Why Cyrus Vance is to be commended for dropping charges against Strauss-Kahn

[JDPriestly]

A number of DUers have criticized the dropping of the charges against Strauss-Kahn. In this article, Scott Turow whom many may know as a bestselling author of mystery/legal fiction explains why Cyrus Vance's only mistake in the case was moving too quickly to bring the indictment against Strauss-Kahn.

I have long believed that the prosecutors erred in handling the O.J. case by bringing their indictment before thoroughly examining the facts. In the O.J. case, they prematurely announced a theory of the timing of the relevant events that had not been as thoroughly thought through as it should have been well.

Be sure to read the whole article because you get the wrong impression about its message if you read only the few sentences quoted here. I chose these sentences because I thought they expressed something important to think about.

***

Given the attention paid to Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s arrest, Mr. Vance deserves enormous credit for pulling the plug on a highly publicized prosecution, especially since he could foresee the political damage to himself. I was one of the lawyers in a case involving two men whom prosecutors held on death row for years long after another man had confessed to the murder. That is not atypical. Prosecutorial intransigence, a galling inability to acknowledge that initial judgments were incorrect, is the hallmark of almost every wrongful conviction case I am familiar with. Mr. Vance is entitled to kudos for not turning a failing case into a travesty.

And the standard that Mr. Vance and his assistants employed in deciding to dismiss the case is noteworthy and laudable. “If we do not believe her beyond a reasonable doubt,” the prosecution wrote in its motion to dismiss, referring to Ms. Diallo, “we cannot ask a jury to do so.”

This is not the bar all prosecutors set in deciding whether or not to go forward. Ethical rules prohibit lawyers from calling a witness whose testimony they know to be false; but the rule is not the same when the testimony is possibly true but dubious. Particularly in urban criminal courts, where caseloads tend to be overwhelming and the police sometimes push cases aggressively, prosecutors are often not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt about the truthfulness of particular testimony. Frequently they leave it to jurors to determine the credibility of a particular witness. In trying to talk prosecutors out of weak cases, I have been told more than once, “I wasn’t there, man, and neither were you. Let the 12 of them figure it out.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/28/opinion/sunday/cyrus-vance-jrs-high-marks-in-the-strauss-kahn-case.html?src=recg

[Warpy]

1. I agree, he did the right thing

because Ms. Diallo couldn't keep her story straight. It would have been a disaster in a courtroom.

That he didn't cling to this thing the way the prosecutor in the Duke lacrosse team alleged gang rape did is to his credit.

It says nothing about whether or not a crime occurred. It just said the whole thing was impossible to prosecute because the accuser lacked credibility.

[JDPriestly]

2. Correct. In my personal opinion, her story did not figure in the first place.

Also, in my experience, assault and rapt victims I have known most often tended to be either very angry at their assailant -- and immediately angry -- or more commonly reticent to talk about the incident.

That is why claims for restraining orders against repeated abusers are sometimes turned down: The time for bringing them has passed.

This "victim" did not fit into my personal experience with these things, and then when I tried to picture the events said to be the facts in her case, they didn't make sense from the very beginning. And as more versions of her story became public, there were what I perceived as discrepancies.

There is always a he said/she said in these cases.

If someone is really interested in the issue of rape/domestic violence, they might visit their local courtrooms in which such cases are decided. After watching a few of these cases, those who assume the man/woman is always right, might understand that there is no absolute rule. Each case must be considered in its own right.

Above all, it is important to remember that men can suffer from domestic violence. And men suffer tremendously in the rare cases in which they are falsely accused of rape or harassment.

[jaysunb]

3. Thanks for posting this and your commentary.

You are on point at every jucnture and I wish more Americans would leave off the emotions when considering ANY legal case.

K&R :thumbsup:

[cascadiance]

4. I wonder if the real purpose of the attempted prosecution was still accomplished though...

... which was getting him out of the position as head of the IMF prior to the IMF's delivery of the terms of the European Union's conditions for bailout to Greece, which basically forced Greece to adopt austerity measures on most Grecians and did not compell them to fix their corrupt collection of taxation on the wealthy, who were getting off not paying taxes which was a big part of Greece's debt. Read the following article and note the date of this was in the beginning of December of last year... Note that he stresses "the richest should participate", when making initial statements for the negotiations of what Greece should do to get bailout funds from the European Union.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/efbdbfc6-022e-11e0-aa40-00144feabdc0.html

Note that Sarkozy as president of the EU was feeling threatened politically by DSK.

Note that just when it was indicated that charges would be dropped against DSK was when Christine Lagarde was made head of the IMF.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/economy/new-york-post-investigator-says-it-s-a-certainty-dsk-charges-will-be-dropped-20110705

And shortly after she was appointed, she urged that Greece, etc. unite to support the auserity measures.

http://www.france24.com/en/20110629-lagarde-urges-greeks-unite-opposition-austerity-measures-imf-economy-debt

Guilty or not of what DSK was charged with, it was "mission accomplished" for the wealthy power brokers and banksters. They got rid of the threat they saw in DSK where he could hurt them from the IMF and perhaps as a threat to run successfully against Sarkozy...

In fact, they probably prefer that DSK not have to go through a trial, and if things got too harsh on him, perhaps he'd fight back and expose some of their manipulations.

Side note: Note that DSK, Christine Lagarde, and Eliott Spitzer were ALL interviewed in the documentary that won the Oscar after this mess happened in "Inside Job"...

[JDPriestly]

5. Agreed, casdacience.

And someone in the New York Police Department is rumored to have been a friend of Sarkozy's.

I wonder what the woman's arrest record may have been. She probably did not have one, but immigrants are being deported for minor offenses at this time.

[mazzarro]

6. Question for those who know

Is this Cyrus Vance any relation of the former Secretary of State under President Carter?

[JDPriestly]

7. I think so.