Saturday, May 28, 2011

Jury Duty

Here's an interesting story that provides contrast to the case of DSK.
Two New York City police officers have been acquitted of raping a drunk woman in her apartment. They brought her home, put her to bed, and then came back several times, apparently to rape her. A surveillance camera captured the two officers going back to her apartment several times after their official posted call. However, because she was so drunk, there were lapses in her memory and the jury could not find enough reasons to convict them. There was no DNA evidence. Apparently, one of the officers used a condom. They have been fired.
Ladies, when you go out and drink in NYC, do yourselves a favor and learn to hold your liquor. You have to have your wits about you.
I wonder if DSK, who has the best lawyers money can buy, and who are already saying sex was consensual (!), will be also acquitted. His case is much harder. The woman wasn't drunk, she was doing her job. Plus, he has a reputation for being a satyr. He is also powerful and white, while his accuser is an African widow with a child. DSK arrived at the Sofitel and there was no female in the staff he didn't accost. I don't know how he could possibly get out of this pickle.
The issue is whether men can still get away with this kind of thing because a woman's word has less value than theirs. Or because in rape cases, men think that women find them so irresistible that they will do anything to get into their pants. One would have thought that the police officers' case was pretty obvious, but if they say that she instigated it, and she is drunk, then that is that.  In the case of DSK, the idea that this poor woman was so hot for him she desperately wanted to have his dick in her mouth as she was doing her job (or at any time) is risible, but that may be what the defense will present. I think DSK is indefensible, and he should have pleaded guilty. But he is probably so entitled and has been coddled for so long in France that it didn't even occur to him that someone would seek punishment for what he's been doing to women for so long. The only thing that occurs to me is the insanity defense (since the French notion of a political conspiracy is rather hard to prove). If I were him, I would claim sexual compulsion, satyriasis, sex addiction, that is, an illness over which I have no control, to try to get a reduced sentence. But that would mean admitting weakness, and this bastard would rather humiliate himself, his family, the French, and worst of all, his victim, in order to avoid that. What hubris.

All this is to say that I got a summons for Jury Duty a couple of months ago and I postponed it because of work reasons (dang!). I actually want to serve on a jury.  I've been told that I do not know what I'm talking about, but I love this stuff.

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