She does wander around a bit in the article. It's definitely not as clear as it might be.
estrich is not in the courtroom, estrich has not examined or cross-examined the victim or the accused.
One of the confusions is to what extent she's talking about this particular case and to what extent about the handling of rape trials, in general, and the impacts of this case on that. And to what extent she's just trying to tell the prosecutors off. Maybe she'd doing all three, clumsily. My take was that she really wasn't talking about this case at all but rather the other two and that comments about this case weren't intended as an analysis of this case but only as a framework for making her other points. Thus she didn't look at whether he was guilty or not but only at her assumption, a pretty good one, I think, that Bryant will not be convicted and then damage from a failed case will ensue. That's my take. I see why you are exercised over what appears to be sloppy treatment of the facts in this case, but I don't think she was trying to judge this case, only the impact of it's presumed failure to convict.
new "bad laws" will come out of this case?
I'm guessing that she may be talking about-the Colorado rape victim protection law, which could end up altered by the outcome of this trial. Even beyond that, there's the issue of withholding the victim's name as a practice all over the country. Right after this case came into play, there was discussion here and there about it maybe being time to treat rape victims like any other victims and not withhold their names. There was some discussion about that in op-eds and here on SI. Estrich may be concerned about where that may go.
and then she goes much further than that by "acquitting" bryant of the charge.
it is obvious that estrich has concluded that this was a false rape charge
Once again, I don't think she has concluded that the charge was false or that Bryant is innocent, only that he will be acquitted. That's quite a different thing. It may explain why your reaction and mine to this article were different. I can see why you would be bothered by her declaring the charge false and him innocent. I would be, too. |
