I did a quick search to see if this news story had made it on the Feministing boards. Not having found it, I thought it was an important one to be made aware of.
Do not cringe at the ESPN logo-- I promise, it's not about the Lingerie Football League or anything like that. But I think it highlights a lot of issues that are important here at Feministing: victims' rights, the immigrant experience, racial issues, and the effects of sexual assault.
I'm sorry if anyone takes offense to the article-- there are mentions of the victim's BAC at the time of her attack and recent charges against her, which may or may not be placed there to do a bit of victim bashing. I don't feel like they're presented as such, but that might not be the way everyone interprets them.
What I do think is interesting is how clearly it seems the justice system has failed this young man. Regardless of guilt or innocence, based on this article I can't imagine this young man had competent council or a trial by a jury of his peers.
Read. Be aware. And then keep doing what you do to make the world a better, more just, more equal place.
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Looks like he had competent council, but the prosecution is more interested in getting a conviction than in seeing justice done. Seems pretty similar to the Duke case to me, except that because Frimpong is black and his accuser is white, he got convicted.
Hopefully the appeal the article mentioned will go through and fix this travesty.
I looked at the article and was quite startled to recognize his name. I was at UCSB when this case was in the news. I didn't know any of the people involved personally, but I followed the coverage and it sounded like he had a very good defense attorney, someone who had previously defended, who was it, Michael Jackson or someone really famous like that? I heard that the attorney was paid for by the rich father of a teammate. Having kept up with all the coverage at the time, it really sounded like he was most likely guilty. I obviously can't know for sure without being there, but the only things I heard to suggest he wasn't guilty were comments like "the whore was asking for it," never anything rational.
I think its hard because the victim can't be named, for good reason, but that means that they can write all these details about Eric and how this has affected him, but they can't interview the victim's friend about how it has affected her. So if you read an article about how much this has messed up his life you feel bad for him, but what if there were an article about how much it has hurt her?
Suppose he is guilty. Maybe if he was a white star athlete he would have gotten away with it. Does that mean this case was racist, or that the cases where a white athlete gets away with it are racist?
The facts the article lists make it pretty clear that the defense argued he never had sex with her at all, and that the forensic evidence backed this up.
It would mess his life up just as much if he did or didn't do it. It would also mess up her life just as much if he raped her, or if her boyfriend raped her. It doesn't really matter, since the question is if they actually proved he did it or not.
Forensic evidence definitely did not unanimously back up the defense's claims.
This article is written entirely in the defendant's favor, with special emphasis on how valuable he was to his sports team, how popular he was, and how everybody around him thinks he's a "nice guy."
Can you be more specific? All of the forensic evidence mentioned in this article and every other source I've been able to find on the case either backs up Frimpong's side of the story or doesn't contradict it.
Its been awhile now, so I don't have the article to hand. Maybe it was in the UCSB student newspaper? Anyway I remember reading that there was DNA evidence in support of the prosecution. I think it wasn't as clear cut as his semen inside of her-- it was something like some other type of his DNA in her panties, or his semen on some other part of her, or something like that. I don't remember for sure, and maybe the article I read got it wrong (the Daily Nexus isn't really known for being a world class newspaper, so who knows).
Anyway, the article linked in this post is very one-sided and does not present the prosecution's evidence. I don't think its nearly as clear cut as "To Kill A Mockingbird" (as someone said). Honestly, this seems like one of those cases where its pretty close to impossible for anyone who wasn't there to tell for sure what happened.
I don't know all the details so I'm really not an expert here. Based on the articles being written throughout that year at UCSB, I was pretty much thinking "wow, people are being really mean to the victim, its a good thing her name is private" and "for once an athlete doesn't get away with rape just because he's good at soccer."
But, honestly, I don't know because I wasn't there. Neither was anyone else here. I don't feel comfortable saying the trial was a travesty without actually reading the transcripts-- that article may have been right but it had a very partisan feel to me.
Is this what you're referring to?
"When the test results came back in March, Frimpong's DNA hadn't been found on Jane Doe's clothing or body, but Doe's DNA had been found on Frimpong: in two nucleated epithelial cells, found on his scrotum and penis, and in an unspecified trace under his fingernail. (Epithelial cells are found inside the body and in body fluids like mucus, saliva and sweat. These tested negative as vaginal cells, but such tests can be inconclusive. When the case went to trial that November, the defense argued that the findings were consistent with Frimpong's claim that Doe had grabbed his genitals.) Also, semen found on Doe's underwear didn't match Frimpong's -- but it was a match for that of Benjamin Randall, Doe's sexual partner throughout her freshman year. Randall told authorities that he and Doe had engaged in intercourse seven days before the rape; Doe said they'd had sex four days prior but that she thought she was wearing different underwear, and she told a nurse that they'd used a condom. (During the trial, Doe and Randall confirmed they'd been together at parties the night she met Frimpong. Randall testified that, while en route to a friend's house, he spotted Doe and Frimpong walking on Del Playa at about 11:40 p.m. Randall then called Doe, and she told him she was headed to "Eric's house to play beer pong." Under cross-examination by Sanger, Randall admitted, "I might've been a little upset. I guess you can call that jealousy." He also testified that after the call, he returned to his dorm at Santa Barbara City College, where he spent the night alone.)"
I should clarify - while I think that the accuser isn't exactly blameless, I think the real blame lies the overzealous and racist prosecution and jury along with our society's "black men raping white women" obsession. Also, how the police had two other obvious suspects but didn't even investigate them.
I seriously did my best to find a serious article with some facts that was sympathetic to the prosecution's side, but the best I could do was this: http://www.dailynexus.com/article.php?a=15552
which is an opinion piece several factual errors and no sources for its "facts." Also, it's from the UCSB student newspaper, and is poorly written. If you can find anything better, I'm all ears.
Yeah, that's probably what I was thinking of. They didn't find his DNA on her but they found hers on him-- it seems to prove some contact, at least, and since they were found on his genitals it seems to prove sexual contact. That's why I didn't think his defense was claiming they hadn't had sexual contact at all.
"black men raping white women"
This is totally unsubstantiated, since they don't officially name victims, but rumor at UCSB had it that the victim/woman was not white either.
His story is that she stuck her hand down his pants. This is exactly consistent with finding epithelial cells on his genitals. Frimpong has always claimed that they never had sex.
You are correct, we don't know for sure what her ethnicity is. Her boyfriend is white, and I got that confused with her.
God, this is like To Kill A Mockingbird made real. An all white jury, overwhelming evidence that he could not have been guilty... this makes me sick.
A lot of different things at work here, it would seem. I'm glad that the ESPN article, even though it was hugely biased in his favor, didn't engage in victim-blaming--they aren't questioning whether or not the rape actually occurred, or trying to imply it was her fault. It seems like they noted that she was drunk to the point of memory loss because it calls her testimony of who attacked her into question, and while it's a little disturbing that they're so willing to discount her voice in all this, the forensic evidence is ambiguous and it's implied in the article that the prosecution was pressuring her to change her story to better fit the guy they wanted to go after.
I really wish the article hadn't laid it on so thick with the "Oh he was such a good kid, how devastating for his team and fans and supporters, his life is ruined, etc." All the coverage of his supporters and their earnest uplifting quotes about how he's holding up so well and they hope justice will be done just makes me wonder how selective the coverage was, and how much venom those supporters have been directing at the victim.
The trial itself does seem like a miscarriage of justice--especially the all-white jury and the fact that no one else was even investigated. I'm not sure I trust the article's coverage of the forensic evidence, but it seems ambiguous at best. One gets the impression that the prosecution was way too invested in getting a conviction rather than the right conviction.
"how much venom those supporters have been directing at the victim."
A hell of a lot. I made the mistake of looking at their "support eric frimpong" facebook group back at that time. I think its gone now, or private, but they were not being remotely classy or grown up.
I suppose I'd be mad too if I honestly believed some girl had made up a rape accusation to ruin my friend's life. But it doesn't seem to be what they're claiming-- this article implies that she actually was raped but was too drunk to know for sure who did it, and trusted the justice system to find the right perp. That makes her a victim in all this, and instead they were spewing the usual victim-blaming vulgar stuff.
Anyway, its been awhile and I wouldn't necessarily trust my memory of events. Maybe it was a horrible travesty of a trial. But I just hope that everyone commenting here will go to the trouble to seek out some other articles on it before taking this one on faith. This one just doesn't read like unbiased reporting to me, and I"m not sure it was even supposed to be.
Agreed 100%.
I'm still glad the article managed to avoid the usual victim-blaming tropes despite being slanted heavily in Frimpong's favor, but the slant leaves a much uglier taste in my mouth if they're trying to portray the "Support Eric Frimpong" movement as oh-so-wholesome and earnest and supportive and just painting right over the mean-spirited backlash against the victim. Ugh.
Yeah, that's my biggest problem with his conviction as well. That really doesn't sound like "beyond a reasonable doubt" to me. And knowing the rate that black defendants get convicted on scanty evidence compared to white defendants...yikes. And the prosecutorial misconduct? Unforgivable. The exculpatory evidence rule is a big friggin deal, and prosecutors play fast and loose with that a lot. Very frustrating.
"this article implies that she actually was raped but was too drunk to know for sure who did it, and trusted the justice system to find the right perp. That makes her a victim in all this, and instead they were spewing the usual victim-blaming vulgar stuff."
That reminds me of the victim-blaming I saw in another article about the case a while ago (it's since been taken down) and in some of the comments here:
http://www.independent.com/news/2008/jan/24/story-eric-frimpong/
All I can say is this, I've served on a jury before, and I've voted not guilty based on less reasonable doubt than I see here.
If you haven't served on a jury before you'd be quite surprised just how unfair the system can be. I've heard folks chatting about the case to other jurors and saying the equivalent of "I don't care about any of the evidence the defense is presenting here".
This is just not enough evidence. It's not beyond a reasonable doubt. We have to err on the side of the defendant when our punishments so deny folks both liberty and a chance at a future.