Althouse: Line in the NY Post article about opening statements in the Cosby trial that made me realize Bill Cosby will be acquitted.

June 6, 2017

Line in the NY Post article about opening statements in the Cosby trial that made me realize Bill Cosby will be acquitted.

"After the so-called paralyzation and drugging and assault, there were 72 phone calls. She called him 53 times. She called him continuously. They spoke, at times, for 30 or 40 minutes at a pop."

And, apparently, there are phone records showing this.

I'm not saying he didn't commit a sexual assault or that a victim of a real sexual assault can't remain or become a good friend of his (or hers) after the crime, only that I don't think the jury will find that the prosecution has met its burden of proof.

117 comments:

Gahrie said...: I'm not saying he didn't commit a sexual assault or that a victim of a real sexual assault can't remain or become a good friend of his (or hers) after the crime,

Seriously?

I have a hard time remaining friends with people who lie to me...and i don't think I could remain friends with someone who stole from me. But you're telling me that you believe that a woman could remain, or become, friends with someone who raped or sexually assaulted them? How? Why?; 6/6/17, 7:39 AM
Gahrie said...: Doesn't friendship require trust?

How could you ever trust someone who had raped you?; 6/6/17, 7:40 AM
Meade said...: Maybe she was trying to gather evidence.; 6/6/17, 7:42 AM
Danno said...: The word needed here is gold-digger. Friends maybe, but clearly in love with his money and celebrity.; 6/6/17, 7:43 AM
David said...: Doesn't friendship require trust?

How could you ever trust someone who had raped you?

Friendship requires trust, but there are many relationships, some very intimate, that do not contain friendship.; 6/6/17, 7:46 AM
Kevin said...: This is our media. They drag this guy through the mud and then it's, oh by the way.

Once they get done with the whole Trump-Russia smokescreen, they can get to work destroying Ben Carson.; 6/6/17, 7:47 AM
Ralph L said...: After a response like that, looks like he would have changed his M.O.

Prostitutes aren't paid for sex (so I've been told), they're paid to go away afterwards.; 6/6/17, 7:48 AM
Patrick said...: And her claim is that she never contacted him afterwards.

That seems impossible to square. Maybe you could forget a phonecall or two.; 6/6/17, 7:48 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "I have a hard time remaining friends with people who lie to me...and i don't think I could remain friends with someone who stole from me. But you're telling me that you believe that a woman could remain, or become, friends with someone who raped or sexually assaulted them? How? Why?"

1. I didn't say it was likely. I said it was possible.

2. You don't seem to know much about the psychology of the victims or domestic abuse (try googling "battered woman syndrome") or what some people will do to advance their careers (do you think all women quit their jobs if there is ongoing sexual harassment in the workplace?).; 6/6/17, 7:49 AM
Ann Althouse said...: 3. Even you said you'd have "a hard time." You didn't say it was inconceivable.; 6/6/17, 7:50 AM
Kevin said...: What happened to all the other women? Isn't this the one with the STRONGEST case?; 6/6/17, 7:50 AM
Lyle Smith said...: Thank goodness for jury trials.; 6/6/17, 7:51 AM
AllenS said...: Sounds to me that Cosby didn't need to drug her to have sex with her.; 6/6/17, 7:52 AM
Ralph L said...: do you think all women quit their jobs if there is ongoing sexual harassment in the workplace?
They don't all end up like Fantine, either.; 6/6/17, 7:56 AM
Gahrie said...: 1. I didn't say it was likely. I said it was possible.

I could never remain friends with someone who raped me. Except for mental illness, I don't see how anyone could.

2. You don't seem to know much about the psychology of the victims or domestic abuse (try googling "battered woman syndrome")

Ok, I am willing to accept mental illness. But let's be clear here...rape or sexual assault is not the same thing as domestic abuse (note I am not defending domestic abuse)

or what some people will do to advance their careers (do you think all women quit their jobs if there is ongoing sexual harassment in the workplace?).

Sexual harassment is definitely not rape or sexual assault, and it is irresponsible to conflate the them. That is how we end up with nonsense like 20% of women will be raped in college. I wouldn't expect a woman to necessarily quit because of sexual harassment, but I definitely don't understand following your harasser to a new job. If you are following the guy to a new job, that means you are choosing to accept the "unwanted" behavior, and it is no longer harassment.

Even you said you'd have "a hard time." You didn't say it was inconceivable.

I have a hard time keeping liars as friends...there is no chance that I could ever be friends with my rapist.; 6/6/17, 8:00 AM
Dave from Minnesota said...: Kind of related (trial of famous man).....the OJ jury toured the OJ house. Before they went, OJ's lawyer purchased a print of Normal Rockwell's painting "The problem we all live with"...of the little black girl being escorted to a New Orleans school. Put it up in his house. Great theater and helped him get away with murder.; 6/6/17, 8:01 AM
walter said...: OJ's victims didn't continue to call him afterwards.; 6/6/17, 8:06 AM
walter said...: But you're making me wonder if there is an interior designing niche for that sort of thing.; 6/6/17, 8:09 AM
Ralph L said...: Walter, I hope they did and do.; 6/6/17, 8:10 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Sounds to me that Cosby didn't need to drug her to have sex with her."

That doesn't mean he didn't do it. He may have had a fetish for incapacitated women.

People do a lot of things they don't "need" to do.

Maybe on some level he was morbidly insecure and did not want to have to perform for a conscious human being.

I suspect there are some women who would intentionally take a pill to make themselves temporarily unconscious in order to satisfy a sexual request of a man who explained that's how he likes to have sex.; 6/6/17, 8:10 AM
Gahrie said...: I suspect there are some women who would intentionally take a pill to make themselves temporarily unconscious in order to satisfy a sexual request of a man who explained that's how he likes to have sex.

...and as a bonus, they can change their minds years after the fact and charge him with rape anyway.; 6/6/17, 8:12 AM
walter said...: Sort of like a "Cleaner"..but not for blood, for impressions..character etc.
"My word, that will simply have to go. Now if we.."; 6/6/17, 8:12 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "I could never remain friends with someone who raped me. Except for mental illness, I don't see how anyone could."

Don't ever attempt to write fiction. You're terrible at imagining scenarios.; 6/6/17, 8:12 AM
Gahrie said...: Don't ever attempt to write fiction. You're terrible at imagining scenarios.

If you can be friends with your rapist...it wasn't rape in the first place....call it inconvenient sex perhaps?

It seems to me that you have a very elastic definition of rape..maybe that is the problem.

I'm talking about rape-rape.; 6/6/17, 8:15 AM
Curious George said...: "Ann Althouse said...
Don't ever attempt to write fiction. You're terrible at imagining scenarios."

As you seem to be with reality.; 6/6/17, 8:15 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Ok, I am willing to accept mental illness. But let's be clear here...rape or sexual assault is not the same thing as domestic abuse (note I am not defending domestic abuse)."

If you draw a Venn diagram, you'll discover that the rape circle overlaps with the domestic abuse circle. If you're in a domestic abuse situation, there can be many forms of violence, and certainly rape and sexual assault are among them!; 6/6/17, 8:15 AM
Gahrie said...: Come to think of it...much of women's popular fiction is based on "rape" and sexual violence. They're called bodice rippers for a reason.

Repeal the 19th.; 6/6/17, 8:18 AM
Guildofcannonballs said...: "some people"

Or some people at some time (we can exclude the aborted's existence that we know not for purposes of this discussion)? Why seemingly forever label a person, a career choice nonetheless not abortion or divorce or suicide or choosing racism, when any given lifetime entails many choices you could label as the "some" above people making, but of course differently given what we know of time and age progression in human beings.

Without both personhood and place, otherness isn't nearly as important a concept to be evolutionarily frightened of being/becoming as one with personhood and place. To be othered is to at least be some damn thing with some damn context capable of being known to man.

You think Woody Allen showing up to fight for Joe Leiberman as the soon-to-be Senator to dethrone Lowell Weicker would have mattered, compared to Buckley?

That's what Buckley and Allen knew about timing.; 6/6/17, 8:19 AM
Gahrie said...: If you draw a Venn diagram, you'll discover that the rape circle overlaps with the domestic abuse circle. If you're in a domestic abuse situation, there can be many forms of violence, and certainly rape and sexual assault are among them!

And my answer is that if you are being abused, raped or sexually assaulted you have the responsibility to leave and report the crime. Staying is a choice...a bad one, or a form of mental illness.; 6/6/17, 8:22 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Sexual harassment is definitely not rape or sexual assault, and it is irresponsible to conflate the them."

I didn't. I was illustrating the proposition that some people will put up with a lot of sexual mistreatment if it serves their economic interests.

"That is how we end up with nonsense like 20% of women will be raped in college."

You're the one who's sliding irresponsibly from one idea to the next.

"I wouldn't expect a woman to necessarily quit because of sexual harassment, but I definitely don't understand following your harasser to a new job. If you are following the guy to a new job, that means you are choosing to accept the "unwanted" behavior, and it is no longer harassment."

It might not be sexual harassment you'd be capable of proving in court, but it might still exist. The motivation to follow the guy to a new job would be desire for that job. All I'm saying is that a person might put up with bad behavior from somebody who had a lot of power to bring her fame and fortune. You might not feel sympathy for that woman, but if the question is what did the man really do, I'm explaining how something could be.

Many people put up with terrible treatment from the higher ups as their try to have a career. I suspect that's especially true of young women trying to make in in the entertainment (and newsertainment) business. Look at these beautiful women and these less beautiful and much more powerful men. You can say, I don't care, these people are awful, they deserve each other, but that doesn't mean that the elements of a crime are not present. It's just a crime YOU don't care about.; 6/6/17, 8:22 AM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: The fact that she kept calling him, afterwards, is easier to explain away then why he never took the stand to give his side of the story.; 6/6/17, 8:22 AM
Gahrie said...: Jenny should have never got back on the bus to San Francisco.; 6/6/17, 8:23 AM
Larvell said...: The fact that she kept calling him, afterwards, is easier to explain away then why he never took the stand to give his side of the story.

Said no defense lawyer, ever.; 6/6/17, 8:27 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "And my answer is that if you are being abused, raped or sexually assaulted you have the responsibility to leave and report the crime."

I agree that failure to report something is some evidence to weigh as we consider whether there was a crime, but you must concede that failure to report a crime doesn't make it not a crime.

Years ago, a teenager committed arson in my house, and I thought a lot about whether to report it to the police. I chose not to, but I know for a fact that he committed arson.; 6/6/17, 8:27 AM
Ann Althouse said...: (The teenager was a friend, but not a close friend, of one of my sons. He also stole some property worth at least $200.); 6/6/17, 8:28 AM
Gahrie said...: All I'm saying is that a person might put up with bad behavior from somebody who had a lot of power to bring her fame and fortune.

That's a choice. A bad choice...but then women must never be made to feel bad or take responsibility for their choices.....

You might not feel sympathy for that woman,

Why would you feel sympathy for someone choosing to accept "bad behavior" for selfish reasons? If you make the choice to accept "bad behavior" than at that point you also accept some responsibility for that behavior. ( I know I know..women must never have responsibility for their choices); 6/6/17, 8:29 AM
Hagar said...: Cosby seems to be guilty of having an unusual sex fetish (if that is the right word).
But you can't tell me the word would not have been out among the sisters in the circle of his likely "acquaintances" after at most the third or fourth time he pulled this kind of stunt.; 6/6/17, 8:30 AM
walter said...: <
McMonagle also told the panel that Cosby is blind.
“Unfortunately, when he looks back, he can’t see,” the lawyer said. “I am his eyes in the courtroom.”
--
Using that in this manner is err.. deplorable...and probably unhelpful to their defense.; 6/6/17, 8:31 AM
Gahrie said...: Years ago, a teenager committed arson in my house, and I thought a lot about whether to report it to the police. I chose not to, but I know for a fact that he committed arson.

No..a teenager lit a fire in your house...in order for it to be arson it has to be reported as a crime.; 6/6/17, 8:34 AM
Guildofcannonballs said...: Interestingly Twin Peaks showed the bully, Leo Johnson, transformed soap-operaesquely into a brain-damaged vegetable unable to not spit spit spit everywhere very grossly.

Shelly his wife dressed him up and banged a guy in front of him, at least as far as 1990's TV banging goes.

It was pretty explicit though.

So I will confirm Althouse's point on domestic abuse.; 6/6/17, 8:34 AM
Martha said...: Ah but Cosby admitted drugging the woman before sexually molesting her. So the prosecution has his admission. There are dozens and dozens of women alleging being drugged and raped by Cosby but only two will testify at the trial.

Washington Post: In July 2015, the New York Times, and later The Washington Post and the Associated Press, printed detailed articles quoting Cosby’s testimony from once-sealed deposition testimony in Constand’s decade-old lawsuit. In the deposition, Cosby admitted acquiring qualuudes to give to women with whom he wanted to have sex. He also spoke almost boastfully about how he set a romantic mood for Constand’s visit with a fire and wine at his house, and how he touched her vagina and breasts.

What a guy.; 6/6/17, 8:36 AM
walter said...: Um..so what DID you do? Talk to his parents?; 6/6/17, 8:38 AM
AllenS said...: "Sounds to me that Cosby didn't need to drug her to have sex with her." -- my comment

"That doesn't mean he didn't do it. He may have had a fetish for incapacitated women." -- Althouse's comment

I never said he didn't do it, I merely suggested that he didn't need to drug her based on facts from the article.; 6/6/17, 8:44 AM
Gahrie said...: "Sexual harassment is definitely not rape or sexual assault, and it is irresponsible to conflate the them."

I didn't. I was illustrating the proposition that some people will put up with a lot of sexual mistreatment if it serves their economic interests.

Rape or sexual assault is not harassment or mistreatment. Conflating them weakens the definition of rape.

"That is how we end up with nonsense like 20% of women will be raped in college."

You're the one who's sliding irresponsibly from one idea to the next.

No...my idea was that your conflation of rape with harassment weakens the definition of rape. With the definition of rape thus conflated with harassment, you get idiot ideas like "20% of women in college will be raped".

Really? Did you work in an institution that allowed 20% of women to be raped? How could you justify that? If 20% of women in college really were being raped, their fathers would have burned the colleges down long ago.; 6/6/17, 8:45 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "No..a teenager lit a fire in your house...in order for it to be arson it has to be reported as a crime."

Wrong.; 6/6/17, 8:45 AM
Bay Area Guy said...: Don't shift into horserace mode yet, Althouse!

The question isn't WHETHER Cosby will be convicted of rape.

The question is SHOULD Cosby be convicted of rape.

If he drugged these gals and slept with them, well, that'd be a "Yes"; 6/6/17, 8:49 AM
Gahrie said...: Do women have the right to sleep their way to the top, and then accuse those they slept with with rape because they changed there mind about consent?; 6/6/17, 8:50 AM
grackle said...: Cosby had to be destroyed. And he has been, whether he walks or not.

Neither his TV series nor his stand-up had enough “ghetto” in them for the Lefties who dominate the entertainment business. He didn’t promote what the entertainment elites believe are valid “black” values. The professional race-baiters apparently set the standards for authentic “blackness.”

No ghettospeak, no contempt of education, no bombast, no victimology, all entirely too middleclass and white. He was waaaay off the plantation. His scalping was inevitable.

They did what they always do to certain individuals and never do to others – they looked until they found a vulnerability. That vulnerability was that Cosby in his personal life was a womanizer and was living the opposite of the middleclass life of a stable black family that his TV series and stand-up was promoting.

I’m perfectly willing to believe that Cosby fucked some women outside of marriage. Certainly many celebrities succumb to the easy temptations that fame brings. They’re called “groupies” in RockAndRoll-land and no DA would think of bringing charges if they were to claim today that Mick Jagger raped them years ago.

I understand and sympathize with the psychological problems that victims of sexual abuse often suffer – but – How do we tell the true victims suffering those horrifying symptoms from the liars? The answer is: We cannot.; 6/6/17, 8:50 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Did you work in an institution that allowed 20% of women to be raped? How could you justify that?"

"Allowed" suggests that the institution is able to monitor and intervene. We're talking about what adult individuals do in privacy. I don't think the university has a way to keep all the students from doing bad things to each other within their private lives.; 6/6/17, 8:50 AM
Gahrie said...: No..a teenager lit a fire in your house...in order for it to be arson it has to be reported as a crime."

Wrong.

So..every fire lit in a house is arson? Or potential arson?

Arson: the criminal act of deliberately setting fire to property

Criminal: of or relating to a crime

How can an act be criminal if it's not reported as a crime?; 6/6/17, 8:53 AM
Gahrie said...: Allowed" suggests that the institution is able to monitor and intervene. We're talking about what adult individuals do in privacy. I don't think the university has a way to keep all the students from doing bad things to each other within their private lives.

Do you believe that one out of every five women who goes to college will be raped?; 6/6/17, 8:54 AM
William said...: Perhaps some of these women signed up for a tour on the casting couch but not the anesthetist 's table. Post facto, they tried to make the event into a casting couch event. They didn't have the option of pressing criminal charges. Cosby was a revered figure. The women were far more likely to pilloried as gold diggers or hysterics than Cosby was of being convicted of rape........Nearly sixty women have come forward. Cosby is guilty as sin but will probably die a free man........The media demonizes some people but grants to others a protective bubble. Cosby lived within that bubble. The media were his enablers.; 6/6/17, 8:56 AM
Gahrie said...: Do you believe that one out of every five women who goes to the University of Wisconsin at Madison will be raped?; 6/6/17, 8:57 AM
Guildofcannonballs said...: Maybe she was trying to gather evidence.

6/6/17, 7:42 AM

I understand the code and as insane as it is feelings still gravitate, or reverb, or something else I guess maybe too, evidently toward purchasing the rope I shall hang by.

Jelly is onto something.

Mystery jelly gave me lots a problems a few years back though.

Lots of problems.; 6/6/17, 8:57 AM
Fernandinande said...: Dorky persecutrix Kristen Gibbons-Feden bloviates in public: "Celebrities, as a whole, we celebrate them. ... That man, in that illusion, of all those roles he played on television, that illusion was shattered."

George Reeves can so fly! You can't shatter my illusion!

Martha said...
Ah but Cosby admitted drugging the woman before sexually molesting her.

Ah from the little I've read the women admitted they voluntarily took the pills he offered (I realize some feminists call that "being drugged"). And apparently came back for more.; 6/6/17, 8:58 AM
mockturtle said...: Remember when Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas of verbal sexual harassment and yet, after the alleged harassment, followed him from job to job like a puppy? Gretchen Carlson accused FOX of years of sexual harassment only after her contract wasn't renewed. Women are weird and often unreasonable. I know. I am one.

I hope Cosby walks.; 6/6/17, 9:13 AM
walter said...: grackle said... How do we tell the true victims suffering those horrifying symptoms from the liars? The answer is: We cannot.
--
Well credibility of testimony plays a role. How tightly did the plaintiff attorney's sphincter squeeze when the phone records came about?
Assuming Constand's statement is undisputed, clear.
"The lawyer said Constand insisted she never contacted Cosby again after the alleged assault but that phone records showed otherwise."; 6/6/17, 9:16 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Andrea Costand is a lesbian which makes the case even more odd.

And way back when, Cosby had a bit on his old comedy albums about teenage boys discussing the existence of the mythological aphrodesiac Spanish Fly. That must of been a Philly thing cause we did the same thing when I grew up in Phily a few years later than Cosby.; 6/6/17, 9:17 AM
Dude1394 said...: If no police report was filed in a timely manner and no attempt to collect physical evidence occurred, it did not happen.; 6/6/17, 9:18 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: I was not suggesting that Mary. I just find it a bit odd that's all.; 6/6/17, 9:24 AM
Guildofcannonballs said...: "... sliding irresponsibly from one idea to the next."

Not as irresponsible as that sentence's Hitlerian inferences, invoking some idiocy the vastness, more conceivable to some than others, of the (stando-typical) human brain encompasses a mere "one" idea or a mere one "next" one.

Many many multitudes, to start, compose any label you place upon the conglomeration of "ideas" you seemingly blithely think belong to oneself, like the guy said about the piano writing the tunes.; 6/6/17, 9:24 AM
MikeR said...: Sex is complicated. There's a reason that the Bible requires her to scream for a rape charge to stick, and it's not because otherwise it's her fault.; 6/6/17, 9:25 AM
grackle said...: The teenager was a friend, but not a close friend, of one of my sons. He also stole some property worth at least $200.

Since we’ve descended into personal anecdote allow me to relate one of my own:

I once had to speak to a woman on the phone as part of my job. There was money she mistakenly thought was due her and she was angry. I was sympathetic but calmly firm. I allowed her to go on and on until she finally got tired.

Later she called my supervisor and claimed I asked her out on a date. What she didn’t know was that several female co-workers sitting near to me had been intently listening to every word I said during that call. If I had not had those witnesses I would have been sunk. It was the only time I’ve ever been accused of sexual harassment.

He also spoke almost boastfully about how he set a romantic mood … with a fire and wine at his house, and how he touched her vagina and breasts.

Jesus! I guess I should have been locked up 50 years ago! The romantic mood, the fire, the wine, the vagina, the breasts – I’ve done it all beginning back in my twenties and continuing to this very day! Tip: If you have wine you don’t need qualuudes.

About Quaaludes:

Methaqualone became increasingly popular as a recreational drug and club drug in the late 1960s and 1970s, known variously as "ludes" or "sopers" (also "soaps") in the U.S. and "mandrakes" and "mandies" in the UK, Australia and New Zealand. The drug was often used by hippies and by people who went dancing at glam rock clubs in the 1970s and at discos. The drug was so popular in the disco scene of the 1970s that the drug, sold under the brand name Quaaludes, was nicknamed "disco biscuits".; 6/6/17, 9:25 AM
walter said...: Gahrie said...How can an act be criminal if it's not reported as a crime?
--
So..as long as you get away with it, you're not a criminal..you haven't committed a crime?; 6/6/17, 9:26 AM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: If you can be friends with your rapist...it wasn't rape in the first place....call it inconvenient sex perhaps?

@ Gahrie

As a woman and if I were on the jury, this would be my take on it. If it is rape you would protest immediately, not wait years after the fact.

Putting myself in this situation: If it was forcible rape, you wouldn't continue on having friendly chats and voluntarily call your rapist for hours on end. If it is truly rape and you are afraid of your rapist, you wouldn't continue being around that person.

If it was rape and the rapee continues to have relationships with the rapist for monetary reasons, keep a job, make advancements in their career......well, you call a spade a spade and a whore a whore.

There IS such a thing as Stockholm Syndrome where the victim begins to relate to the the perpetrator. However, that would need to be proven to be the situation in this case that over prolonged period of time.

I can imagine that there are scenarios where this happens. Actually I don't need to imagine, I've seen it. Battered women often will "stand by their man". I can't imagine it for ME. But it does happen.; 6/6/17, 9:26 AM
cubanbob said...: Ann Althouse said...
"Did you work in an institution that allowed 20% of women to be raped? How could you justify that?"

"Allowed" suggests that the institution is able to monitor and intervene. We're talking about what adult individuals do in privacy. I don't think the university has a way to keep all the students from doing bad things to each other within their private lives."

Please. You are a lawyer and law professor. Enough with the reflexive defense of a lousy line of reasoning. Any organization that had this situation and let it continue would be the fantasy powerball winning ticket for the most mediocre plaintiff's lawyer.; 6/6/17, 9:28 AM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: "I could never remain friends with someone who raped me. Except for mental illness, I don't see how anyone could."

I could.

While I was plotting how to get my 'own' justice. Revenge is a dish best served cold....and should be a surprise too :-D; 6/6/17, 9:32 AM
Big Mike said...: Good thing for the gold-digging slut that I'm not on the jury.; 6/6/17, 9:35 AM
Gahrie said...: So..as long as you get away with it, you're not a criminal..you haven't committed a crime?

Correct. You are merely a bad person who has committed an illegal act. To become a crime, it has to be reported to police, and you have to be convicted of a crime in order to become a criminal.

So for instance...Hillary is not a criminal, even though she has committed numerous illegal acts.; 6/6/17, 9:36 AM
Guildofcannonballs said...: "But you can't tell me the word would not have been out among the sisters in the circle of his likely "acquaintances" after at most the third or fourth time he pulled this kind of stunt."

The word, nor Word, would not have been out.

The preference was for the Cos to be the Cos.

Is this a cascade? I have no opinion.; 6/6/17, 9:40 AM
walter said...: a person who has committed a crime.
"these men are dangerous criminals"
synonyms: lawbreaker, offender, villain, delinquent, felon, convict, malefactor, wrongdoer, culprit, miscreant

Ok Gahrie, even if technically accurate, seems like a parse in terms of conversation. Not sure what difference that distinction is here.; 6/6/17, 9:42 AM
Big Mike said...: @DBQ, wife agrees with you 100%. Do you live anywhere near the Shenandoah Valley? She'd like to meet you.; 6/6/17, 9:43 AM
cubanbob said...: It's basically a he said, she said thing with the balance so far in his favor. Is he really innocent, so far, who knows? The trial has to finish before any real conclusions can be made. It is obvious he is a sleazy POS but that in of itself isn't a crime and she comes across as a gold digger which isn't a crime.; 6/6/17, 9:46 AM
walter said...: Mary,
Whether a crime was committed and whether it was reported are separate issues.
If someone murders someone in front of you and threatens to kill you and everyone you care about if you report and you obey, no murder, no crime?; 6/6/17, 9:51 AM
Gahrie said...: Ok Gahrie, even if technically accurate, seems like a parse in terms of conversation. Not sure what difference that distinction is here.

Take Althouse's story. That young man committed illegal acts...he set a fire without permission, and took property without permission. If Althouse had reported those acts to the police, they would have become crimes, and he would have become a criminal if convicted of them. Because she chose not to, in effect giving consent to those acts, no crime was committed and the young man is not a criminal.; 6/6/17, 9:56 AM
Guildofcannonballs said...: The question is whether Cosby will be convicted or not of the crimes he is charged with as that will most significantly impact whether he will be remembered for that (those convictions) or every other public thing, whether he should or not, be convicted or remembered as it were.

Trump said something like (a while back): yeah I never really thought he was that funny, speaking slow with a long pause... I never thought he was that funny. I didn't get the joke I guess.; 6/6/17, 9:57 AM
prairie wind said...: "I could never remain friends with someone who raped me. Except for mental illness, I don't see how anyone could."

Don't ever attempt to write fiction. You're terrible at imagining scenarios.

General Hospital, 1979
Luke Spencer raped Laura in the disco club, with Herb Alpert's Rise playing in the background. Very traumatic. Later, she fell in love with him and they were married in 1981.

In 1998, when "rape victim falls in love with the assailant" would definitely not be accepted as a romantic storyline, their son Lucky (himself in love with another rape victim) was told that his father raped his mother. Again, very traumatic. Luke explains to a distraught Lucky how wrong he was to have raped Laura.

Soap opera writers are GREAT at imagining scenarios.; 6/6/17, 10:01 AM
Gahrie said...: Fifty Shades of Grey was driven by female fans, not males.

Could you imagine a movie being made today based on the Gor novels?; 6/6/17, 10:09 AM
Fernandinande said...: prairie wind said...
General Hospital, 1979
Luke Spencer raped Laura in the disco club, with Herb Alpert's Rise playing in the background.

Who are you, who are so wise in the ways of science?; 6/6/17, 10:11 AM
walter said...: Blogger Gahrie said...
If Althouse had reported those acts to the police, they would have become crimes, and he would have become a criminal if convicted of them. Because she chose not to, in effect giving consent to those acts, no crime was committed
--
It means he wasn't prosecuted for the crime. If he committed the crime he is an unprosecuted criminal.; 6/6/17, 10:14 AM
Churchy LaFemme: said...: >Could you imagine a movie being made today based on the Gor novels?

No, not today; the brand is too toxic. However, the first several are decent Swords & Planets adventures before the, um, odd, worldview takes over. Of course "John Carter" killed that market for movies anyway..; 6/6/17, 10:17 AM
Owen said...: Prof. A: "...able to monitor and intervene. We're talking about what adult individuals do in privacy..."

So how confident are you --how confident could you or anyone else ever be-- that this statistic is remotely accurate? We are told that 1 in 4 women will be raped on campus but the authority we are given is a failed attempt at an online self-reporting survey of about two schools. With crap questions, no validation, a terrible response rate among self-selecting anonymous people. That = gospel truth on which national policy is to be made.

Did you ever comment on that shoddy job?; 6/6/17, 10:18 AM
Gahrie said...: Science fiction/fantasy author Michael Moorcock has suggested that the Gor novels should be placed on the top shelves of bookstores, saying, "I’m not for censorship but I am for strategies which marginalize stuff that works to objectify women and suggests women enjoy being beaten."

I wonder what he thinks about Fifty Shades of Grey?; 6/6/17, 10:20 AM
Gahrie said...: It means he wasn't prosecuted for the crime. If he committed the crime he is an unprosecuted criminal.

If an illegal act is not reported to, or discovered by, the police there is no crime.; 6/6/17, 10:22 AM
prairie wind said...: Fernandinande, this science comes naturally to only a special few. The rape scene was wildly romantic because we all knew Luke was terribly in love with Laura. When Luke first appeared on the show, he was a sleazy character with greasy hair. He cleaned up, looked better and his fascinating character made up for the fact that he was not a handsome man. Laura was a confused young woman and her boyfriend Scotty simply had no chance against the charms of Luke. Luke and Laura had to go on the run together and that is when she fell in love with him. What a lucky man he was, to finally have her love. When they returned to Port Charles, Laura was not prepared for the press waiting to hear her speak and she blurted out, "Scotty! I want Scotty!" Ah, poor Luke. He still had some work to do.; 6/6/17, 10:27 AM
walter said...: Blogger Gahrie said...
If an illegal act is not reported to, or discovered by, the police there is no crime.
--
Hmmm..and if a tree falls in the forest...; 6/6/17, 10:33 AM
Char Char Binks, Esq. said...: Did Cosby use his fame, money and power to use, and possibly abuse, women? Would a woman ever use, and possibly abuse, a man who has fame, money and power to advance a career in show biz? Would a woman ever have sex with a man who is married to another woman? Do women ever multitask drug-taking and sex? Is that a crime?; 6/6/17, 10:34 AM
Lucien said...: It seems like under the Gahrie standard, anyone considering reporting a crime should look at the facts and think: this hasn't been reported yet, therefore it is not a crime. On that standard there is no crime to report, and it should not be reported. On the other hand, we would know that 100% of all crimes are reported.; 6/6/17, 10:43 AM
Anonymous said...: A person who believes him/herself to be ethical and moral would never work for an institution where 20% of the women were being sexually assaulted. Nor would they accept a pension from that organization. Especially if that person is a female.

A crime can be committed, but perpetrators cannot be called criminals until a court decides to do so.

A neighbor's 14 y.o. daughter lit a fire against our house years ago. I caught her in the act and hauled her back to her single-parent Dad. Sad. At that age she was already an alcoholic. I forced her into counseling by 'blackmailing' her Dad. Too little too late. She was dead in a decade.

Mandrakes were legally available w/o a prescription in Germany up until the mis-70's iirc. There were plenty of soldiers who tried them out. Though legal in Germany at the time it was a crime under the UCMJ.; 6/6/17, 10:51 AM
Gahrie said...: It seems like under the Gahrie standard, anyone considering reporting a crime should look at the facts and think: this hasn't been reported yet, therefore it is not a crime. On that standard there is no crime to report, and it should not be reported.

You almost got there. Your first use of the word "crime" should actually be the phrase "illegal act". Anyone considering reporting an illegal act as a crime should consider the facts before doing so.

For instance, I have no problem with Althouse not reporting the kid and turning him into a criminal. That was her choice to make.

I do have a problem with her referring to him as a criminal or saying he committed arson. I would have a major problem if she was now advocating his punishment in some way.; 6/6/17, 10:53 AM
Scott M said...: "only that I don't think the jury will find that the prosecution has met its burden of proof."

Certainly not for a man many consider to be a national treasure.; 6/6/17, 10:54 AM
Yancey Ward said...: I have basically ignored this story for the last two years, but is this the only victim whose case is being tried? I had read there were dozens of women who claimed Cosby drugged and raped them. If this is the best case to try, then, yes, he will be acquitted on the phone records alone (if they are authentic).; 6/6/17, 11:18 AM
RoBanJo said...: Good thing she didn't "intend" to violate laws regarding handling of classified.; 6/6/17, 11:45 AM
William said...: It seems to me that, on balance, Roger Ailes paid a higher price for his transgressions than Bill Cosby.; 6/6/17, 11:45 AM
n.n said...: She may have had a masochistic orientation. He may have had a sadistic orientation. They may have had a mutually beneficial relationship. Was she old enough to offer legal consent? I'm surprised the psychos have not weighed in. Where do the social liberals stand on sadomasochism? It may have been rape, not rape-rape.; 6/6/17, 11:56 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "For instance, I have no problem with Althouse not reporting the kid and turning him into a criminal. That was her choice to make. I do have a problem with her referring to him as a criminal or saying he committed arson. I would have a major problem if she was now advocating his punishment in some way."

I'm not naming him or speaking of him in a way that makes him identifiable.

I question whether I did the right thing at the time. I contacted him, got him to meet me and give back the guitar pedals he stole, and I gave him a talking to about how he'd committed crimes and I could have reported him to the police, but he needs to behave better. Unfortunately, he did kind of a shrugging teenager routine, like "okay, lady, whatever, I need to go." That made me consider doing something more like talking to his parents or calling the police, but I chose not to.

As for the arson, it was deliberately setting a roll of toilet paper on fire in the basement -- I still have a charred spot on the wall that I could photograph -- and then putting it in a bucket of water where it smoldered. He and everyone else left the house and one of my sons was upstairs napping. I came home to a house full of smoke and a son still sleeping upstairs.; 6/6/17, 12:00 PM
Ann Althouse said...: I spoke to many people about whether to call the police. All the adults were law professors and all advised me not to call the police. I also talked to many teenagers: Every single one emphatically said call the police. In their view, it was easy: If it's a crime, you call the police. No law professor even spoke about it that way, even in weighing options.; 6/6/17, 12:02 PM
Gahrie said...: I question whether I did the right thing at the time.

Do you think you should be allowed to change your mind now and try to have him arrested?; 6/6/17, 12:28 PM
Krumhorn said...: Gahrie, you're off base. Ann correctly identified the act as arson. It's utterly irrelevant whether or not it's reported to the police. Here is the text of the WI statute:

943.02 Arson of buildings; damage of property by explosives.
(1) Whoever does any of the following is guilty of a Class C felony:
(a) By means of fire, intentionally damages any building of another without the other's consent; or
(b) By means of fire, intentionally damages any building with intent to defraud an insurer of that building; or
(c) By means of explosives, intentionally damages any property of another without the other's consent.
(2) In this section “building of another" means a building in which a person other than the actor has a legal or equitable interest which the actor has no right to defeat or impair, even though the actor may also have a legal or equitable interest in the building. Proof that the actor recovered or attempted to recover on a policy of insurance by reason of the fire is relevant but not essential to establish the actor's intent to defraud the insurer.

She correctly identified the act as arson.

- Krumhorn; 6/6/17, 12:39 PM
Krumhorn said...: Women are weird and often unreasonable. I know. I am one.

I hope Cosby walks too. I wouldn't limit this description to women, but I would say that we each have a tough time weaving through the other gender's respective weirdnesses and unreasonableness. Supposedly, that's part of the allure. Unfortunately, you have to be somewhat older to appreciate and value it.

- Krumhorn; 6/6/17, 12:51 PM
Gahrie said...: By means of fire, intentionally damages any building of another without the other's consent.....

She correctly identified the act as arson.

No...by choosing not to report the act as a crime she consented to it.; 6/6/17, 1:02 PM
mockturtle said...: I wouldn't limit this description to women, but I would say that we each have a tough time weaving through the other gender's respective weirdnesses and unreasonableness.

Oh, yes. I've known men who were complete fools over women who treated them cruelly. Somerset Maugham wrote of such a situation in Of Human Bondage.; 6/6/17, 1:38 PM
Gahrie said...: Oh, yes. I've known men who were complete fools over women who treated them cruelly

I was once.; 6/6/17, 1:40 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: @DBQ, wife agrees with you 100%. Do you live anywhere near the Shenandoah Valley? She'd like to meet you

@ Big Mike

Your wife must be a smart and wonderful person :-D Unfortunately, no where near. North Eastern California. Two steps over the line & I'm in Oregon or Nevada.

The problem with "rape" as a crime is that the definition of the act has been so bastardized as to be meaningless. When things as different as being drugged, tied up, beaten and being subjected forcible intercourse are conflated with some unwanted grabby hugs by a well meaning but drunk guy, or with buyer's remorse the next day because the girl decided that she didn't feel all that great about a consensual act with someone who didn't make her A list....well, then. What IS rape? "I" know what it is. What it is now as defined by colleges and others is NOT rape.

Arson is when someone sets fire to something with the intent of destruction. If you assist the person in the act, both throw alcohol onto the fire and ooops sparks fly, is that really arson by one person or did you BOTH burn down the house? So to speak.; 6/6/17, 1:41 PM
hombre said...: The continuation of the relationship after sexual assault is possible. However, I prosecuted sex crimes and supervised the unit for several years and among more than a thousand cases never saw it outside familial settings or where the perp had some real, not perceived, power over the victim. In those cases, the perp, not the victim, initiated the subsequent conduct. Of course we only dealt with reported offenses.

I think Althouse is right. Acquittal is likely.; 6/6/17, 1:59 PM
Krumhorn said...: No...by choosing not to report the act as a crime she consented to it.

That's absurd. Not only does the language of the statute clearly state that you are wrong (Whoever does any of the following...), it is sophistry to say that failing to report a crime is the same as consenting to it. In the context of this thread, it's a question of the probity of the evidence. That the woman didn't report the crime at the time Cosby poked her doesn't mean that it wasn't a criminal act; it means that she has a much harder time proving he is guilty because she waited so long to complain about it. In fact, the evidence seems to suggest that she may have consented to it.

That's the problem with her burden of proof. Ann doesn't have that problem. The kid committed arson, and statute of limitations aside, she can likely prove it.

- Krumhorn; 6/6/17, 6:28 PM
Gahrie said...: The kid committed arson, and statute of limitations aside, she can likely prove it.

No..the kid lit a fire that could have been arson, if she had reported it. By not reporting it, she consented to it. The statute explicitly states "without consent".; 6/6/17, 6:44 PM
Mountain Maven said...: People are their own worst enemy.; 6/6/17, 6:46 PM
wildswan said...: Years ago when I was a hippie we decided that nude bathing, both sexes together, was OK at our little isolated mountain-top lake. And one early dawn when a friend and I were bathing and sunning he attacked me. I got away but the story got around. Some feminist types said it was attempted rape but I felt it was the natural consequence of nude bathing with natural men. If you did the one, the other followed. Unless you were ugly. We went on being friends but we didn't go on nude bathing together. The situation I started into altered the way I looked at what happened.

And maybe a woman accepts sex being a certain way when she is being a gold-digger but afterward, years afterward, when she is being more real, she sees the whole thing as rape. And it was rape. Her real self was raped. But, possibly, her gold-digger self was not. It happened because the real person accepted being a gold-digger. Like Jekyll and Hyde. So can she change the frame that she accepted? but rather than stopping at self knowledge and reform of her framework she continues on and accuses another person of a serious crime? And tries to collect a large settlement? Hmmm. But the other person used Quaaludes on women all the time. So it doesn't matter how this comes out, whatever, that would be justice in this case.; 6/6/17, 7:00 PM
RigelDog said...: It's eerie reading about the trial because I know the defense attorney fairly well. He is a former prosecutor who became a superb criminal defense attorney. Smart, well-prepared, down to earth. Cosby chose well.; 6/6/17, 8:35 PM
William said...: Cosby was able to keep it up (so to speak) all those long years because he was such a revered public figure. Nearly sixty women have come forward, and I'm guessing that there are a lot of others who don't want to tell their hubby and grandkids that they were raped by Bill Cosby. I wonder if there are any other horndogs who use their revered persona as a cover to pursue licentious activities. If there are, they're not Republicans. There's no downside to accusing a Republican of unwanted advances. Only a cheap bimbo would make such an accusation against a Democrat with the exception, of course, of Anthony Weiner.; 6/6/17, 9:31 PM
Saint Croix said...: I'm not saying he didn't commit a sexual assault

Entirely possible that he did. You could have an entire relationship with a person who is secretly giving you Rohyphenol. And when you discover that he's been doing this, that's when you file a rape charge.; 6/7/17, 6:39 AM
Saint Croix said...: He's charged with aggravated indecent assault. Under the Pennsylvania statute...

a person
who engages in penetration, however slight, of the genitals or
anus of a complainant with a part of the person's body for any
purpose other than good faith medical, hygienic or law
enforcement procedures commits aggravated indecent assault if…

the person has substantially impaired the
complainant's power to appraise or control his or her conduct
by administering or employing, without the knowledge of the
complainant, drugs, intoxicants or other means for the
purpose of preventing resistance

The prosecutors would have to prove that he secretly drugged her. If he's giving her Quaaludes while telling her it's Benadryl, that would be a crime.

She's already sued, successfully, over this. But in criminal court the burden of proof is much higher. In the lawsuit, the question is whether it's more likely than not that he drugged her. But in charging him with a crime, the standard is beyond a reasonable doubt. Do you have any reasons to doubt that he drugged her with quaaludes against her will?; 6/7/17, 6:52 AM
Saint Croix said...: Good article in the Atlantic about Quaaludes.

the love drug; 6/7/17, 7:00 AM
JAORE said...: "Years ago, a teenager committed arson in my house, and I thought a lot about whether to report it to the police. I chose not to, but I know for a fact that he committed arson. "

And theft.

Have you followed up on his later years.

Did your stern talk turn him into a model citizen? From the description of his reaction, any come-to-Jesus moment came later.

Or...

Did he set fire to someones house resulting in death? Begin to rob people, later at gunpoint until that tragic night?

You say you have thought about the choice you made. Have you searched for evidence of the result?; 6/7/17, 8:03 AM
Kirk Parker said...: Somebody who knows the real Gahrie, the reasonable, astute observer and commenter.... needs to contact him and let him know his blogger account has been hijacked by someone who's intent on making him look foolish.; 6/7/17, 2:39 PM
Kirk Parker said...: And seriously, G, you need to consider what that renowned philosopher Robert Plant once wrote: "Sometimes, words have two meanings."; 6/7/17, 2:40 PM