Letters to the Editor
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Lynx
In answer to your question, "Did she win?", it's my understanding that she got her client to take a plea.
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Hillary saves rapist from evil jail!
I trust Mr. Koppelman is kidding.
Or, perhaps he is so cold as to not know what a 12 year old girl is. d
Perhaps a refresher for Mr. K:
1. rape is not cool.
2. Hillary told this girl that she liked to flirt with older men.
3. Hillary had her semen and blood filled panties dismissed as credible evidence. A 12 year old.
So, a little girl, perhaps the most vulnerable of beings, gets grilled by Hillary about being raped, allowing her to get the guy out of jail in one year.
Do we need that kind of compassion in the White House?
Did Alex K, suggest that Michael Vick was cheap shotted for killing dogs?
Cuz, well, if my presidential candidate's judgment is such that she'd do anything she could to free a rapist, traumatizing 12 year old girl who had just been raped, then, well, I want nothing to do with her.
Al, find me a candidate who didn't abuse a 12 year old rape victim...
First she got raped by an old man, then a young lawyer essentially did the same thing again, raping her of her rights as a human being....
Hillary---advcating for rapists at a court room near you.
What does this article show? Hill has no compassion, she's a power monger, and power corrupts.
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Amazed to see all the defences of lawyers here
Surely the point of the story isn't that Clinton acted improperly or unprofessionally. It's that she did act professionally and, in doing so, showed herself to be yet another slimy lawyer who'll believe whatever her client wants her to believe provided her bills are being paid. There's a lot of controversy about how women and children are cross examined in rape trials and the way that defence attorney's will try to humilate and traumatise them (or threaten to) to get the complaint withdrawn - sure, the case needs to be put to proof but many of the cross examination techniques used in rape trials are simply designed to prejudice the jury against the victim (rapists having a female defence lawyer is a classic trick).
I'm sorry, but a knee-jerk "she was only doing her job" doesn't cut it for me. A person of integrity, when presented with an odious task, will decline to do it and look for another position where they don't have to compromise their principles (which is why lawyer's with principles rarely last more than a couple of years in the profession). A person without integrity will do the job and excuse themselves by saying "eveybody else does it", "if I didn't do it someone else would have" or "I was only doing what my boss told me".
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The usual trolls are popping up
You see obvious Republicans making arguments about morality - pity they did not do the ame for Don Siegelman
She was a court appointed lawyer -- that usually means she has to take the case. The individual was indigent, he could not afford counsel. Like it or not, the US legal system is an adversarial one, the prosecution puts on its case, including child witnesses and the defense challenges the case and the reliability of the witnesses. There is no getting away from asking about the reliability of a 12-year old in a case, especially as was likely 35 years ago, a case that turned on issues such as identification without DNA made by a traumatized child. What is she supposed to do, a bad job...
Another issue, it is not clear how she came to be court appointed. Even to this day some courts simply say all lawyers in the room put up your hand and then announce that you are counsel (that is pretty rare now) and given their inherent authority and the obligations of a lawyer present as an officer of the court, you are stuck with the case. This was much more prevalent 35 years ago, especially in the south. Other states and places had lists of lawyer willing to be court-appointed; if you signed up, you did not then get to pick and choose, you took what was handed out -- many lawyers signed up out of a sense of personal obligation, hoping to get more sympathetic cases. In other words she may have been effectively drafted.
To be blunt, Hillary Clinton behaved in a manner that reflects great credit on her -- and Obama -- who is also a lawyer, and knows how public appointment works -- should step up to the plate and excoriate Newsday for this cheap and nasty piece.
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In the name of fairness and balance...
...I assume that the next War Room article to go up this morning will cover the Clinton campaign's distribution of a photo showing their African-American opponent wearing traditional African garb, in an attempt to make political hay from the "anti-American Obama" rumors. That's got to be at least as relevant to the coverage of the campaign as a third-party attack against Hillary, no?
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Win at all costs...12 year old rape victims be damned!
But the record shows that Rodham was also intent on questioning the girl's credibility. That line of defense crystallized in a July 28, 1975, affidavit requesting the girl undergo a psychiatric examination at the university's clinic.
"I have been informed that the complainant is emotionally unstable with a tendency to seek out older men and to engage in fantasizing," wrote Rodham, without referring to the source of that allegation. "I have also been informed that she has in the past made false accusations about persons, claiming they had attacked her body."
Dale Gibson, the investigator, doesn't recall seeing evidence that the girl had fabricated previous attacks.
The victim was visibly stunned when handed the affidavit by a reporter this fall. "It kind of shocks me - it's not true," she said. "I never said anybody attacked my body before, never in my life."
The moral of the story, don't get raped if Hillary is defending the rapist. For in Hillary world, the raper is the victim. I mean, how dare that girl be such a hornball?
Hillary had the rape victim subjected to a psych test?
Hillary said the 12 year old was prone to flirt with older men?
Hillary said that this 12 year old lied about being attacked by other men?
How would you like to be her father Al? Do you think Hillary did a good job getting the 1st degree rapist off?
It's not about cheap shots, it's about judgment. As in, Hillary Clinton has no problem attacking a 12 year rape victim in order to win. Simple as that.