All white jury convict black soccer player of rape.

Thanks and I apologize if that sounded snarky. I was just curious if you felt any professional courtesy towards other DA's in terms of second guessing them even in something like CF.net D & D.

 

I can agree that the original article was biased but the facts of the case still don't fully add up. I agree that it is highly likely that she was raped but it still seems to me that something is very fishy when the semen found on her was of someone else who wasn't even investigated.

It also seems very fishy about the prosecutor hiding evidence.

I fully appreciate that we shouldn't jump to conclusions but since we aren't trying this case but debating it on D & D this case doesn't seem to add up.

 

Can you imagine if an all black jury had convicted the Duke dudes?

Rocket River

 

You mean Bo and Luke?

 

No, not you, I didn't mind your question.

 

That would never happen. You could drop them in the middle of Harlem, and somehow the DA would find white women to stick on the jury.

 

I'm with you on the prosecutor hiding evidence. That's a huge deal. I hope they fully investigated that. I don't think you can hang the guy out to dry because of the reason he was using a particular witness, but if he really hid or failed to disclose evidence, that's a cardinal sin.

I'm no expert, but is it possible that the DNA on her panties from the other guy could be because that particular, um, stain failed to come out in the wash? Or, as gross as it sounds, that she was just wearing the same pair without washing them? Otherwise, it definitely raises a red flag. But it seems fairly explainable, even if the explanation is gross.

 

I guess that's the point here. While the articles seem biased and none of us truly know what happened, it seems to me that reasonable doubt was pretty easy to spot.

 

You point to "reasonable doubt" as a singular piece of evidence, like "there's your reasonable doubt", when the fact is that reasonable doubt is based on the totality of the circumstances. What you have are a few examples of conflicting evidence.

I'm not saying here that I know the jury made the right decision. What I'm saying is that the evidence cited doesn't demonstrate, in itself, that they didn't.

 

The Duke Lacrosse team I'm sure.

 

The article makes the defense attorney sound extremely incompetent. With all that in the defendant's favor he was not able to convince the jury that the prosecution did not meet its burden of proof?

 

This is the New American Justice System
You only get as much JUSTICE AS YOU CAN AFFORD

Same with the Health Care
You only get as much BEST IN THE WORLD MEDICAL CARE AS YOU CAN AFFORD

Anytime you think of something. . . just about anything in America
YOU ONLY GET AS MUCH AS YOU CAN AFFORD

Rocket River

 

But doesn't conflicting evidence create reasonable doubt? I don't think there are any levels of reasonable doubt that have to be reached before a jury should acquit.

 

I'm curious. How credible can a witness be when her blood alcohol level was near toxic?

While you can argue that he may have indeed raped her, you can't argue that there was anywhere close to enough evidence for people to just say "hey, he definitely did it!"

The case definitely fails if you go by two important criteria in our justice system.

1. The evidence needs to be "beyond reasonable doubt"
2. Innocent until proven guilty.

It seemed the case worked instead like this.

1. The evidence simply suggest that it's "possible" that he commited the crime.
2. Presumed initial guilt and the defendant could not prove he was innocent.

 

That's not the standard. It's reasonable doubt. There's never proof that someone definitely did something.

The level of doubt that has to be reached is reasonable doubt. There are plenty of cases where there's conflicting evidence, and yet the jury doesn't end up with a reasonable doubt as to the defendant's guilt. It depends on what is in conflict and the weight of the overall evidence.

In this case, it looks like there was lots of money raised and spent on his legal defense. Did you read the article?

 

Still wasn't enough

Rocket River

 

I laughed.

 

Please someone answer that question.