On Strauss-Kahn and the perp walk
I’ve got a new piece up at PJ entitled, “Perp-Walk the Ruling Class? L’Horreur!”
[ADDENDUM: One of Strauss-Kahn’s possible defenses seems to be shaping up as “it was consensual.”
Maybe he thought she was just wearing the French maid outfit.]
Just throwing my two cents in before leaving: afaic the perp walk should be illegal for everyone who has not been found guilty.
And I don’t think that handcuffs should be used on suspects who are highly unlikely to attempt escape or violence, especially when the charges are minor. Of course, if that were so, the victim industry would have a field day.
One of the things that makes America great is that law is king. The process to take someone into custody should be standard and not grant privileges or deny rights. The purpose of the process should be to prevent flight and preserve evidence and not to humiliate the accused and force him into a plea or other capitulation. In Strauss-Kahn’s example, I don’t see where a perp walk happened. It was either arrest him immediately or he’s leaving on a jet plane. Then, after that, how was he processed any different than any other person taken into custody?
Curtis: I don’t think there was anything special in terms of a perp walk. I believe that, at the time of the video, DSK was being taken to the hospital for some tests. The press was not warned, but they knew he was in custody and were waiting for hours to catch sight of him and get the photos. The police did not prevent the perp walk in that they didn’t take him through some secret door and by some secret route.
The difference is that in France, publishing photos of someone arrested but not convicted is forbidden by law. So the press doesn’t do it.
Too bad this didn’t happen in TX.
I’ve got a new piece up at PJ entitled, “Perp-Walk the Ruling Class? L’Horreur!”
Coulda been worse. Coulda been a tumbril.
Ben Stein provides a point of view that our treatment of Strauss-Kahn is an embarrassment to our nation. He lists 8 points and then concludes S-K is being treated shamefully. But what he doesn’t allege is that the treatment is different than what other’s experience. In fact, Stein seems to suggest that Strauss-Kahn’s age and his past and his past “service” militate for preferential treatment. And then, Stein does exactly what he believes in uncharitable: assumes facts not yet proved. I can’t prove it, but I bet Stein has never had direct experience with brutal assault. His essentially well-disposed attitude would be probably completely different if he spent much time in a police station.
lhttp://spectator.org/archives/2011/05/17/presumed-innocent-anyone
Only VDH could use the term “teachable moment” and you didn’t realize he just said “teachable moment.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/267456/teachable-moment-american-european-faultines-victor-davis-hanson
I’m confessing. I relish the arrest of this high falutin snotty Socialist and IMF Frenchman. VDH describes why. We don’t hold to titles and privilege over heyah.
DSK is now under suicide watch.
The evidence against him seems overwhelming:
Living witness
Physical crime scene evidence
Security recordings
Additional testimonies
Flight from the scene
Deliberate abandonment of his cell phone…
He’ll need an extra-special Presidential pardon.
———
But since the Resident submitted a totally fabricated phony birth certificate he’s got some squirming to do.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=186343
This presentation is an absolute crusher:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/55594183/Obamas-Cert-of-Birth-May-10-2011-News-Realease
Had an American official been accused of the same offense in France, he or she would quickly find how different the French legal system is from the American system; and the comparison would not be flattering the French system in terms of respect for the rights of the accused.
DSK is a flight risk if freed on bail. the correct course is to hold him without bond until trial and conviction or acquittal by jury. That is our way. The alleged crime occurred on our soil, thus DSK is accused, indited, and tried by our rule of law; not the code of Napoleon.
Just a few links:
http://www.inmalafide.com/blog/2011/05/18/the-real-name-of-dominique-strauss-kahns-rape-accuser-is-nafissatou-diallo/
One thing talkleft IS good for is the defense side of things. They were one of the few leftist outlets to conclude and state publicly within the first month that no rape occurred in the Duke rape hoax.
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2011/5/17/212149/249
Other people have raised issues about the timeline. I remain open to the possibility that this guy is innocent and I remain open to the possibility he is guilty. I will insist he get a fair trial, and I don’t like how , once again, the sensationalist media is treating this.
With all this talk about set-ups and consensual, why doesn’t anyone mention that DSK could have said no. The sleazy upper class has no problem with men using their prestige to prey on women they would not be seen in public with. (Of course, some sleazy women play their own game with sex.) How many chambermaids do you think get invited to IMF receptions?
It looks like DSK has more problems than just a perp walk.
http://gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com/2011/05/more-bad-news-alleged-victim-in-imf-leaders-sexual-abuse-case-lives-in-aids-house/
http://gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com/2011/05/more-bad-news-alleged-victim-in-imf-leaders-sexual-abuse-case-lives-in-aids-house/
OOPSIE!
This is the link for the quote above.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/imf_accuser_in_apt_for_hiv_vics_oZmUkbtouJ14RHw1434HvJ#ixzz1MhuXfiG0
Noting RickZ’s links – Holy c**p! Karma does have her moments, doesn’t she?
He’ll need an extra-special Presidential pardon.
Presidential libraries don’t fund themselves, you know.
Even if the victim has HIV/AIDS, it probably does not put DSK at any risk. If I am recalling the victim’s allegations, they are that he grabbed her in various ways and forced her to fellate him. The risks of contracting AIDS in a scenario like that are almost nil. And even if they had unprotected penile-vaginal intercourse, the risks of the male contracting HIV from an infected female in a single act would be tiny as well.
Alleged victim at this point.
neo,
I agree about the risk of transmission. But if the egotistical pr*ck has to sweat it out a little in Rikers’ medical isolation area, I don’t see the problem.
And yes, Brad, she’s an alleged victim at this point who, by her allegations, just threw open her medical situation for all the world to read. Plus, fearing for her life, the alleged victim went into hiding from the rich and powerful alleged perpetrator.
RickZ:
Now that depends now, doesn’t it?
In most American accounts, even though she accused one of the most powerful men in the world of a heinous crime that doesn’t make sense even considering his past behavior, and doesn’t seem to fit with the initial timeline, her name is still shielded. Meanwhile every alleged incident from his past is being dredged up and taken as gospel proof.
Meanwhile, unlike MOST Joe Schmoe rapists this is one of very few in the world I could believe someone would try to take down with a false accusation.
And how is she fearing for her life when he’s sitting in Rikers? Last I heard, he wasn’t a mafioso. I suppose the IMF could have some thugs that dress in black..
“I suppose the IMF could have some thugs that dress in black..”
A Savile Row suit, silk shirt, nice tie, and Gucci shoes while carrying a briefcase containing a MP 5 and a few 30 round mags is more their style.
Government is necessary, but if not kept severely limited, it easily becomes a monster. IMF, UN, and all the governments and bureaucracies of the world, if not kept on a short leash, are prone to great evil. Its not a conspiracy, its an matter or human nature.
Wretchard had this to say:
>>I think you may find that the mission to get Osama bin Laden and the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn has raised American prestige in the Third World to heights unprecedented since the invasion of Iraq, quite unintentionally. I know the conventional wisdom says that America was hated from the moment it invaded Iraq, but as Lee Smith recounts in his book, The Strong Horse and as I myself witnessed in Lebanon, it positively thrilled much of the Arab street, only they will only confess it in secret.
If you go down to the Times of India you will read comment after comment that says “only in America could such a powerful man be taken off an airplane and made to parade in a police lineup”; “this is true democracy” and “my faith in the world has been restored”. For a world that is accustomed to watching the powerful stamp on the faces of the common man, this the arrest is wonderous, almost unbelievable and nearly on par with the sight of SEALs fleeting through Abbottabad.
I do not say this to prejudge DSK, who may be innocent, only to point out that this is the way much of the world likes to see America; mighty, confident and meting out almost magical justice with seeming effortlessness.
The USS Carl Vinson was recently in Manila, and President Aquino and his cabinet were like delighted kids at an amusement park just waiting to see the F-18s catapaulted off the deck, and the acres of dark gray nonskid-surfaced steel deck dotted with tie-down points, and most of all, though they were requested not to ask, and politely never dreamed of asking, where Bin Laden went to Davy Jones. It was one of those moments when the visitors, in a transformation peculiar to that country, felt proud to be Americans and behaved themselves that way, even if they were technically not.
The truth is that nobody loves an America that goes around shopping apologies. Nor do they like an America that acts like the old Soviet Union. But they do unabashedly love a USA as it dreams to be; with the FBI running down the bad guys and the Marines shooting up the extraterrestrial monsters in Los Angeles. When Superman stands on a skyscraper and proudly proclaims that he aims to uphold Truth, Justice and the American Way he is expressing a secret fantasy felt in so many of the downtroddden parts of the world. “Gee how I wish we had someone like that!” And if you look carefully at the faces staring at the screen, you will see no sophisticated derision; only tears of hopeful joy.
More developments: Apparently DSK used the same madam as Eliot Spitzer!
Well, well, well: small world. And to Ben Stein — with all the accusations of rape and sexual assault now being made by DSK’s French victims, it looks like you’re being solicitous of the welfare of a serial rapist and hardcore lecher.