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Apr. 21, 2006 Once again, a high profile rape is in the media, and once again the defense is trying the case with public opinion. The rape allegations at Duke University illustrate exactly why so few women actually report a rape. I have a prediction to make; this case will never go to trial. Not because the D.A. doesn’t have a case, but because over the next year, the victim will be so beat up in the media that she simply won’t testify. The defense has already started their smear campaign, and based on the success of Kobe Bryant’s defense team, I can say with certainty that this is going to get really nasty. It should be noted, that statistically, only 8% of reported rapes are false; unless of course it’s a high profile case involving rich defendants, in which case its 100%. Its seems that very few rape victims are nuns. The lawyers of the Duke University lacrosse players claim to have “evidence” that their clients are innocent because of pictures, a cab driver’s testimony, an ATM reciept, and a dorm card swipe that seems to indicate that Finnerty “wasn’t even there” when the “alleged” incident was said to have occurred. Neat, but the timeline has not been established by investigators (at least the D.A.’s theory of the crime has not been released to the public), so the credibility of this claim is at the onset in dispute. The time stamped pictures are an interesting claim, but there are some problems claiming an absolute. Who set the clock in the camera? Who’s camera was it? Why did they take these pictures in this manner to begin with? Who’s to say the clock on the camera is displaying the correct time? The key card is also interesting. There are no security cameras at the dorm, only the time stamp of when the card was swiped. So, what we really know for sure is that “someone” used Collin Finnerty’s card at the time indicated, not that it was actually Finnerty using the card. There has been much made about the pictures. One is said to show the victim “smiling” after the incident, another is said to show her “passed out” on the porch of the frat house. While I have not seen these pictures, what I can say is that pictures only capture a small fraction of time. I have seen many pictures from disasters and the like where the victim was actually grimacing and it looked like they were smiling when the picture was taken. As far as being “passed out” who knows why she laid down on the porch, and who knows for how long… because, as I said we only have the “fraction of a second” from the picture to determine this. Blood samples were taken of the victim at the hospital, so claims of intoxication can be refuted or confirmed, but that has yet to come to light. The second stripper says that the victim was not intoxicated when they got to the party, but she was acting incoherently afterwards. So whatever the cause for her behavior, we know that it occurred at the party. Do victims of a violent gang rape act incoherent afterwards? I bet they do. Could that behavior initially be mistaken for intoxication? I bet it could. The cab driver and the ATM receipt confirm “a timeline” but it does not establish one, and since no timeline for the incident has been established by the prosecution, this is currently irrelevant. However, the cab driver has said that one of the women “looked mad” when he picked up Finnerty, and that one of the men said in a loud voice, “She’s just a stripper, she’s going to call the police.” Not exactly a confirmation of innocence. We have also learned that Collin Finnerty for all his proclamations of innocence has a history of violence. On the same day Finnerty was ordered to provide DNA samples in a rape investigation, he was in Washington to face charges that he assaulted a man last fall. Court records show that Finnerty, and two friends were arrested early Nov. 5. Finnerty was charged with simple assault. The assault victim said he was minding his own business when three men started picking on him. The man told them to stop "calling him gay and ... derogatory names." Then they attacked him, he said, "busting his lip and bruising his chin," court records say. Lastly, we know that there was an atmosphere of hostility from the beginning. A next door neighbor overheard one of the men shout to the women, “hey, remember to thank your grandfather for my cotton shirt.” We know that racial epithets were shouted at the women as they began their routine, and that is why things got cut short. We know a very disturbing email came from one of the players a day after the alleged incident talking about how he was going to skin one of the strippers, and "kill the bitches", etc. We also have a 911 call (now confirmed to have been made by the second stripper) talking about the racial slurs she had been called at the party. While many will call into question her motivations for the call, I will submit simply that the woman was just damned angry, and at the time didn't see any other recourse for the indignity she had suffered. Now I’m not a lawyer, nor do I claim to have any skill in that area, yet here I was able to refute the defense’s alibi “proof” with little effort in the above few paragraphs. I would imagine that the Durham D.A. is significantly more competent than I. Who are these players anyway? What do we know and can confirm? How about this: Two weeks after the alleged incident, a Duke lacrosse player attended an on-campus "Take Back the Night" march during Sexual Assault Awareness Week. He was interviewed by Duke's student newspaper. "I completely support this event and this entire week," he told The Chronicle. That was Ryan McFadyen speaking. He's the guy who, according to a search warrant affidavit, typed the e-mail about "killing b!tches." Finally, many have stated that even if a rape did occur, the other players shouldn’t suffer for the actions of a few. Some of the players have been denied the opportunity to transfer to other colleges due to this incident, and rightly so. What we know for sure is that a) They hired strippers, b) racial slurs were freely spouted when black strippers were specifically requested to begin with, and c) underage drinking occurred at the party. Folks, any ONE of these offenses could get you kicked out of any reputable college in the country. The moral fiber of those who hold these students up as "pillars of the community", and "good boys" is amusing to say the least. The 46 MEN involved in this incident may be a lot of things, most of them surely are not guilty of rape, but that doesn’t make them “innocent” by any measure of the word. In life there are consequences for your actions, and if you lie in mud, there is a good possibility that you will come away dirty. ------------ Email Dave Wile: loudmouth@comcast.net Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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