NEWS: Pole Vaulting, Public Exposure, Privacy, and Rape Defenses

CULTURE: Pole Vaulting, Public Exposure, Privacy, and Rape Defenses

Those of you who read and talked about Saturday's and Tuesday's posts might be interested in this absolutely appalling bit of background information: apparently the father of the pole vaulter whose photographs got tossed around (and over) across the internet is, himself, a criminal defense attorney--a noble calling--who, in the course of his duty, has offered up some pretty disgusting defenses of his clients.

And, in another case,

Awful stories, but beautifully illustrative of a larger point: the culture that enables people to defend rape by arguing that unconscious women are there for the taking isn't at all cut off from the culture that thinks it's okay to make one's opinions about which women are hot into a public game of male bonding. Both rely on the idea that, in the end, women are things, not people. And if it turns out that a given woman hasn't fully internalized that message, and she has the huevos to complain about being treated like an object, way too many of us will just tell her to toughen up, that it's inescapable, what do you expect?

Same fucking thing. Women don't need to get used to being treated like shit. Guys need to get used to the idea that women are human beings.

Bitch_PhD wants to point out that there are men who get it--but that it was feminist women who did the digging and broke the story.

i'd like to read that case. jesus.

Bitch_PHD, I don't know what else to say but: You've got me on your side. This is so incredibly disgusting.
I'm not a self-hating man. I'm confident enough in my masculinity that I can view women as people. I'm tough enough that I don't need to live in a male-dominated society.
People like Stokkes are cowards in the worst possible sense. FUCK.

Al Stokke you are a useless fucking asshole!

I don't think this guy is a twunt. These are, quite possibily, not his real beliefs on the case.
As a defence lawyer he's legally obligated to give the best possible defence of his client; otherwise they can claim a mistrial.

That being said, I don't think 'she was asking for it!' is the best possible defence for this person, so I think he's a bad lawyer. But that's different to being an asshole.

Stokke may be a vile human being, but he just puts these ideas out there. He likely doesnt agree with most of the defenses he uses, his biggest sin is simply greed. Its the majority of the 12 person jury panel that agree with him that scare me more. i think its time i checked out of this society, grew a beard and moved to the mountains.

Agreed, although, if I were a defense attorney, I wouldn't take a case I couldn't make an argument for that I didn't believe in. Maybe that would make me a poor attorney, but then again, I'm not all that concerned with money.

Exactly, except I don't think that point was ever made. Obviously it could be inferred, and I was waiting for it as I was reading--the big "FUCK YOU--Al Stokke", but it never came and the article went off on a freaking "tangent".

I'm not suggesting that there isn't a culture that objectifies woman. There certainly is. But it makes me wonder, is it a culture that objectifies women or is it a culture that objectifies everything? Our whole consumer culture seems to have stripped the humanity away from everything (including women). Either way, it pisses me off...

I believe that's called Karma.

I think there's a pretty big difference between letting it be known that you think a girl is hot, and raping the girl. A gigantic difference. And publicly appreciating the beauty of a woman isn't the same as objectifying her. True?

double. ignore.

Its not a sin, he's just doing his job, which is critical to the justice system being able to function. To have a fair trial, you need to have two sides debating each other. Just because the people Stokke was trying to defend were scumbags doesn't mean that they should have no defence attorney and be immediately jailed. He needs to explore all possible avenues of defence for these people/twunts, otherwise they will not have recieved the fair trial that is their human right.

I'm not sure if this is the case in America, but in Britain alot of state-employed lawyers don't have a choice over which cases they take on. They're there to do their job, not to pick and choose. People are missing the point here; justice isn't about only defending the nice guys, its about defending everyone and letting a judge and jury weigh the evidence.

Interestingly, the lawyers in the Nuremberg trials, when asked how they could defend Nazis, said that if they didn't do the best job they could as defence attorneys in the trial then the war criminals would then claim a mistrial and be freed. The same logic applies here. Al Stokke did nothing but serve the justice system in the way he was obligated to do.

Amazing ....

When the Sgt. has to tell another officer to stay away from the strippers prior to the incident and he still gets off on the case.... there something wrong with the jury.

"I'm disappointed by the verdict, but I respect the jury's decision," she said. WTF?

well, unless Stokke is a public defender, he most certainly does have control over what cases he takes (as a private criminal defense attorney).

anyway, the man is doing his job of advancing the best legal arguments for his clients and providing them with the zealous representation to which they are entitled, no matter how vile their crimes.

i'm glad that someone at least bothered to mention the jury here, which is, in my (admittedly probably biased) opinion, the truly disturbing thing. lawyers wouldn't make disgusting arguments like "she was asking for it" if jurors weren't persuaded by them. i long for the day when such arguments from the defense counsel will induce hostility and disgust from the jury to which they are presented.

Bingo. Now any judge or jury that buys into that shit are worthless human beings, but as a defense attorney he doesn't have the luxury of not trying every possible defense.

No, that's not the greater point. That's the obvious point, and the one that lets everyone say "oh, what a jerk he is" and sit on their butts secure in the knowledge that we are much better people.

Which changes exactly jack shit.

ah yes, this follows the same logic used in certain italian courts, that a woman can't be raped if wearing tight jeans because "there's no way the jeans could be removed without help from the woman herself."
falls under the category of 'Are You Fucking Kidding Me?!'
sadly, no, they're not.

Actually, it's not at all the definition of Kharma.

Me too.

Sure, they may be connected. But definitely not in a noteworthy way. As far as I see it.