<p>–Following up on Kluge’s comments, aside from the fact that lucrative criminal appellate work tends to be even rarer than lucrative criminal trial work (since by that point even once-monied clients have often been tapped out by the legal fees incurred in the trial-court proceedings), criminal appeals, which constitute about a third of my work, have a lot of attractions. You can work on them anytime (great for insomniacs). You don’t have many of the headaches and frustrations that frequently accompany trial work (witnesses who can’t be located, who don’t want to talk to you when they can, etc.). Rather than having to wallow in the (often) sordid facts of a criminal case, you get to read and write about legal issues - a comparatively cerebral enterprise. And no matter what you do, you can’t make things any worse: the guy already lost at trial; all you can do is make things better.</p>
<p>–About these young men, Kluge writes: “None of the really bad things that happen to people happened to them.” This is one place where Kluge and I disagree. I think that being charged with a crime that you didn’t commit, having to worry for over a year that you might have to spend the next several decades in prison, having other people look at you with (at best) suspicion, and (perhaps most maddeningly) having evidence that would establish your innocence which the prosecutor refuses even to consider - well, I would include such an experience among “the really bad things.”</p>
<p>Kluge, I think the thing is that some of us are saying is that these guys and their families suffered a lot and that there are permanent scars, though their lives will go on and improve. I think that is valid and I think comparing to things that are worse is not the point. </p>
<p>My child was in a death defying sort of car crash and severely injured. I feel like she went through hell and back. It has affected her though she has made a complete recovery, thankfully, and quite luckily all things considered that could have gone wrong and came close throughout earlier stages of her ordeal. Even so, I felt lucky because other parents whose kids were in similar crashes did not survive and indeed, a girl the same age the next week, in our region, also driving alone, did not survive. I don’t know why my kid did. That family has it way worse then mine has had. Still, I think my kid suffered a lot and we went through a lot. My child has permanent physical scars and it is not something she has forgotten and stays with her and affects her outlook in various ways. </p>
<p>The Duke kids have suffered. They have been scarred. Others have it way worse, it is true. But I don’t think it needs to be a comparison. It is what it is and to me, goes way beyond a hiccup in their lives and has permanently affected them and their families and even more than in certain cases, due to the widespread publicity and their names are tainted, even if exonerated.</p>
But not before they were <strong><em>VERY</em></strong> publicly “convicted” by some hostile people with serious agendas who refused to refrain from judgment until all the evidence was revealed. The damage to these young men and their families was FAR more extensive than to others whose processes are not played out in such public and damaging way.</p>
<p>Not only were they publicly tried and convicted for something they did not do, but they were taunted with DEATH threats! </p>
<p>How can you ever forget - “Dead Man Walking”, etc. ? Unfortunately, there are still some extremists out there that believe that “something happened that night”. There are still some groups that think these men should still be punished, even if they are innocent, just because they are “privileged”. I 'm not so sure that they can ever walk around parts of the south without being a little nervous. I would be. </p>
<p>Remember that their faces were plastered all over every television, newspaper, and internet site for over a year. It is pretty easy to recognize them!</p>
<p>sokkermom, I agree with that…even a group of their own professors at their college still seem to be against them. They surely haven’t gotten up now to say they were wrong. </p>
<p>The fact that there was such widespread publicity makes this case different than other wrongly accused defendants. Everyone has heard about them and recognizes them.</p>
Yes, susan, you are right, and this is also true of some posters on this site. Here is a very recent quote about the LAX players from mini on the Imus thread:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So, yeah, this “dramatic and public exoneration” of the LAX players did not exonerate them in the eyes/minds of many.</p>
<p>Maybe this guy said it better than I did: <a href=“阿里云万网虚机IP访问报错提示”>阿里云万网虚机IP访问报错提示;
Berurah - Nobody ever said the Duke LaCrosse team was exonerated of the charge of being rowdy and behaving poorly towards their neighbors. Would you have wanted to live next door to the LAX house? I’m glad the players were exonerated of the criminal charges against them, but I’m not quite ready to canonize them, either. Is it really necessary to go to either extreme?</p>
<p>^^I was among the first to condemn their behavior. And them, shamefully enough. I would have less issue with mini’s comment if at <em>any</em> time, mini had come back and accepted responsibility for his grossly repetitive and inflammatory remarks <em>very</em> early and for a LONG time on this subject. I wish I could go back and cite them all, but obviously, the thread is a thing of the past. </p>
<p>No, kluge, I do not “canonize” these boys–far, far from it–but at the time when they are “newly publicly exonerated” from some heinous criimes which they did not commit, but for which they were falsely accused by a lying lunatic and falsely (and DOGGEDLY) pursued by an evil, power-hungry DA, and plastered all over the media for over a YEAR, one might expect a simple, “Well, good. Justice was done.” by mini, since we KNOW we’ll never get an apology. ;)</p>
<p>Even epistrophy disagrees with you on the impact of what these young men and their families underwent. Hard to take, I know… ;)</p>
<p>Look, many of us who originally assumed the boys were guilty are glad now that that is was disproven and justice has been done. </p>
<p>But you can’t make us like these boys. I am still extremely disgusted by their behavior. and their parents’ behavior (paying all those fines–or giving them so much spending money that fines don’t matter-- and turning a blind eye to their bad reputations). </p>
<p>Sorry, it just turns my stomach to imagine them ordering up strippers by race, then directing them to grind their genitals together in mock sex and put things up their vag*nas while the boys cheer and jeer. </p>
<p>I guess I’m just a prude. Have a girl shed her clothes is one thing, but making two girls, strangers to each other, simulate homoerotic sex. . . it doesn’t just seem sick, but dehumanizing and cruel. How do the boys’ mothers, females themselves, compartmentalize this?</p>
<p>I heard over and over that this is “normal” frat boy behavior, but is it? </p>
<p>Don’t want to argue about it, just trying to explain why the “choir boy” image doesn’t stick with many of us.</p>
<p>As someone has suggested, a good to come from this case is more light shed on other rogue prosecutors/judges. </p>
<p>It has in fact stirred me to put my money where my mouth is. I’m sending $25 to the Southern Poverty Law Center today. They’re bringing a civil suit in the name of Billy Ray Johnson, a black man who was abducted by a group of young men and taken to a “pasture party,” where he was taunted and tortured. He will not recover from the beating. The abductors? They were acquitted of all serious charges, and sentenced to 30 and 60 days in jail by a Texas judge! </p>
<p>I’m not saying the Duke case is NOT something to get angry about, but in the name of justice, maybe we should keep that anger alive by putting pressure on other injustice!</p>
<p>As a mother of a daughter, I am far more sickened by females who intentionally place themselves in positions where they are expected to disrobe, dance, etc. for audiences of strangers. </p>
<p>The two “exotic dancers” proactively placed themselves in this position. Perhaps someone should instruct them to stop advertising what they do not intend to sell, and to stop dehumanizing themselves and being cruel to themselves. </p>
<p>As to the behavior of the young men, I don’t see where they behaved greatly differently from the majority of college students everywhere, of both genders.</p>
Really? Where? Let me at the scoundrels…how DARE they issue PERSONAL attacks!!! :mad: <strong><em>ROFL</em></strong></p>
<p>Seriously, though, no personal attacks. Just the facts, ma’am. :)</p>
<p>Anyway, fap, I had <em>NO</em> idea that you were an attendee at that party! You shudda spoken up, and this whole thing could have been settled MUCH sooner! </p>
<p>You see, all of those behaviors you cite were reported by someone whose credibility has been trashed so hideously by her OWN lies and changes to her “story” that NOTHING–I repeat–NOTHING she says is believable. So, unless YOU were there or have seen the above things described in detail in print by an attending LAX player and substantiated by others, I’d say that they may just have NEVER occurred.</p>
<p>GOOD post, LTS. And as the mother of three daughters myself, I am in total agreement. My girls would never disrespect themselves (or me) enough to behave this way.</p>
<p>What you describe here, farawayplaces:
Sounds like all the Spring Break tapes I saw running on the news shows this year. Blech. And no one was makin’ 'em do it, just as no one MADE the two people who “danced” or whatever at the LAX party become strippers. It was strictly their own choice. See? I <em>am</em> for personal responsibility! ;)</p>
<p>Since we’re into “just the facts, Ma’m,” the story of being threatened by a broomstick comes from the dancer Kim, not the AV. She said she was extremely frightened.</p>
<p>No hatred here, faraway. Just stating facts. Two women made a decision to remove their clothes for audiences of strangers - that’s a fact. They did it for money - that’s a fact. They drove themselves to the location - that’s a fact. And they willingly, voluntarily participated in whatever it was they were being paid to do there - again, that’s a fact. And one of them was even verifiably doing the same thing yet again, not two weeks after she accused three people of rape - that’s yet another fact. </p>
<p>I don’t hate them for it. But it is far more appalling behavior than anything the three young men from Duke ever did, even measured through your interpretation. This is NOT the way women of any age should behave, ever, and it is far more deleterious to themselves, their families, and society as a whole than anything the Duke men et al ever did.</p>
<p>Re #677, you’re surely kidding, right? You do realize that she told a million different stories as well, and tried to sell some of the fiction to a PR firm, right?</p>
Why is it ‘far more appalling’ to perform than to pay someone to perform? I would think the opposite. One does it for money the other out of perversity.</p>
<p>gla, the young men hired performers once - and two of the three accused left shortly after the “performance” began, and weren’t even around IF any comment was ever made about a broomstick. That’s another fact, and the evidence is incontrovertible. (I’m imagining Seligmann and Finnerty must have been bored to tears, hence their early departure.) The “exotic dancers”, on the other hand, degrade themselves by their behavior, and they actually put some effort into doing this as a sort of a “profession”. </p>
<p>Whatever comments were made to them, they invited by their behavior. We don’t get what we deserve, we get what we ALLOW, and what we INVITE.</p>
Let me at the scoundrels…how DARE they issue PERSONAL attacks!!! :mad: <strong><em>ROFL</em></strong></p>