One of the things that keeps popping up in The So-Called Scandal That Shall Not Be Named is the idea that the Duke lacrosse team “did nothing wrong”, and thus feminists and other supporters of the alleged victim should publicly apologize or be shamed accordingly. But in a brief post, David sums up what has been running through my mind as I perused other blogs today, that not guilty doesn’t mean innocent, it means the evidence behind the charges was incomplete enough or unreliable enough to remain unproven.
The prevailing wisdom at the moment is that, at the very least, there is not enough evidence to garner a conviction in the case. And it is quite possible that a rape did not occur here. If that is true, then the defendants should be found not guilty.
But, as Bergin points out, that determination does not make them “innocent.” Innocent of a particular crime, sure. But not “innocent.” I can be spared all the talk about how folks lives have been ruined here.
In many ways a conviction relies on the semantics on how the law defines a crime in the first place, but that’s nary the point. It’s not hard to be offended by the evidence that is the “facts presented” in the Duke case, and I’m amazed at the number of people who are willing to write off the appalling displays of sexism and racism that are explicit in what is known from that night, as long as they can call an alleged victim a “ridiculous” “liar”. What David rightly points out is that even if the sexual assault charges made are untrue, it isn’t true that “nothing happened” — regardless of the sheer number of those who are eager to declare it so.
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Nope, not linking any of the sites from which these quotes came.
In any event, it was only the rape charges that were dropped. There’s still a charge of sexual offense, which has to do with sexual violation via an object (broomstick in this case).
Violet Socks has a link to a Wendy Murphy column which suggests that the dropping of the rape charge might well be a tactical move, since the judge ruled that DNA evidence of the presence of other men’s DNA in the victim’s underwear — which might be weeks or even months old, given the fact that such things can survive laundering — was allowable, because the main question in the case is one of identity.
Drop the rape charge, but still have a sexual offense charge, and you simply eliminate the DNA issue and all the muddying of the waters that goes with it. But you also don’t get people off the hook.