(UPDATE: The defense worked. The verdict: voluntary manslaughter, which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison. He was charged with felony murder and faced mandatory life in prison without parole.)
Here we go again, this time in Michigan. From the Grand Rapids Press:
What is also clear is that if Scarborough was in such a panic, he got over it pretty quickly after stuffing Manious’s body in the trunk, since he went on a four-day binge, using the dead man’s cell phone and credit cards for shopping sprees, gas and air fare to Texas. He was arrested in the Lone Star State.Scarborough admits in taped police interview that he hit Victor Manious with a bat, stuffed him in a car trunk after sexual advances.
More taped police interviews with accused murderer Steve Scarborough were played today for the jury charged with deciding whether the 21-year-old is responsible for the murder of Victor Manious in July.
In the interview between Grand Rapids Detective Kristen Rogers and Scarborough done from a Texas county lock-up, the accused claims that he was sitting in the Kalamazoo Avenue SE apartment of his friend Justin Robinson when Manious entered the apartment.
He said Manious set his keys on a kitchen counter, crossed over to the living room where Scarborough sat on a couch and asked if Robinson was home while at the same time the 62-year-old removed his clothes. Scarborough was interviewed for several hours, which were taped after he fled to the Houston area on Aug. 3 with a plane ticket he allegedly bought using Manious’ credit card.
Scarborough said Manious, stripped down to his underwear, put his arm around him, tried to kiss Scarborough and grabbed at him. Scarborough said he was freaked out by the advances of the man, hit him with a bat and dragged his body down a flight of stairs. He said he put the man in the trunk of his own Toyota and left the victim to die in the car parked on Ottawa Avenue NW.
More below the fold.
There are lots of news articles about this case, and Scarborough’s account seems to change in them. In another article, Scarborough claimed in court that Manious didn’t just make a pass at him, but that he was sexually assaulted and his Baptist beliefs, no lie, were violated and thus justifies the bat attack.
Scarborough testified that Manious asked for Robinson, then the 62-year-old Egypt native hit the younger man in the head and knocked him out. Scarborough said he woke up to find Manious in his underwear, on top of him, sexually assaulting him by oral sex.There was also testimony at the trial by a Peruvian immigrant, Carlos Barbaran, who said that two days before the Manious slaying, Scarborough and two of his friends assaulted and robbed Barbaran, shouting “give me your money, bitch,” and took $300 in cash from his wallet, his green card, and his credit cards.Scarborough testified that he was so unnerved by the assault, which violated his beliefs as a Southern Baptist, that he grabbed a nearby bat and hit Manious in the head.
Did that violate Scarborough’s Baptist faith? Just asking. The gay panic excuse of defense attorney Paul Denenfeld was in full effect, and also claims that Scarborough’s friend Justin Robinson convinced Scarborough to hide the body and evidence.
The family of Victor Manious groaned as they listened to an attorney claim the 62-year-old church leader was living a secret gay life and was “on the prowl” when he met the man accused of beating him with a baseball bat and leaving him to die in the trunk of a car.Assistant Kent County Prosecutor Helen Brinkman said bluntly that…Denenfeld described Scarborough as a simple young man from Tennessee, possessing an aversion to homosexuality instilled in him by a conservative Southern Baptist upbringing.
“(Scarborough) is not Albert Einstein,” Denenfeld said. “He is more of a follower than a leader.”
…”With Justin’s urging, Steven made a lot of bad and dumb decisions,” Denenfeld said. “Justin is a liar and pathological manipulator who is up to his eyeballs in this crime, but who police have chosen as a primary witness in this trial.”
“This was no self-defense. This was a robbery and a kidnapping,” and that Manious would have survived the bat attack had he received medical attention instead of being locked in the trunk of the car while Scarborough gone on his road trip/spree.
Manious’s wife also testified, giving details about finding the body of her husband after a weekend away from home at a church conference, returning home to find her husband was missing.
Weeping, but certain, the widow of Victor Manious took the stand today in the trial of Steven Scarborough accused of murdering her husband.There are so many unanswered questions, even about Manious. Yes, he could have been leading a secret gay life. Yes, he may have made a bad choice to come on to Scarborough (if that is what happened). What is clear is that the gay panic defense and Scarborough’s behavior after the murder don’t wash. Once Manious was unconscious, if you accept that somehow needing to brain someone with a bat is necessary to fend off this behavior, he was no longer a threat and the police or 911 weren’t called. Scarborough instead robs him, shoves the still-living man into a trunk and takes off on a spending spree.…After a sleepless night, Manious said she was alerted by the Grand Rapids Parking Authority that the Toyota the couple owned was parked on Ottawa Avenue NW.
She and her brother drove there and found the car parked the wrong way with all four windows opened. Her brother opened the trunk and made the grisly discovery of her husband, in the trunk.
“I didn’t see his face (but) I recognize his back, his hair,” she told jurors in the Kent County Circuit courtroom.
This story reminds me of the murder of Sammie Speigner III, an adjunct professor of sociology at Birmingham Southern College in Alabama. The defense attorneys of Raymond Carlisle tried the same thing — he claimed Carlisle reacted “in the heat of passion” when Speigner “tried to homosexually assault him.
Carlisle was so “traumatized” by the encounter with Speigner that he killed the man, stole the professor’s credit card to buy beer, cigarettes and gasoline later in the day while joyriding with friends. Even worse, he rented the car to another friend and was finally arrested while smoking dope inside the car, which he had upfitted with a new tag and freshly tinted windows.This BS has to stop.
61 Responses to “Gay panic: the defense that will not die”
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“Not guilty by reason of stupidity.”
Hm.
No, that doesn’t sound right.
So let me get this straight: this guy was sitting on the couch, minding his own business, when Manious walked into the room, saw a man on the couch, and decided spontaneously to strip and try to kiss him.
Uh…….yeah……..right.
When I walk into a room and see a cute guy sitting on a couch, I don’t rip my clothing off in uncontrollable passion. I know everyone here knows this defense is pure 100% grade A horse shit, and I still can’t imagine anyone falling for this crap, even though I know a few people will…..
This one is kind of new.
So now a gay panic defense doesn’t even need someone to actually be gay. they’re just a secret gay. The proof is that you claim it in your defense after you murder them. QED.
well, here’s hoping this shit gets shut down fast at trial. if it isn’t, I’m going to bet it’s at 50/50 “Baptist values” and “Egypt native.” and, had he tried on someone a bit more white bread, his scheme wouldn’t work as well.
WTF? So the guy admits to beating someone to death with a baseball bat and stuffing him in his trunk, but he’s really not guilty because…
Manious was GAY, so he wanted to have GAY SEX with Scarborough, but Scarborough wasn’t GAY, so he didn’t want to have GAY SEX with Manious, but Manious was GAY, so he tried to force Scarborough to have GAY SEX with him, because GAY people like GAY SEX, and Manious was GAY, so naturally he would force a random guy to have GAY SEX with him, because GAY people love GAY SEX, and Manious was GAY, and also Scarborough’s a Christian, and also it’s all Justin’s fault. Because, you know, Scarborough’s not that bright.
*headdesk*
It would be funny if it weren’t so sickening.
When I walk into a room and see a cute guy sitting on a couch, I don’t rip my clothing off in uncontrollable passion.
Plus, dude’s fugly. Imagine the inflated self-opinion one must have of oneself to think that people will automatically believe you when you say that gay men can’t keep their clothes on when you’re in the room.
Mr Scarborough has been accused of murder; do you think that there’s any defense he wouldn’t use if he thought that it had a prayer of keeping him out of jail?
The likelihood of it actually working is pretty small, but it might be better than simply pleading guilty.
I’m just trying to picture how this would go if, say, a woman murdered a guy who was (maybe, maybe not) hitting on her in the bar.
“But, your honor, I *really* didn’t want to have sex with him! I thought he was probably straight and might flirt with me, so I beat him to death and left him to die. You know, just in case.”
For goodness sake, women are convicted for injuring men who are actively in the process of raping them at the time.
I’m working on a post about how the judges in these cases know exactly what they’re doing, and they’re doing it on purpose to keep those of us in the gay community in our place. It is deliberate, and these rulings in and of themselves should constitute hate crimes.
I should add, I realize the defendant is claiming Manious did more than just “hit on” him, but I’m assuming that, since the scenario is absolutely absurd, it’s being exaggerated for effect by the defense.
I’m also hesitant to characterize any behavior after a sexual assault (which, if he were telling the truth, is what this would be) as too bizarre to be genuine, since it’s something a lot of rape apologist types pull out, but… really, leaving him in the trunk and going on a spending spree with his credit card? That sounds like a regular old felony robbery-murder with a whole lotta lies to cover it up.
The Gay Panic defense won’t die because it worked for decades if not centuries for lynch mobs as the Black Panic defense. The whole premise is that you have a right to irrationally hate people and then if those people do something that makes you uncomfortable then you have a right to violently attack them due to your irrational hatred.
while I also doubt this defense will work, and the body in the trunk/spending spree seems to seal this guys fate, I do have to wonder. kind of like in rhiains post. If scarborough is telling the truth, that was indeed sexual assault, was lethal force justified? I’m a big guy, if I walked into a females apartment, stripped down, put my arm around her and tried to kiss he and all the rest, exactly what couldnt she do? if she had a bat or taser or knife or even gun next to her, would she not be able to use it?
what if scarborough was openly gay, could an assault on manius not be justified by the alleged acts?
I know this guy is a total asshole and is grasping for straws for his defense and again the trunk/spending spree looks extremely bad to me.
All it takes is the wrong jury, the right defense attorneys, marginally competent prosecution, and a compliant judge - and Scarborough gets off with manslaughter, a suspended sentence, and a 100-hours of community service.
“Justice” is not guaranteed. And the more the victim can be portrayed as an “other”, the less likely the truth will prevail…
im still working through this. Ok so scarboroughs story has changed over time, does that not happen with victims of sexual assault if an assault did take place? Why are these claims so easily dimissed? Because it does not serve a larger narrative? If any of scarboroughs claims are true, which I doubt but I dont have all the info on it, would that change anything? Gay panic defense notwithstanding. As I’ve been taught to do over the years, I switch the sex of the victim/offender, works quite well in understanding misogyny in popular culture and in other things. If I make scarborough a female, thereby getting rrid of the gay panic defense narrative as the attacker was male, would this blog be so quick to dismiss her claims of sexual assault?
MikeEss-this guy will probably fry but the best way to get a slap on the wrist for murder is to pump a few shotgun blasts into your spouses back while they sleep then claim abuse.
jamespi, granted that no two cases are exactly the same, but the Menendez Brothers case came immediately to my mind. They alleged sexual abuse by their father.
I realize they were two rich punkasses (sorry Marc), who suckered an out-of-control defense attorney/surrogate-mother into defending them. But just about everything that could go wrong went wrong in this case. It’s always stood for me as an example of just how flawed our justice system can be.
The boys were eventually convicted, but came within a hair’s breadth of getting off…
jamespi: i usually think you mean well….so i hope i’m not inadvertently feeding the troll.
we aren’t even necessarily dismissing this idiot’s claims of sexual assault. we’re dismissing his claim that he was somehow entitled to beat the man, lock him in a car trunk to die, and then go on a shopping spree with the contents of his wallet. if a woman murdered a man, maxed out his credit cards, THEN claimed it was all OK because he raped her, we’d be calling bullshit on that one too.
there’s recourse (shitty, unfair recourse, but still…) for rape victims, even if they knock their attacker out in defending themselves. even if they KILL their attacker in defending themselves. Not so much to clear–at least–the theft and fraud charges if they do what Scarborough did here.
the strawfeminist. it is not your friend.
rhian,
Do you have some links or source data for the claim that women are convicted of injuring men raping them? THis information makes me so angry I can barely breath. I would like to be able to use it in arguments (if I can stand to state it aloud).
Can you imagine if women got violent every time they were given unwanted sexual attention? “Straight panic” maybe? Some men just don’t seem to get that women have to deal with annoying, aggressive, unwanted advances all the time. But when it happens to them, it’s a grave injustice & warrants murder or assault.
My neighbor was telling me that our other (male) neighbor came on to him, and made it out to be the sickest, most outrageous, brashest occurence he’d ever dealt with. Neighbor #1 is a pathological liar, I think, so I took his story with a grain of salt. But he said he told the guy he never wanted to see or speak to him again. If a woman treated him that way, she’d be considered a horrible, cruel, man-hating bitch.
SarahMC, don’t you know that as vagina-possessors we were naturally created to be receptacles of men’s desire? See, the penis means that men act and the vagina means that women receive. And teh gays are messing with the natural forces of evolution. Men can’t receive! That would make them, like… a woman or something.
So the message is, if you want to rob and kill someone, go ahead. Just make sure to say your victim was gay when the cops show up.
Rather the point. Gays are reviled b/c the gender-based superiority doesn’t apply to them. The man can be the woman! Who wears the pants? Do they take turns?Lesbians less so, b/c they are the gender underclass, so what they do to each other is simply pretend one of them is a man. And maybe both of them would get it on for a real man like me. “Licking women is a universal good” as one of my friends once said.
Anything that points out that all those ideas are nothing but patriarchal shit must be destroyed. Hence, “gay panic”–he came on to me! Me! A MAN! That’s disgusting! You can’t treat me like a woman, and if you do, I’m going to beat the ever living shit out of you. And that’s perfectly reasonable, b/c you were treating me like a woman.
Of course they don’t openly admit that it’s being treated like a woman. It’s just disgusting. Everyone knows that!
The gay panic defense never comes off as remotely believable, at least to me, because it always comes off as the stereotypical imagining of what a straight guy who’s never met or befriended a gay guy thinks a gay guy will do just as soon as they enter a room and see said straight guy. Like, maybe the gay guy is normally sensible and restrained, maybe he’s never done this before to another straight, but THIS straight guy is just so hot (and somehow giving off gay vibes, oh, no!) that the gay man had no choice but to hit on them. Who cares if they’re straight? Straight guys hit on lesbians all the time and succeed, right?
Is the scenario possible? Yeah, sure, there’s pigs in the gay community the same way there are pigs in the straight community. But as it’s been said, knocking him out is enough if that were the case.
When the gay panic defense works, it is a tragedy, but I haven’t heard of a case in a while where it worked, which is progress of a sort, I guess.
By that picture, I’m going to give this guy a Cracker rating of 8.9
I live in Fl., I’ve got experience
By that picture, I’m going to give this guy a Cracker rating of 8.9
I live in Fl., I’ve got experience
If there weren’t someone viciously and senselessly robbed and murdered, we’d all be laughing at the ineptitude of this story. It’s the kind of thing you’d make up when you were smoking dope with your friends, if you and your friends were particularly stupid and unpleasant: “No, no, he didn’t just strip off his clothes and kiss me, he hit me on the head, and then when I woke up he was trying to blow me. So I hit him.” “Say, dude, wouldn’t you have, like, a concussion and a big bruise on your head if that happened?”
It’s the job of a defense attorney to come up with whatever pile of steaming crap they think might get their client off, but as rhiain points out it’s not the job of a judge to let such steaming piles of crap in the courtroom.
What’s interesting about this thread is that the facts seem to be that a “victim” claims that sexual advances or even rape occurs. The story changes repeatedly and the “victim” seems completely untrustworthy to anyone being honest about the “victim’s” claims and the facts. This is the Duke rape case all over again. Except, that in this case, the sexual aggressor was a minority (gay) and the “victim” was a white male. When the Duke rape case was being discussed here, the idea that the woman was a sex worked “a criminal” was dismissed as victim blaming/attacking - yet here the man’s criminal past is used to negate his claims. When there was clear evidence suggesting that the Duke rape case victim had sex with someone else (DNA) and there was no evidence against the perpatratos, this blog still sided with her and attacked the innocent men. The truly consistent theme between both cases, is that the white guy is the bad guy and the minority is the “victim.” The truth is, of course, that both “victims” in both cases are liars and should be jailed for it. Interesting that the arguments allowed in a discussion of similar cases are so completely different.
Wow! 25 comments in before a troll brings up a certain case.
Dr T, why don’t you wonder aloud what Rev. Jeremiah Wright thinks about this case and why Obama isn’t doing something about it? Or was that already on you to-do’s?…
Now all we need is somebody claiming women are responsible for their own rapes and this thread will be complete…
Aileen Wuornos claimed that the reason she killed and robbed seven of her johns was that they sexually assaulted her. Somehow, the jury didn’t think it was a viable defense in her case, and she was executed.
So, yes, even in a similar case with the genders reversed, the woman was punished. As other people have said, any claim that you killed or assaulted someone because they raped or sexually assaulted you gets a lot less sympathy once you take that person’s credit cards and go on a spending spree.
Wait, the victim in the Duke rape case killed the accused rapists with a baseball bat, stole their credit cards, and left them to die in the trunk of their cars and then only claimed to have been raped after she was apprehended?
I guess I missed that little detail of the Duke rape case. I can’t believe I missed the coverage of the funerals. And I guess Nifong was prosecuted because he let her get away with four murders on a fake rape charge.
First of all, whatever happened to Grand Rapids: Barbaran testified that he called 911 but was told that police were too busy on multiple calls of shootings and stabbings that night and so they never responded to his plea for help. GR used to be a prosperous town filled with Calvinists who kept the Sabbath day holy.
Second of all, if gays make Scarborough panic, why does he hang out at the apartment of a man who goes to gay bars, and who brings home people he meets there? If I ran with a crowd open to having sex with men, I would have to accept that people would think I was part of that crowd. Even were his story true, it would be hard to believe that was the first time he was hit on. If I were the prosecution I’d try to find another guy who gave Scarborough a BJ.
Third, the “self-defense” excuse would have fizzled out long before Scarborough stuffed the body into the trunk. By that point he should be calling an ambulance.
Making some stuff up here.
Nothing excuses this guy.
But there’s a disconnect (duh) in the story in the paper. Manious just wandered in to the apartment (obviously without knocking, or Scarborough wouldn’t have been just sitting on the couch) drops his keys off and then commences hitting on the guy on the couch?
WTF? Especially if he didn’t know Scarborough, and if he really was leading a “secret gay life” there is no way he would just strip down and start groping a stranger in someone else’s home.
If there is any accuracy whatsoever in these details, (as opposed to Manious just getting jumped on the street, robbed and stuffed into his own trunk), it sure sounds to me like it was a setup by the roommate - “Dude, I’ll tell him to come over and that me and my hot friend will do him for money and we’ll rob him and he’ll never dare tell on us” - but that Scarborough actually did freak out when it came down to it, and overshot the plan.
Anyone have any more details on why Manious was supposed to have been there? People, even cruising gay people, don’t just randomly walk into strangers apartments.
No, it’s not. And to keep it on topic, it’s not b/c raping a woman is always justifiable–>she was asking for it. In the Duke case, the woman was a stripper, so you KNOW she wanted all those white boys to boff her.In this case, if we believe the victim, it’s a MAN being raped. Why would a man ever lie about such a thing? It’s horrible and disgusting and shouldn’t happen to a dog!
A bitch, maybe, but not a dog.
Oh, and cause I can’t help troll-feeding:
Just b/c the prosecutor was corrupt and attempted to bring a case to trial that never should have gone that far does not mean these boys are innocent. The email that one boy sent before the party was sick, and hiring strippers at all points to a lack of “innocence”
Don’t “poor little white boy” me. They had community support from day 1 that’s totally unlike what most rape victims get.
“In this case, if we believe the victim,”
Who believes the victim?in this case No-one, anywhere believes the victim of this case. He’s a lying, murdering, nutjob. His story keeps changing, there is no proof of his claims, and he can’t/shouldn’t be taken seriously. Just like the Duke “victim”. There was no proof other than her words (as a matter of fact there was proof of sex with others), her story kept changing, and in exactly the same was reasonnable adults reject this guy’s claims, they should have rejected hers. But the black community, the feminists, and everyone with an agenda rather than an interest in truth and justic rode that horse a long, long, long, long, long time past when it was clear that it had died.
Dr T, congrats!
Operation Derail Yet Another Pandagon Thread is a success!!!…
Aaaaand Dr. T refuses to even acknowledge the great points added by Caren, mnemosyne and others. What a shock. Don’t feed the trolls. They aren’t conducting a two-way dialogue, they’re ranting.
Uh, Doc? What about the theft and fraud charges? Those aren’t in the past, they’re in the present. Or, uh, the future of the crime.
I mean, unless you want to argue that during the entire shopping/driving spree he was blitzed out of his mind on Flexeril and alcohol, only staying upright and lucid long enough to buy things with someone else’s credit card through some sort of revolutionary caffienated tripod.
Well, this isn’t, strictly speaking, a “gay panic” defense–it’s a “self defense against attempted gay rape” defense. That’s not nearly as morally contemptible as a “gay panic” defense, although of course (to the extent you can judge this without actually hearing the testimony) the defendant seems to be lying about it.
A true “gay panic” defense is, “he made polite advances and I was so shocked I killed him”. That doesn’t play well any more, even in Grand Rapids.
In my own practice, I’d withdraw from the case rather than put on a “gay panic” defense, but I’d have no problem with a “self defense against attempted gay rape” defense, if the facts supported it.
As a gay man who practices criminal law in Grand Rapids, I have strong feelings about the lawyers and judges in this case, but since it’s not to difficult to figure out who I am from my screen name and the foregoing information . . . well, discretion s the better part of valor.
“I mean, unless you want to argue that during the entire shopping/driving spree he was blitzed out of his mind on Flexeril and alcohol, only staying upright and lucid long enough to buy things with someone else’s credit card through some sort of revolutionary caffienated tripod.”
…which would be an interesting variation of the “Twinkie Defense“…
in the light of rea’s comment@37:
Scarborough said Manious, stripped down to his underwear, put his arm around him, tried to kiss Scarborough and grabbed at him.
Assuming Manious had a right to be at Robinson’s apartment, and taking these allegations as true, where would this place Manious on the attempted rape/sexual assault spectrum?
“Assuming Manious had a right to be at Robinson’s apartment, and taking these allegations as true, where would this place Manious on the attempted rape/sexual assault spectrum?” (Sorry I don’t know how to blockquote, ‘cause I’m dumb like that)
Nowhere — especially if there was no indication Manious’ presence, his stripping, and his snuggling up was any problem for Scar-man. Who hasn’t been in a similar situation? Getting hit on is different than being assaulted. So, Scarborough saw him pull off his clothes. A straight man who knew Manious was gay would likely, at this point, say something like “Dude! Put your clothes back on!” or something of that sort, right? Strangely enough, I’ve been in much the same situation, but I’m a straight girl. Half-naked man walks over and tries to kiss you, then you have some options, depending on whether or not you’re actually scared of the guy. If not, dry sarcasm, and “not in a billion years; you may now find your socks and the door” was my answer. Obviously a little fear and less familiarity with the person make the answer more forceful, but none of that seems to have gone on here. Someone up the thread pointed out the leap from a person coming into the house to waking up finding himself being assaulted. It’s hard to say.
“Oh, and cause I can’t help troll-feeding:
Just b/c the prosecutor was corrupt and attempted to bring a case to trial that never should have gone that far does not mean these boys are innocent.”
Yeah it does - it means they were innocent of rape.
Don’t “poor little white boy” me. They had community support from day 1 that’s totally unlike what most rape victims get.”
They should have had support - they were innocent! She got support from day 1 from people iike you, and Rev Al, and the misguided Duke professors who got the coach fired, and others who were completely and totally wrong. But don’t admit it - no, no, no - claim they are guilty of other things - legal things like hiring strippers or using free speech. That’s EXACTLY the same as being guilty of rape.
You damage rape victims every time you label these boys not innocent. It equates true rapists with people who do legal things which with you don’t agree. Don’t whine about rape not being taken seriously when you do this.
Hey Dr T! Do you have anything to say here that’s actually on topic? ‘Cause the rest of us were having a conversation before you rudely intruded.
Common human social graces require you to apologize for your interuption and then politely (quietly) leave. But trolls aren’t human, are they…?
“Be it on your head, ladies, if rape doesn’t get taken seriously by some asshole who doesn’t give enough of a fuck to listen to you in the first place.”
What a great bargain!
Seriously, this sounds like a letter to Penthouse, at least until he picked up the baseball bat. It’s such a typical male fantasy: some total stranger finds this total shitstain hawt, offers blowjob, and usually that’s it.
Why do some guys think they’re so irrisistable? I mean, the most homophobic guys are the ones who think that gay guys will drop whatever they’re doing just to tap that hawt white boy ass. I mean, come on.
I realize that defense attorneys are necessary to the system, everyone deserves the best possible defense, yada yada. But honestly, how do some of these people manage to look at themselves in the mirror long enough to shave or put on makeup?
vegan,
nope not a troll, just a somwhat misguided guy struggling to make the best of things. as i stated in my post, the shopping spree and putting the guy in the trunk makes the case for me based on what little I know of the whole case, seems his lawyer isusing the gay panic thing as a defense to either acquit with or hang a jury, and as was noted above it could possibly work.
His story strains credulity but its not impossible, in his later telling of it, he was knocked out and awoke to being sexually assaulted whereupon he struck the attacker knocking him out. Now do I think its possible to freak out and put the body in the trunk for lack of better options in my mind at the moment? Yep, again the shopping and such pretty much kills it for me but his reaction, hitting the alleged attacker and freaking out seems very logical to me, he loses it on the rest of the story but it doesnt mean its not true, just that theres a 99.999% chance of it not being true. I’m sorry I do see it as dismissing quite easily his testimony of sexual assault, sure his story changed but have I not been trained to believe that is typical behavior for sexual assault victims?
But honestly, how do some of these people manage to look at themselves in the mirror long enough to shave or put on makeup?
I’m not the judge, or the jury. I won’t put on defenses I know to be false, or which are legally frivilous–but it’s not my job to judge my client’s credibility. I make every argument that can legitmately be made, and raise every legitimate defense. Most of what a defense attorney does in 90% of lall cases is to cut the best deal possible for his client.
Ultimately, the only way our criminal justice system works is if the defendant has someone who makes every argument that can be made in his favor, and insist that the prosecution play by the rules. That’s what keeps the criminal justice system from being simply an exercise of raw state power.
Assuming Manious had a right to be at Robinson’s apartment, and taking these allegations as true, where would this place Manious on the attempted rape/sexual assault spectrum?
4th degree cirminal sexual conduct–unwanted, nonconsensual sexual contact (without penetration).
I’m sorry I do see it as dismissing quite easily his testimony of sexual assault, sure his story changed but have I not been trained to believe that is typical behavior for sexual assault victims?
And as long as you ignore the fact that he and other friends of his waylaid, beat, and robbed another guy only a couple of days before, we might be very slightly more sympathetic. A lot of people found Aileen Wuornos’ story about first being sexually assaulted by the guys she robbed and murdered to be somewhat sympathetic, or they wouldn’t have made two movies about her.
I could even see a scenario like the one someone mentioned above where they lured the guy to the apartment with the promise of sex that Scarbrough couldn’t follow through on. But they’d never tell it that way, because admitting that you planned to rob the guy with a fake promise of sex puts you into some pretty nasty legal jeopardy, including first degree murder in some states.
It’s the facts that (a) he was already known to have beaten and robbed someone else and (b) he took the guy’s credit cards and went on a spending spree that torpedoes his sad, sad story of self-defense from a rapacious gay man.
They should have had support - they were innocent!
You know, the fact that you equate bad press with being murdered and robbed says an awful lot about you. You’re arguing that being accused and then acquitted of rape is worse than being robbed and murdered.
And you wonder why we ignore your rantings? Yes, yes, Dr. T., being falsely accused of rape is just like being beaten to death with a baseball bat. Will you go away now?
WRT the self-defense discussion, there’s something odd here that I don’t think has been mentioned- the logistics, for want of a better word.
Scenario: You have been knocked out, and come to in a prone or sitting position, dazed, and notice a head bobbing in your lap. You pick up baseball bat and hit said head. What happens?
1. You can’t get much of a swing, and you’re swinging in your own direction, which would make me, at least, tend to hold back.
2. You hit head, but unless you get an exact hit in your dazed condition, the bat slides or bounces off and hits you as well.
3. You hit head, and the neuromuscular reaction causes jaw to clench. OWWW! At least, hitting head pushes head quickly in one direction or another, and teeth scrape or dig in. OWWWW!
Both 2 and especially 3 would leave pretty clear evidence.
Scenario 2: You have been knocked out, and come to in a prone or sitting position, dazed, and notice a head bobbing in your lap.
1. You grab head, shout “WTF are you doing?” push head and guy it’s attached to away. Guy moves away, assault is over.
2. You pick up baseball bat, follow guy, get a good swing at his head, and do the Mark McGwire imitation you’ve always fantasized.
At that point, you’re no longer defending yourself, you’re just a gay basher.
If the assault actually happened, I think scenario 2 is the more likely one.
You know, the fact that you equate bad press with being murdered and robbed says an awful lot about you.
he also explicitly said that writing emails about how fucking hot it would be to kill and skin some strippers is morally justified free speech.
WRT the self-defense discussion, there’s something odd here that I don’t think has been mentioned- the logistics, for want of a better word.
Scenario: You have been knocked out, and come to in a prone or sitting position, dazed, and notice a head bobbing in your lap. You pick up baseball bat and hit said head. What happens?
1. You can’t get much of a swing, and you’re swinging in your own direction, which would make me, at least, tend to hold back.
2. You hit head, but unless you get an exact hit in your dazed condition, the bat slides or bounces off and hits you as well.
3. You hit head, and the neuromuscular reaction causes jaw to clench. OWWW! At least, hitting head pushes head quickly in one direction or another, and teeth scrape or dig in. OWWWW!
Both 2 and especially 3 would leave pretty clear evidence.
Scenario 2: You have been knocked out, and come to in a prone or sitting position, dazed, and notice a head bobbing in your lap.
1. You grab head, shout “WTF are you doing?” push head and guy it’s attached to away. Guy moves away, assault is over.
2. You pick up baseball bat, follow guy, get a good swing at his head, and do the Mark McGwire imitation you’ve always fantasized.
At that point, you’re no longer defending yourself, you’re just a gay basher.
If the assault actually happened, I think scenario 2 is the more likely one.
Carlisle was so “traumatized” by the encounter with Speigner that he killed the man, stole the professor’s credit card to buy beer, cigarettes and gasoline later in the day while joyriding with friends. Even worse, he rented the car to another friend and was finally arrested while smoking dope inside the car, which he had upfitted with a new tag and freshly tinted windows.
Isn’t that just the way? I mean, I was so traumatised by the last Dancing With The Stars that I smashed a shop window, stole a few televisions, and flogged them off down the pub for drinking money. Not to mention that last drink/driving ad, which forced me to carjack some yuppie in a BMW.
I’d love to know whether Scarborough and/or Carlisle were P users, because I’ve heard that bullshit before.
jdm,
interesting take jdm but when I was in the military I did quite a bit of mixed martial arts and I knocked a guy out while he was pretty much on top of me with very little leverage, lucky hit it seems but its possible. Look to me this guys story doesnt wash and in no way am I trying to excuse it but I just dont get the dismissing of the alleged attack so quickly, ive never seen that happen on a feminist blog when a woman is involved, even if the credibility of the woman was as shaky as this guys. Also, if we take his story at face value, what exactly does robbing and hitting a guy a few days before have to do with it? Makes total sense if you completely discount the sexual assault story but if you do not, mugging some guy does not mean you couldnt physically defend yourself does it? Yes, yes, pattern of violence but you can only set that pattern in full if you dismiss the sexual assault claim.
If I was this guy I wouldnt have the religion card to play as I’m an atheist but if things looked bad for me, heck I might even pull the gay panic card even though I’m bi, my reaction to waking up to someone forcing oral sex on me would be the same for either sex but it would be much tougher to get a jury to buy non-consenual oral sex performed by a female no? eh, seems like just another dirty trick but I’m not so sure we can really get into it too far in this specific case since no one knows what happened in that room right? Off to work, have a wonderful night all.
Well, things aren’t equal, are they? In a perfect world, the genders and orientations involved wouldn’t matter. In our society, they do.Women often don’t report rape b/c they are victimized again and again by the system. Plus, simply being a rape victim makes a woman ‘damaged goods’ to many men.
If it’s not a stranger assault, and most rapes aren’t, a victim’s credibility is already shot. When someone reports a wallet stolen, people don’t automatically assume that he just gave his wallet to the “robber” and regretted it in the morning. When someone is raped, if it’s not a case of “The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated” then it probably wasn’t rape.
Just look at our good Dr. Troll: rape victims won’t be taken seriously b/c we don’t pity the Duke boys for being accused of rape. Dr. T probably believes OJ was innocent as well. Hey! The man was acquitted! We should all support him now.
Personally, the fact that he robbed someone before simply adds credence to the story that he robbed again. Using the credit cards and going on a shopping spree just tips it over to the point of ridiculousness.
Simply being female makes enough of a difference in our society. We’re more likely to be treated as trash, so I’m more likely to give the benefit of doubt. But even if a woman claimed she’d been raped and then killed the guy in self defense, I’d be just as dubious if she went on a 4 day shopping spree with the rapists cards, especially if she’d done something similar just a few days earlier.
UPDATE: The defense worked. The verdict: voluntary manslaughter, which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison. He was charged with felony murder and faced mandatory life in prison without parole.
Dr T–So I take it that since we mustn’t punish innocent bystanders for crimes they may not have committed, you do not support the other players’ decision to possibly sue the entire school and the entire city of Durham, rather than the individual professors/administrators/inept law enforcement/etc.?
(At least if they’re lacrosse players. I guess it’s a different story if they’re just residents of Durham who had nothing to do with the case and shouldn’t pay higher taxes over it, or students at Duke who are just trying to get a good education and would have to pay higher tuition to defray the costs.)
(The disturbing thing is that after reading durhaminwonderland there are so many people who DO support punishing innocent bystanders, because “so many of them voted for Nifong” [probably not expecting he’d do what he did,] because “few if any people in Durham/Duke came forth to defend the players, so they’re not innocent bystanders” [maybe they just wanted to stay out of the mess?] “it will help expose further corruption,” etc. It’s as if there were no lessons learned from the case.)
Reading it, I also disliked the duplicity of “those players were getting such a good education, except that they weren’t because of those professors,” which often was joined with bragging about “omg my kid has a near-perfect SAT and near-perfect grades but would never CONSIDER dook bc those professors hate white ppl!!” I wonder (and don’t sympathize) about how many of those people cut off their faces to spite their noses by attending colleges that were even more controlled by “PCness”/”academic liberalism”/etc (I find it VERY hard to believe that Duke’s student body is that liberal, being upper-class and Southern.)
I’d love to know whether Scarborough and/or Carlisle were P users, because I’ve heard that bullshit before.
I had to google that, you’re apparently speaking some strain of foreign devil, as I’d never heard before.
For anyone else who might have missed that: It’s Kiwi for Meth.
For some reason, you’re fixating on the assault and ignoring the aftermath of the assault, which was taking the guy’s credit cards and going on a spending spree.
If he had only hit the guy with a baseball bat and killed him, I could see that. If you’re someone who skirts the law at best, as Scarborough seems to have been doing, I could even see panicking and putting the guy you think you killed in the trunk of his car. After all, you’re a known scumbag (woman), so who’s going to believe you that you were assaulted?
It’s the stealing of the credit cards that kills the credibility of his story, especially once it turns out that he assaulted and robbed someone else just a few days before. Once you know that, it makes you question whether the sexual assault actually happened, or if the guy made it up to cover up his having committed two robberies within a few days of each other.
Hey Dr. Troll:
The reason why I don’t believe this murdering douchebag is because HE’S A MURDERER. There were three witnesses to his gay-bashing: His partner in crime, him, and the person he murdered. The person who can’t give his side of the story because he was beaten then locked in a trunk to die while the person who murdered him used his stolen credit cards to buy shit..
I don’t buy his “OMG FAGRAPE” story because he’s a lying, shameless scumbag, and because there’s no counter-argument from the other person involved. Why not? BECAUSE THE OTHER PERSON IS FUCKING DEAD.
But you don’t understand those kind of distinctions - to you, it’s all about how poor, poor white men are so oppressed by them evil cunts and faggots, right?
To clarify: The “victim” in this case is a shiftless scumbag who murdered someone. In the Duke case, the victim was someone who called rape, rape. Dr. Troll sees no difference between a person who was assaulted by several people, then told she was obviously a lying bitch who wanted to ruin good white boys’ lives, and a gay-bashing thief. To him, the two are exactly the same, since nobody should believe either in his mind.