| Blog and Media Roundup - Tuesday, March 11, 2014; News Roundup | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 11 2014, 04:33 AM (189 Views) | |
| abb | Mar 11 2014, 04:33 AM Post #1 |
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http://www.thedurhamnews.com/2014/03/11/3688314/gaspo-a-conversation-with-da-candidate.html Gaspo: A conversation with DA candidate Mitchell Garrell By Tom Gasparoli March 11, 2014 Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of columns about the candidates for district attorney. Mitchell Garrell is running to be the next district attorney of Durham County. He spent roughly 15 years as an assistant DA here. He’s seen just about everything bad that a bad crime can be. This is Garrell’s second try at the office. Currently, he is a financial crimes prosecutor with the state Conference of District Attorneys. The 58-year old is married to a Durham assistant public defender. He claims when they debate at the dinner table about justice and the like, it is pleasant, even fun. I’m going to take that under advisement. Garrell’s answers to the questions below have been edited for length. Your given first name is Thomas and so is mine. You went with your middle name, Mitchell. That means your first and last name both end in ‘ell.’ What’s the deal? Garrell: “My father’s name is Thomas. I grew up in a very small town, Tabor City. The two of us having the same first name would just confuse people.” What is one of the strongest memories you have of your childhood there? Garrell: “Probably one day when I went to the dentist. I think I was in the sixth grade. I saw the marked “Coloreds” sitting area.” And? Garrell: “I felt kind of sick. I knew in my gut it just wasn’t right.” You say you are running for DA in large part to restore trust in the office. Are you suggesting that Leon Stanback, who’s been holding the office since Tracey Cline was forced out, is not trustworthy? Garrell: “No. I am not saying that at all. District Attorney Stanback has done a really good job creating calm and stability. But someone has to set a new direction soon, create a groundwork for long-term trust that is still needed.” You prosecuted the well-known case of Robert Petrick, who was convicted in 2005 of asphyxiating his wife, Durham Symphony cellist Janine Sutphen, after wrapping her body in a tarp with chains and leaving her in Falls Lake. What do you remember most about that trial?” Garrell: “I remember thinking Mr. Petrick was one of the two or three defendants in my life I believed was evil.” You really just want to get back in the action, don’t you? Garrell: “Absolutely. It’s what I am meant to do. I also want to play an important role in my community again. I think I have the right experience to lead the office.” You seem to have a flair for the dramatic – would you agree?” Garrell: “Yes. You know, sometimes I prosecuted child abuse homicides. I had to talk to the jury about horrendous crimes. When I stated the facts aloud, I had to just let the story take over. If I really thought right there in the courtroom about what happened to those children, I’d just break down and cry.” Why did former DA Tracey Cline not retain you? Was it because you ran against her?” Garrell: “I had the honor of being a prosector in Durham for 15 years.” That’s all I get? Is there something hiding under a rock that we need to know? Garrell: “No. I did my job.” What are your pastimes? Garrell: “One is: I love playing Scrabble with my wife. I am very competitive, but she usually beats me. I can admit it.” OK then, give me five words that you would want your DA’s office to stand for. Garrell: “Integrity, fairness, respectful, human. And the idea that, but for the grace of God go I. We all could find ourselves in trouble.” You went way over five words, but I I’ll allow it. Has either of your daughters given you any advice about the race? Garrell: “I’m telling you: my 14-year old can work a room better than I can. I learn watching her.” How do you feel about Police Chief Jose Lopez? He’s been getting a whole lot of heat. Deserved? Garrell: “I don’t know that there’s a tougher job than being a DA than being … the police chief.” If Michael Peterson has that second trial and you were the DA, would you want to try it yourself? Garrell: “Yes.” What makes you tick, Mitchell Garrell? Garrell: “If I can get out of bed every day, then it’s a good day. That makes me tick.” You can reach Tom Gasparoli at tgaspo@gmail.com or 919-219-0042. |
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| abb | Mar 11 2014, 04:36 AM Post #2 |
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http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2014/02/10/anonymous-harm-good-sexual-assault-victims/ How Anonymous Does More Harm Than Good for Sexual Assault Victims by Bridgette Dunlap February 10, 2014 - 5:54 pm Women don’t need to be avenged by "white knights." We need the knowledge and the legal resources to vindicate our rights ourselves. A recent New York Times Magazine article by Emily Bazelon asks whether activists involved with Anonymous—the “loose collective of agitators, hackers and pranksters”—are Internet saviors, “or just a different kind of curse.” I am emphatically in the “they’re a curse” camp, and, at the risk of getting doxed, I’m going to argue that others with feminist and progressive commitments should be too. The typical “white knight” campaign begins with an Anonymous activist determining from a news account that an alleged victim of sexual assault has been denied justice by the corruption and complacency of law enforcement. They then bring a storm of media attention and threats down on the accused, police, prosecutors, and the towns in which they live. Anonymous is often credited with having helped to bring rapists to justice in the Maryville, Steubenville, and Rehtaeh Parsons cases despite a track record of making investigations already in progress more difficult, falsely accusing innocent people, and making other women collateral damage. Until reading Bazelon’s article, I was under the impression that Anonymous might have turned up some useful evidence in the case of Rehtaeh Parsons, who killed herself after pictures of her alleged rape were sent around by her peers. But it turns out, according to Bazelon, that Anonymous accused a person who some of its own activists had cleared of wrongdoing. And the evidence that turned the case around was not something Anonymous found, but rather a Facebook message one of the accused sent to Parsons’ mother, Leah Parsons, apologizing and implicating others. Leah Parsons was ambivalent about “OpJustice4Rehtaeh,” but she was clear in an interview that she wanted the justice system, not the public, going after the boys who allegedly raped her daughter. Bazelon reports that Parsons’ rejection of Anonymous’ vigilante tactics came as an unexpected blow to Anonymous activists—I expect because it didn’t occur to them that they might not know what is best for a survivor or her family. A similar dynamic was evident with Steubenville, when Anonymous turned a case the victim might have preferred be prosecuted quietly into a national story, in which multiple media outlets inadvertently disclosed her name. Anonymous dispensed endless unfounded rumors that were repeated by reputable news outlets with meager caveats. They accused an innocent teen of giving the high school girl in Steubenville a roofie, though toxicology reports showed otherwise, and released nude pictures of women found in the hacked email of another Anonymous target, thus victimizing more women. But Anonymous’ most famous contribution to the case was the release of a video in which an apparently drunk and/or high student goes on a disgusting rant about Jane Doe being “so raped” in response to a video of her he has just viewed. It’s awful, and ultimately there was little reason to spread it around: The kid was not involved with the assault, and prosecutors already had the video before Anonymous made this further indignity against the victim go viral. Anonymous acknowledged the harm it caused in Steubenville when launching #OpMaryville, assuring us that “efforts have been made to limit the amount of collateral damage in this operation.” They launched the campaign five minutes after reading one article about the contested reasons prosecutors dropped charges in the alleged rape of Daisy Coleman. The cybermob descended on Maryville, calling for the prosecutor in the case to lose his job, publicizing the names of the sheriff’s family members, harassing parents of the accused, and branding Maryville a “lawless hellhole.” Anonymous was triumphant when a special prosecutor was appointed to reopen the investigation. However, the special prosecutor, a woman and a Democrat known as a strong advocate for sexual assault survivors, reached the same conclusion as the original white, male Republican prosecutor did: There wasn’t enough evidence for sexual assault charges, only misdemeanor child endangerment for leaving an intoxicated minor outside in the cold. When accused of corruption, the original prosecutor explained he’d dropped the case due to lack of evidence and the Colemans’ refusal to cooperate. He first dropped the felony sexual assault charge because he couldn’t prove it, but tried to move forward with the misdemeanor, which carries a possible one-year sentence. The Colemans admit that they stopped cooperating after the felony charge was dropped, pleading the Fifth and failing to sign their depositions. The only thing that changed after the wrath of Anonymous coming to Maryville (besides the difficult level of attention Daisy experienced) was the Colemans’ willingness to cooperate on the misdemeanor charge, to which the accused ultimately plead guilty. Many people weren’t satisfied with this, but the reported facts indicate that the prosecutors were right—they could not prove sexual assault. Acquaintance rape, the most prevalent kind of rape in the United States, is inherently difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, but in this case it would have been impossible because Matt Barnett, the accused rapist, says the sex was consensual, and Daisy Coleman cannot testify to what happened because she has no memory of it. Daisy’s friend says she wasn’t in the room to see what happened, while Matt’s friends say they took a video of Barnett and a not intoxicated Daisy kissing (which they deleted that night and police were unable to recover). Daisy’s blood alcohol level the next morning is circumstantial evidence that she was too intoxicated to consent to sex, but the boys, who presumably would have testified, told police she drank heavily after returning from the room with Barnett. The Missouri rape statute in place at the time requires proving the defendant did not “reasonably believe” the accuser didn’t consent or was too incapacitated. Asked if Barnett might have thought the sex was consensual, Daisy told investigators, “He was drinking too, so yeah, he could have.” Even on Daisy’s version of the facts, Barnett couldn’t be proven guilty of the felony charges. It would have be unethical for prosecutors to try. Bringing attention to the problem of sexual assault and showing support for accusers is laudable and may bring solace to some survivors. However, as Samantha Jane Geimer, the woman Roman Polanski plead guilty to raping when she was a child, recently advised, we should refrain from jumping to conclusions about the guilt of people who haven’t been convicted of a crime and cognizant that public battles may not be in the service of survivors. In an interview about her Times Magazine piece, Bazelon says we should judge each Anonymous “operation” individually and concludes that #OpMaryville was a good thing on balance and #OpJustice4Rehtaeh probably was as well, despite the false accusations. I think she’s wrong here. We should reject Anonymous’ actions for more fundamental reasons than individual activists’ mistakes in particular cases: 1. Anarchy is bad for women and marginalized people. The law may be inadequate and unevenly enforced, but we have fought hard to have it apply to us. We do not want to return to the days when rape accusations were handled without a trial. And we do not want to return the protection of women to the benevolence of private actors—especially not Anonymous, to whom some women (typically young, white, and pretty) are damsels in distress, while others are “land whales” or “whores.” If you’re deemed a whore, Anonymous may torment you at your darkest moment. 2. Due process matters. In a society with a wrongful conviction problem, where the poor and people of color are disproportionately targeted by the criminal law, we need to take the protections for the accused we have seriously. When Anonymous demands that accused persons apologize or face their fury, they are demanding they give up their Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate themselves. When they turn accused teens into famous rapists, they poison the jury pool, jeopardizing their right to a fair trial. You may feel in your heart he’s guilty, but the government still has to prove every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. 3. Veracity is important. The feminist activist group UltraViolet sent an email immediately after news of the Maryville plea that not only dispensed with the term “alleged,” instead calling someone cleared by two different prosecutors a rapist, but also presented disputed information as fact. The group claimed, for example, that the Colemans’ home was “literally burned down” in retaliation for their accusations although insurers determined it was an electrical fire that started in the basement. UltraViolet is by no means alone in letting outrage overwhelm accuracy. We have to be careful about taking things to be fact just because the cybermob has repeated it enough. 4. Vilifying individuals obscures systemic problems. If the accused is pure evil, we are off the hook for our failure as a society to teach young men that they can’t touch anyone without consent. If prosecutors are all corrupt, we don’t have to address the underfunding of their offices or reform inadequate laws. If suicide is the inevitable response of fragile young women to bullies, we don’t have to provide mental health resources or educate them about their rights to make it stop. 5. We should empower victims to sue civilly. Anonymous tells us that the criminal justice system is horribly corrupt—probably deterring victims of sexual assault from reporting crimes—while also perpetuating the notion that there can be no justice without a criminal conviction. But victims have more control as a plaintiff in a civil lawsuit than as a witness in a criminal one. In a civil suit, a plaintiff can seek monetary damages, which may be more useful to her than a prison sentence if she has lost wages and medical needs, and doesn’t need to prove her claims beyond a reasonable doubt. Rape is a common-law battery in every state for which you can sue in tort. As to the problem of women having their pictures distributed without permission, sometimes after the best efforts of Anonymous fail, all it takes is a call from a lawyer to make it stop. I’m all for calling out cyberbullying and revenge porn and updating criminal laws to deal with it, but much of this is already illegal. Women don’t need to be avenged by “white knights.” We need the knowledge and the legal resources to vindicate our rights ourselves. Like this story? Your $10 tax-deductible contribution helps support our research, reporting, and analysis. Follow Bridgette Dunlap on twitter: @bridgettedunlap |
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| abb | Mar 11 2014, 04:38 AM Post #3 |
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http://www.cotwa.info/2014/03/this-is-how-nutty-anti-rape-activists.html Monday, March 10, 2014 This is how nutty anti-rape activists have become Twenty years ago, the late Pulitzer Prize winning columnist David Broder wrote about "that damnable duality of human nature" where noble impulses coexist with the penchant to destroy human life. Would anyone other than a lunatic suggest that by acknowledging this reality, Mr. Broder was absolving murderers of blame for their misdeeds? Fast forward to present day. In an interview with a student newspaper, University of Iowa President Sally Mason said that the university’s goal is to “never have another sexual assault occur.” She added, that’s probably “not a realistic goal given human nature.” "Human nature"? What on earth is President's Mason's evidence for this epiphany? Could it possibly be the reality that rape has been present since the dawn of man? Just as murder, assault, robbery, and every pretty much every social pathology have been present? In other words, nothing in President Mason's off-hand statement was in any sense incorrect, controversial, or even insightful. In any other setting, her innocuous words would have been quickly forgotten. But we are not living in just "any other setting." The anti-rape crusaders jumped on the president's comment and have read into it misogyny and victim-blaminge. The comment prompted a group, including university researcher Chelsea Bacon, to start a petition called “Not in My Nature.” In addition, about 20 students, including Bacon, interrupted an annual Presidential lecture by standing in front of Mason with signs. During the interruption, Mason expressed support for their activism, and promised the university will make progress on the issue. Then, there was an on-campus protest about the president's remarks where Ms. Bacon said this: “Human nature is a common term people use to take the blame from the perpetrator and put it onto other sources. Not only is it unfounded and irresponsible, it’s very harmful to victims.” She added: “It perpetuates the idea that there are other causes of sexual assault other than a perpetrator. It’s not what she was wearing, it’s not how much she drank. It’s what the perpetrator wanted to do.” That Ms. Bacon would read such malevolence and backwardness into President Mason's remarks is chilling in the extreme, and is reminiscent of other overreactions we've seen recently. See, e.g., here. It's the sort of overblown response that stifles real dialogue. It puts anyone who would bother to talk about sexual assault on notice that they'd better walk on eggshells because even innocuous and honest comments provide an excuse to be outraged. It's easier to just humor them than to tell them they are behaving like children. A former editor of the Pitt News was talking about this very phenomenon when he wrote the following: ". . . these straw-men battles undercut legitimate causes. Advocacy groups stop looking forward and content themselves with ritualistic passion plays. Finding big targets on which to pin 'sexist' or 'oppressor' is a tired tradition. . . . . No one is talking about issues, just the social theater surrounding them. We need true dialogue, debate, education. Not grandstanding and moralizing." Why should anyone be surprised by this overreaction to President Mason's remarks? We are stranded in an era where calling for due process in rape cases (see here, here and here) is considered "victim blaming." So is calling for people to keep an open mind when it comes to rape accusations, and preaching safety, and failing to treat a false rape claim as if it were an actual rape, and calling for men and boys accused of sexual assault to be anonymous. They use the term "victim blaming" so loosely it means nothing at all. And the folks who scream "victim blaming" the loudest are often are at the forefront in rushing to judgment to assume the accused is guilty based on nothing more than an accusation. See here and here. It's time to have an adult dialogue about these issues free of shrill overreactions. The problem seems to be that the only persons making themselves heard on these critical issues are naive, young zealots, chronically offended, ready to sniff out gender oppression even if they have to invent it. We are reminded of the words of Amanda Marcotte, writing about the young Wellesley College feminists in an uproar over the sleepwalking statue: ". . . one thing I've been trying to keep in mind is that the women getting wound up about the statue are really young and just starting to explore the identity of 'feminist.' College is a time for taking everything too far, from drinking beer to sports fandom to sexual drama to using your fancy new vocabulary words picked up in women's studies courses." Here's another example where we need more adults at the table and fewer children. |
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| abb | Mar 11 2014, 04:42 AM Post #4 |
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Duke, UNC champs get White House tour, Obama’s accolades Posted by Renee Schoof on March 10, 2014 NCAA Division I 2013 champion Duke University men’s lacrosse and University of North Carolina’s women’s soccer and lacrosse teams visited the White House on Monday to receive personal congratulations from President Barack Obama. “It was awesome. You never think you’ll be here because of sports,” said Duke senior Matthew Kunkel after the team met with the president inside the White House. “We were the first team he saw. He said, ‘Hey, Duke lacrosse, you guys are making it a habit of coming here,’ ” Kunkel said. Duke also captured the championship in 2010. Kunkel said the team also got a personal tour of the White House, with guards pointing out interesting historical facts. He and teammates milled around for a few minutes waiting for the president to appear. While a Marine Corps band trio played jazz, many of the student athletes took pictures of themselves in the late afternoon sunshine with the White House as backdrop. In brief remarks, Obama joked that “spring break is under way for a lot of schools, so we thought this was the perfect time to invite a bunch of college kids over to wreak havoc on the White House. What could go wrong?” But he went on to praise them all for performing their best in the spotlight and in practices and “cracking the books, I hope, on those late-night bus rides home and making sure to leave time to study when everybody else is out having fun.” “Our country needs young people like you to keep giving your best and to keep bringing out the best in those around you,” he added. “That’s how we keep making progress and moving forward. And that’s why we’re all looking forward to seeing what all of you accomplish in the years ahead.” The president noted that the Tar Heel women’s soccer and lacrosse teams made UNC one of three schools that sent a pair of champion teams. The others were Princeton’s fencing and field hockey teams and the University of Southern California’s men’s and women’s water polo. The women’s championship teams show the progress made in recent decades in raising the status of women’s sports, Obama said. “It means that Malia and Sasha and my nieces, they all know how important athletics is in their lives. And you guys have really paved the way,” he said. Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/03/10/3691100/duke-unc-champs-get-white-house.html#storylink=cpy |
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| Quasimodo | Mar 11 2014, 07:29 AM Post #5 |
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(I've never been sure this entire "porn star" story wasn't deliberately hyped from the beginning, since it will raise "Belle's" fees. But that's just MOO.) |
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| Quasimodo | Mar 11 2014, 07:35 AM Post #6 |
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POSTER COMMENT on the above:
Would anyone care to rank how far Duke has fallen (in many ways) since Brodhead took over the helm? |
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| Quasimodo | Mar 11 2014, 09:55 AM Post #7 |
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And speaking of where Duke has gone, could the following be said to apply to Duke, also? (To what extent was the lax case the result of PC hysteria?)
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7:36 PM Jul 10