But, SA (and Shane, too), do you seriously believe that DSK didn't sexually assault her? Do you have a credible alternative theory about what happened there? She seduced him, blew him, and then scattered his semen all over the room to make the physical evidence conform to the rape story that she planned to tell? That's your story and you're sticking to it?
This "proficient fabricator" stuff could come straight from DSK's attorneys' press releases. (Oops - they don't issue press releases. They have the Grey Lady to do that work for them.) What we have here, as far as I can tell, is someone whose experience with the US legal system has been that you had better make your story conform to a standard script if you want to be believed (cp. the asylum application). The inconsistencies in her stories have to do with trying to get the script right. Do you think that's uncommon? What else would you call the common police practice of "testilying" or "framing the guilty"? The police are just more proficient at it - they get their ducks in a row before they commit anything to the official record.
Seriously, this rush not only to say that the prosecution probably couldn't have won the case, but to impugn the victim, creeps me the fuck out.
________________________________ From: SA <s11131978 at gmail.com> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2011 9:40 AM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Strauss Kahn
On 8/24/2011 10:10 AM, Dissenting Wren wrote:
> I agree that you can't run a decent criminal justice system on presumption. OTOH, the pragmatic decision not to prosecute in cases where dragging the complainant's name through the mud is likely to succeed makes it possible to rape with impunity if:
> --you rape a woman who survives as an immigrant by hook or by crook
> --you rape a woman who "improved" the truth to make her asylum application more likely to be approved (so very like police "testilying")
> --you rape a prostitute
> --you rape a woman who has had a lot of sexual partners
> --you rape a woman who is kinky
> --you rape a woman who dresses provocatively
> --you rape a woman who likes to flirt
> etc.
>
> So, given this dilemma, what do you do?
This works fine as a hypothetical if-then statement, but it has nothing to do with the DSK case.
This case didn't fail because the complainant's name was dragged through the mud. Nor did it fail because she lied on her asylum application, dressed provocatively, was kinky, worked as prostitute or any of these other reasons you mention. As a prosecution source told the NYT the other day, the NY prosecutor's office wins rape convictions all the time where the complainant is a prostitute or a drug addict. And in this case, the prosecutors knew from Day 1 that the woman's asylum application contained lies, but it was considered a non-issue -- they confidently expected any jury to view that as irrelevant.
This case failed because the complainant proved to be such a proficient fabricator that the prosecutors - who initially had no doubts about her reliability - eventually realized that they themselves did not believe her story beyond a reasonable doubt.
SA ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk