HB

I dont rant on about his offcourt issues, I was just wondering why some were trying to make him out as a saint

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FOMW

No I didn't forget it. You are apparently not well-informed about even the issue you raise.

Do you know WHY she was questioned about whether she'd had sex afterward? Because while up all night with a good friend, who eventually persuaded her to report the crime, she wanted to change her clothes, which any woman wearing bloody underwear stained with the semen of their rapists would understandably want to do. The pair she pulled from her overnight bag had been previously worn and not laundered. It contained small traces of semen from another man. That was the pair she wore when she reported the crime a few hours later and that were first collected and anlaysed.

You should also recall that lab testing conclusively established that the sperm from the unknown male was not "motile", or in other words was clearly deposited in the underwear well before the rape. Her hygenic habits are completely, entirely irrelevant to whether she was raped, as was her consent to sex on previous occasions. Had a judge even let that "evidence" in at trial, he may well have committed reversible error. (I'm a member of the Florida Bar, although I do not practice law for a living.)

The reason these facts became public? Because the defense attorneys wanted to incite the age old, mysoginistic, and incredibly irrational prejudices in the minds of potential jurors that rapists have used for years to escape responsibility for their crime: women who have sex outside of marriage are incapable of being raped because, well, if they're going to give it away for free once they must do so at all events. Too bad you don't live in Colorado, as you apparently would be just the type of juror they were looking for.

Well if their parents think they're old enough to read about what a tremendous basketball player Kobe Bryant is, they ought to be old enough to handle a few other truths about him as well.

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HB

Wow this is getting more and more interesting

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Petey

Taking the word of someone who isn't even under oath. How many times do stories change before making it to trail? Are you saying her character was beyond question in any way? I know they were trying to bring her character into question.

As questionable as his actions are, her character is. I don't think it's justified to send someone to jail for his alleged actions when you have a woman that was bought off either.

I'll ask again, as some members are 13 as you can see by side profiles. And I'd wager they are comfortable talking about basketball accomplishments, it's a little different than where the thread derailed in pretty descriptive ways.

But let me ask, if the evidence was so overwhelming, why did she decide not to persue her case any further considering it had cost the state close to half a million dollars? Could there be a number of options?

-Petey

FOMW

Yes, that would have been Bryant's defense as well . . . claiming he was simply "too big". Another way to lie about his crime and stroke his ego at the same time.

Prosecutors who've spent a lifetime critically evaluating evidence of alleged crimes, including sexual assault, would strenuously disagree with you, and so does common sense. I've yet to see any woman with a hand imprinted bruise on her neck who got it during "consensual" sex, let alone when it was combined with vaginal tears and bleeding and a confluence of other evidence like I mentioned.

It's folly to try to deny the man's guilt because, if he didn't have an extreme consciousness of guilt, he never would have issued a public "apology" to the victim acknowledging that he could see in hindsight how she could have considered the sex nonconsensual. It was some last stab at salvaging a public image for a later day, which I could have told him was unecessary anyway since our society is so absolutely unconcerned with the morality of its athletes and celebrities. This very thread is continuing proof of that.

He's already back advertising for Nike in print and will no doubt find his way back on the tube one day hawking sodas and shoes.

I think he and O.J. should team up for a commercial touting the efficacy of clorox at removing blood stains. You know, a product they could really stand behind from personal experience.

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cpawfan

It isn't simply about being too big as there other geometric factors when dealing with matching male and female anatomy. Additionally, some women have lubrication issues.

All I can say is that you apparently don't have any kinky friends. Most kinks defy common sense, hence why they are kinks. I have no desire to get more graphic than this.

The only folly is to attempt to have a rational discussion on this topic with you. You mind is set and so be it.

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No, keep going...I insist!

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FOMW

I know nothing of her character beyond the shreds of it revealed in the public record of the case. However the central question in ANY criminal inquiry is not the victim's character but the accused's behavior. As a starting point, the only relevant aspect of her character AT ALL is her character for honesty or dishonesty, and that is because she is acting as a witness, not because she's also a victim.

Under Colorado law, all evidence of extraneous sexual conduct of a rape victim is presumed irrelevant and inadmissible with a few narrow exceptions: when the extraneous conduct was with the accused himself, when the accused has denied the sexual act and is offering the evidence to show that he was not the source of semen or other physical evidence of intercourse, or when the evidence establishes a prior history of false reports of sexual assault by the victim. Here's the complete statute.

Obviously the first exception didn't apply, neither did the second, once Bryant recanted his inital story and admitted to having "consensual" relations with her. And even the lowlife defense lawyers in this case hadn't concocted any theory about her past that could be spun into a history of false rape accusations.

This rule is very analagous to a rule of evidence that exists in some form in all states (in Florida it's called "Williams Rule evidence") by which character evidence, especially that consisting of an accused's prior criminal acts, is not admissible to prove he acted in conformity with that character aspect in the instant case unless it tends to prove some common plan, scheme, design, or intent. So the rule generally excluding evidence of extraneous sexual conduct is just the extension to an alleged rape victim of the same kind of benefit already offered to criminal defendants: the right to have the case in question judged as independently as prudently possible.

Well, I called him a rapist and a thug, and I wager it won't be the last time because, by all reason, he is. I'm sorry, but that has WEIGHT, GRAVITY with me. But you were the one who decided to embark on a debate about the truth of those charges. If you're going to posit that he's innocent and his victim was simply a money-grubbing whore, then I'm certainly going to offer argument to the contrary.

Believe me, that decision doesn't engender admiration in me nor is it the one I'd hope to make in her position, but it is a decision I can understand. The girl and her family received constant death threats, even to the point that a man was later tried and convicted of soliciting her murder. Rabid "fans" of Bryant, who didn't give a damn about his guilt because he can play basketball, published her name, address, phone number, place of schooling, and other personal information online, information that was, of course, used for the perpetuation of further death threats and general stalking. The great American justice system piled on a number of blunders, like mistakenly failing to redact her name from court documents published online, in violation of the Colorado Rape Shield law. Supposedly confidential information that came to light in the investigation, like the embarrassing business with the panties (initially absent the important facts that would have rendered the whole thing INADMISSIBLE) was constantly being leaked to the press, most likely by the defense lawyers but never in a way that could be traced back to them.

Had she proceeded with the trial, she could have looked forward to even more serious threats to the privacy and safety of herself and those close to her. She could have looked forward to the most unethical kinds of tactics from a defense attorney who established early on that she'd bend or break any rule she could to liberate Kobe Bryant. I know every 19 year old would just love to have to hear, if not answer, questions about their sexual habits while their parents looked on and while transcripts of it went out all over the nightly news and Internet. And on top of it all, she could most likely look forward to a jury that would be in some measure mesmerized by the celebrity of her attacker and might well be collectively unwilling to return a guilty verdict even in the face of overwhelming evidence. See State of California vs. Simpson.

On the other hand, she could accept his pre-negotiated "public apology", offering her a modicum of public vindication of his guilt, and set herself up financially with a civil trial or settlement in lieu thereof. That's what she chose. And like it or not, the same judicial system which makes it possible for murders like O.J. Simpson and rapists like Kobe Bryant to escape criminal liability make it possible for their victims to seek and get civil damages for the same acts.

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FOMW

You haven't yet been rational in the discussion, so you might try it before drawing that conclusion.

My mind IS set, but it certainly wasn't until as late as when he issued the apology and more details about the evidence were revealed to the public. To paraphrase an aphorism, an open mind is entirely useless if it's incapable of closing at some point.

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cpawfan

Spare me. I've been rational, I just haven't been verbose. I have neither the time nor desire to rehash this point by point. Rather, I've cherry picked statements that made my skin crawl and responded to them. The bottom line for me is that I refuse to use evidence that didn't have to stand up against the rigors of cross-examination to convict the guy. Nor do I put much stock into a statement that was the result of a business arangement between the 2 parties because they both wanted this to end.

BTW, you overlooked or forgot to mention that one of the sites that gave the most information about the accuser was published by former HS classmates of the girl.

I've had enough of this discussion about Kobe the person and want to go back to Kobe the basketball player. Kobe the basketball player has plenty of flaws, but at this point, I just want to see what he does next and I'm very curious to see if he is able to come close to MJ's season of 37.09 PPG.

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Petey

I don't know how many different statues you plan to spout off in your posts, but bottom line... what relevance are they? Was there a trial? No. What is the bottom line of why Kobe was never tried? Her refusal to testify, correct? So with that, there are other issues that are public knowledge now (and then) of her character. Issues that you want to keep repeating are not admissible in court... but we are NOT in court, we are on a message board on the internet. Do you not see where we have the access to these other documented claims, and facts about the 'victim' and Kobe where we ourselves are able to draw similar or different conclusions?

I bolded the most important thing in your whole post and slew of posts on Kobe being a rapist.

It's too bad you can't differentiate between facts and allegations.