I was reminded today of the old saw (is it Mencken?) “When they say it’s not about the money, it’s about the money” when I read this report from ABC News: Bryant Alleged Victim’s Lawyers Speak Out. Apparently Kobe’s accuser may now not testify for the prosecution because of all the leaks, which, as we know, are not entirely flattering to her behavior. Still, despite a welter of apparent DNA evidence to the contrary, her attorneys, Mssrs. Clune and Wood, continue to insist the young lady did not have sex with a third party between her encounter with Bryant and her reporting the alleged rape to the police. Instead they are banging the drum for victims’ rights. [Do you think they really care?--ed. Come on.]
“The net effect is to say they’ve literally rewritten the law of rape,” Wood said. “To say that ‘Unless you’re a virgin, keep it to yourself. Don’t come forward, deal with it yourself.’ …That’s not the right message to send to women around this country and to other young girls who might find themselves victims of rape, particularly date rape and acquaintance rape.”
Methinks the legal gentleman doth protest too much (it’s his job, after all). The real culprit here regarding victims’ rights is Mark Hurlbert, the boneheaded and ambitious DA of Eagle, CO who never should have brought the case in the first place. But no matter. From here on in, it’s going to be about money — how much can be extracted in a civil suit or by the threat thereof from Kobe Bean Bryant. I’m not betting on a lot, but those lawyers are going to try their best.
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20 Comments
1. jerry:Roger:
I usually don’t have much to say about celebrity trials but you seem to be fixated on Kobe as victim. If I were a juror I probably would vote for acquital not because I am sure that he did not do the deed because there is enough doubt in my mind not to convict.
However, I don’t know why you seem so committed to the man who destroyed the Lakers. They are going to look like the Bulls next year. If I were a Laker fan I’d want a conviction even if he really was innocent. He is guility of killing the LA Lakers for the rest of the decade.
Aug 4, 2004 - 10:41 am 2. Goof®:roger
When a fellow says it hain’t the money but the principle o’ the thing, it’s th’ money.
Credit to journalist and humorist Frank McKinney Hubbard (1868-1930) who also wrote:
We would all like to vote for the best man but he is never a candidate.
Aug 4, 2004 - 11:00 am 3. RandMan:Roger,
I think the sheriff (chief of police?) there deserves some of the blame for pushing this along. I seem to recall it was the sheriff that first went public with the news about Bryant before consulting with prosecutors. Once it was out in the open, it likely put the prosecutor in a bind FWIW
Aug 4, 2004 - 11:16 am 4. BigFire:Though much of the blame lays with Hurlbert, his hand was forced by the sheriff of Eagles County who went ahead and arrested Bryant first without waiting for more collaborating evidences. This place Hurlbert in a untenable position of either charge Bryant fast or risk giving the appearance of appeasing to celeberity. It truely didn’t help that he had a weak case to began with, and the case grew worse as the time passes (and his own office’s performance thus far is truely inadequate.)
Aug 4, 2004 - 11:17 am 5. Pat Curley:“Apparently Kobe’s accuser may now not testify in her defense…”
Eh? Is the accuser on trial here?
Aug 4, 2004 - 11:25 am 6. Roger:Good point. Sorry about that.
Aug 4, 2004 - 11:33 am 7. Howard:1. Can you imagine the stink had the woman gone public had there been no prosecution? Gloria Alred and all the femonazi victim screamers? The sheriff and the DA would have lost their jobs anyway.
2. How can three leaks of sealed documents concerning the woman pass civil rights muster. If these leaks weren’t designed to stop any other women from coming forward I’d be surprised.
3. How could anyone without the deep pockets of Kobe have ever beat this case? The evidence sucks, never mind the idiot prosecution. Makes me wonder how many innocent people with net worths under $500K are serving time for a rape they did not commit.
Aug 4, 2004 - 12:48 pm 8. Roberts:Roger, its a shame you are not more sympathetic to the victims’ rights issues here. When Kobe’s defense team is done, the cause of making it possible for rape victims to get a safe hearing in court will be set back 3 decades.
Aug 4, 2004 - 1:11 pm 9. Charlie (Colorado):Howard, I think you’re underestimating just what a moron a small-county Colorado District Court judge can be.
But on your other point, “Makes me wonder how many innocent people with net worths under $500K are serving time for a rape they did not commit.” I have to admit I wonder the same thing. I’d be interested in Roger’s take on it, but from reading classics like Chandler and Hammett, as well as more modern stuff, I’d had the impression before the OJ trial that it was kind of an open secret that the LAPD (and most other police operations) fairly commonly took steps to make sure that the guilty were punished, whether they had evidence of guilt or not.
Aug 4, 2004 - 1:14 pm 10. foreign devil:I’m rather surprised that you are so sure the alleged victim in this situation is lying. I’d give her the benefit of the doubt till the court case is underway, at least. Personally, the moment Kobe was shown to have lied about NEVER having had sex outside his marriage since he got married and then his utter certainty that he hadn’t had sex with this woman; oh woops, I did have sex outside of my marriage and I did have sex with that woman–but it was consensual. Whooooaaa! Which is it? You NEVER–or you DID SORTA? Right then I knew Kobe was lying and I figure all this dissing the victim is disgraceful behaviour and when this finally goes to trial, I hope this young lady sticks to her guns and puts the boots to Kobe in the way he surely deserves. I hope she gets him in the criminal court and then goes back and gets him in civil court! He’s had his legal team trash her reputation; turnabout is fair play!
Aug 4, 2004 - 1:20 pm 11. Jay Rice:I am more worried about lawyers for an ongoing case appearing on a breakfast television show than the facts of the Kobi Bryant case.
For one, we don’t know the facts yet. They are filtered by lawyers and prosecutors and everyone in between who has an agenda, not the least ABC and women’s groups they particularly favor. In Colorado, rape laws are as political as the appointment of judges and prosecutors. The Colorado law to protect the identity of the victim is a farce. The victim is an adult, everyone knows her name, so the anonymity provided by calling her the “alleged victim” is preposterous. The public has as much right to know the name of his accuser as the accused, if only so the public can participate in information sharing. Not in Colorado.
As for her sexual history, it is no more legally relevant than the history of anyone on trial and wholly irrelevant to the decision making required of juries.
Kobi Bryant means big bucks to someone and you have to wonder at those “accidental” releases of information, but as this is a state where the Ramsey murder case is an example of sterling justice, I never expected better. Based on what I have read I think all of them are miscreants.
Aug 4, 2004 - 2:13 pm 12. BJR:I think the accuser’s attorneys are worried that the way the facts and evidence are being developed in this case, that Kobe will have a rock solid defense that will not only defeat the criminal charges with the “beyond a reasonable doubt standard” but also defeat civil claims with the “by a preponderance of the evidence standard.” Remember, the job of an attorney is not so much to discover the truth of the matter, but to hide it. The accuser’s attorneys appear worried that the criminal case will establish an unfavorable factual precedent from any forthcoming civil action. Since everyday seems to bring more and more evidence in Bryant’s favor, it is in the accuser’s interest to cut off the criminal proceeding, and commence a civil proceeding where her attorneys can have a larger role and impact on shaping the facts to apply to the case. Regardless of the accuser’s motives, whether it is to obtain some sort of justice for the harm she suffered or whether it is to extort money from a rich celebrity, it appears to be a smart move to end the criminal matter before it goes up in flames.
Aug 4, 2004 - 4:20 pm 13. Jay Rice:Apologies. It isn’t polite to use up bandwith to post multiple times on a single subject, so forgive me.
The Kobi case strikes me as as just one in a line of legal reality shows. Complete with a cast of characters, little overhead production costs and reverse morality in the sense that everyone is guilty just by appearing. They do as much damage to our concept of order and our institutions and ideals as Jerry Springer. They demean the people they portray in a kind of Gong show without the benefit of a gong to hurry them along. But the incalculable harm is to our sense of justice.
That’s why when the elite media features a legal reality case, you know there will be no resolution, even if the media has to work hand in glove to make sure it doesn’t. In anthropology, the presence of an observer can alter reality. In legal reality t.v., it always does.
Someone ought to issue a gag order to ABC.
Aug 4, 2004 - 5:08 pm 14. Les Nessman:f.d.:
“I’m rather surprised that you are so sure the alleged victim in this situation is lying. I’d give her the benefit of the doubt till the court case is underway, at least.”
followed by :
“…I hope this young lady sticks to her guns and puts the boots to Kobe in the way he surely deserves. I hope she gets him in the criminal court and then goes back and gets him in civil court!”
Yikes! So much for ‘innocent until proven guilty’…
Aug 4, 2004 - 5:58 pm 15. richard mcenroe:When I got up this morning, the news was that the prosecutors had found a second woman who alleged Koby had molested her. What happened with that?
Aug 4, 2004 - 6:26 pm 16. Charlie (Colorado):Richard, w.r.t. the second woman, I haven’t heard anything about it here in Denver.
I’ve got to say, given that Kobe checked into this hotel just a couple of hours before the incident occurred, and was talking to the police about it by the next day, when he was up there for knee surgery, all I can say is he must be a busy little beaver.
Um, maybe that wasn’t the perfect choice of metaphores.
Aug 4, 2004 - 7:08 pm 17. Cain:Folks,
Before every conservative in America has a wet dream about these Swift Boat revelations, ask yourselves what YOUR candidate accomplished in his life that merits your utmost respect?
Talk about hypocrisy.
Aug 4, 2004 - 11:10 pm 18. Sally-O:Cain, where should I start? How about with the fact that Bush, under the intense scrutiny of the entire world, fought two wars to defend our country? He’s been before us as Commander in Chief for four years, and we’re totally beyond the need to dredge through his past of thirty years ago. Unlike Kerry, whose only claim to the office is a bunch of now discredited war stories, we know Bush intimately and have no doubts about he’ll respond under fire. If the election were being held in 1972, things might look different, but this is 2004. You and Kerry have some catching up to do (not ketchuping up or kvetching up–really, actual catching up).
Aug 4, 2004 - 11:38 pm 19. Macker:Cain: Double You Tee Eff does Kerry have to do with the Bryant case?
Now, as to the issue at hand:
FACT: Cops f**ked up the investigation…again. This includes the prosecution. Add to that the allegations that the alleged rape victim f**ked some other guy AFTER she was allegedly raped by Bryant, and that does not sit well with me. I wouldnt say she’s a rape victim…but a money-grubbing SLUT.
Kobe’s gonna walk. And then I hope he turns the tables on this so-called “victim” and sues her instead for every damn penny she has!
Aug 5, 2004 - 7:56 am 20. hollywood:I used to have this incredibly tight fisted boss who would simultaneously do everything he could to hold on to every last penny while at the same time saying with a straight face, “It’s not about the money.” Funny how he always ended up with the lion’s share and never did tell us what it really was all about.
Anyway, so much for that digression. I think it is about the money in this case. http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0810042kobe1.html
Aug 10, 2004 - 3:53 pm