Tell It To Allen Brooks, Emmett Till and Bennett Barbour

The spectacle that is the current news on the Kavanaugh hearing has me mad. All over the place I see people talking about "The Victim" as if a jury had ruled that there was a crime committed. I head people talking about "The Victim" as if they actually saw the alleged incident for themselves. If it was just your run of the mill civilian with little power I would not be mad. What has me mad is that the people spouting this nonsense are government officials. These people have the power to make, unmake and wholly disregard the law.

Not once, in the amount of reading and viewing I have done, have I see one of these government officials say "alleged victim" as is the proper legal standard. Since there has been absolutely no evidence provided of an actual event occurring, nobody outside of the claimant and her lawyer should be using the term "victim" without "alleged" ahead of it. This speaks to the depths that the US system of government has fallen.

On top of this nonsense you have people claiming that we should "believe women". Really? We don't [shouldn't] be running a government based on "belief". We should be running government on proof. This is particularly the case where it comes to crime and punishment. Should we take allegations seriously? Absolutely. But taking allegations seriously requires that we also take a critical look at the claims being made. Democrats like to tell us about "who we are". Well presumption of innocence is "who we are". Why has this not been central to the reporting? Why hasn't that been the center of the so called hearings?

Go check the Innocence Project if you think "women should be believed".

On February 7, 1978, a 19-year-old student at the College of William and Mary was sexually assaulted at gunpoint. As soon as the rapist left, the victim called the police. When investigators arrived, the victim told them that her assailant weighed 145 pounds and was 5’6” tall. There had been a number of other rapes in the area during this time.

The Investigation and Trial

One week after the attack, the victim was shown a photo array. The victim picked Barbour’s photo out of the lineup, and then picked him out of two live lineups (consisting of the same people in different orders). The next day, Barbour was arrested. He weighed only 115 pounds at the time of his arrest. Furthermore, Barbour suffered from a brittle-bone disease and had a pin in his elbow at the time, making rape seem unlikely.

Hair taken from the scene did not match Barbour’s, and tests performed on the semen revealed only the presence of Type A blood. The victim had Type A blood, while Barbour had Type B.

At the trial, the principal evidence against Barbour was the eyewitness testimony of the victim, though he did not match the victim’s initial description, and no physical evidence tied him to the crime. His alibi, that he was watching television with his family and neighbors that night, was corroborated by three witnesses at trial.

In spite of all of this, Barbour was convicted of rape on April 14, 1978 and sentenced to ten years in prison. According to the post-sentence report, the investigators from the case still had doubts about Barbour’s guilt, and were reportedly continuing investigation.

That's just one example and in this case we had an actual crime reported! In the Kavanaugh case, there is no report. There is over 30 elapsed years and people who are making claims, each way, none of which is evidence.

Why is the Congressional Black Caucus so quiet? Keith Ellison maybe? Shouldn't the CBC, with it's origins in the civil rights struggles be uniquely sensitive to the spectacle of kangaroo court-ism, the presumption of guilt and this wholly un-American idea that the accused must "prove his innocence"?

To all the men (and women who care about them): You should take names of every public official who fails to uphold the founding principles of the country:

The presumption of innocence.
The right of the accused to face his or her accuser.
The burden of proof on the state/accuser.
And put them out of office.