Aquittals all around. Not because there wasn't a crime either . . .
Yeah, whatever happened, they don't have any evidence.
Did LB die suddenly while writing this post?
8 -- Maybe it was the fake LB from Chicago. And the real LB burst in while the fake one was writing the post. They got into a fight, and passersby called the police. They're all down at the station now trying to get the whole thing cleared up.
Just a guess.
I thought it was the real LB who was in Chicago. And it's the fake LB who's been posting from NY all these years.
I define "the real LB" as "the person I met in a child-hating bar in NYC who claimed to be LB and to live in NYC." Under that definition, I'd say the one in Chicago is the fake LB.
The commenter you know as text is not the real text, but another commenter of the same name.
Coincidentally, they're both formerly of Chicago. Strange doings in the Windy City.
17 -- The real one? Or the one from 'Chicago'?
By which I mean the radioactive one in New York.
LB learned the lesson about organ redundancy from Ogged and had herself cloned. Cancer, schmancer.
Hey, I saw that movie! So she's Scarlett Johansson?
I am now both around and radioactive.
Hey, I left the office halfway through writing this and spent the rest of the day at a museum. I thought I'd saved it as 'Unpublished'.
Sorry about that, guys. I'll finish it up shortly.
Hey, w/d, just thought I'd direct your attention to comment 15.
Idealist, who I discussed this with, points out that a lineup with fillers would have been useful in one regard for the defense.
I have a further objection to the lineup (based only on the facts contained in this post, I know nothing about the case). If the prosecutor shows the complainant only pictures of people who were there, the prosecutor has created a situation where, if the complainant chooses anyone at all, the prosecutor can claim that she has identified one of the lacrosse players as the attacker. As long as someone is picked, the prosecutor can claim that the suspect was identified from a photo array.
A person could be picked because they were guilty, of course, but they also could be picked becasue the complainant was mistaken or felt pressure to pick someone even if she was not sure. If the photo arrays had contained fillers, the chance of the latter two situations resulting in the identification of an innocent person is reduced significantly.
As long as someone is picked, the prosecutor can claim that the suspect was identified from a photo array.
Sure, but I think that's subsumed in the question of the accuracy of her recall. The lineup couldn't possibly cut one way or the other in terms of her credibility -- a jury that hadn't decided to believe her for other reasons shouldn't even consider it. The defense should, certainly, be able to argue to the jury that the flawed lineup procedure means that it can't be used as a reason to believe in the accuracy of her recollection: that even if the jury believes her story, they could still believe that she had mistakenly fingered the wrong party guest.
Sure, but I think that's subsumed in the question of the accuracy of her recall.
Maybe as a theoretical matter. As a practical matter, it determines whether the jury hears 10 times during opening argument and 20 times during the closing that Defendant X was picked out of a photo array by the victim. Not to mention the hundreds of times that fact will be repeated by the press before trial.
If I were a criminal defense attorney, this would be a huge deal to me.
Sure, but they get to come back with "It doesn't mean a damn thing, she was at the party and saw them. Of course she can identify them, she met them."
The point is that it's not like IDing a stranger -- it's like saying someone you know from calculus class attacked you. There aren't any credibility points to be had from identifying someone you've certainly met.
LB is slightly repeating herself here, not that there's anything wrong with that.
I agree with Idealist. Suppose that the witness is telling the truth, but she didn't have a good enough visual memory to uniquely identify her rapist. If there are fillers, there's a chance she IDs a filler, and at the least the prosecution has to rely on some other way of identifying the rapists. Without fillers, whoever she IDs gets arrested, even if it's the wrong one. Part of this is to say that her accuracy is a live question even if you believe in her honesty.
The shoddiness of lineup procedures is a huge deal, I think, and probably happens a lot in cases where the defendants aren't rich white college students. There was a thread where we discussed this, and in which I was outraged that the rules of evidence don't allow for testimony about (general) witness reliability, but I haven't been able to find it.
Huh -- forgot I'd said that before.
I agree both that it's generally a problem, and that what was done in this case wasn't the best practice. I'm just saying that given that the question wasn't figuring out whether the suspect was someone she had ever seen, but rather picking which, of a small group of people known to be present, she identified as her attacker, the omission of fillers was less egregious than it would have been in a stranger-identification case.
If I were a criminal defense attorney, this would be a huge deal to me.
Exactly. In the abstract, I agree with LB's point completely. In practicality, I would worry that a jury is going to elide the two totally different issues and decide "Well, she picked the wrong guy out of a lineup -- probably she's lying about the whole thing."
In practicality, I would worry that a jury is going to elide the two totally different issues and decide "Well, she picked the wrong guy out of a lineup -- probably she's lying about the whole thing."
That sounds like a problem for the prosecution rather than the defense.
In the last resort, doesn't the old "it's impossible to rape a slut" defense render all this moot?
Everything about this case bugs the shit out of me.
Which is why I basically have given up on reading about it or trying to have an opinion.
This slate article criticizes the NYtimes' article. I don't think the Duke students are guilty.
Is that this Stuart Taylor? Fuck him.
I haven't read the Slate article, but I suspect I'd be right there with joe on guilt were the students not from Duke.
Agree with Weiner about Taylor, though.
Yeah, I said I didn't have an opinion and I meant it. The criticisms being made are reasonably persuasive. On the other hand, they assume that the police report the Times article is based on is a perjurious fabrication prepared months after the fact, without much basis that I can see (it seems clear that it's not notes taken at the time of the events it recounts, but I don't see the reason for claiming that it was written reasonably contemporaneously.)
The thing is, people get railroaded on the basis of sloppy police work and insufficient evidence all the time, but it generally happens because no one with any power has noticed or done anything about it. Here, the prosecution is standing by their case in a manner that I find surprising unless they genuinely believe the accuser -- it's either that or they're knowingly and maliciously trying to railroad three innocent men in the full glare of national publicity. That's not impossible, but it's a big claim, and none of the attacks on the case that I've seen have convinced me that it's certainly true.
I'm pretty much agnostic on the case, I just wanted to note that Taylor has no credibility with me.