Juliet Macur on Jameis Winston

I'm curious to hear what the panel here thinks of this column. Macur is pretty ticked that Winston and his teammates didn't answer questions at his disciplinary hearing. She said this is "obstructing justice." She also calls Winston's one answer - that the accuser gave consent by "moaning" - "ridiculous and infuriating."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/24/s...words-and-florida-states-complicity.html?_r=0

Macur is pretty upset, it's clear, due to the testimony of Winston's accuser. I just don't exactly understand what she thinks was wrong about the school investigation. Why was Jameis's answer infuriating? Is it normal for witnesses to take the fifth, so to speak, at these things? Might there not be good reason for it?

There's a lot that's gone wrong in this investigation. And it's bothersome that Winston might have raped someone. I'm just not sure this piece gets where it needs to get as far as making a cogent argument.

I like Macur's work, generally, and I'm drawing attention to this one merely because I think it's a good starting point for discussing both the FSU hearing but, moreso, what a column needs to accomplish to work.

 

After I read the column, which I generally thought was well done, I went to read 20-25 comments and was somewhat surprised more people than I expected saying, in effect, "Not so fast."

I did like the line, "Anyone who has supported the program for the past couple of years should feel dirty by now," though, as we all know, you could say this about a lot of schools.

 

To be honest, I've grown a bit weary of people like Macur preaching at me as why I must hate Florida State. To the point where I now kinda wanna see the Seminoles win just to spite those folks and see em get pissed off....

 

Were the friends accused of a crime? Why were they not speaking?

Now, Dick, you're the lawyer. Can you kinda sorta plead the Fifth, where you don't answer anything else but do get to say she was giving verbal and physical consent by "moaning" and that's enough for the judge and jury? I always thought the right against self-incrimination was an all-in deal.

This thing has been fixed from the night it happened so it isn't surprising anymore, but we are way beyond a simple misunderstanding here.

 

Feel the same way when people talk about street gangs.

 

Oh hey totally unrelated but ESPN requested and received names of 360 FSU athletes who are in the Tallahassee PD system who are listed as "victim, suspect, witness or reporting party." Supposedly they're doing an analytical piece.

And oh BTW:

Brett McMurphy ✔ @McMurphyESPN
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Tally PD: FSU RB Dalvin Cook part of active investigation as associate of 2 men in aggravated assault, alleged to wave firearm at victim

Sweet! Go Noles! All the way to the championship!

 

Street gangs are real life, football games are not. FSU winning ain't gonna lead to a surge in rape rates.

I've learned to roll my eyes whenever media starts spinning sporting events as good vs. bad morality plays. I believe the most egregious example of that ever was in the run up to the 86 national title game between Penn St. and Miami. How'd that work out? The whole county got stirred into cheering for Jerry Sandusky and Joe Paterno because we were told they were the morally "good" side.

Again, it's college football, plenty of bad guys on both sides in every game---even if some get more publicity than others.

 

I think what doesn't work here for me is that rather than construct an argument, Macur comes at her subject from a certain perspective and worldview - a bias, I guess you might say - and then just kind of rants about what she sees, from that point of view. It's the kind of preaching-to-the-choir opinion-writing you see in NYT or WSJ editorials.

Winston's answer may very well be "infuriating." But I'm not a member of the victim advocacy community, and I need her to close the loop a little bit more for me. Does Macur think consent must always be verbally explicit and specific? She should say that, even if she thinks it's obvious and only a Neanderthal would believe otherwise.

Also, her criticism of Winston and the two teammates leaves so much context out that it verges on dishonesty by omission. All around Macur is raging a discussion about the possibly unfair process men have been facing in front of these review boards. Unless it is explained to me why I should think otherwise, silence seems like a pretty good option to me. Defendants in the legal system almost never testify in their own defense. It's just a tactical thing.

I feel like Macur had some great material to work with here, but ended up writing an emotional piece instead of an effective one.

 

Again -- Winston wasn't silent. He answered what he wanted to answer and didn't answer what he didn't want to answer. That's bullshit.

The friend who erased the video leaves a gaping question in the case too -- and that's the video that, we have been assured by whispers from Winston's side and various message-board postings, would totally exonerate him if it only still existed.

 

But didn't Winston answer the core question: why do you believe she consented?

Macur says that his answer was "infuriating." Why? She needed to explain.

 

The reason Winston and others didn't speak at length is because the accuser's counsel had been posturing a lawsuit since the early stages, which is also perhaps why only in recent months did the accuser's counsel seek a Code of Conduct hearing with the hope that testimony could be used in a forthcoming civil proceeding.

Regarding "the fix," I have a very hard time believing a respected, retired state Supreme Court justice -- who was chosen by compromise of both counsels, in fact -- with no ties to the university would stake risk his reputation to make a fixed ruling in a proceeding in which he had no obligation to take part.

I find it interesting that LTL has long been in the camp that Winston is so clearly a rapist, yet was also among the first to call bullshit on the UVa accuser.

In Winston's case, we have an accuser who has changed her story several times, and has almost no witness testimony confirming any if her versions, even from her friends. Not to mention contradictions from toxicology and other lab findings.

I get that Winston's a figure who has made himself an easy - perhaps free - target, but again we're too often left with the Hot Takes! so often condemned around here because it's easy and safe ground to trod while preaching to the choir to those who aren't #fsutwitter.

 

An associate. Not a suspect. That's all we know.

From the ESPN story:

"Tallahassee police are investigating whether two men brandished a firearm at a neighbor on July 17, according to the release. Cook's involvement, if any, in the alleged incident isn't known. He was not named as a suspect in the report, according to Tallahassee police.

The details of the investigation including Cook's name was part of a news release regarding a Freedom of Information request sent to Tallahassee police by ESPN's "Outside The Lines". Police sent that report to ESPN, but had redacted all details, including his name. ESPN did not know that Cook's name was part of the report until police issued the statement Wednesday."