Letters to the Editor
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These priorities aren't necessarily mutually exclusive -- supporting an accuser isn't the same as convicting an alleged perpetrator
They absolutely ARE mutually exclusive if the victim accuses, maliciously or otherwise, a specific person of something they did not in fact do.
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or that accusers should be silenced because they might be lying!?
"or that accusers should be silenced because they might be lying."
In the words of the Stephen Colbert, this smells of wikiality and truthiness. Citation needed.
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Presumption of Innocence
They absolutely ARE mutually exclusive if the victim accuses, maliciously or otherwise, a specific person of something they did not in fact do.
Presumption of innocence works both ways. A failure to convict is not a de facto conviction of the accuser.
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What about.....
What about the accuser in this case? When does her name and her face get plastered all over the NATIONAL media? Seems to me that once a rape or sexual assault accusation has been shown to be unfounded (or even malicious), that the rape shiled laws that protect the accuser's identity become null and void for that accuser in that case. She put these young men through hell, and they will face negative consequences from this for many years to come. There will always be a cloud over their heads because someone once said they did it. This is a fact. What about her? She just gets off scott-free? Sounds like double standards are alive and well in this country, especially when it comes to protecting (guilty) women from (innocent) men. Oops, now I'm a misogynyst for saying that, and this post might very well be deleted, er I mean sanitized for your protection. Heaven forbid people actually use their brains rather than spew the propaganda they've grown to rely on. This would be double-plus ungood.
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Mutual exclusion seems the topic of this post...
It's true that false accusations happen; worse still, false convictions happen. At the same time, sexual assault is an underreported. As a savvy reader noted in response to an earlier post about the dropped charges, future rape survivors may be unintended victims in this case. Those who see every rape charge as a probable false accusation may read the Duke case outcome as validating their position; assault survivors may worry that the Duke case outcome erodes their credibility.
You make it sound as though the two positions here are mutually exclusive. In fact, both sides benefit when rapes are reported accurately and the possibility of false accusations is treated seriously. Which is why Broadsheet should be the first to call out the nonsense of feminists that claim either that the falsely accused are insignificant in numbers, or that they need to be more worried about the underreported rapes.
Also, I completely object to your blatant crap that portray two populations "those that see every rape charge as a probable false accusation" versus "assault survivors."
Please show me "those that see every rape charge as a *probable* false accusation." And when you are done with that please see if you can find any assault survivors that think that some rape charges may be false accusations.
Broadsheet, you don't do yourself any credit when you take some sort of pious attitude and then proceed to smear and smear again.
Sexist much?
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Pyrian
A failure to convict is when a jury finds a defendant not guilty. This was not a failure to convict, it never got that far. This was a failure to properly investigate, and when the facts started finally coming to light, it was shown that this woman lied about being attacked. Sorry if that hurts ya there buddy, but this is what went down (no pun intedned). They are innocent, ergo she is guilty of slander at the very least, though we all know it's much worse than that.
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It's impossible to PROVE an accusation is FALSE, as opposed to not being able to prove it TRUE
unless the accuser is recorded telling someone she made the whole thing up. The presumption of innocence applies to a person accused of making a false accusation too. That is why malicious accusations are fairly common. The WORST thing that happens is that the accusation will not be substantiated, the accuser can virtually never be punished.
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Random Musings
Ok, this is an interesting turn of events...
But first, a completely honest disclosure:
I went to a prominent engineering school, where there were jocks and fratboys in abundance. Said jocks and fratboys overwhelmingly came from well-to-do white families, and very many of them carried that particularly obnoxious posture of superiority and entitlement. Of that bunch, quite a few were wantonly cruel. So, as a lower-middle class hispanic male, who was also nerdy awkward and gay (at the time) I bristled at the sight of these guys. Inasmuch as I was fortunate to not have had the snot beat out of me, the "contempt-stare" made me very uncomfortable, and their behavior repulsed me. The fact that so many were middling students, but came from privelege rankled me even further, especially as I realized that they probably would do very well in life without having to work very hard. Kinda like Mr. You-know-who, current occupant of 1600 PA Ave.
So do I have a bias? You betcha. So hang me.
Anyway- all that being said, I sincerely believe that it was a goddamn shame that these young men found themselves caught in the grinding gears of our less-than-perfect criminal justice system- and after all the pain and humiliation faced by them and their families, find out that the charges against them were found to have no merit.
I could speculate all I want about how they *probably* were behaving, what their attitudes *probably* were, etc, but since I don't know them, such speculation would be worthless, and nothing more than me airing my prejudices.
The reason why I am even bothering to comment is, because today I heard one of the accused admit that during his ordeal, he came to the realization that in this country, there really are innocent people who have been falsely arrested, accused, and convicted (or something to that effect). That's a pretty significant admission for a callow young white man of priveledge to make. I was surprised, and a little bit impressed.
Naturally, any person of color learns this at an early age, and reminds me of the old adage about liberals being former conservatives who have been falsely arrested.
Just the same, perhaps something good can come from this. As an assumed (by me) member of the Priveledged Elite class of this country, that person can do a great deal of good if he not only repeats his impressively astute comment loudly and frequently, but also makes it his life's mission to advocate for the falsely-accused. It's a shame, but it's the truth, that Americans will pay more attention to him than a person of color from the lower rungs of the social ladder.
May these young men learn compassion from their ordeal, and may they not turn to bitterness, instead. So much good can come of such a terrible situation. Let's hope they have grown enough to actually make it happen.
Hey, a guy can hope, can't he?