doubt for me.
I'm waiting for the actual crime reports and evidence to be unsealed before deciding anything. I want to see if her injuries lend credence to the specific charges -- namely the part about causing submission though actual force or violence. Some of us think that just might play a major role in any actual verdict, his fame and her past notwithstanding. Have a nice day, Laker fan.
The defense filed a 23 page document requesting the files be sealed, is what the other poster is referring to.
No they do not.
But the issue at trial is not, "Did she deserve to be raped?" but "Was she raped?".
The defendant has the presumption of innocence. The state must prove him guilty.
His defense is (it must be, in fact) that the complainant consented to intercourse with a stranger.
He does not have to prove that she did-the state has to prove that she did not.
In that regard, that she has done so before is a highly material fact which bears on credibility.
How can you deny this?
I hate the Lakers.
Of course the complainant is on trial. How could it be otherwise?
The factfinder (a jury, in all probability) is instructed to presume the defendant innocent. Absent mistaken identity, therefore, the complainant must be presumed to be lying.
The state has the burden to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the complainant is not lying.
The defense must therefore defend the proposition that the presumption of the law-that the prisoner is innocent and that the complainant is therefore lying-is true.
How could it be otherwise?
Yup.
Are you sure about that? I was never told I needed to presume anyone was lying, particularly under oath, when I received jury instructions. I was instructed to weigh all the evidence and weigh all the testimony and make a finding on the actual charges with respect to the law.
lol
NO! The prosecution has a burden to prove the defendant committed the crime(s) with which he is charged. Hopefully the prosecution has enough integrity to verify the claims of the accuser before going forward with a case. The burden of probing the veracity of the accuser at trial is the defense's. To correct something else you said, the defendant is not necessarily a prisoner -- certainly not in this case.
So, in other words, for the accusation of rape, the defendant must prove his innocence beyond a reasonable doubt.
He is guilty until proven innocent?
"Hopefully the prosecution has enough integrity to verify the claims of the accuser before going forward with a case."
You clearly do not understand government, why the US Constitution was written and what it means or you would not type such silliness. We do not hope the state has anything. We require that they prove it to 12 citizens beyond a reasonable doubt.
BTW, You were very good in using bold in your previous response. Using bold and typing QED, does not change what the plain words you copy say. And QED does not mean I can cut and paste and mark things in bold there for I am right.
Now I get a lecture from the Constitutional scholar who wrote:
...the US Constitution explicitly in the Bill of Rights guarrantees that the representatives of the public including the person you were talking too, the press, has the right to know the name of the accuser...
Still waiting (three days now?) for you to show this explicit guarantee from the Bill of Rights.
You clearly do not comprehend what others write very well or you'd understand that I wrote is about stages which precede the filing of charges, indictments, and even trial. Prosecutors take filing of charges pretty seriously, which is why they investigate before filing them. How long did it take from the original complaint to the day charges were actually filed in this case?
You were very good in using bold in your previous response. Using bold and typing QED, does not change what the plain words you copy say.
Thanks. It was offered to help disabuse your misunderstanding (more like complete lack of understanding) of what rape shield laws actually include. Re-read what I posted as it relates to what you said. "Shall be withheld" and "requires... to delete" are unambiguous, particularly in the context offered: with respect to public inspection.
Do you remember writing this?
"Rape shield" laws say that past sexual history can not be brought into evidence by the defense. It shields from the jury some of the past behavior of the victim because it might be too prejudical. It does not say the public can not know the name of the victim.
That QED was given for a reason. Now go to your room and find the explicit Constitutional guarantee that an accuser's name must be disclosed publicly or even to the press before I give you another one.
Ground ball to the right side.
Sixth Amendment:
" In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial
(public, i.e., open to the public, which has always and everywhere been taken to include the press, cf. First Amendment)
... to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor
(i.e., the defendant at his or her PUBLIC TRIAL must be able to find from among the general population witnesses who may have information favorable to his defense, this is impossible without the name of his or her accuser being public).
"Rape shield" laws are facially unconstitutional, since they eliminate the protection that Amendment VI offers the defendant.
Right to the second baseman, turns and flips to first. One away! Rape shield laws do not infringe upon Sixth Amendment protections at all. They only make it more difficult for the press and the public to know information pertaining to the accuser. The defense is given that information.
"Rape shield" laws are facially unconstitutional, since they eliminate the protection that Amendment VI offers the defendant.
Strike out! Two up, two down! Not at all. Constitutionality has been repeatedly upheld in most circumstances. At no time is the accuser shielded from knowing whom his accuser is, where his accuser lives, etc. Defense lawyers are free to investigate her fully and to petition to court for exceptions.
Wanna send in a pinch-hitter?
No, but I do think they put themselves in situations where rape is more likely to occur and therefore I feel less sympathy for them than a woman who is grabbed off the street by a stranger.
I also think it is less terrifying to be be raped if you have had several sex partners. Part of the horror of rape is the theft of innocence involved.
BTW, I am a woman and the mother of a fifteen year old daughter. She has been told a thousand times that going behind a closed door with a man is often seen as implied consent by the man. Many of the societal rules we have long abandoned were there for the protection of both men and women.
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