Presswatch/Rape in the New Age
O'Sullivan, John
PRESSWATCH RAPE IN THE NEW AGE by John O'Sullivan When Governor James Thompson of Illinois pronounced Gary Dotson guilty but popular in the Dotson-Webb rape case and released him from prison,...
...In its May and June issues, it set out to examine the evidence that convicted Dotson in the first trial...
...An editorial on the topic of rape, stimulated by a Justice Department report, regretted that many women did not bring rape accusations to the police because they feared callous treatment at the hands of the criminal justice system...
...In April, Judge Richard Samuels rejected Mr...
...Such a verdict made no sense in terms of logic...
...It is as if such newspapers were written by people whose history teachers told them very firmly that history was made not by great men but by Movements and Trends and Ideas--with people like Napoleon and Hitler playing the role of ventriloquist's dummy...
...At a certain time of the day black school children in uniform massed in the downtown area...
...The Sun-Times, probably downgrading an important item about Senate budget deficit manuevers or an announcement by the Federal Aeronautics Administration, ran the story on page one...
...What began as a crime, real or fictional," it sniffed, "is becoming an industry...
...In regarding the Dotson-Webb case as first-class soap opera, the entertainment industry and the pop press were being true to themselves and to the story...
...Her clergyman was consulted and advised that she had a moral duty to set free an innocent man by telling the truth...
...Mrs...
...Yet that is exactly what Thompson did claim--and for that he was praised as sensible, humane, calm, wise, and just by all the grave and reverend seniors of liberal journalism...
...Webb had been a virgin...
...Here is the ultimate liberal nightmare: a person sentenced to long imprisonment for a crime he did not commit...
...Mrs...
...Chicago Lawyer's May issue examined this exhaustively--showing that half of it was worthless and the other half served to exonerate Dotson...
...As aid to each of these groups increases, so does the federal budget...
...It would have provided the ideal fadeout shot...
...The weekly quizzes came to mind as I read the correspondence, some of which is published here, responding to my article on South Africa...
...In most comments about South Africa the pious hope is expressed that justice may be served without the need of force...
...As a bonus, we will also send you a free subscription to our monthly journal hnprimis...
...The indignant questions ask themselves: How had this miscarriage of justice occurred...
...Thus: 1. There were not "several" pubic hairs similar to Dotson's and dissimilar to Webb's...
...And hair comparisons are, anyway, matters of very subjective interpretation...
...0 tempora, o mores, oh dear...
...Webb was not a virgin...
...But the Tribune, resisting the temptation to be interesting, relegated it to page five...
...What the paper plainly wanted to convey was the prosecutor's view that Mrs...
...How do we end this nightmare...
...Does this mean that he is indeed innocent...
...To question a rape accusation, then, is to reveal this disguised masculine sympathy for the rapist and thus hostility to the raoe victim...
...that the trial judge did not sustain an objection to such misrepresentation...
...It is not possible to argue that with complete assurance...
...Why had a poor youth, from a deprived background, been railroaded into a fifty-year sentence...
...In effect, they want the presumption of innocence aban(continued on page 46) We're All Special People E very month of every year, every newspaper, every politician, every TV reporter will sound off about "special interests" and their influence on government...
...But tests ruled this out...
...The case continued...
...But since Mrs...
...They seek to establish a climate of opinion in which it is assumed that women simply do not bring false rape accusations...
...Webb's testimony has, of course, since been recanted...
...But who were these people...
...And this became clear when Governor Thompson declared at the end of the Illinois clemency hearings that Mr...
...There was nothing inauthentic in their responses to it...
...An elderly white man protested strongly when a black cleaning woman insisted on roiling her cart onto our already filled hotel elevator...
...Evidence was presented in the original trial that there were two bloodstains containing blood type A antigens on Mrs...
...In the past, the questioning of rape victims was probably overly harsh and insensitive and did not take sufficient account of their recent ordeal...
...Its assignment editor tracked down Mr...
...Webb was bonkers and so no one could believe a word she said...
...It used to be something as obvious as a vile crime which all decent people plainly abhorred...
...The answer is that a feminist theory of rape, itself too extreme to be accepted in its pure version by any but the terminally ideological, has entered the liberal mind in a diluted form...
...It took the Chicago Lawyer, an investigative monthly dealing with legal issues (on whose account of the background I have relied greatly), to show up all this for the nonsense it was...
...But one can hardly blame Hollywood for having its interest piqued...
...They are more sympathetic to excuses on the lines of "she asked for it...
...In a male population of three million, that gives him a one-inamillion chance of being the (hypothetical) rapist...
...It is a pity that the two central characters did not actually hug each other when urged to do so by the beautiful Miss Phyllis George on CBS's morning television news...
...An editorial in the New York Daily News on March 30 did deal with the Dotson-Webb case...
...Judges and juries must doubt the accused's guilt--this is called the defendant's presumption of innocence...
...It has twelve of the features identified in the study, including that an accusation solves some "problem" for the false victim and that scratches and cuts resembling words or letters are found on the false victim...
...Webb appeared on "Good Morning, America" and "The Today Show" on March 20, the story had by then escaped from Chicagoland and headed for the big time...
...Yet the paladins of the liberal press, upon hearing the news, shuffled their feet uncomfortably, coughed behind their hands, and looked fiercely into the middle distance...
...To forestall an obvious objection, I should add that the criterion for classifying a charge as false--namely, the complainant's admission that it had been invented--was far stricter than the criteria for deciding it was proven...
...Webb's recantation greatly devalues her original testimony and the forensic evidence now points to Dotson's innocence rather than to his guilt...
...But its principled addiction to bureaucratese got in the way of this simple message, which was a good thing since the cult to which Mrs...
...A young man is falsely accused, he serves six years of a twenty-five-year sentence, then his accuser experiences a religious conversion, struggles morally with herself to do the right thing, repents, and finally confesses her lie to the world, whereupon the innocent man forgives her...
...To demonstrate positive innocence beyond a reasonable doubt is immensely difficult...
...Miss Crowell subsequently married a Mr...
...Would Dotson-Webb T-shirts be long delayed...
...The second was a more hypothetical tragedy: namely, that the injustice to Dotson would "be used by people who are already hostile to rape victims to prevent their coming forward...
...And coupled with her recantation, it made a very weak case indeed...
...Dotson and, upon conversion, her conscience naturally troubled her...
...Not until she was aboard did the train move...
...semen found in Mrs...
...So, if you have ever wondered what disinformation is, well, that little item was disinformation...
...They blow up sex cases or crime stories out of all proportion to their real importance or social worth...
...Hire the guy who wrote Call Northside 777, book your hotel room for the next Academy Awards--and count your Oscars...
...And thus spoke the liberal establishment in general...
...She broke down and cried, as subsequently did Mr...
...But by 1982, you worked almost three hours every day to pay your taxes...
...Dotson's plea for release and refused to believe Mrs...
...Karl Hultberg Springerville, Arizona Matthew Stevenson replies: To test the attention of their readers, the New York papers have taken to running a weekly news quiz...
...But it seems to me that many such commentators are like those who go to boxing matches...
...Webb could not even recall the defendant's surname, she obtained the help of a local Wisconsin lawyer who contacted a Chicago TV station, WLS-TV...
...CORRESPONDENCE (continued from 46) nesburg my wife and I were faced with the same bustling determination on the part of both blacks and whites as to make us quite literally fight for our place...
...On this occasion, the New York Times atoned for its earlier silence with a crisp and to the point editorial...
...The judge had cited various legal precedents for not accepting retractions of a witness's testimony as grounds for setting aside a conviction...
...Webb's original accusation fits the pattern of falsity almost uncannily...
...Eventually a huge black woman appeared shuffling along at her own deliberate pace...
...But it also upheld a rape conviction obtained on little or no evidence and so soothed feminist anxieties that stricter standards of evidence in rape trials might be in the offing...
...Police and prosecutors must satisfy themselves that a crime has been committed--and by the person accused...
...At the very least, then, Mrs...
...The Times, slinking back into line, decided that the governor had "calmly resolved this case with fairness to the complainant, the prisoner, the legal system and the society...
...The lobbyists argue that aid to these groups--like the elderly, farmers, minorities, the military, certain industries, education, and so on--is in the national interest...
...As the first Times editorial accepted, that has now been changed...
...But add up the hundreds of such spending programs and it's obvious that taxpayers are being nickle-and-dimed to death...
...Such evidence, though not decisive, should have been greatly to Dotson's advantage...
...Sources close to the investigation say authorities remain unconvinced," it revealed breathlessly, "because the woman is associated with a religious cult and living in 'an emotionally charged atmosphere.' " Wow...
...Maybe it's (continued on page 49) 46 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1985...
...The Daily News was a little short of ecstatic...
...Nonetheless, even a live Dotson could be a perfectly serviceable symbol of the system's cruelty...
...A limited budget might help Congress to say no when it's necessary...
...But the trial transcript shows that the prosecutor misrepresented this evidence, repeatedly claiming that the antigens were from external polluters...
...It is now a liberal cause...
...WLS-TV ran the story on a late news program on March 21...
...If Dotson was guilty of the especially vile crime of rape, why was justice served in releasing him before his sentence was up...
...The name of Dotson might then be celebrated in folk song and abstract verse...
...Without realizing it, they share the rapist's aggressive instincts when it comes to sexuality...
...More important to the lawmakers, getting the votes of these groups is in their interests...
...Webb and was later converted to a traditional form of Christianity...
...So the three corroborative points of forensic evidence fall by the wayside...
...Dotson held a press conference, again the Sun-Times put it on page one, and again the sober Tribune, refusing to get excited, thought that the local "Chicagoland" section was the appropriate grave...
...In 1930, for example, the federal, state and local tax bite was less than one hour's wages per day...
...At the Cape Town Railroad Station the youthful conductor held up our train, smiling indulgently as he encouraged a passenger to hurry...
...It is extraordinarily interesting on two counts...
...McDowell's study revealed that false rape accusations generally had certain features in common...
...Mrs...
...Dotson's sister and broke the news that her brother's accuser had recanted...
...z - - - - . ~ . - , . . - .- . !.~ No single special interest group is to blame for this crushing tax burden...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1985 23 PRESSWATCH (continued from page 23) doned in rape cases, and the Dotson case found them unreceptive precisely because it suggested that false charges are made and can lead to grave injustice...
...When on March 27 Mr...
...Profound issues are unforgivably personalized...
...It is true that antigens can be the result of outside pollution...
...Webb's blouse and underpants which could not have come from either Dotson or Webb...
...Admittedly, it would have produced a much more agreeable frisson if he had actually been executed for the crime...
...Rape crisis centers are adamant in insisting that such false charges are so rare as not to be worth bothering about...
...But the case was surely no less interesting as a social issue...
...But for many feminists, sensitivity is not enough...
...The first was the injustice to Dotson...
...And so does the tax burden on one very special interest group--hardworking Americans like you...
...There were other incidents between blacks and whites which suggest something other than a totally harsh and sordid confrontation...
...Such were the themes that I expected to come piping from a thousand liberal voices...
...Yet heavyweight, liberal, and plain old dull newspapers (they overlap considerably) exhibit a corresponding bias which receives much less attention...
...They cannot appreciate that rape is such a dreadful experience that no woman would ever fabricate a rape charge if it meant facing the ordeal of cross-examination...
...and the statement that until the alleged rape Mrs...
...It is shared with 67 percent of the male population...
...But it made perfect political sense...
...But wait--there is more...
...That same conductor was not at all indulgent with us when he found out that our tickets had been purchased the day before, an offense which we hadn't caught in the fine print...
...Short of a castiron alibi, you won't be able to do it,) It does mean that no reasonable person could claim that he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt...
...We never met a black man who doffed his hat let alone made way for us...
...As it stands now, few Congressmen have the courage to risk offending the interest groups--and being voted out of office...
...By a curious coincidence, this bias in favor of general ideas colored much of the reporting and more of the comment in the Dotson-Webb case...
...And to be cool, calm, and collected when withdrawing a rape accusation against a man who had served six years for it would be somewhat better evidence of barminess than heightened emotion...
...They tend to subordinate the personal and the particular to some broad social theorizing of a high-minded (and usually progressive) tendency...
...Two days later, the local Chicago press picked it up...
...Even so, as the Chicago Lawyer's June editorial argued, "however skeptical one may be of the recantation, it is nonsensical to say that her original testimony together with her recantation is stronger than her original testimony standing alone" That absurdity is the precise conclusion reached by Governor Thompson...
...Webb's underpants which could only have come from someone with Dotson's rare blood group (about 10 percent of the male population...
...what they really have on their mind is a desire to watch and encourage mayhem...
...the new McCarthyism...
...They're small organized ~ ,. groups whose lobbyists can be seen scurrying about Washington and the state capitols seeking chunks of government support for their people...
...The names of Dotson and Webb did not disturb the course of these general reflections...
...Her former boyfriend, who contests her story on other points, confirms her present testimony on that...
...Webb's retraction...
...the climate of fear...
...In Susan Brownmiller's raw, untreated formulation: All men are rapists, in the more circumspect variety, men have an ineradicable minimum of sympathy for the rapist...
...In the sad absence of Joan Crawford and Henry Fonda, I should suggest Faye Dunaway as Catherine Webb and Dustin Hoffman in the Dotson role...
...Webb's original testimony looked less damaging to Dotson six years later...
...But the awkward thing is that doubting accusations of all kinds is the function of police and prosecutors initially, of judges and juries subsequently...
...and that an appeals judge simply misunderstood the evidence and repeated the error of attributing the antigens to pollution...
...Dotson was guilty, "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt"---indeed, that the evidence against him at the hearing had been even stronger than that before the original trial--but that justice would not be served by keeping him in prison any longer...
...Since Mrs...
...The editorial answered this question later: "Too many police officers and prosecutors tend to doubt rape victims . . . . Too many judges are letting convicted rapists off with lenient sentences...
...What of the corroborative physical evidence...
...The charge, usually leveled against "sensationalist" popular newspapers, is a familiar one...
...Wrong on all four counts, I reckon...
...Hiltsdale College Hillsdale Michigan 49242 For a series of 36 of these award-winning essays, send $10 to Alternatives, Mr...
...3. Mrs...
...Since the forensic scientist at the original trial was shown to have greatly exaggerated his qualifications, that settles that...
...There was one...
...Webb's testimony and forensic evidence that seemed to corroborate it...
...In general they exhibited the same heedless manners towards adults, black and white, as can be seen in any American city...
...To sum up: Mrs...
...Webb's original testimony is futher undermined by the results of a survey of rape allegations carried out by Charles P. McDowell, chief of the Special Studies Division of the Directorate of Investigative Analysis of the USAF Office of Special Investigations, featured in the June issue...
...Unsavory aspects of life are highlighted...
...Of 1,218 rape accusations examined in the study, 460 were classified as proven, 202 as false, and 546 as unresolved...
...Webb, like about 40 million other Americans, belongs is the Baptist Church...
...And though other witnesses at the Illinois clemency hearing, like her former boyfriend, challenged her recantation, their evidence consisted chiefly of asserting that they had been convinced by her original testimony...
...2. Dotson's blood type is not rare...
...Let us now pause and reflect on the nature of the story...
...On March 31, it gave voice...
...The Times prefers that its readers name the Moslem caliphs that Shiites consider usurpers...
...Otherwise, the commentators walked very warily in the shadow of the feminist theory of rape...
...Here, then, is the explanation of the initial liberal reluctance to rally to Dotson's standard...
...Dotson might strive for another trial to clear his name (against the ferocious persistence of prosecutors who were curiously reluctant to test the evidence they claimed was overwhelming...
...This latter consisted of "several" pubic hairs found on her body which were microscopically similar to Dotson's hair but dissimilar to her own...
...Perhaps a freeze on federal spending is the answer...
...As she now tells the story, she had given false witness against Mr...
...When I think of their cold careless ignorance and compare it to Miss Phyllis George's instinctive good-heartedness in the same matter, I feel like hugging her myself...
...Despite the unsatisfactory matter of an inconclusive ending, Hollywood was taking an interest and a made-for-TV movie loomed...
...This was of two types: Mrs...
...On March 30, when most papers commented on the case, the New York Times editorial page was firmly silent...
...Governor Thompson's calculations proved shrewd--in regard to the press, at least...
...Dotson's mother...
...And in the following days, the 7Hbune maintained this reserve...
...PRESSWATCH RAPE IN THE NEW AGE by John O'Sullivan When Governor James Thompson of Illinois pronounced Gary Dotson guilty but popular in the Dotson-Webb rape case and released him from prison, the Chicago Tribune editorially reproved the entertainment industry for its unhealthy interest in the case...
...As human interest journalism, it is, well, sensational...
...Here's a simple test: Try demonstrating that you are innocent of a rape that occurred in your neighborhood eight years ago...
...It freed Dotson and so calmed popular indignation at an innocent man's imprisonment...
...What is going on here...
...As the first Afrikaner we met told us: "Ours is a complex country...
...And, with a lid on spending and tax increases, you'd have more money to spend on your special interests...
...She ignored him and it was he, grumbling feebly, who got off...
...u'r_ rHg ! Who are these special interests...
...Who or what was 22 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1985 responsible for this crime---the legal establishment...
...It was "a sensible human conclusion" which "serves the best interest of justice...
...Two billion dollars in aid to unemployed buggywhip workers would cost each taxpayer less than a penny an hour...
...Liberals see rape victims as facing not just the assaults of rapists but also discrimination at the hands of hostile police, prosecutors, and judges who are, in the official lingo, mainly white, male, and middle class...
...It is all very distressing, and an educated electorate deserves better, but because of the regrettable power of competition, stays away in droves when better is available...
...They would have to be very odd indeed to be filled with hostility toward the victims of a peculiarly vicious and violent crime...
...So bloodstains from someone who was neither Dotson nor Webb were found on Webb's underclothes...
...The Post likes to ask a lot of questions about "Dallas" and "Dynasty...
...Hence the Daily News editorial's fear that it would "be used by people who are already hostile to rape victims to prevent their coming forward...
...If you can't solve our problems in the first 24 hours you are here, you never will...
...G. Scot Hasted, Comar Hail, Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan 49242...
...In the dry neutralist language that schools of journalism have inculcated as proper journalistic style in impressionable youngsters, it presented such aspects of the story as the state prosecutor's view of Mrs...
...Catherine Crowell...
...Dotson, as the world now knows, was sentenced six years ago to 25-50 years in prison for the rape of John O'Sullivan is the editor&l page editor of the New York Post and a columnist for the Times of London...
...But there would be no real public anger supporting his efforts...
...It detected two tragedies therein...
...Ronald Reagan...
...Rape has become politicized...
...That's all very well, responded the Times, but "none of the precedents cited by the judge involved the changed testimony of the complainant, the supposed victim...
Vol. 18 • August 1985 • No. 8
