A Second Hand Conjecture

I really enjoy Radley Balko. Honestly I do. But sometimes he demonstrates with great precision how to be a perfect ass.

How many of you know anything about the name “James Giles?”

[...]

Giles is a Texas man who served 10 years in prison, as well as an additional 14 years on probation and as a registered sex offender, for a rape committed in 1982.

Last week–the same week the Duke lacrosse team was exonerated–Giles too was exonerated, thanks to DNA evidence.

I’m guessing not many of you have heard of Giles. And I’m guessing just about all of you have heard of Reade Seligmann, David Evans, and Collin Finnerty.

This isn’t to diminish what happened to the Duke players. It’s to demonstrate the selective outrage on display from some of their defenders. The Duke guys didn’t do a day of hard time. Giles did 10 years. The Duke guys were wrongfully labeled rapists for a little more than a year. Giles, for 24 years.

Google News count for “Duke lacrosse:” 4,168.

Google News count for “James Giles:” 418.

Google Blog Search hits for “Duke lacrosse:” 32,227.

Google Blog Search hits for “James Giles:” 180.

I’m just sayin’.

Why don’t you tell us exactly what you are saying, Radley? Because from here it looks like you are attempting, and failing, to establish that you are somehow more pure in your enlightenment to the fact that innocent people are sometimes accused of nefarious things, and the rest of us are a bunch of racist boobs. Is that it?

While the similarities may be apparent to you, Radley, the rest of us selective-outragers are having a difficult time reconciling the two cases. Other than the fact that in both instances someone was falsely accused of rape, and that innocence was established in the same week, what else is there? Oh that’s right. More attention was paid to the Duke lacrosse players. Well, let’s just look a little more closely, shall we.

You insinuate that DNA evidence exonerated the defendants in both cases, but that’s not exactly correct. In Mr. Giles’ case, there could not have been any DNA evidence produced at trial to exonerate him, while in the Duke lacrosse players (”DLP”) case there was not evidence that should have been produced, it was deliberately suppressed. DNA evidence didn’t exonerate the Duke boys. “Selective outrage” all over the blogosphere, and most especially here, did that instead.

You neglect to mention that in Giles’ case, another man by the exact same name did rape the victim:

This morning, the Innocence Project and the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office submitted new evidence showing that another man named James Giles, along with two other men, committed the rape.

How is that similar, Radley? I’ll answer for you: It’s not. In the DLP case, there was no rape, only false accusations that changed by the day. Yet despite the lack of any evidence that a rape occurred, in addition to the abundance of evidence that should have exonerated the defendants, three kids effectively had their lives ruined. Does that make it okay that Giles was forced to spend 10 years in jail, effectively ruining his life? Of course not. One does not have anything to do with the other. But somebody should be in jail for rape in the Giles case, while nobody should have even been charged in the DLP situation. Ergo, the cases are entirely different.

As for your insinuation that either more or approximately the same amount of attention should have been paid to both cases, why exactly is that so, Radley? Aside from the fact that news coverage of the Giles case is essentially nonexistent, Giles was released from jail 14 years ago, and the crime itself took place a quarter of century earlier. Moreover, When Giles was sentenced to prison (presumably in 1983) there was no such thing as DNA evidence, and there certainly wasn’t any such thing as blogging (heck, Al Gore hadn’t even invented the internet yet). I understand that, when one is as perfect as thou, fact-checking something so mundane as the similarities between your compared cases is oh-so pedestrian, but perhaps it would have been wise to use that immensely compassionate brain power for at least half a second. At least then maybe you could explain why I should be spending just as much time being “outraged” (as you put it) by the Giles case as I have about the DLP case.

You offer no reason, but your implication seems to be that because the Duke kids are white and Giles is black that it’s just me and my fellow nits being racist. Is that what you are trying to say, Radley? If so, at least be man enough to come out and say it. If not, then I look forward to your explanation of just what you are in fact “sayin’.”

In short, there is nothing substantively similar between the two cases, yet Radley expects us to not only treat them the same, but to exhibit an equal amount of outrage about them. Forgive me for being so crass, Radley, but who the hell do you think you are?

Update: Radley Balko responds.

Update 2: Michael responds –

To start off, I’m not interested in a blogwar with Radley. As I said from the start I really do enjoy his writing and found him to be an intelligent and engaging person the one time we met. As for his response to me, I’ll quote this first:

Well first, I wasn’t saying that everyone who has written or commented on the Duke case is a bigot. I’m saying the sudden rush of coverage and I-do-declare outrage from law-and-order conservatives strikes me as disingenuous, given that for many, this is the first time they’ve ever given a damn about prosecutoral misconduct and due process. Generally, they spend their time doing their damndest to underplay the former and undermine the latter. If MichaelW doesn’t fit into this category (and he doesn’t), then I wasn’t talking about him, and he has nothing to take offense at.

I appreciate the nod of confidence to my character, BUT how was anyone to to know that Radley was speaking to a select group of people? He painted with an indiscriminate brush in his post. And while I appreciate his instinct to be skeptical in the face of a droning chorus of conventional wisdom, it wasn’t DLP defenders who mounted the charge. The media had all but convicted those boys before any evidence had rolled in, and after exonerating facts came to light a disgraceful display of apologia began. Don’t you remember the the lament “We’ve only heard the defense’s side. We don’t know what cards the prosecution is holding.” I sure do, and I took umbrage (although, perhaps I bit down on the bait a little too hard) at being called out for not paying enough attention to James Giles, of whom I had never heard. Moreover, it wasn’t conservatives that introduced race into the picture. That was the media and the usual cadre of race-baiters.

Next from Radley:

Second, I wasn’t saying the cases were exactly similar. Certainly, the media attention granted the Duke players when they were first accused merited continued coverage as the case fell apart (though, ironically enough, the initial media coverage triggered the continued scrutiny and public pressure that made it impossible to continue with the case. Were it not for the media coverage and exposure, Nifong may well have gotten at least to trial, where anything can happen). But the discrepancy in coverage between the two cases is pretty hard to ignore.

I think this is what I had the most problem with. In fact, the cases really aren’t similar at all. I pointed out the many differences above, and I stand by that. There really is no reason whatsoever to draw such a comparison as a means of highlighting the imagined hypocrisy of conservatives, and other DLP defenders.

On the contrary, I think such a comparison is appropriate to draw attention to the lack of media coverage of what is an important issue, i.e. the appalling number of falsely accused and imprisoned people, many of whom are black and were subjected to unfair trials. Personally, I’m not sure that the media has been noticeably silent on the subject, but I would agree with Radley that the DLP case would have been a good segue to shedding more light on the subject.

But, again, this was a media problem, not a DLP defender problem. If the media had focused on the increasingly apparent railroading of the kids instead of the poor hapless victim, then maybe stories like that of James Giles would have suggested themselves. As it turned out, once they took the race/class angle, they couldn’t back down until the waters were muddied enough to allow an about face. I agree with Radley that “the discrepancy in coverage between the two cases is pretty hard to ignore” but I still don’t understand why it is conservatives who bear the brundt of his rhetorical sword.

In any event, Radley provides more details about the James Giles case, and the focus of Project Innocence, so I’ll just recommend that read the entire thing, although I do want to highlight this:

That is, get over the identity politics and cult of victimhood. Yeah, the Duke guys got screwed. But they were exonerated. There are lots more innocent people who need to be exonerated, people who have been in prison a long time, and who don’t have the benefit of high-priced lawyers or media attention or the powerful pundit advocates the Duke players had.

I think that’s a fair enough sentiment. Radley’s right that there are many more innocent people in jail, or formerly imprisoned, who deserve the same chance at exoneration that the DLP and James Giles eventually received. My only problem is with how he called attention to that fact.

I have only two more comments. One is on Radley’s alleged lefty leanings:

Though I’ve gotten lots of emails of support for the issues I’ve covered lately, I’ve also received a few chastising me for becoming a “bleeding heart,” or drifting to the left. Frankly, I don’t care. My positions and principles haven’t changed at all. I’m just spending more time on issues with which I happen to share common cause with the left. And on which I find the right’s indifference particularly appalling.

Whether Radley is right or left is unimportant to me. I know he disagrees with the war, but I really don’t have any problem with that, even as I wholeheartedly disagree with him on the issue., and I don’t think that makes him a lefty. I’ve read enough of his writing to know that he is adamantly against statism and creeping collectivism, and when it comes to economic analysis I’ve never known him to be wrong. By the same token, I don’t think either the DLP case or the James Giles case should be a left-right issue. It’s simply one of justice and freedom, as Radley also noted. For that reason, I would think that the conservatives he calls out (in his rebuttal post) should be commended for comprehending the freedom and justice issues that are so important in the DLP case instead of chiding them and implying racist intent for not saying anything about James Giles.

Finally, Radley names those against whom he meant to take aim in his original post (his emphasis):

Unfortunately, just as the left did with the Imus case, conservatives seemed to have drawn all the wrong lessons from Duke. See Jack Dunphy, Michelle Malkin, and Heather McDonald, all of whom have decided to use the Duke case to lament how the media doesn’t do enough to tell us about how black people are inherently more criminal and dangerous than white people.

Now I haven’t read any of the linked posts, and frankly I’m running out of steam so I doubt I will. Perhaps Radley has a point there, I really don’t know. His take is not at all what I got from any of the conservative coverage. And while I think it is true that the media plays down the amount of crime actually committed by blacks (Radley claims “The stats I’ve seen come out nearly flat when adjusted for class and income”), I was not aware of that issue being real prominent in the DLP discussion. Regardless, I for one would have appreciated a link in the original post to one of those conservative posts Radley now derides. At least then the issue at hand would have been clearer.

So, in the end, I appreciate Radley’s response and I highly recommend you read it, specifically for the James Giles and Project Innocence information.

Technorati Tags: Duke lacrosse case, rape accusations, falsely accused defendants, James Giles, Radley Balko

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