Dominic Strauss-Kahn released

[aliceliddell]

There is no case to answer because Ms Diallo is an 'unreliable witness'. No medical or forensic evidence is relevant. When raped women are 'witnesses' in the legal system, their credibility is the topic of contention, not the evidence. The issue of consent is largely ignored. Criminal law requires 'presumption of innocence' and 'beyond reasonable doubt'. Is it this combination that results in an inadequate legal response to sexual violence or other factors? Can this be changed?

AyeRobot - interesting reading. Legally they have wormed their way out of it. I still believe her though.

jenny, I don't understand what you mean. I am not the law. Why is it morally wrong for me to take sides? And why do you describe doing so as "automatic"? It's not, it's based on the facts as reported and what we know about how rapes take place. It's a considered view. We don't need to know what happened to have an opinion on what we think probably happened.

The fact that some voices here may want a punishment you think is too harsh for anyone accused of rape should not be used to browbeat the rest of us into not voicing a view that we think it's likely that DSK raped this maid. And I think you ought to be more careful with your facts and suppositions if you're going to complain about other people being too free with theirs. You say "There are some voices here who would hang any man following an accusation of rape and this can not be right." That is a strawman assertion which is not based on the facts. No-one has argued anything like this position.

I presume that by your final statement, what you actually meant was that "some people here appear to believe that men accused of rape should be treated as guilty until proven innocent by the justice system". Otherwise, your statement doesn't make much sense. I'm not aware that anyone has argued that this is the solution. In fact, people have been here to voice their despondency about the failures of the justice system in this case, more than to argue for the kinds of change they'd like to see. You can read about the kinds of practical steps many women would like to see happen to improve justice for raped women by looking at websites like this

Section D on the last page is interesting. I hope in the future no decent actress ever accuses anyone of rape because she won't be believed.

Tsk.

After reading that link I can see why the case was dropped, I don't think this is a case which you can use as an example.

I started to read the motion but got no further than the front page. I was stunned by this:
"After an extensive investigation, it is clear that proof of two critical elements - force and lack of consent - would rest solely on the testimony of the complaining witness at trial." and this
"Indeed, the case rises and falls on her testimony."

That is the sexism of rape trials writ large. Of course her testimony is important. But it is not the only testimony that is important. His testimony is important too. What ought to matter is the relative credibility of the testimony. He has already publicly lied about basic facts, and this ought to matter.

slhilly if you read the reasons you will see why the case failed

ColdTruth, I've now read the thing from one end to the other. Bluntly, I don't see the reasons why the case failed. I think the document clearly establishes:

• That the defendant has lied about a whole range of other matters, and that her testimony has been inconsistent in relation to this
• That the physical evidence is clear that there was a sexual encounter but could not show whether it was consensual

The document is utterly silent on the fact that DSK had publicly denied that such an encounter had occurred, and thus his testimony was also shaky. It notes a number of factors that make it unlikely the encounter was sexual, such as the fact that it took place in no more than 7 to 9 minutes. But it then says this is not relevant because she's been shown to be inconsistent in some other aspects of her testimony. I'd say it demonstrates that there are important features of her testimony where she has clearly stated the truth, and that this corroborates her version of events. So no, I don't think I get why the prosecution dropped this on the basis of what they've said here, at all.

jenny, no I'm not drafting a response to your question. And I never called you a rape apologist but hey, it's always good to put words in people's mouths But to continue the theme of arseyness, you never answered my question about what you are doing on a feminist board. In the words of Nicola Murray, did you come here today with a big bucket of s* and a whisk?

I have also read the document and I am as convinced as before, if not more so, that it seems implausible the sexual encounter described was consensual.

Chamber maid going about her usual duties decides to hurriedly suck the penis of a complete stranger in a suite she thought to be empty and only went to for the purpose of cleaning. Sounds like utter crap to me.

Rich powerful white guy with a history of sexual predation forces himself on poor powerless woman of colour (and then lies about it). Rich powerful white guy acts entitled and assumes that he will get away with it as he is amongst the most powerful and influential men in male dominated society and the person he has attacked is amongst the least powerful and influential. Yup sounds like a pretty classic event in patriarchal society of classic sexually predatory behaviour to me.

slhilly, ok, I take your point at 1355 and apologise for adding your voice to those previously heard.

The point I was trying to make was that if one believes that DSK is guilty on the basis that only 6% of rape claims are fake (as two people have suggested), then why would one not also support a system that makes the same presumption of guilt. No, I don't think anyone would say this - but how is it different to what they are doing?

Given how none of us know what happened in that room, I do not see how believing he is guilty is fundamentally different to believing he is innocent. They are both guesses regardless of how much 'evidence' one thinks they have for their guess.

Unless I'm missing something, things are still up in the air, even if there is plenty of supposition based on earlier statements. I think we'll know more about the fate of the criminal case later this afternoon (Tuesday 23rd).

Of course, I don't "know" if DSK raped Diallo, but I feel I do know that he is a shady character where women are concerned, and certainly not the kind of man I'd want to lead the country I live in. Not being able to vote in France, I have no say in this matter - but I comfort myself with the notion that the French are unlikely to elect as President (should DSK ever decide to run) a man whom other world leaders would be unlikely to embrace, either physically or metaphorically because of the whiff lingering around him. In other words, I suspect he is too tarnished by this mega-high profile scandal, and the assorted others it has brought into the spotlight, ever to be able to pretend to such high office. If I am right, then this will have taught the French political establishment a useful bit about how others in the world view the kind of sexual shenanigans it supposedly finds acceptable and normal. And it will have humbled DSK just a bit.

That would be some kind of progress, I think.

Plus if said chambermaid was, as DSK's lawyers and the press made her out to be, a regular servicer of the hotel clients, wouldn't someone else have come forward by now to back that up? At least anonymously to the DA?

Poor woman. She deserved the chance to go before a jury. I am appalled. I woud expect this kind of outcome in France, not in the US.

ClareinFrance I really hope so. But... Berlusconi?

Clare the DA has released his official reasons for wanting the case dropped - posted by AyeRobot above, but the court hasn't decided to drop charges based on that request yet. That will be today, and is most likely to happen.

As it is, everyone assumes it will so as far as the French commentors are concerned he is as good as free. You never know, we may be surpised later on... but I doubt it somehow.

Good point Petty. And lots of others. Gadhaffi was a friend until recently. Wouldn't want to hug him for other reasons but plenty of dictators or generally crappy people have been either elected by their people or accepted by foreign leaders...

But we do know some of what happened in that room.

Apparently we are expected to believe that chamber maids are gagging for a hurried suck of complete strangers' cocks in between changing sheets and hoovering carpets.

We are expected to believe that chamber maids will risk their jobs and security for an alfresco blow job with a rich powerful hotel guest that they do not expect to be in a room they are intending to clean.

We are expected to ignore that rich powerful influential hotel guest denied any sexual encounter at all.

The blatancy of the rape myth peddling in this case is astounding really when one takes of one's patriarchy blinkers and engages in a little feminist analysis and critical thinking.

jenny you are trotting out the "we should ignore statistics if they don't back up what I'm saying" line. Again. You do it every time people come up with a considerable weight of evidence to show the flaws in your thinking. I bet if the statistic was 94% of rape allegations are made up by women out of spite you'd be shouting it from the rooftops.

You are also creating straw arguments in saying that all feminists are determined to portray DSK as a rapist even when there's no incontrovertible proof and therefore our opinion is borne out of an inherent bias against men. I am saying that, due to the nature of rape accusations generally, plus DSK's own dubious history, plus the forensic evidence, I conclude that the overwhelming LIKELIHOOD is that he is guilty. The link Boney linked to only provided one (not three) area of inconsistency within the case, which is the one I already mentioned and refers to the fact that her account of what happened after the rape varied in her accounts. This is quite typical behaviour in a rape case (and in violent crime generally) and does not prove she made the whole thing up.

While there is always the possibility that this case may be one of the 0.6% in which the accused is innocent, it's not likely, is it. My opinion has nothing to do with feminism and everything to do with the balance of probabilities. If I walk across a busy road without looking where I'm going, the balance of probabilities suggest I will get hit by a car. Of course there may be a slim chance I wouldn't be, but I would be foolish to ignore THE MOST LIKELY outcome.

ON the other hand your stance shows an incredibly strong will to defend DSK against all odds. That seems highly irrational to me.

Interestingly, every single man I have spoke to in RL takes the same opinion as the feminists on this board.

PettyCoat - see what you mean but I think that the French, with their strong sense of their country's international importance and their equally marked tendency to take themselves seriously, would want to differentiate themselves strongly from Italy in this respect (and in other respects, e.g. economically).

Your if ... then logic doesn't strike me as sound at all, Jenny

Problem with your "if": one doesn't need to believe DSK is guilty solely because only 6% of rape claims are fake, even if two posters have chosen to. It's also because the known facts about what happened make anything else seem just wildly unlikely. See what BC wrote. See what I wrote earlier.

Problem with your "then": it is your consequence - a strawman. There are other, better things to do, to address the problem than reverse the burden of proof. That's why I pointed you in the direction of the Women Against Rape website.

You then finish by re-stating your starting position: that believing DSK's innocence is the same as believing his guilt. But I've already addressed that twice in previous posts, giving a whole list of reasons why the two are not equivalent. There are other facts that make one possibility more compelling than the other. I know that I don't know what happened in that room. But I never claimed to. I just think I have a pretty damned good inkling, given what is in the public domain, and that what happened in that room was likely to have been a rape.

Do you think that it is somehow morally unacceptable for me or others to publicly state that, regardless of whether he's prosecuted, we believe DSK raped Ms Diallo? If so, why?

And there is a difference between having an opinion on something and being constitutionally involved in a case.

You can have an opinion without that having to mean that you want the law changed to mean "presumed guilty until proven innocent." Another straw man argument.

This quote is in The Independent today;

In a recorded conversation between Ms Diallo and a man detained in an Arizona jail, conducted in a dialect of her native Guinea, she said words to the effect that "this guy has a lot of money. I know what I am doing".

Fewcloudy what people don't think about is that this was in a local dialect and therefore is open to translation issues. AND during that same conversation she described what happened to her friend and repeated it was an assault. She never said it was consensual.

I don't blame her for wanting to make financial gain. In her position, once I realised who it was, I think I may have done the same in that context.

Beachcomber, you've hit the nail on the head about what gets me in this case - the prosecution have said that because of inconsistencies in Ms Diallo's testimony alone, they have dropped the case. They do not even mention the fact that any DSK testimony about what you would have to believe to think this encounter was consensual would be completely implausible. That is just ridiculous.

Yeah we've heard that 'she's a gold digga whore' stuff before. (It's the rich cousin of the 'she's a bitch out for revenge' rape myth.)

Beachcomber - I don't think we are being asked to believe that "chambermaids" (plural) are gagging to "service" anonymous hotel guests in hotel rooms and to risk their livelihoods with louche behaviour, etc, etc. This is a case about one chambermaid, not all chambermaids- and it is therefore perfectly possible that this one individual did in fact depart from all logic by engaging in this kind of behaviour and taking this sort of risk.

I am not saying that this is what Diallo did. I doubt that it is. But the law is obliged to deal in these terms and to apply its own rules. If it is not possible to make out the elements of an offence based on the evidence, then there can be no conviction.

What is unfortunate here is that Diallo seems to have paid dearly for her lies (with the probably dismissal of the prosecution) while DSK has not paid for his.