“Rapist,” reads Bill Cosby's star on Hollywood Walk of Fame

English used to be my first language but the quality has suffered over the years especially when I don’t take the time to edit, I have also been jumping in and out of a thread that induces strong emotions at weird hours without much sleep overall.
It is my nature to get hung up on bullshit legalism to the exclusion of reality.
I think I am with TacoChucks opinion in that I need to edit out any qualification to a target of rape lest I [quote=“TacoChucks, post:21, topic:47677”]
look like a rape apologist going forward
[/quote]
My apologies for insensitivities and worse upthread,.

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Hmm. Reading back,I don’t think I said that at all.
Let me put it simply. I don’t believe them. I don’t believe him either. I cannot form a viable opinion without either reviewing the evidence or knowing them personally. This is for a jury.
Does anyone who questions the circumstances surrounding a crime automatically become an apologist for said crime? That sounds like mob-logic to me.
I’ll step back from the pack and let the courts take their course, they’re the ones who get to hear all the unpleasant details in order to form an educated opinion. I can have no educated opinion in this particular case.
If it’s true, let him pay, if it’s not, let him free.
I added the reference to the Satanic Ritual Abuse as a reminder that sometimes multiple witnesses can also be wrong.

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Oh, for a second there I thought you said it to draw a negative reaction by degrading the statements of the women.

I’m sure you think it needed to be said, lest their potential lies not be considered. Noble of you.

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While in principle I agree that there are very good reasons for not accepting accusations alone as a basis for judgement, one of the big differences with this case is that they don’t involve misremembered abuse by young children - these people were in their teens and 20s and the same claims of coaching and fake memories are less convincing. At the same time, as @marilove pointed out it’s not likely that so many different people would try to destroy someone by throwing around fake claims, especially as this opens them up to all sorts of probing questions into their personal lives. Without direct evidence, a lot of people aren’t going to believe them anyway.

While I am wary of having too strong an opinion on individual cases without evidence, it should be recognised that rape often won’t leave the physical traces that would constitute unequivocal evidence. The woman is left with psychological trauma and an account of her experience, which should be respected even if there is insufficient evidence for a guilty verdict. “She’s lying, it never happened” or “it was consensual” will theoretically be possible in many cases, but that doesn’t mean that we should default to considering him de facto innocent based on lack of evidence (which is what will happen if we say “I don’t believe anyone’s account”). If it is found that they are lying, I don’t think they will find any support from anyone here.

When it comes to the courts though, I think it is an issue as whichever stance you take, choosing to believe one person over another or to remain sceptical of both is giving a lot of power to one party over the other. One issue seems to be the assumption of consent:

The problem: the default legal assumption in rape cases is that consent was given. It’s up to the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it wasn’t. This is very different from the standard legal assumptions for other crimes. It’s not assumed that a murder victim consented to be murdered. It’s not assumed that a robbery victim consented to give their wallet over to a stranger. It’s not assumed that a identity theft victim consented to have someone else take their identity. In such a case, yes, the prosecution has to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the accused killed the victim, or took the victim’s wallet, or took the victim’s identity, etc. But if that’s proven, it’s not up to the prosecution to prove that the victim didn’t want it.

But it is that way with rape. The legal assumption is that if any two random people have sex, no matter how implausible, that consent was given to it - and the prosecution has to prove otherwise, beyond a reasonable doubt. And for this reason, rape is exceedingly difficult to prosecute.

In more than one of the cases, Cosby is accused of groping someone. In another, there is a disagreement on whether sex that both agree happened was consensual. Unlike with murder or robbery, there’s no proof that the groping happened and even where it can be proven that it did, it is clear that people don’t get murdered or robbed consensually but they do have sex consensually. With no witnesses and in the absence of physical evidence (which seems to be true in a lot of cases), how is a conviction beyond reasonable doubt possible? (and please don’t accuse me of victim blaming for this; I am asking an honest question about the inherent uncertainty of many rape cases, not accusing women of lying).

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You thought wrong. I said it as a caution against jumping in with the mob as is the default stance. I haven’t read the women’s statements, so can have no sound basis for an opinion.
Nobility doesn’t come into it.

I agree with your points. As per your question as to guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, this is where the jury, prosecutor and defense has to sift through a lot of ‘he said/she said’ evidence, in order to establish holes and inconsistencies in stories. Dates and times are cross-referenced with alibis etc. It’s very messy and it’s not perfect, but if there are faults in either side’s story it’ll start to show.
I fully appreciate the differences in the two cases, but there are different factors at play. True, the children were young, but the case was far more recent for them. Whereas the women were much older at the time, but it was many many years prior.
As to the unlikelihood of false claims, 109 women were prosecuted for false rape claims in the last five years in the UK alone.

I don’t post this to diminish the victims, so let me end by saying that ALL allegations of rape should be investigated as if the victim were telling the truth, it’s a serious offence. I simply disagree with the internet being the arbiter of said truth.

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For one thing, there was a payout aka settlement paid to ONE woman of the 14 known accusers.

For another, there is no statute of limitations on many of these cases.

For a third, they did realize that he was doing this serially, he faced numerous accusations & in the one instance of settlement made did make that settlement to avoid facing over a dozen witnesses, but is/was quite rich and powerful & was able to damage control, deny & silence until now.

For a fourth, your opinion that one victim accepting a settlement in a civil suit is akin to that victim doing some disservice to other victims is fucking ludicrous & undeniably shifts partial blame of justice lost from the rapist attempting to silence to the victim(s) seeking justice, & is thus victim blaming, despite the oblique angle of blame.

Fifth, fuck your strikeout, strikeout artist.

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And as the article points out, we’re not at all sure that these women weren’t telling the truth- it’s fully possible that they were raped, then they suffered the further abuse of being jailed for making false accusations.

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Absolutely. I do realise that. We can never really be sure, we can only rely on studied testimony. My point was that it does happen, which is why I made the SRA point also. Wikipedia claims stats between 2 and 8 percent of accusations being fraudulent. I don’t wish to steer the thread in that direction though as I’m afraid of attracting victim-blamers rallying unwanted behind me.

?? The internet isn’t an arbiter, it’s a forum. Large numbers of people agreeing with regards to Cosby being a serial rapist is a result of large numbers of people being provided such information that they form an opinion & then many express that opinion.

BTW the satanic rituals thing, your 109 potentially false claims in Britian over 5 years? Neither would form the basis of a reasonable doubt in a reasonable person if presented in a courtroom, because they are wildly unlikely statistical anomalies, even despite your sentence structure.

So less than 22 potentially false claims per year in the UK? Set opposite the estimated 69,000 female, 9,000 male rape victims per year: get the full data | UK news | The Guardian 78,000 rapes per year in Britain & there you are.

Set the satanic abuse thing against child abuse, since that was the claim, and you find that chestnut less reasonable by orders of magnitude than the UK false claims info you had.

So, whether in or out of a courtroom, whether opinions or judgements, what you have had to offer is unreasonable examples of why people shouldn’t form opinions lest they risk ??

No. Wikipedia claims that Police classify between 1.5 - 8% of reported rapes as unfounded, unproven or false while conventional scholarly wisdom favours the low end of that spectrum at 2% being unfounded, unproven or false.

That’s a far cry from what you have wikipedia saying.

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The internet is indeed a forum, and it’s also an amplifier. Large numbers of people do not have information in this case. They have an opinion. All the actual information will come out in the trial.
My reference to the 109 and the SRA case was not to instill reasonable doubt in a courtroom, merely to illustrate that these things can and do happen. The 109 to illustrate that false rape allegations do occur, regardless of the statistics weighing heavily in cases of actual rape. (I’m not claiming that this is the case here) and the SRA to illustrate False Memory Syndrome. (that this was a child-abuse case is irrespective, it’s the FMS I was illustrating, and again,not necessarily the case here). The courts will weigh the evidence themselves without our input.
People are fully entitled to their opinions, but must realise that without facts they are simply that. Hurling insults (not you yourself) at anyone who disagrees doesn’t help anyone, nor advance the conversation.
The Wikipedia figures I stated as between 2 and 8 percent. Precisely what you’ve just said. When I say “Wikipedia claims” I meant what was stated on the Wikipedia page. Nobody thinks Wikipedia has its own criminal investigative arm. So hardly a far cry as you state. My apologies.
I’ll grant you unproven, but unfounded and false are both equivalent to fraudulent (depending on the individual case).
I can see that it’s going to be a struggle to find an unbiased jury.
Which is exactly what they should be.
I think if we all though a little more like jurors and a little less like prosecutors and defence the world would be a nicer place.

This is the result that our bellyaching is/was for. The guy had two upcoming shows and I’m glad the internet hate machine made enough of a deal about this that they were cancelled.

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Fair enough, but what if he’s found not guilty?
Bad Internet.

O.J. Simpson was acquitted, too. In this case, I don’t think we’ll ever have occasion to find out what might happen to a fully-exonerated Cosby, 'cause the chances of him being innocent are even smaller than the chances of him convincing the world that he didn’t do any of it. And that’s waaaay too tiny to waste time arguing for.

As for his star on the Walk of Fame, well, back when I lived on Orchid behind the Chinese Theater, I often stepped over Walt Disney’s star which was frequently smeared with human shit… but that was more a function of Hollywood in 1991 than any judgment on the man’s character.

I think.

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Why would he have settled out of court in the early 00’s if he wasn’t guilty of something? Even if he’s “found not guilty” the court of public opinion is now at least acutely aware that he settled out of court in a previous case and will judge him as such going forward.

Also: I wouldn’t give a flying fuck if a multi-millionaire lost an opportunity to make more money.

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They do have information. That’s how they come by their opinions.

Your stating that the public accusations, number of alleged victims, statements provided by counsel, interviews conducted by media, civil matters settled out-of-court, statements by law enforcement & DA offices, as not being actual information is ridiculous.

If it is not information, actual information, then what is it? How do you come to type of it? Did you mean that it isn’t true until a court tells you it is true? Thus, as you stated, you cannot form an opinion? Hate to tell you, but all a court ever had was an opinion & oft times the odds of it being correct are worse than that of the general public.

You use the word opinion, I do not think it means what you think it means. Do you know what is less probable than 14+ disparate allegations of rape against a powerful man? Your not forming an opinion subject to your bias while reading this thread, or anything else on the subject. BTW, all opinions are viable until they begin to counter the laws of physics.

Your reference to the 109 was originally in the context of reasonable doubt per your response to @jsroberts. Both that & your SRA/FMS examples are extreme outliers as possibilities go, which was my point in demonstrating how ridiculously extreme these examples are.

No, 1.5 is not 2. If you give equal standing to the multiple definitions of the actual words used, that you replaced with Fraudulent which has a singular definition, then you need to divide that 2% (of reported rapes, of rape claims that police accepted) up about 17 ways, with only two instances of false coming close but not precisely meeting fraudulent. And every one of those findings by police are within the context of a closed system that dismisses & refuses rape claims quite regularly.

You don’t get to keep your 2%. Your fraudulent claims are behind the decimal.

I call shenanigans on your stance that you don’t have an opinion.

or

Please specify what machine language is required for the input of said information.

BTW a trial is incredibly unlikely. He can probably hold out until he dies. He will remain rich even if he has to pay settlements to all his alleged victims. He has however lost money & so have many persons & agencies that would have invested in his 2 recently cancelled ventures.

So where are his & his associates libel/slander suits, seeking damages against their accusers?

Social justice is preferred to no justice. He could defend himself & according to his long held persona he would if he were innocent. Even if his persona is fake (it almost certainly is) in business you defend your name if you can & Cosby is a business.

My opinion is apparent. It is also subject to change. There is more danger in refusing to form opinions than otherwise. Way, way more allegations of rape & any other abuse you can imagine would be locked in silent victims if people saw it your way.

Juries are instructed. So what are you?

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Oh, they have information. The basic gist of the story. What they don’t have is details. Not even close. (Names, dates, times, places, conversation, context, history, witnesses, alibis, etc. all gleaned from cross examination, not internet forums). I’m not prepared to hang a guy without hearing all the details first, that would be irresponsible. My apologies for using the phrase “not enough information” instead of “details”, I thought it conveyed the same.
Yes, the court forms only an opinion, but not without first hearing months of details. The precise reason we have courts in the first place.
Of course the SRA/FMS are extreme outliers and probably not relevant in this case, but they exist, which was my point to those who claim it’s unlikely for victims to lie or be wrong. This was a generality to illustrate the actual existence of SRA/FMS, so let’s not keep pretending that I’m using it as a defence here. I don’t have enough details to, that would be irresponsible of me again.
1.5% - 2%, fair enough, drop me a half a percent for only giving the Wiki a cursory glance and quoting that figure which I read there. And of course I didn’t do the subdivision “about 17 ways” which you did.
It certainly would be an injustice if it never saw the courts, and I hope that won’t happen. Every dog should have his day. Perhaps you could get a seat on the jury, they’ll need some fine critical thinkers and mathematicians like yourself. Note though, that you’ll only be instructed if the judge sees failings in your judgement, other than that, you’re free to be unbiased.
Do I have an opinion in this case? Probably, though not a public opinion. I had one of those for Michael Jackson and I turned out to be wrong. I’ve learned to think like a juror these days.
And AFAIK, FWIW, FFS there are counter-suits from the Cosby camp.

The Satanic ritual abuse involved CHILDREN while these Cosby rape allegations involve ADULT WOMEN. I reject your attempt to connect the two. The are not correct. You are a rape apologists hanging on to thin threads which I can see right through.

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These rape victims aren’t “mobs”. The cases with which you try to compare have nothing in common. You are only trying to compare them to make some point that doesn’t actually exist.

You are comparing grown women to children, and you’ve also out-right called these women a “mob” – although what you really mean hysterical mob. Ah, where have I heard that before? Oh, I wonder.

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Clearly you have no grasp whatsoever of the entire thread that has been going on before you in your haste to hate and insult. It’s been a heated, but civil discussion, to which you have sorely lowered the tone with histrionics. I would suggest re-reading, but doubt it’ll retain, so I’ll refrain.
I in no way called the victims a mob. I call you part of the mob, which makes you a lynch-mob apologist.
Good day madam.