Tracy Thorne-Begland and the Politics of Bigotry and Shame

“So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.”  Immanuel KantCenturies ago, Virginians too numerous to name were vanguards of freedom, people of immense courage and deep principle who in large part forged and then led the United States of America. Their principles, born in Virginia, became the nation of laws that is still a beacon to the entire world.In 1967, Richard and Mildred Loving, two more courageous Virginians, led with their own names as plaintiffs the defeat of a despicable anti-miscegenation law. They birthed freedom for couples everywhere who could then build lives together despite the accident of skin color.In 1992, after three years as a top Navy fighter pilot, Tracy Thorne-Begland decided that, while his life was worth giving up for his country, his integrity was not. He challenged the military’s odious ban on homosexual conduct and suffered life-changing consequences because of it. His acts, while remarkably courageous and principled, were simply a part of his heritage. And while it took almost a generation for that ban to fall, it finally did. Again, the principle and the courage of a Virginian was integral to the effort of achieving freedom.Last week, that Virginian, after strong bi-partisan support, the approval of the judicial vetting committee, 12 honorable years as an assistant commonwealth’s attorney and demonstrable qualifications for a judgeship, was denied it by the legislature because of the unchangeable and innate fact of his sexual orientation. In so doing, the House of Delegates-- the oldest continuous legislative body on the American continent and the very model for all that came after-- rejected not only this honorable Virginian, but everything the Commonwealth of Virginia has stood for in five centuries. Once again, as in the civil rights era, the very ideals Virginia is supposed to embody are mocked and will be tarnished. Once again, the promise of freedom that defines a great Commonwealth is thwarted by the ignorant and hateful impulses of a fading order.The exertions of the Virginia-based Family Foundation are credited for derailing the candidacy of Thorne-Begland, a man dedicated to a partner he can’t call a spouse, yet resides in a lifetime commitment with, raising children, paying taxes and making his community richer, healthier and more vibrant. I don’t know Thorne-Begland personally, but I was also an Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney in Virginia and practiced before the same type of judges he would have joined. As a General District Court Judge in particular, he would almost certainly never have confronted an issue that would have presented any sort of conflict with the circumstances under which he seeks to build a life. Regardless, Thorne-Begland knew how to avoid them, pledged do so, and would have been no more subject to the challenge of impartiality at any level than, say, an outspoken religious figure that the Family Foundation would have trumpeted as a judicial candidate.Thankfully, the Family Foundation and all groups like it will eventually inherit the wind. The freedom Thorne-Begland fought for as a Navy pilot will eventually become reality in Virginia is it has for the military and other environments willing to reject bigotry and embrace tolerance of the essence of what people are. But his repudiation by the leadership of the state, for reasons that will soon be seen as universally and transparently wrong, are hobbling the Commonwealth just as North Carolina will be hobbled by its tragic step backward.So it’s worth noting that Jesus himself, whom the Family Foundation so hypocritically and inaccurately caricatures in order to promote its venom, said nothing about homosexuality. But in Matthew 10:14, he provides a warning, and one that should echo ominously in the ears of anyone who cares about a Virginia not marked and then shunned because of bigotry it could not defeat with its own elected leadership: “If anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake the dust off of your feet when you leave that home or town.”Begland-Thorne and his family don’t appear to be going anywhere, a blessed circumstance for their community and their Commonwealth. But they could be forgiven for doing just that.

The Fantasy of the Dragon Tattoo

The suffering, revenge and eventual triumph of Rooney Mara’s character in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo over institutionalized rape is something that stands out even as a minor subplot in a fairly complicated film. And what she is able to accomplish against her abuser is nothing short of fantastic in the traditional sense of the word: It is the product of fantasy. Tragically, for untold numbers of victims placed in the situation that Rooney’s character, Lisbeth Salander is, fantasy must suffice.I use the term “institutionalized rape” because that’s how I view what happened to the character of Salander, a legally incompetent ward of the state deemed mentally unstable. She is subjected to sexual torture by a predatory bureaucrat who controls her finances after her legal guardian suffers a stroke. He withholds money for essentials like food and electricity, releasing funds only when she endures sexual acts. Eventually he demands that she come to his home where he anally rapes her while she is strapped to a bed.As the predator discovers, however, Salander is not what she appears to be, which is the “typical” helpless victim. Instead she is a computer genius armed with a photographic memory, intense athletic prowess, and an iron will. She has the wherewithal to secretly film herself being raped, and eventually uses that evidence to not only control the predator’s actions toward her, but also to effectively paralyze him from harming other similarly situated women and girls in his sphere of control. But not until brutalizing him justly and branding him a rapist with crude tattoos across his ample mid-section.In short, she is a rightful, rageful hero to women and children everywhere who have experienced that kind of abuse. And believe me, abuse at the hands of a protected cog in a monolithic institutional wheel is abuse that is grossly under reported and almost never vindicated.I suspect that what Salander endures at the hands of the all-powerful authority who holds the keys to her very survival is even more impactful in the context of a social democracy like Sweden where the state intrudes further into everyday life than it does in the U.S. Regardless, what she suffers is time-honored and sickeningly resilient despite reforms and efforts to eliminate it. Across the globe and in every possible arrangement of human organization, predators seek, find and feed.The reason is simple. Predators infiltrate the institutions that provide them power to predate and victimize. It’s true that power corrupts, but more importantly, it attracts. Power attracts predators who will seek it as a catalyst to get the things they want. If what they want is sexual control over others, they’ll infiltrate the institutions society creates that will allow for such abuses. There is no shortage of them.What’s wonderful and dreamlike about Lisbeth Salander is that she embodies the intoxicating if mostly fanciful notion that resourcefulness, brilliance and brutal determination can turn the tables on a powerful predator and render him limp and lame.  Sadly, for most, it is only a dream.

Reflections On International Women's Day

Her name is Molly. She taught me how to prosecute sex crimes and child abuse.Her name is Sue. She taught me how her brand of nursing heals, and nurtures justice.Her name is Judy. She gave me the understanding I needed to view the victims in my cases with the compassion and respect they deserved.This was in Alexandria, Virginia, where I cut my teeth on the fight that has shaped my life.  In the Bronx, New York, where I went next and where I was reduced to shreds as a prosecutor in a very different and more brutal environment, there was Elisa, Beth Ann, Danielle, Rachel, and many more. They picked me up, gave me the courage to go on, and reminded me who I was fighting for in the first place.I have worked with and for women most of my career.  They have forged in most cases the path I’ve chosen in every area of my professional life. They have challenged the status quo, afflicted the comfortable, made waves in order to make lives better, and advanced the cause of those who suffer- women, men, boys and girls- in more ways than I could ever properly express.The current fight on multiple fronts regarding contraception and reproductive rights has many of them (particularly those who fought the previous battles) scratching their heads as to why a war still rages. I have few answers, but I suspect that dying ideals tend to trumpet loudly in desperation rather than strength. The struggle for what is right in terms of public policy is complex; I make no move to settle it here. I’ll only say that, in terms of several of the ideals held by some in the culture wars, death is imminent.Our country will be one where gay people will legally marry. Our country will be one where Spanish either exceeds English or more likely merges with it in a mezclado mish-mash with a few other languages thrown in. Our country will be one where human life is highly valued, as it should be, but in balance with the value of the one gender blessed to bring it forth.Her name is Florence, and she is my mother. Her spirituality takes shape within Roman Catholicism, but for 73 years she has bravely forged her own path to God. She gave to me a faith of love, charity, and a wise but equally childlike sense of kindness and decency. The first gay people I knew, I knew at her table. The first who believed differently than we did, I learned from in her kitchen. Food is love to her, and it has blessed the happy and content, but just as often the dispossessed, the outsider, the sick or dying, the simply lonely.She is not angel. She is a woman. But she is why my heart beats, both literally and figuratively. The coming generations will view her- and her sisters in gender- as equals. They will do so or they will perish. It’s really that simple.

Crossing the Line, As Usual

There's really no question that the photograph above is sexually violent. There's also no question that the subject is underage, the child supermodel Hailey Clauson, who is 17. Max Pearmain, a British fashion editor and stylist (I'm pretty girly for a straight guy but not so girly that I know exactly what a "stylist" does professionally) is apparently the brains behind the full layout which can be seen on his blog.

Kudos to Jezebel, probably my favorite online magazine, for bringing this to light.  As they already point out, it's unbelievably creepy. And it joins a child with a porn star for a photo shoot (they're holding hands in one shot).  While this isn't the crime of the century, it's really the kind of thing that should be avoided.

Yes, I know. We Americans are dull, overly uptight puritans.  We should be more relaxed, like our free-wheeling European betters. Whatever.

First, a child is a child.

Second, no woman should be portrayed this way; with a large hand, attached to a hairy arm, grasping her throat. To the extent that excites someone, it's wrong and so are they. But lo and behold, at the time of this writing, the first two comments to the Jezebel story "point out" that what was being depicted was 1) consensual and 2) common, apparently, for women during sex.

If erotic asphyxiation is an agreed upon activity between consenting, legally competent adults, then I'll be the last person to stand in it's way. But that's a far cry from depicting the strangulation of a child in a way that is most definitely meant to be sexually stimulating.

I hope and pray that Hailey Clauson grows to be a healthy, happy and strong woman, able to enjoy her beauty and success and make the most of every opportunity. If, God forbid, she instead stumbles onto a tragic path because of what she's being joined with and exposed to now, I'll have little patience for the hand-wringers who will then wonder how it happened.

Pobrecita

“Beeper duty” is what’s it’s called.   For ADA’s in the Bronx District Attorneys Office, it means a 24 hour shift in which the Assistant District Attorney responds to serious assaults and homicides that occur in the borough when someone in authority deems it necessary.It’s not nearly as garish as it was back in the day. My mentors at BXDA, there since the 80’s, remember a time when beeper duty involved a separate pager reserved just for homicides, when ADA’s were literally “beeped” from location to location for the entire period, encountering shot-through, rotting, broken, body after body in the gruesome series of killings that plagued the Bronx before the relative calm that finally settled in by the mid 90’s.I was on beeper duty on a random Tuesday night in April of 2007, shortly before leaving BXDA.  It was one of the roughly 15 days of perfect weather the New York area experiences every year.  A beautiful spring day darkened into a warm, breezy, evening.  I got the beeper at 9:00 a.m. and worked my typical day. The beeper was blessedly silent.  Knowing I had the thing for 16 hours after that, I planned an evening with two of my favorite NYPD detectives, Brian Carey and Lourdes Gonzeles, both of the Bronx Special Victims Unit.  They were working that night, and I had a couple of tasks out in the community I needed their help with.  Brian and Lulu were partners, and two of the best people I’ve worked with in any environment.  Lulu had taken a bullet to her arm as a young cop; Brian ruined his knee and required a brutal series of surgeries after chasing a perp not long after the night I write about now.   The two of them are open-hearted, deeply decent, dear friends- big reasons why I love cops the way I do.We chased down my witnesses and then went to dinner in one of the myriad, little known, and phenomenal restaurants that dot the Bronx and that only locals and NYPD really know.  It was a great night. The weather was angelic.  The company was sublime.  We ate, we bitched about city employment, we reminisced.  From there I stayed with the two of them as they worked through their evening until it was past midnight.  They offered a couple of times to run me back to the west side of Manhattan where I lived; Brian spent years on the mayor’s security detail and could bridge distances throughout New York City with breathtaking brevity.  But I was happy being out. I was on duty anyway, and it was a beautiful night.And then Lulu got the call.There was a dead baby at Lincoln, meaning Lincoln Hospital Center, in the South Bronx.  The baby had been brought in by her parents, a young couple, and the circumstances of death were unknown.  The parents were talking to Administration for Children’s Services, or ACS.  There was nothing to prompt a murder investigation yet, but Special Victims needed to respond with an ADA.  Lulu and Brian had that covered.  At about 1:15, we headed over to Lincoln.I never met the parents of the baby.  I left the office shortly after that duty shift, and I don’t believe either of them or anyone else was charged in relation to her death. I never knew what killed her.  I only knew that she was about 13 weeks old.We usually see the dead in one of several general circumstances: the actual place where they died, the morgue, or the funeral home.  I had seen dead children in those places.  I had never, for whatever reason, seen a dead baby in the sterile, ordered confines of a hospital room, as of yet unprocessed for transport to the morgue.  She had been classified dead on arrival, or DOA. So there were no tubes, no wires, none of the apparatus often associated with the extremities of modern medicine. She was not in a bathtub, a gutter, or the bench seat of a car.  She was not tucked into the white silk pocket of a hideously undersized casket.  She was just still, lying neatly and peacefully on an exam table.There was a nurse’s assistant attending to the baby in a way I can only describe as lovingly desperate, as if even in death this girl-child needed tenderness and attention.  The assistant adjusted the blankets over the baby as if she still might feel a chill in the exam room.  Brian and Lulu left me and went to talk to the ER docs who had seen the baby.The nurse’s assistant was an older Latina woman.  She saw me, in the hallway in a rumpled suit and tie with an advanced 5:00 shadow and reddened eyes. She smiled and I greeted her in Spanish, a language I am conversational but not fluent in. Despite probably speaking English, she answered me in her language which I’m always grateful for.  It’s good practice.“Senora, soy fiscal,” I said quietly. I’m a prosecutor.  “Estoy con los detectivos.  Por favor, puedo verla?,” I asked.  Can I see her? She nodded and beckoned me into the room.The baby girl was perfect.  Doll-like with long, curving eyelashes, unblemished, coffee-colored skin and plump, smooth, healthy-looking arms and legs. Her eyelids were closed and she lay almost poised, her stillness seeming attributable to something other than what it was, which was death. But it didn’t look like death.  It seemed as if she knew someone was watching her sleep.  I crossed myself and the assistant joined me.“Pobrecita, no?” she said, out loud and as much to the universe as to me.  She asked this the way Spanish speakers do, in a rhetorical fashion.  No one other than God is expected to have an answer.  Poor little thing, no? “Si.  Claro,” I said.Yes.  Of course.

Where Do We Go From Here?

This week I had the honor of speaking at the DePaul University College of Law in Chicago, sponsored by their remarkably vibrant and inventive Family Law Center. I was joined by Lester Munson, a senior sportswriter and legal analyst at ESPN. Munson is funny, blunt, opinionated, and apparently a big part of the conscience of pro and college sports. He’s doing exactly what a journalist and a sports fan should, in my view.I listened to him discuss the Penn State case, with some detail and context that I lack simply for want of his understanding of the game and the dynamics of the Paterno dynasty. As I listened, it struck me even deeper how inexcusable the decisions were that slithered out from the circle of men in control of it.It also begged the question of what we can do going forward. What can we do to prevent another predator at another venerated institution from leaving a long and concealed trail of wreckage? What can we do in general about this miserable part of our own nature?I am often invited to make observations based on what I know from research and my own professional experience. That’s the easy part. I can speak for hours on what’s wrong, why it’s wrong, and even a little bit about where it stems from. The hard part is when a sincere, decent person in the audience asks me “what, then? What do we do?"For now at least, this is what I had to offer:-Do more to understand the urge that leads to sexual violence, because it is anything but obvious or easy to comprehend.-Consider prevention efforts, but be fair and realistic about them. Most of the traditional ones do not work.-Abandon foolish ideas that many or most complaints are false or incorrect, or that violent situations are just the product of mistake, intoxication or just ‘roughness’ on the part of a violator.-Reduce the power and mystique of institutions by valuing human beings individually more than we value the institutions themselves.-Finally, accept that sexual violence, for now, is a part of the human condition.The last one is the hardest, for most, to really own and internalize. But we must.We have done much, in rich cultures at least, to add abundance to our lives and sanitize our physical experience so that we can be dignified, clean, clothed and presentable. More importantly, we have made great strides in nurturing our minds and souls. We can free ourselves much more effectively from depression and dysfunction. We can sow hope where it’s been banished. We can bind emotional wounds that formerly truncated our own lives and infected countless others.But where our sexuality is concerned, we’re still surprisingly in the dark. We know what appeals to us and what makes us more appealing. We certainly know what sells. But we don’t fully understand the line between sexuality and sexual violence- a line that, once it’s crossed, marks the end of defensible eroticism and the beginning of misery and injustice.We do not yet know how to fully acknowledge our sexuality without the intrusion of myth, mores, and standards. I do not, for the record, believe that all mores and standards are wrong it comes to our sexuality. Part of what lends us our dignity is the ideal that our sexuality can be robust and varied, but closely controlled and never a weapon. Nevertheless, it’s undeniable that some of the standards we’ve imposed on each other sexually do more harm than good, and perpetuate damaging ignorance and misunderstanding.Most importantly, we still don’t know how to keep from judging each other when one of us is sexually abused. We can’t effectively protect each other from the abuse that springs from our most cherished creations- our institutions. We can’t yet do these things because we have neither fully grasped nor fully faced what we are, and are capable of, as sexual beings. That won’t happen until we open our minds first and our mouths second.Take a page from the gay and lesbian movement during the plague of AIDS.Candor and understanding move us forward.Ignorance and denial hold us back.Silence equals death. Still.

Myth and Innuendo In the Greg Kelly Investigation

She waited three months to report.She has a boyfriend who was angered by the situation.Sex-themed text messages may have been exchanged before the night in question, and ones suggesting another meeting may have been sent after.She has a Facebook page upon which she posted “nothing out of the ordinary” during the month where the alleged crime occurred.She joined the man she’s accusing at a bar that hangs women’s underwear from the ceiling.Dear God, why is anyone even investigating this? Why is Martha Bashford, the highly capable sex-crimes chief at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, wasting time to determine what happened between this complainant and Greg Kelly?Hopefully because Bashford isn’t being swayed by “law enforcement sources,” quoted widely in the media this week and assigning authoritative finality to factors like the ones above. DA Vance has firmly stated he doesn’t know the source of the leaks and does not condone them. He has good reason beyond their basic irresponsibility.  They reflect a stunning ignorance regarding the reality of sexual violence.I have no idea if Greg Kelly is guilty of anything; it’s been a week since a complaint was made and there are far more questions than answers. Hence the investigatory process and venerable presumption of innocence. Kelly has been charged with no crime. He deserves to be treated respectfully and without smearing or assumption.  But to assert that the case against him is false because of the factors being touted is dangerous nonsense.-Delayed reporting is hardly abnormal or indicative of a false report, despite the fantasies of apparent "veteran investigators." Delaying is extremely common, if anything the norm rather than the exception in acquaintance cases. Survivors delay reporting for dozens of valid reasons, most exacerbated by the circumstances seen here (a celebrity accused, a media frenzy, microscopic scrutiny of the victim, etc).-The idea that women regularly, falsely report being raped in order to cover regretful behavior or the betrayal of another relationship is vacuous. Has it happened?  Surely. Is it remotely common?  Hardly.  Reporting rape falsely and enduring what follows is anything but a typical impulse, let alone a popular choice when confronted by an angry boyfriend who wants to know why you’re pregnant.- Sexually charged texts from a woman to a man prior to an encounter says absolutely zero about whether that man is capable of raping her either by force or as a result of physical helplessness. It also says zero about her inclination or ability to tell the truth about an event she recalls as a crime. Rather, they demonize her as someone less deserving of legal vindication no matter what happened.  Texting afterward might be more problematic, but it depends on the context, what was said, and when. If the texts sought clarification of what happened (which would make sense in a case alleging severe intoxication and incapacity to consent), they are hardly smoking guns. What of texts suggesting another meeting? Again, it depends- when were they made in context to when she realized fully what had happened? An evolving sense of what occurred is also not uncommon in cases where incapacity through intoxicants is suspected.Comparisons are already being made between this situation and the cases of meteorologist Heidi Jones (who fabricated a rape complaint originating in Central Park), Kobe Bryant, and Duke Lacrosse.  Never mind that Jones accused no one by name (very common in false complaints), Bryant’s legal team savagely wore down the complainant until she gave up (yet he later apologized), and the complainant in Duke Lacrosse was so severely mentally ill that authorities suspected she probably believed her own lies.The issues so far in this nascent case present challenges for the prosecution; that is undisputed. Kelly may be innocent of anything criminal, a fact which may genuinely co-exist with the complainant’s belief that she was violated.But to conflate these challenges with the recklessness and moral bankruptcy that must accompany falsely accusing a man of rape- at this point and on these factors- is dangerously unfair and ignorant.  The "sources” publicly voicing skepticism should be kept far away from the investigation. Commentators, particularly former sex crimes prosecutors who should know better, are doing little good by furthering myths they either 1) never understood as such, or 2) allowed to intimidate them into inaction. If these things occurred when they were on the job, it was the victims who paid the price.If the complainant has falsely accused Kelly, then she is already getting what she deserves. If her complaint is valid or at least sincere, she is getting far, far worse. My prayer is that NYDA gets it right, and for the right reasons.

Vulnerabilty, Danger, and Blame

“There is no vulnerability without danger.”  Veronique Nicole Valliere, Psy.D.It’s a simple and brilliant truth, introduced to me at a sex assault prosecution training in 2009. The doc was discussing how we blame women (and men) who are sexually assaulted, particularly when their choices leading up to the attack make them, in most minds, “more vulnerable.” Like when they drink too much, or when they go home with a man they don’t know well. And so on.When I heard it, I nodded sagely. Sure, I believed in what I called “rape prevention,” and felt that everyone needed to take some responsibility for their own personal safety. But that’s all. I wasn’t anywhere near victim blaming. Because I was too smart for that. Too enlightened. Too smugly ensconced as one of the more influential sex assault prosecution experts nationwide. So naturally, I understood her perfectly.Except that I didn’t. Because I was victim blaming, even though I told myself I wasn’t. And in buying into the kind of “rape prevention” I believed in, I was a part of the problem. Many of us, most with the best of intentions, still are.The ad above from the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (now pulled) sparked a debate in feminist circles. The ad itself wasn’t the issue; most agreed it was offensive. Visually it sexualized violence, right down to the blue underwear around the seductively placed ankles matching the tile on the floor. That’s not a representation of the aftermath of a felony. It’s wanna-be pornography. And of course, it callously blamed both the curled up, naughty-girl and her irresponsible friends for not preventing the rape she apparently endured. No mention of the rapist.But while the attempt was botched, the underlying message begged a question: Shouldn't we warn girls and women about the dangers of losing control, and thus “becoming vulnerable?” Isn’t it simply a dangerous world, like it or not? Of course it is and of course we should, went the argument. It was a bold one apparently, expectant of a backlash from uber-feminist PC police who would label it victim blaming even though the goal was simply to “reduce vulnerability.”  When the backlash came, I initially sided against it. I had seen a career's worth of victimization- how could I not encourage safe behavior myself, in the name of reducing vulnerability? Because vulnerability invites danger.  Right?Wrong.Go back to the statement at the top of the page. Vulnerability does not exist unless danger is present. Choices, however reckless they appear, do not create danger anymore than liquor creates rape in a man who is not a rapist. Danger exists because of the choices dangerous people- rapists, in this case- make. From this reality, two others flow: First, encouraging young people (the most at-risk population, male or female) to avoid victimization through more responsible behavior will not prevent a single rape, as author Jaclyn Friedman points out in her piece on the subject. Rape is never an accident, and it’s almost always a planned attack. The rapist who cannot target the "better-behaved" woman will find one who isn’t. So there won't be less rape, just rape of perhaps different people. Of course, the predictable rejoinder is “well my daughter won’t be the targeted person, then.” Game, set, match. Admonish away.Except that she might be regardless, which is the second reality that results from Dr. Valliere’s observation. The woman who believes she is safer because she’s avoiding something like heavy drinking might well be safer to a particular kind of attack. But there are many others, and being lulled into a false sense of security because of the avoidance of one behavior will likely blind her to the danger that can exist under the most responsible appearing of circumstances.  Women are raped by trusted friends. They’re raped during the daytime while studying or just listening to music with known, clean-cut, well-regarded men in their communities, on their campuses, from their churches. Alcohol is extremely helpful to acquaintance rapists. But it is hardly their only tool.Youth involves blind spots, but regardless of age, risk-taking is at bottom the essence of life.  There is no elimination of it short of solitary confinement. What we must do is grasp that vulnerability exists only when danger is present, and turn the focus rightly on the dangerous and away from the endangered.Because when we create rules, particularly ones laced with moral superiority in order to somehow deliver us from evil, we then distance ourselves from those who break them. When those people are victimized, we rest easy, believing that our wisdom and temperance saved us. But there are always more rules, both to make and to break.  In the end, all that rule making accomplishes is the encouragement of an insidious urge to will to life something other than luck separating us from the unlucky.  So we'll draw attention to the choices the rule breakers made that we wouldn’t make. And we'll blame them for theirs.

In Paterno We Trusted. Now We're Left Cold.

Death comes for us all.  And while it seems to have come with relative and merciful swiftness for Joseph Paterno, there are many who believe that the man truly died in November of last year when his Valley was flooded with sick, pale light and a stinking truth stirred in its glare.  Death was not swift, but rather a protracted, miserably public, three-month torture session.  Some see this as the gross mistreatment of a scapegoat who had nothing to be ashamed of.  Others view it as the bitterly just end of a pompous villain, brought low in time to suffer his downfall. Neither view is accurate or at all helpful.What must be avoided, in fact, is a binary approach to viewing the man as his body cools and his soul proceeds to whatever is next.  Demanding that Paterno be either lionized or demonized allows for a pernicious diversion from what desperately needs to be understood, which is how the demons of secrecy, misery and darkness thrived in “Happy Valley” in the first place.Far too many would prefer a two-dimensional explanation to the real one.  They’d prefer, consciously or not, to reduce the shattering, life-altering experience of God-only-knows how many victims, fueled and protected by a monstrosity of an institution, to a stage play and a handful of players.  Western culture and the tender, succor of myth shield us nicely; it’s not a frightening, complex issue at all, but rather a simple “Greek tragedy” with an almost poignant, tsk-tsk lesson for those with ears to hear.  Paterno was its flawed hero, its fallen angel. A neatly wrapped archetype for the ages to follow.This is dangerous oversimplification.Acknowledging that the allegations are yet unproven, I believe they are true and that they involve far more than nine victims. I also believe that whatever blame there is for what occurred at Penn State is shared more broadly and in more nuanced ways than much of what’s been suggested so far.To be clear, I do not in the least blame the innocent spirit that underpins the excitement of cheering for the team.  I fully acknowledge the greatness of the football tradition that has played such a positive role in the development of the university, the lives of the players, and the fans and supporters. But if there is one thing I believe our universe is truly ordered with, it is the unbending concept of the yin-yang, the Chinese philosophical intellection that tells us light cannot exist without darkness, joy without sorrow, pleasure without pain.Prize without price.For decades, the prize of Penn State football greatness was won by many, but guided by, channeled through and embodied in Joe Paterno.  To assume that that prize came without some price exacted for it is the height of foolishness. The question is not whether it was paid, but how and by whom.  Paterno apparently had high personal and professional standards and valued character, service, and education as much as he did wins. He should be remembered warmly for it and emulated appropriately. But as well, he was both product and protector of an entity far too large for any ‘saint’ to control, and more importantly one that was depended on to produce: Money. Glory. Status. The entity became a beast. The beast needed to be fed. It’s worth noting that the Sandusky matter is not the first time institutional concerns and image have been accused of taking precedence over the welfare of youth in Happy Valley.While many questions remain unanswered, it appears at this point that Paterno acted without malice, but also with at least dangerous naïveté and at worst a perception noxiously colored by the responsibilities he felt toward his institution. His “superiors” appear much more directly responsible for decisions that apparently allowed a predator to spread additional misery in amounts we are years if ever from fully grasping. But wherever these men fall on the scale of guilt and accountability, it is the institution- the beast- they served that likely guided their decisions whether they fully understood it or not.And beyond these caretakers are the rest of us. We who demand the glory of gridiron victory to fill our lives, diminishing those who cannot deliver it. We who increasingly depend on the filling of stadiums rather than  public commitment to fund research and open classrooms. We who allow the stakes to rise higher and higher until nothing else can possibly trump the needs of the hungry institutions we've created, regardless of what unholy things thrive within their bowels.  We who eventually agree, whether in high-level meetings or in our own hungry hearts, that nothing else matters.Certainly not the silent anguish of boys on cold, locker room floors.

At a University of Vermont Fraternity, A Brother With A Problem

It’s really not a secret: I have a pretty strong 'anima' or feminine side.I don’t resent it. I think it’s made me a much more effective special victims prosecutor over the years. And in any event it’s who I am. My closest circle of male friends will readily confirm that I navigate those friendships more as if I were a spouse or partner than any sort of a “guy’s guy.” That can be frustrating for everyone involved. And of course, I have my professionally inspired inferences, which should and do make me more sensitive to things like rape culture, male privilege, and other issues faced by women and girls in ways that most men really can’t imagine. So yeah- I’m something of a woman trapped in man's body if you’re going to buy into a lot of generalizations about how women think and react, and what it means to be emotionally “feminine.”So be it. Nevertheless, I’m a straight guy and generally typical where sexual fantasizing is concerned. So shameful or not, tasteless or not, over the years and at every social stage of my life, I'll readily admit that I’ve taken some part in the game of “Hey man, who would you sleep with in [insert environment here]?”And believe me, it can be any environment. And it is every environment, at least where members of the opposite sex are even remotely observable. A high school Spanish class. A summer camp. A basic training unit, an introductory psychology course, the 5^th floor of a dorm, an office mail room, the accounting department, the DNA lab, etc, etc, etc.Yes, it’s tawdry. And utterly pointless. Regardless, it’s what men do. Gay men do it as well, and sometimes in mixed groups we’ll all play the game, with the gay guys making their own considered judgments about men, and often commenting with high degrees of validity on women as well.For most of us, this stupid tradition begins innocently, scattered across that late elementary to middle or junior high school period where girls become suddenly and then perpetually interesting (and of course, for homosexual boys it really can’t begin until they find themselves in much more progressive environments then the kind I came up in). So it might start in 5^th grade or thereabouts with “who would you want to see without her clothes on?” But it quickly progresses to more imaginative and specific scenarios, and it never really stops. It’s far from angelic, often inaccurate, and always objectifying. It’s wrong and I won’t make excuses for it.I’ll also note that, regardless of what I do and who I am or profess to be, I’ve played the game in places that are hardly feminist enclaves. I’ve played it in warehouses, on airport tarmacs and construction sites where I worked for years before entering professional life. I’ve played it in countless police cars, detective squad rooms, bars, diners and alleyways, passing the time for various reasons and waiting for something to happen. I’ve played it with men educated and not, supposedly enlightened and not, gentle and not.What I’ve never, ever heard in roughly 35 years is any man, anywhere, ask “so if you could rape someone, who would it be?”It’s true: That cyber-blessed term “WTF” was honestly coined for such an abomination.There are variations of this game I will remove myself from or avoid if I detect cruelty or a line I just don’t feel comfortable crossing. But no guy in my experience has ever even approached the idea of rape. Ever. If I could rape someone, who would it be? Even writing that out makes me cringe.So “WTF” the fraternity brother at the University of Vermont was thinking when he added that to the lets-get-know-each-other ‘new brother questionnaire’ is worth exploring. And I mean between him and a good mental health provider. Because it’s more than just tasteless; it’s downright scary. Perhaps the guy who wrote this and anyone else at this chapter of Sigma Phi Epsilon who deemed it acceptable is just remarkably awkward and clumsy with word choice. But I’ll vote for disordered. The word “rape” is one of the ugliest in our language. It’s mono-syllabic, blunt, and shocking. It’s supposed to be. While it usually doesn’t involve these things, it conjures in most minds gratuitous violence, torn clothing, screaming, and injury. It at least evokes- as it should- terror and a life-altering, shattering experience of trauma on the part of the victim. So how it could be in any way confused with the desire to engage with someone sexually is beyond me. There are psychological and legal terms for men who only or primarily respond to non-consensual sexual situations. If that’s the case with the questionnaire author or authors, then those who share their environment should know about it.I'm glad that (at least) there's been a tremendous backlash at UVM and an appropriate student response to the leaked document. I hope this gratifying response lingers after the dust settles, and that male and female students in this well-loved college environment continue to reject the idea of anything like this in their midst. Because it’s more than just disgusting. It’s dangerous.

Brownian Movement and Penn State

“Presumed Innocent” was perhaps the one book that led me more than any other into law school and prosecution.In it, Scott Turow describes “Brownian Movement,” the apparently random collision of particles in the air, resulting in a hum that children can sometimes hear before the bones of the inner-ear harden in puberty. Turow’s character, a married man, describes the allure of other women as something akin to Brownian Movement before meeting the woman in his office who becomes his love interest and is already murdered as the story begins. When he meets her, that movement rises to a fever pitch.The fact of evil in the world is something I’ve often related to Turow’s view of Brownian Movement. The circumstances of my professional life assure me that it is there. I accept it. On streets and in train cars, passing houses, farms and city blocks, I am aware of its presence. It hums, usually just above or below the surface of my thoughts. I can, thankfully, usually tune it out when I’m with my toddler nephew or in the festive company of my parents and other loved ones.But then sometimes, as it did to the tortured character of Rusty Sabich, it hums louder. It sings.That is the Penn State sex abuse scandal. Many fans and members of the university community would prefer that it be called the Jerry Sandusky sex scandal, but I won’t (even the word “scandal,” frankly, trivializes this horror as if it was a torrid affair between celebrities). That’s because Sandusky is, as happens when institutions inadvertently protect predators, almost a minor character in the volcanic ugliness that is this situation. Of course, Sandusky allegedly represents the center of the pathos that stalked the Penn State community and now threatens to scar it forever. But Sandusky is not the embodiment of it. Rather, he is ultimately a trigger in the larger, full horror of the situation. The cover-ups, the rug sweeping, the second-guessing and rationalization, all in service to a 70 million dollar a year enterprise, represent the true scope of the evil that is Penn State.And the cancer grows.A young man mercifully cloaked- for now- as “Victim 1” has left his high school, about 30 miles from Penn State, because of bullying. He has apparently been blamed by fellow students for the unearthing of the truth surrounding the revered and local behemoth. This is an excruciating multiplication- in numbers at least- of the type of incomprehensible betrayal child sex abuse victims often feel within their own families when the abuse is uncovered. Victims are usually never more alone than after the abuse is discovered, whether they purposely revealed it or not. Siblings, non-offending parents, even grandparents are suddenly distant or much worse. The victim, after all, has “torn the family apart,” interrupted possible financial support, brought shame upon the family because of a ‘splash effect’ that will surely color the whole clan, etc, etc. The fact of the perpetrator’s utter and sole guilt for all of these depredations simply gets lost as younger siblings grapple innocently but cruelly with the separation, the shame, and the doubt. Older members who should know better still often fail with wildly differing degrees of willfulness to shield the child from blame. And of course, in many cases, this is exactly what the perpetrator warned the child would happen if s/he dared reveal anything.This is perhaps the farthest reach of the anguish that is child sexual abuse. When perpetrators warn children not to tell, they are not always bluffing. In fact, when they warn of betrayal, anger, collapsing support and utter isolation, they are more often than not right on target. The system can only react one way, which generally confirms fears related to a separation of the family, time in foster care, police presence and judicial appearances. This is terrifying beyond words for most adults, let alone children. But when the second shoe falls, when family members disbelieve, equivocate, or flat out resent despite believing, the suffering blooms like blood in water. The child is forever changed. Recantation is typical, and valid cases more often than not go nowhere.Sandusky, according to statements, demanded secrecy and seems to have leaned on his alleged victims actively, calling them repeatedly and appearing even needy and clingy at times. I have no idea if or how he warned them of other consequences for revealing what he was doing, but frankly it would have been superfluous. He was Jerry Sandusky, and they were in or near State College. He allegedly hunted through his own charity and perpetrated in athletic facilities. He was figuratively at God’s right hand.And there’s the rub. If that phrase- God’s right hand- offends religious readers, I apologize. But the point needs to be made. Penn State football became, through a confluence of circumstances surrounding an iconic and otherwise honorable coach, a deity to be worshiped rather than a college team to be rooted for. The resulting millions in revenue silenced anything that might have tainted or challenged this entity. If reports are true, then Sandusky allowed a beast inside of him to run free in the permissive environment that the god-thing allowed. That’s what happens when institutions become godlike: Predators either seek to infiltrate them, or blossom within them once it becomes obvious they can.Allegations at Syracuse’s equally revered and powerful basketball program and the Boston Redsox organization now follow. There will be more, as sure as Catholic dioceses the world over exploded in fire-cracker sequence, breaking my heart around the time I entered this field. Skeptics and die-hard fans will cry foul and insist there is money and fame to be gained in jumping on the bandwagon Penn State has started with false allegations. In almost all cases, they’ll be wrong. And God help the victims who will come forward despite the scorn, the bullying, and the dull, mean hate that coming forward will win them against these institutions.By all appearances, the wide world of sports must now endure a bloodletting. For the sake of the many good things athletics brings to players and fans alike, I hope its leaders stand tall and its fans prove gentle and open-hearted. But regardless, the world of sports is cracking, opening, splitting. That high, insistent hum is rising yet again.

Of Angels, A Stranger, and an Absent Father

“Though we share so many secrets, there are some we never tell.” William Martin (Billy) JoelHe called it “The Stranger” and titled a 1977 masterpiece after it.   In my business we sometimes refer to it as the “third persona” with a nod to Jungian psychology.  A persona is simply a mask, the figurative one we put on to interact with others as we go about our lives.  Most of us wear several of them. Our first persona, generally, is what we show to the viewing world. A second may be what we show a lover or a trusted friend, sometimes intermittently and whether we want to or not.  But the third is a dark animal indeed. It’s the face we show to no one. It’s the side of ourselves we seek to conceal at all costs.  We all have these shadows of ourselves, these Strangers, inside of us.  As the song says, they are not always evil, and they are not always wrong.  But whether our third persona is harmless or not, a wicked trick of the mind is that we almost always to fail to recognize that it exists in others. We assume, tragically at times, that we can fully know people around us because of the personas they reveal to us. We tell ourselves that we can sense, we can see, we can discern.We can’t. The Stranger remains, hidden and invisible.Jerry Sandusky is no exception. He was charitable. He was hard working. He was skilled, admired, and accomplished. He was also, according to eye-witness testimony, a child rapist.  His third persona was apparently demonic, and regardless of how ugly and evil, his closest relatives, his wife, his co-workers and his legendary boss would not have detected it based on what he chose to show them. Thus reveals the one merciful thing that can perhaps be said about the group of men who, from all appearances at this point, conspired to protect Jerry Sandusky at the expense of so much. They didn’t understand the third persona, and believed they knew a man because of accomplishments and attributes that say nothing about what he is capable of otherwise.But mercy for men like Paterno, Curley, Schultz and others in the Institution that is Penn State evaporates with the reality that Sandusky’s persona was exposed at crucial times.  There were revelations- a smaller word will not suffice- that vomited a glimpse of it to the great Institution and to its “sainted” mastodon at different points on a long timeline.  These revelations are sometimes the only indications an otherwise decent community will receive that a predator stalks its children. The child victims themselves, God bless them, are often the last who will reveal the Stranger in the man; it’s just a bridge too far most of the time.Those without faith will call these revelations nothing more than dumb luck, inattention on Sandusky’s part, or the blind weight of circumstances.  But my own framework of faith suggests to me that these brief flashes of light in the darkness- the anal rape Mike McQueary saw in 2002, for instance, or the oral rape the janitor before him saw in 2000- represent the extremities of desperate and semi-potent angels, using whatever cosmic power they can summon to poke momentary holes in the darkness, thereby alerting the powerful to what the powerless cannot utter.When these extremities reached Joseph Paterno in March of 2002, the angels must have shouted with joy.  A more powerful man, one with more credibility, perceived decency and moral authority, could not possibly have been reached in the community in which Sandusky apparently hunted.  Ironically enough, a recognized origin of the name Paterno is a shortening of the Latin Pater Noster, or Our Father, the first two words of the only prayer Jesus allegedly taught his disciples.  The great man, the father figure, “St. Joe” himself now knew, and the Stranger in Sandusky would be exposed.But alas, there was an Institution to protect as well, and in the end it won out.  An all-too human Paterno responded as feebly as he legally could.  The two officials he went to responded by restricting Sandusky’s  access to facilities and his ability to bring boys onto campus.  The Institution was protected. The community that surrounded it, and its wide-eyed, star struck boys, could be damned.Perhaps these men can be forgiven for not knowing what I know; that the eight victims Sandusky is alleged to have abused is probably more like 80 or even much, much more than that.  That the after-effects of child sexual abuse result in a panoply of emotional, psychological and physical disorders that literally truncate lives, poison future relationships, stunt potential and shred hope itself like shrapnel.  That the “loss of innocence” suffered by boys abused in the way Sandusky is believed to have done so is almost trivial compared to the bleak, mental torture that follows. That the only way out is through, and that many simply never make it through.  That the morally bankrupt and cynical decisions made in 1998, 2000, and 2002, as well as before and after, allowed a man to further manufacture misery, betrayal and violence that will haunt lifetimes in its wake.Perhaps.  But at the end of the day, in 2002 and God only knows how many times before and after, these men bet an Institution and its football program over their community and the tender lives of its children.  While the victims themselves have paid most dearly for this terrible wager, their fate is tied inextricably to that of the community.  Now the suffering of both will echo louder than the joyful sound of the throngs in the stadium, and longer than the legacy of victories under fall skies.And the angels wept bitterly.

Judge William Adams, A Camera, and the Power of Light

Roughly 2000 years ago an itinerant rabbi gave a sermon about light.  The right thing to do with a lamp, said the rabbi, was to let it shine, not put it under a basket.  That made sense in a time where light after sunset was a luxury; hence the parable.  And of course, in the spirit of parables, there are other forms of light, and other functions for what we know as light.  Light illuminates, and in so doing exposes.In 2004, a remarkable young woman with a disability shined a light in the form of a video camera on the pathology, hatefulness and pure evil of a man who, until last week, had been a sitting judge in Texas. The video shows him, her father, beating her with a belt in a breathtakingly brutal way, over seven interminable minutes.I am using words like “pathology” and “evil” distinctly, although as the study of psychology evolves, the difference between what we might call mental illness and what we have historically called evil are blurring in ways that make people like me- prosecutors, and arbiters of legal blame- uncomfortable.  But for now, I’m comfortable, perhaps recklessly so, with discussing the two separately.  I believe the man is probably sick.  I also believe he’s evil.Millions have seen the video.  Millions more, thanks in part to the appropriate “trigger” warnings that have been associated with it, have demurred.  I watched every second of it, and more than once.  The video’s subject is my job, after all; I have seen things far worse, but in many ways I haven’t seen anything quite as naked and telling as this.  Because sometimes it takes a camera in the right place at the right time to truly expose what lies beneath far more facades of normalcy than most of us understand.  A camera won’t flinch. It won’t turn away. It will simply record with passive silence, and in situations like this one perhaps its growing ubiquity in our lives is a positive thing.  After all, it allowed a 16 year-old Hillary Adams to preserve something that is simply unbelievable to many- that a respected member of the judicial bench, a smiling, reasonable looking man, would nevertheless be capable of a vicious beating laced with profanity against a young girl with cerebral palsy.You see, I have prosecuted and assisted with hundreds of cases where I knew the truth, but also feared I’d never be able to infuse a jury with the courage to convict. I never had proof like the kind Hillary possessed; the kind she had the wherewithal and technology to create.  And so doubt would creep in at the edges, doubt fueled by myths that protect men like William Adams and his now estranged wife.  Myths that whisper that couples like the Adams’ aren’t the types who could hurt a disabled child that way. Myths that education, privilege, community stature, the genetic accident of white skin, and other niceties can’t co-exist with methodological torture and wanton cruelty.  Myths like the one William Adams is selling right now, that the issue was really “discipline” and that what the video shows “looks worse than it is.”Ah, but then sometimes, in blessed fashion, a camera shatters the myths; a camera placed by an intelligent and desperate child who has learned, as many family violence survivors do, to predict the escalation of hostilities that leads to violence.So the video depicts exactly what occurred; it was Judge William Adams, community leader, outwardly decent parent, arbiter of justice, ripping into his child’s body with a lustful but eerily calm exuberance, armed with a leather strap. It was this man, uttering the word “f—king,” 14 times as he did so.It was also Hillary’s mother, Hallie, whose participation was less violent but no less sickening.  I’m glad that she has repaired her relationship with her daughter, and that Hillary has forgiven her.  She’ll get nothing from me.  I understand that I am running afoul of many domestic violence experts who maintain that a battered woman can be rendered powerless over years of brainwashing and abuse to where her own violence or failure to protect her children cannot be attributed to her in terms of blame.  I am sympathetic to the dynamics that exist, and attribute the lion’s share of the blame to William Adams, where it belongs.  But I draw the line on anyone who fails to protect their own children, regardless of what they are facing in another relationship. Hallie Adams’ explanation on Today was, to me, less than impressive.  She calmly deflected blame by claiming victimhood herself and assigning an addiction to William.  I’m sure this is accurate, but it doesn’t give her a pass where I’m concerned. She’s clearly not the primary abuser in the nightmare world Hillary navigated for so long.  But she made choices that I cannot abide, and one of them was graphically showcased on this video with its own dose of profanity.A five-year statute of limitations will likely protect both from criminal prosecution.  Adams’ judicial career might be over, which would perhaps be the most just event he’s been witness to since that career began.  There are many other ways to look at this case, Hillary’s courage and healing, and also the response to the video as Hillary is launched into a temporary but bright public spotlight.  I wish nothing more than for her to live a full and happy life unencumbered by the evil visited upon her.For me, though, the deepest value of what Hillary did by placing a running camera on her dresser and a scarf over the tell-tale blinking red light, was to allow a robotic, impassive eye to simply witness what far too many believe to be impossible.  My friend and colleague Anne Munch once told me the story of a police chief in a small, idyllic Colorado town who was asked a typical ‘softball’ question by a reporter:  “So, is this town a safe place to live?”Rather than giving the pat and expected answer, the wise chief apparently looked at the reporter evenly and said what I believe might be the most plainly accurate thing that can be said about literally any locality on the globe.“It depends on who you live with.”

The Seebergs Gain Ground- Thank God

Elizabeth “Lizzy” Seeberg passed to the next life on September 10, 2010, a little more than a year ago. I did not know her. Readers of this space, however, know that I was profoundly touched by her life, her death, her courage, and finally the courage of her parents as 9/10/10, for them, bled brutally into the following fall and winter.For the Seebergs, last fall was not a typical one for a Roman Catholic, Chicagoland family with multi-generational ties to Notre Dame du Lac and St. Mary’s. There was no warm delight in the football schedule, the changing of the seasons, or the approach of the holidays.  Instead it was a dark struggle in the wake of a nightmare with a suddenly impenetrable bureaucracy that was the Notre Dame administration. Since I and others have described them before, I won’t recount here the missteps I believe Notre Dame took, both with the investigation of Lizzy’s attack and with its interpretation of federal privacy laws. Suffice to say the Seebergs, already dealing with the worst nightmare any parent could face, were met largely with incompetence and then obstruction where her attack and death were concerned.However, their resolve yielded some progress earlier this year when Notre Dame agreed to significant reforms in its response to sexual violence after an investigation by the Department of Education (DoE) in the wake of Lizzy’s death.And beyond Notre Dame, hope also sprung forth in the form of DoE policy with the publication of an April, 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter from Russlyn Ali, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the Department of Education.  The bottom line is that just about every U.S. public or private institute of higher learning relies on federal funding for various parts of its mission. The DoE Office of Civil Rights is empowered to condition receipt of federal dollars on meeting certain standards of protection for students at risk for discrimination. The office considers sexual harassment and assault to fall under that category.  The letter outlines several things colleges need to do in order to be in compliance with best practices where the response to sexual violence is concerned. Examples are things like preventing offenders from personally cross-examining victims in non-legal disciplinary hearings, and requiring a preponderance standard in determining the outcome. These things are hardly revolutionary or anti-due process.Nevertheless, a backlash has arisen from various pundits who see these measures as some sort of perverse manifestation of political correctness that threatens to derail some precious and flowering aspect of adolescent college life.One commentator, Sandy Hingston, unsurprisingly a romance novelist, tragically conflates the sexual exploration of adolescence with rape. She harkens back to what were apparently her and her counterparts’ own experiences of awkwardly waking up with boys in compromising situations and just not making a big deal of it. To the extent that such consensual liaisons happen, she’s correct- a big deal shouldn’t be made of it.But here’s the rub: It isn’t.Those awkward, fuzzy situations continue to occur every night in college life- more so now than then.  But they almost never produce complaints of rape, and nothing in the DoE’s guidance will change that. The fact is, most women and men who are clearly sexually violated in liquor-fueled, late-night encounters do not wake up and cry rape, let alone what victims of murkier situations do. The over-riding response to being violated sexually is to blame oneself and say nothing, and that will not quickly change. The DoE guidelines are simply helping to level the playing field in cases where the violation is clear enough, as in the case of Lizzy Seeberg, where an outcry is not only just, but necessary to the security of the campus and all of the students on it.But this is lost on commentators who type with panicked fingers about how these changes will surely quell romance, stunt the college experience, and lead to the rounding up of men and permanent victim-hood of women.Nonsense. This is argument in a bubble, utterly unschooled or unaware of how sexual violence actually occurs between people in the real world. Another commentator, Peter Berkowtiz, wonders aloud in the Wall Street Journal which campus leaders will come forward to challenge this new, frightening world order. Among others, he entreats literature professors to instruct that “particularly where erotic desire is involved, intentions can be obscure, passions conflicting, the heart murky and the soul divided.”Really? So when a woman (or a man) is trembling in a strange bed, or stumbling, half-dressed from a backseat or a back room with the dawning horror of having been sexually assaulted, what she must first do is consider the divided and murky nature of her passionate soul?Both commentators can be forgiven for naiveté, but neither have a clue what sexual violence really looks like.  The reality is, when complaints are made- or even contemplated- it’s almost never a close call.  It’s almost never a gray area.  Despite the musings of Mr. Berkowitz and others, sexual violence isn’t simply an unfair moniker for the complicated, erotic interplay of Rhett, Scarlett and a swollen, harvest moon in a sultry, starlit sky. It’s really much more banal, blunt, and evil than that. When it happens, and it does, it needs to be dealt with competently and fairly.Competence and fairness. That’s what Lizzy Seeberg needed, and in large part what she was denied. That’s why her parents fight on, not for Lizzy now, but lovingly in her memory and valiantly for the millions of women they know will face what she faced. They could have been easily forgiven for shutting down and tuning out after the loss of the light in their lives, yet they are doing neither. Their angel is gone from this life, but they are not content with waiting to see her in the next. They are fighting to protect the angels of others who will wander onto campuses and into situations unmistakable in their criminality and deserving of a realistic, healing, and just response. The DoE’s efforts and its hard look at Notre Dame are a product of that fight. Both are welcome steps toward a better world.

Diallo, Justice, and Light

In an angst-filled conversation regarding his own duties to it, Russell Crowe’s character in the movie "Gladiator" says to his Emperor, “I have seen much of the rest of the world. It is brutal, and cruel, and dark. Rome is the light.”Despite falling far short of its ideals, and even in the face of an arguable decline, it is still possible to substitute “America” for “Rome” in that sentence and have it be painfully, desperately true for much of the rest of the world.America is still the light, and New York is still its embodiment. The gift from France in her harbor was stunning not only in its descriptive brilliance but also in its uncanny timing. The woman holds a torch— the symbolism is so perfect it could never have existed in fiction. And her placement coincided perfectly with the greatest influx of immigrants the world has ever known.Many more stand in lines at JFK now than behold the torch, but still they come.  Nafissatou Diallo was one of them.  In her, the Manhattan DA’s office encountered an individual much like millions of others who claw their way to that thin, little island and then navigate it any way they can. As we now know, getting there was messy. She lied on a visa application. She was taught, apparently, to lie convincingly about sexual violence. Whether she was actually brutalized and raped in her native country has been challenged in light of some admitted fabrication, but I have little doubt she suffered greatly in a manner similar to what she was taught to concoct, and was willing to do anything she had to do in order to escape where she was.This should shock no one. The journey to America— to New York— has always been characterized as often as not with deception. With bribery. With fraud, abuse, and soul-selling, desperate behavior. I have no idea what my great-grandparents did for the chance to float past that torch, but I’d be slow to judge them for it.The reach for America also attracts desperate people who have been broken by events and reshaped in ways that make them difficult at times to understand, defend, and support.  Cultural barriers, distrust of authority, and a constant fear of the truth itself are not uncommon in people for whom candor and innocence have been met with brutality and perfidy.Surviving in New York has been apparently messy for Ms. Diallo as well. I prosecuted sex crimes in the Bronx, where she lives, for two years.  I saw the realities of living there on blue collar income, and got a glimpse of what people did to make ends meet. Diallo defrauded the housing authority, we know. She had shady friends who used her for her bank accounts.  Yes, that happens in New York. Diallo got by— hustling, surviving, call it whatever you want— the way so many do in a city capable of bringing the strongest, most resourceful people to begging knees. But she was making ends meet, in all of her imperfect, rule-bending glory, working long and difficult hours as a maid and raising a child.And then she encountered Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and chose to report what he did to her. And suddenly the rules she was bending or breaking mattered much more than perhaps she ever imagined.Those familiar with me will be unsurprised to hear that I believe Diallo was attacked by DSK. As we know from the blunt, blind force of DNA, a sexual encounter between them took place.  The only issue is whether she consented to it and then lied.  Is it strictly possible that Diallo had— or quickly formed— a vile and remarkably elaborate plan to frame a renowned economist, seeking a future payoff as some adjunct of the criminal justice response?  A woman who reportedly cannot read or write in any language?  And further, does this evil turn of events merely dovetail by coincidence with the several other allegations of sexual aggressiveness and/or violence leveled against Mr. Strass-Kahn in several places around the globe?For better or worse, I know far too much about sexual violence and those who commit it to credit that scenario as anything other than fantastic.Regardless, the decision to dismiss the case, while arguable, is not one I'm criticizing.  I am familiar with the challenges the DA faced under New York law, particularly the necessarily rushed presentation of the case to a grand jury. I applaud the office for what appears to be exemplary ethical behavior. My only criticism of NYDA concerns the meticulously detailed and humiliating public motion to dismiss the indictment. Unintentional the humiliation may have been, but hurtful it was nonetheless.  Perhaps, as the motion painstakingly details, the case was not deserving of prosecution. But neither was Diallo deserving of such a detailed public lambasting.  I am aware of no legal necessity for that level of detail in seeking the dismissal of an indicted case.Of course, the DA cited more than just Ms. Diallo’s recent past. Also detailed was apparently odd behavior and reversals that undermined the faith prosecutors had in her.  But again, this is what we sometimes see in people when unimaginable circumstances have driven them here, and we would surely fare no better were we driven elsewhere.  Couple that with cultural and language barriers, with how our minds build and recall memories in traumatic situations, and I believe explaining the inconsistencies might have been worth fighting for in a court of law.  But in fairness, it was not my case.The point is that Diallo was rendered incredible by her choices, but many of those choices were driven by circumstances most of us live happily ignorant of.  I'm not excusing whatever illegal behavior she may have engaged in over time, or the lack of candor with the DA.  She is rightfully responsible for her actions, but not beyond what is remotely foreseeable.  I doubt she ever thought those actions would also make her tragically powerless when it came to standing up to an attack in the very country she sought out for asylum and a better life.Upon Diallo, as upon all, New York has bestowed gifts.  From Diallo, as from all, it has exacted a price in return. What’s perverse is not necessarily this harsh but typical and time-honored agreement. What’s perverse is the bizarre extent to which the cost of getting there and getting by has also denied her simple justice.

The Ignoble Lie: Weekly Standard Style

In college a naive but well-intentioned fellow student asked a history professor why alternative theories on the Holocaust weren’t at least presented in classes on the subject. She made it clear she didn’t believe the deniers’ arguments, but didn’t understand how a university could willfully ignore alternative theories (even offensive ones) on a subject if they were based on some methodological gathering of evidence. The professor shrugged and answered her directly.  “That’s easy,” he said. “Theories put forth by Holocaust deniers aren’t based on anything remotely reliable. Forgot how offensive they are. They simply don’t deserve academic attention.”The good prof could have added a few other things, such as how cruel bias and rank antisemitism also lurk behind the "debate” regarding the Shoah, thus making denial arguments less legitimate still. But what he said was enough on its face. Theories about how Nazi Germany had no established policy on extermination, or that estimates of the murdered are grossly exaggerated- even when adopted by people with no antisemitic bent whatsoever- are based on incredibly faulty “research.”  They fly in the face of mountains of demographic, eye-witness and documentary evidence. They’re just foolish to believe, period.To be abundantly clear: I am not about to draw an exact parallel between Holocaust deniers and perpetuators of flawed research “demonstrating” that women lie about sexual assault frequently, particularly in relation to other crimes. I’m also absolutely not inferring that the perpetuators have anything in common with Nazi sympathizers or antisemitic thinkers.That being said, perpetuating baseless claims predicated on demonstrably flawed research and badly interpreted statistics in ways that perpetuate injustice deserves redress.  The continued victimization of millions of women and men who are sexually assaulted every day, cloaked and devalued by this nonsensical line of opinion also deserves redress.  So it’s time to call out the writers, journalists, attorneys, “activists” and others— whether they have an axe to grind or not— who still cite risibly flawed “research” and inappropriately extrapolated anecdotes to support claims that women lie about being sexually assaulted more than anyone else lies about any other crime. Cathy Young is one such writer.In “The Noble Lie, Feminist Style,” Ms Young, earlier this month in the Weekly Standard, offers a piece that is provocative, but absurdly ill-researched and offensively inaccurate. Her use of readily identifiable bad “evidence” might be quaint if she were arguing an alternative theory on, say, the mating habits of lemurs. But she’s not. She’s making assertions that directly and negatively impact the lives of millions of women hoping against hope for a rational, competent and decent response to being made to suffer one of the ugliest crimes imaginable.As for why she’s doing so, it seems that she is challenging some aspects of feminism she finds irritating or unsatisfying- apparently that’s what Ms.Young does. That’s fine, but it doesn’t give her license to push on her readers myths and innuendo that amount to nothing—and ultimately cause harm to those affected by her proliferation of nonsense.As usual, she evokes straw-man “orthodox feminists” who “grudgingly admit” that women sometimes lie about being raped. Really? I am personally acquainted with dozens of feminists, consider myself to be one as well, and am familiar with most of the leaders of the feminist movement in this country where the issue of sexual violence is concerned. I’ve yet to meet a single person in this movement who will resist acknowledging that women and men sometimes lie about being sexually assaulted. It happens— no one disputes that. What educated and informed people do dispute, whether feminists or not, is the idea that women lie about sexual assault any more than anyone else lies about any other crime.That’s because they don’t.Young’s statement, “the fact remains that women do lie about rape much more often than the feminist party line allows” is based first on an assumption that there is a “feminist party line” at all (she cites nothing here in support of such a thing). From there she cites three things in support of her position: A misunderstood classification by the FBI, incredibly faulty research by a retired sociologist, and a brief series of anecdotes. The first two are easily debunked (the sociologist’s “research,” in particular, here). But serious analysis is not what Ms. Young wants, as it would belie her preconceived notions and agenda.  Her last attempt at making her point (the brief series of examples) perhaps serves to titillate, but says nothing about the reality of sexual violence.False reports are both horrific and criminal. People who make them should be dealt with harshly unless serious mental illness was at play in making the report. This, despite anything Young’s article will tell you, is exactly what happened in the infamous Duke Lacrosse case. The accused players were actually declared— in an extremely rare move— “innocent” rather than just “not guilty” by the Attorney General of North Carolina. But that same authority never sought to prosecute the woman who made the false claim.  Why? Because, in the opinion of AG Roy Cooper, she was extremely mentally ill, and might actually have believed her own account of events. So lo and behold, the supposedly evil woman that the rape-denial crowd would love to elevate to poster-child for all that “average Joes” have to fear in the complex world of dating and mating is frankly crazy. Her actions in March of 2006, like her life in general, constitute a tragedy, but not a crime. She is a dangerous and deranged person, but not the cold, calculating psychopath that rape-deniers would have the world believe.I am not suggesting that psychopathic or otherwise unscrupulous women and men do not exist and do not falsify accusations of sexual assault. It does happen. So does the falsification of burglaries and car theft for insurance payouts (at much higher rates, I suspect). Other than murder (where the victim can’t falsify personally) every crime imaginable has its fraudulent victims. But to suggest that women— in particular— lie about rape—  in particular— is simply baseless. Being thus, it should not be trumpeted as fact, or an educated suspicion, or a grounded theory, or anything else suggestive of serious consideration. It’s time to speak plainly. Enough is enough.

Making Sense of Evil

As I write this, only a few hours have passed since Isaiah Kalebu was sentenced by a judge in a Seattle courtroom to life without parole for the 2009 burglary, rape and murder involving Teresa Butz and her partner Jen Hopper.  Ms Hopper wrote one of the most moving pieces I’ve ever seen on what she’s been through and what she has faced as today’s date— August 12— has approached. Her grace, courage and profound humanity shine through every line, and I found myself close to tears for conflicting reasons as I read her words.I’m good at being conflicted.  The last time I wrote about Teresa Butz, the woman who died saving the life of her partner and would-be wife in a horrific rape-murder that took place in their home in 2009, I was struggling with faith. It had been going on for some time, drawn out by the unfortunate attribute God has of not arguing back at me. I am left to shake my fist at Him and get only blank silence in return. I’m hardly the first or last to experience it, but it’s frustrating to be so pathetically mortal and to want to understand this Being Whose will seems so capricious and inscrutable.And then the blessed gesture that is the Angel Band Project, the musical tribute to Teresa by her remarkably talented family and loved ones, emerged and prodded me back toward believing in an ordered universe, albeit one with a seriously incomprehensible order. I’m grateful for that prodding, because I needed it then and need it still now. And I stand in awe of Jen Hopper, the Butz family, the defendant’s mother, the involved professionals from the cops to the jurors, and everyone who endured the immense suffering that was the entire case of The State of Washington v. Isaiah Kalebu.But still, I must confess that I am profoundly troubled by what I suspect at times might be some perverse and insane cosmic attraction between the most pathological things in the spinning universe and the most angelic.  I don’t know how else to put it, but there is something beyond sick and sad about the collision of Isaiah Kalebu and two people like Teresa Butz and Jen Hopper.  There is something dreadful and almost eerily fated about it— as if the God we desperately depend on to temper the chaos of things is really an impish child with a wild mean streak who is actually ordering things in reverse.Maybe it’s just my selective perception, but I have worked with victims of the most egregious violence who were the most decent, kind and undeserving souls (not that anyone is deserving) of what happened to them.  Or, maybe the ordeal of survival, in some darkly logical way, draws forth extraordinary humanity and grace from the process itself. I don’t know what it is, but it seems to me on so many levels that, in a truly elegant universe, the love and life force, the deep humanity, the laughing, loving essence of a couple like Jen and Teresa would simply never co-exist with the monstrous pathology of Isaiah Kalebu.And yet he found their bathroom window on a quiet summer night in an otherwise safe, comfortable neighborhood.He then ripped a gaping hole in anything that would resemble a God-protected world.  He blasted a crater of despair, shock and utter agony that rippled through entire families, forever wounding them and the wider world beyond it. It can’t be possible for a single person- a pathetic failure at that- to wield that kind of power out of pure malevolence. But human history has literally been shaped as often as not with exactly that scenario.So the unspeakable question then creeps in on the raw edges of my thoughts as I try to sleep. Is this the way it happens?  Is there some miserable ying-yang that exists to flat-out impede the forward progress in the world that a couple like Teresa and Jen frankly embodied?  I don’t know. I’ll never know- not in this life. And maybe I need to reflect more on what I’ve already celebrated— the beauty of Angel Band, the resilience of Jen Hopper, the Butz family and everyone involved. That, God willing, is where the balance lies for an evil act like that which happened on 7/19/09.But Christ, I wish none of this had happened.For some odd reason, I was most affected- positively and negatively- when I read in Ms. Hopper’s piece that she has a new girlfriend.  I don't know why— it's so beautiful and yet so sad at the same time.  It's exactly what should happen and what does happen as life moves us all through its brutal corridors, of course.  And yet it signals to me an even more final end to Jen and Teresa than what took place on 7/19/09. I guess it’s really a mourning of the third victim of that miserable night: It’s the victim that was the relationship and love affair the two of them had; a thing that was, as all great things are, much more than the sum of its parts.Springsteen once wrote that “everything dies baby, that’s a fact. But maybe everything that dies, someday comes back.”So maybe that’s it. What Jen is forging now, personally and professionally, what Angel Band is creating, what fight-the-fear campaign is inspiring, what Voices and Faces is doing, maybe these are the life-forces that Teresa gave her life for.  Maybe these efforts and advances are the beautiful, defiant thrust toward sanity that restores the balance and ultimately rights the wrongs.I hope that’s the case.  And I guess if I still hope, then all is not lost.

"Modest Reforms" for Rape Cases, and Why They're A Bad Idea

Last week, a high-powered Florida trial attorney named Roy Black penned a piece in Salon.com in which he argued for "modest reforms" in how sexual assault cases are charged and tried. Black successfully defended William Kennedy Smith in 1991, when he was a little younger than I am now.  He has defended Rush Limbaugh, trans-national corporations and thousands of other entities in an over 40 year career.He has my admiration for being a zealous advocate.  He's dead wrong on the reforms he calls for.He's of course correct that we should protect those accused of rape. Safeguards of due process and a presumption of innocence are crucial to American justice, in sex assault cases as much as any other. Similarly, there is reasonableness and even some sympathy in his arguments regarding the media attention and rush to judgment some sexual assault accusations generate, particularly involving celebrities. But the rush to judgment is a two-way street.  As my friend and colleague Anne Munch notes, the "rush" is usually around the victim being a presumed a liar or slut.  Kobe Bryant is classic example of this.  Analysis of media coverage in the first 5 months following the charge against him is an astonishing example of a rush to judgment by people completely unfamiliar with the case or the victim.   Hundreds of people issued death threats against her for reporting in the first place.Black's other arguments are a tired recitation of rape mythology, particularly where he asserts, both with innuendo and flawed research, that accusations of sexual violence are commonly false (they are in fact no more common at most than false reports of any other crime) and easy to level at innocent men. These two baseless claims are what underpin the “modest reforms” he suggests.At the outset, it’s important to note that Black and many defense attorneys probably want these myths to remain firmly embedded in the American psyche; hence his reliance on false allegation studies so deeply flawed they are critiqued even on Wikipedia, to which his essay links.  Also misleading are his use of statistics from the FBI; classification differences and unreliable input are behind the disparity noted between rape and other crimes tracked by that agency.The more these myths continue to find purchase in what is essentially a national jury pool, the more easily acquittals are achieved. Defense attorneys must be focused on protecting their clients from criminal liability by all legal and ethical means. It's not legally unethical to appeal to long-standing but patently untrue myths surrounding sexual violence. But perpetrating myths doesn’t make them any less false or damaging. Thus, every one of Black’s “reforms” would create not an acknowledgement of reality, but rather a return to a time where reality was cloaked in myth--  myth that protected perpetrators, silenced victims, and helped to further truncate and fracture lives already altered by sexual violence.The idea that rape is an accusation “easily made but not easily defended,” for instance, never existed in reality, but only in the minds of men who could enforce this paranoid fantasy in courts of law.  In fact, most victims don’t report being sexually assaulted; it remains a chronically under-reported crime and a tiny percentage of victims ever see their rapists legally punished.  Those who dare to report, like the women who accused Kobe Bryant and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, have found their lives ripped apart and turned upside down.Similarly, “Rape Shield” laws do not prevent cross-examination of a victim on conduct that is legitimately relevant. Several exceptions exist in every jurisdiction, including a catch-all, “in the interests of justice” one in some states allowing almost any type of questioning under certain circumstances. What appropriate Rape Shield laws do is prevent perversely placing the victim on trial for behavior, dress or reputation that don’t speak to whether she consented to a sex act, but that serve to demonize her in a way that makes legally vindicating her less compelling. It's a nullification tactic: If the victim can be made to look like “she was asking for it,” or that she isn't of sufficient moral character, then a jury is less likely to convict even if they believe a crime was perpetrated.Hand in hand with this tactic is Black’s suggestion that intoxication on the part of the accused be viewed the same way as on the part of the victim.  Nonsense. Alcohol is a diversion, however unhealthy, for victims.  It is a weapon for perpetrators, commonly wielded to reduce resistance, cloud perception, impugn character, and negate suspicion by disguising the crime as a misunderstanding.  Perpetrators are not otherwise upstanding citizens possessed by “demon rum.” Alcohol facilitates rape. It does not cause rape.Even more bizarre is the suggestion that corroboration and some showing of force or a threat be present before a case is filed. These two antiquated rules rested on the utterly inaccurate belief that “real” rape necessarily involves physical injury, the use of weapons, and intuitive reactions on the part of the victim. In fact, most men who rape use only the force necessary to accomplish the act, and do not use weapons or violence. Physical injury is rare. Victims display a wide range of emotional reactions, some of which don’t fit the expectations of people unfamiliar with sexual violence dynamics.Allowing myths to prevent justice in sexual violence cases can affect more than the interests of the immediate victim. It also allows perpetrators to continue to offend. Recent and replicated research documents that most rapists are serial rapists, whether their MO is to attack strangers or victims they know. When myth-based legal tactics allow a perpetrator to escape justice, there is significant reason to believe he’ll strike again.Inaccurate perceptions and myths also serve to re-victimize rape survivors in hideous ways. Valid victims have been jailed for filing false reports because authority figures wrongly believed they were lying. These mistakes have done more than unfairly punish victims; in some cases they have allowed rapists to strike again, even to the point of murder. My organization's Start By Believing campaign in part addresses these miscarriages of justice in an effort to prevent them.It is fair to ask what is gained for a truth-seeking system of justice by things like the “perp-walk” before cameras. Reforms in how we respond to the unblinking eye of the media cycle where high profile crime is concerned are worth considering. But these reforms should not be conflated with suggestions that seek not to level the playing field, but rather to tilt it further in favor of perpetrators who, in so many ways, elude justice enough already.

Homeschooling, Risk, and Grand Canyon

“Grand Canyon,” from 1991, is one of my favorite movies of all time. In it, Mary McDonnell’s character says in exasperation to Kevin Kline’s, “there are people ready to shoot you if you look at them. And we are getting used to it.”That time was, by most markers, the terrifying crest of the crime wave that began sometime around the year I was born. Although it looked hopeless, it did recede, and continues to do so at a gratifying rate. This is thanks to many factors including some heroic policing, public investment, and the efforts of social workers, prosecutors, civic groups and faith-based organizations nationwide.Also dropping are child abuse rates, and to the extent I’ve been able to assist in this effort I’m deeply gratified. But recently a spate of sickening stories have me again scratching my head. The new, terrifying zeitgeist in child abuse seems to be torture, caging, and starvation, accomplished behind closed doors.  In a particularly horrific, four victim case of out Washington DC in 2008, and at least one case I consulted on recently, the slow murder was carried out under the guise of homeschooling.  I’m at the point, especially after the latest rapid fire examples of kids kept caged and hidden, where I’m ready to declare that there are children being starved to death by our neighbors and under our noses, and we are getting used to it.The case I consulted on involved an otherwise healthy 10 year-old boy, literally starved to death by his mother and step-father. The post-mortem photographs of the child were nothing short of shocking to the group reviewing the case, and we don’t shock easily. The child was visibly emaciated and obviously near collapse if not death. For the final months of his life, though, as his condition steadily worsened, he wasn’t noticed by anyone outside of his household. That’s because he rarely left the house. Since school was ostensibly at home, there was no need for him to do so.At the outset, please understand I am not against homeschooling. Two college friends of mine, a couple, have homeschooled four children with great success. This is primarily because Kathleen, the primary educator, is brilliant, nurturing and highly educated herself. The issue with homeschooling, as with many practices, is less essential and more procedural. If done right, homeschooling seems to work quite well according to some studies.But when the wrong parent or parents homeschool, the results can be far worse than “just” a badly educated child. An abusive parent who homeschools has more than a captive audience; he or she also has essentially a caged one. Homeschooled children don’t report to an institution- public or private- on a daily basis where signs of abuse or neglect might be noticed. Mandatory reporting laws now exist in every state and require teachers and others in the community who professionally interact with children to report suspected abuse or neglect to authorities.  Those laws won’t reach into a homeschool setting, however. Every state has different ways of regulating the homeschool response to compulsory education laws. But none, to my knowledge, require parents of homeschooled children to provide, to any civil authority, any sort of recurring evidence that a child is simply healthy and growing normally in terms of physical well-being (as opposed to academic, moral or civic).Of course, homeschooling advocates with libertarian tendencies would most certainly bristle at such a requirement. The idea of having to essentially present one’s child to the government (in some shape or form) at regular intervals is something a large segment of the population would view with alarm and suspicion. Additionally, homeschooling advocates will point (fairly) to the disturbing statistics on how much harm visits children in traditional school settings each year.  Where homeschooling requirements are concerned, they’ll point to studies suggesting that more stringent regulations on homeschoolers aren’t scientifically proven to produce better results. The argument then goes that the trend toward parental freedom to educate children as parents see fit is a positive one.This debate is worth having, as is the one sparked by libertarians and the like-minded who believe that most things run or mandated by government are grossly inefficient at least and harmful at worst. And beyond this, a growing number of Americans seem to simply favor freedom over regimentation even in the face of the accompanying risks.Fair enough, but children are not abstract statistics, ideals, or the products of breezy discussion. They are breathing human beings who need at rock bottom a certain calorie count every day and who bleed, bruise, suffer and perish when injured profoundly enough.Government can’t and shouldn’t be expected to have the primary responsibility for child rearing, and I’m not about to suggest any model to replace what we generally know as the family unit. It’s simply an undeniable fact that when we extend to parents more and more freedom over the fates of their children with no backstop in the form of a communal place for them to assemble at least periodically, we risk losing them to an unobserved and sometimes shockingly cruel fate. Traditional schools and the laws that empower them are no panacea to child abuse, but they at least allow for an opportunity for abuse to be detected.In the case of the child I consulted on recently, his parents gave written statements that demonstrated vividly their utter inability to educate anyone, themselves included. The image of their child, unspeakably gaunt, graying and lifeless on a morgue slab, bespoke their view of him as a living being.  What liberty may seem to philosophically demand, or what trends may be suggesting in academia are immaterial to him now, and they won’t bring him back. A teacher or fellow student at a traditional school certainly might have harmed him as well, but more likely they might have alerted others to his circumstances before it was too late.  Instead, he died behind doors closed to the community around him.  At home.

Casey Anthony, and Where to Put Your Anger

A terrific character actor named Daniel Benzali once scored a role on NYPD Blue (it led to an OJ-inspired 90’s TV series) where he played a marquis defense attorney with a shady reputation. When dispatched to help a cop charged with murder, the client initially rejects him, stating that she wants no part of an attorney with his reputation defending her. Benzali’s character smiles and delivers one of the most brilliant lines I’ve heard describing bare-knuckle trial law: “That’s entry level perception, detective. Reputations swiftly give way to the skill of the practitioner once the doors of the courtroom are closed.”  Amen.I wasn’t there to witness Jose Baez’s advocacy on the Casey Anthony case. But I know from the coverage that he and his team brilliantly exploited an alternative explanation for her child’s death, and in so doing painstakingly and methodically generated the necessary amount of precious doubt necessary for 12 Florida citizens to utter “not guilty” on charges of murder. Perhaps, as some have claimed, the jury was cowardly or malfeasant in ignoring the legal weight of circumstantial evidence. Perhaps they were collectively cynical or stupid, as some have speculated. The declaration by one of them to the gossip site TMZ that he’d talk about the case but only if he was paid to do so certainly lends some credibility to that theory. But all of this is beside the point.  Baez did his job.As offensive as it is to many, Baez is technically correct when he claims he could tell his daughter after the trial that he “saved a life today.” He did.  The state of Florida, under its death penalty statute, sought to end the life of Casey Anthony for the murder of her daughter. Baez and his team stopped that from happening. In pretty much every sense of the word, he is correct.I happen to wish Baez had failed. I believe Casey Anthony is a psychopathic killer, and I know how to use the term “psychopath” professionally, not just colloquially. It’s not easy to find a doctor who will do a permanent tubal ligation on a 25 year-old woman, but despite what my religion commands I hope she gets one. I’d very much prefer that she bring no further children into the world, as I am convinced that she will snuff out their lives as quickly as she snuffed out Caylee’s once they become inconvenient. That’s what psychopaths do with things, living or dead, that inconvenience them. They remove them. The creativity, skill and labor they must engage in to eliminate the obstacle differs depending on its nature. But the underlying drive is the same.But none of this was Jose Baez’s concern, nor should it have ever been. He was rightfully focused on his client alone, protecting her as best he could from the efforts of the state to imprison and execute her. That’s how the system works. Baez stated publicly after the trial that his client did not murder her child, and perhaps he believes that. But frankly, he doesn’t have to. Far more offensive were the crass remarks of co-counsel Cheney Mason who insinuated that the media had engaged in “character assassination,” presumably with regard to Casey. Note to Mr. Mason: Your client was not found “innocent.”  She was found “not guilty,” meaning that the government failed, in the jury’s determination, to meet an extremely heavy burden regarding her legal guilt. They adjudicated that question in the negative, and thus it is legally correct that Casey go free for those charges. Whether it is morally correct, logically correct or factually correct is beside the point. The verdict addresses none of these questions.In terms of what disgusts me, (other than what I believe were the actions of Casey herself), I can’t help but mention the fixation this country had for this particular case when children suffer fates like Caylee’s every day across 3.8 million square miles of America and generate no media frenzy. It’s perhaps awkward but no less accurate to note that Caylee herself was a white, physically beautiful child, and her mother a telegenic, thin, and yes -sexy- woman. The media hyped photographs of Casey (other than the ones with evidentiary value) showing her taunting the camera with pursed lips in Halloween costumes or football jerseys were no accident. There are certainly aspects of this case- the search efforts, the slowly leaked details regarding evidence and litigation- that made it particularly compelling.  But ultimately, when it comes to what sells copy and gets people to tune in, the murderer is more interesting, and so is her act, when both she and her victim are photogenic and culturally appealing.Baez acknowledged correctly that there were no winners in the the State of Florida v. Casey Anthony. His mini-rant regarding the death penalty was misplaced as the issue wasn’t reached in this case, but his other remarks, including the tender message in Spanish to his mother and family, were appropriate. His statement about the American Constitution was particularly spot-on, regardless of his point of view. Casey Anthony was tried, competently and at great cost, in a public trial by the representatives of an elected attorney empowered to bring the force of the law and its iron accouterments against one citizen. Efforts to prove her guilt to an appropriately lofty standard failed. Out she goes, then, into the stream of life with the rest of us.Casey Anthony, it can be compellingly argued, will not face justice in this life. But as a prosecutor I learned a long time ago that earthly justice is a “long ball” concept that must be viewed separately from any particular case.If you are among the many, many people convinced that justice was not done in this case, I beg you: take that long view. Let Caylee’s fate not be in vain by raising your own awareness and that of others to children everywhere who suffer neglect, abuse and death in cases less titillating but no less horrific. Support groups that fight for the lives of children. I’ve listed a few below, but it is by no means exhaustive.The greatest gift of faith, to me anyway, is the impish games it plays with the blunt force of words in our language; the ones I’ve been battered with as an attorney for 15 years.“Caylee is dead.”“Casey is free.”Examine those two statements through the prism of a God-gifted, God-ordained and God-ordered world, and they are not so horrific, offensive, or final.Again.  Amen.National Child Protection Training CenterNational Center for Missing And Exploited ChildrenLove Our Children USANational Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse