Letting Prosecutors Think For You
April 25, 2007
Early on in the Duke lacrosse case, bloggers and journalists had to make an important decision: Do you identify the accuser? The Associated Press' position is to never identify an accuser in a sexual assault case on the theory that it would deter other victims from coming forward. Although the AP supposedly respects the presumption of innocence, they nonetheless identify the defendants. This has always seemed backwards: By not identifying the accuser, you are presuming she was a victim: You are, in a word, presuming guilt. But that is an argument for a different day. I'd like to focus on a more specific issue.
Why did bloggers like K.C. Johnson and other media outlets only identify the Duke accuser after Roy Cooper had declared the Duke defendants innocent? (It's worth noting, of course, that the AP will still not identify the false accuser.) K.C. Johnson, a trained historian, author, and professor knew as much about the Duke case as almost anyone else involved. (The defense lawyers would have known more, of course, due to their access to the defendants) Why would Johnson wait until a prosecutor cleared the Duke defendants before identify the Duke accuser as a false accuser? He did not need Roy Cooper to tell him the facts of the case. The attitude, sadly, is part of a broader problem: People let prosecutors think for them.
If someone is accused of a crime, people assume he is guilty - or at least morally blameworthy. "Where there is smoke, there is fire." Yet people are charged with crimes based on the view of a prosecutor that a defendant is guilty. That is all.
Responsible people need to stop relying on the assertions of essentially political animals. If they want to identify an accuser, they should. If they don't, they shouldn't. Yet their decision should be based on their own understanding of the facts.
Roy Cooper's statement didn't change the fact that the Duke defendants were and are innocent. His statement and assessment of the case did not change the fact that the complaining in this case bore false witness. Prosecutor's words are not magic. Their brains do not shape reality. Truth is truth.
In the future, informed people should have the courage to trust themselves and not wait on someone like Roy Cooper to tell them what to think.