Credible Is Not Proof
The Supreme Court confirmation proceedings of Judge Brett Kavanaugh (that we’ve all witnessed, in excruciating detail, from multiple media sources over the past three months) represents nothing less than the collision of today’s #MeToo movement with America’s tradition of due process and the presumption of innocence (which are rights that we all enjoy and are clearly delineated in our Bill of Rights). As this collision plays out in the crucible of public opinion it will be highly instructive to consider the flip side of blind belief in any and all accusations that proceed from the mouth (or the pen) of any and all women. The flip side of the “WE BELIEVE YOU! WE BELIEVE YOU!” zeitgeist is shown in “bold faced print” in the sad case of one very unfortunate black man. His name?…Brian Banks.
For those unfamiliar with Mr. Bank’s story, he was a young standout football star at Polytechnic High School in Long Beach, California. In his junior year he had finalized an agreement to play college ball for USC. It seemed that his future was incredibly bright. Then his world came crashing down. He was accused of rape by a classmate, Wanetta Gibson. The DA and Grand Jury found her accusation to be CREDIBLE enough to charge him with the crime. Faced with the prospect of 41 years behind bars, he took a plea deal that put him away for five years (which he served) and branded him a “sexual predator” for life. Ms. Gibson sued the school for not providing adequate security and received 1.5 MILLION dollars in compensation.
The only trouble is, her story was completely false. In 2011, Gibson admitted, in the presence of an attorney, that she had made the story up. The nonprofit California Innocence Project got involved and, on May 24, 2014, all charges against him were dropped, as was his sex offender status. The school has sued Gibson to reclaim the money it payed her. Not surprisingly, Gibson has gone into hiding and has not appeared at any of her scheduled court dates (and has not repaid the money). And Brian Banks lost FIVE of, perhaps, the best years of his life.
Unfortunately, this sad story in NOT unique. A brief walk down “memory lane” will remind us of a number of recent high profile cases. Who can forget the story of the Duke Lacrosse team that were accused, EN MASS, of raping an exotic dancer by the name of “Precious” and were later completely exonerated with the prosecutor, Mike Nifong, being disbarred. It came to light that Ms. “Precious” had, apparently, a busy night. As part of the rape examination, rectal swabs revealed the presence of DNA from EIGHT (!) different men (none of which, by the way, were on the Duke Lacrosse team).
Then there’s the “Matress Girl”, Emma Sulkowicz, who dragged a matress around for a year to dramatize her plight as a rape victim. The accused, Paul Nungesser, was, as a result, anathematized and blocked from a number of campus activities while the charges were being investigated. On the basis of email communications and other evidence Nungesser was subsequently exonerated.
And then there’s the recent (May 7, 2018) vacating, in New York City, of the convictions of Van Dyke Perry and Gregory Counts, of the charges of gang rape. They were convicted in 1992, but were exonerated when, after TWENTY SIX YEARS, the accuser recanted. (She will, apparently, NOT be charged with a crime in this matter, as the STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS has run out!).
#MeToo advocates will undoubtably respond that “this type of thing is rare”. But how do we know that, really? Might there be many more innocent men rotting away in prisons because they were wrongly (but “credibly” accused)? The point here is NOT that all men, or even most men are wrongly accused, but SOME are. Accordingly, it should be obvious to all but the most rabid “#MeToo”er that there MUST be due process. We simply can NOT use “credibility” as a substitute for corroboration.
Which brings us to Christine Blasey Ford. Many Democrats and media commentators have described her testimony on Thursday as credible. Presumably this is on the basis that she didn’t break down into tears amid the (VERY GENTLE) questioning by prosecutor Rachel Mitchell. It is also based, I believe, on wishful thinking. I, for one did NOT find her convincing.
I first listened to her testimony live over the radio (and subsequently watched the proceedings online). I was immediately puzzled by the fact that she sounded like a teenage girl. Most of her sentences were inflected at their end, much as a young girl does. That type of inflection adds a verbal “question mark” to what came before. Obviously, one can’t discredit her testimony on the basis of this strange observation alone, but it is troubling. Analysis by a speech expert might be VERY helpful here.
Then there is the fact that Prosecutor Mitchell caught her in a definite lie. When Ford claimed she couldn’t respond quickly to the committee’s request for an interview because she was afraid to fly, this claim was debunked by Mitchell who pointed out that she (Ford) flew to many far away places such as Tahiti, Hawaii and Costa Rica and others voluntarily. Her claim was, accordingly, shown to be a lie. There is a rule of evidence in law that applies here: omne falsum est falsum (which translates from the Latin to: “one false, all false). The meaning here is that once you PROVE the falsity of one claim in a witness’s testimony, you can challenge the veracity of all the other statements.
In addition, there were many other telling responses by Ford. She couldn’t explain, credibly, why she underwent a polygraph test if she had no intention of coming forward. She didn’t know WHO PAID for the test. She didn’t know WHERE the “attack” took place, nor exactly when. She didn’t know how she got home from the party.
In addition to all of this, there is the complete LACK OF CORROBORATION by any other living soul. The witnesses THAT SHE NAMED (including a credible woman, Leland Keyser) have ALL denied her account. She lists notes from her psychotherapist from 2012 as corroboration, but had to admit to Mitchell that she DID NOT MENTION Kavanaugh’s name at the time. Then there’s the suspicious letter to Senator Feinstein (only recently released) sentences in DIFFERENT FONTS, and uses language in a manner that one document expert has said are unlikely to have been written by a PhD psychologist. And, by the way, it has come to light that she is actually NOT a licensed psychologist, as she claimed. And, did you know, that the much ballyhooed polygraph test, when recently released in full, was found to have CONSISTED OF ONLY TWO QUESTIONS?
And, put all of this on top of the fact that she is an avid “progressive” advocate” (in addition to a history of donations to “progressive” causes, there’s a wonderful picture of her arm in arm with none other than Bill Clinton!) and, may, therefore, have an “axe to grind”.
Now, while I would concede that no single fact listed above is completely condemnatory, I think the reader will readily agree, that there are certainly grounds for REASONABLE DOUBT. And, that being the case, the “benefit of the doubt” must be given to Judge Kavanaugh due to the presumption of innocence. In the last analysis, we simply MUST NOT CONFUSE CREDIBILITY WITH PROOF.