The ultimate feminist
Ed Pilkington on Weinstein’s aggressive lawyer from earlier this month:
Last week, Rotunno reduced one of the two main accusers in the trial, who alleges she was raped by Weinstein in a New York hotel in 2013, to uncontrollable sobbing during a total of nine hours of relentless grilling over two days. On the first of those days, the presiding judge had to halt proceedings after the witness suffered a panic attack.
Rotunno had been firing questions at her like bullets, ending each query with a shotgun “Correct?” “You were manipulating Mr Weinstein so you’d get invited to fancy parties, correct?” “You wanted to benefit from the power, correct?” “You wanted to use his power, correct?”
The lawyer self-identifies as the “ultimate feminist”, but again you wouldn’t know that from her courtroom posture. She has deployed all the old shibboleths that have been used over decades to discredit sex crimes accusers.
The witness was after the money, she was a serial liar, she may not have wanted sex with Weinstein but she did it anyway to get on in the film business – all those arguments and insinuations have been used by Rotunno and her henchmen.
Most extraordinarily, she has turned the very core of #MeToo – the notion that powerful men wield and abuse their power to force sex on women – on its head, suggesting to the jury that it was the six accusers who were the ones doing the manipulating and that the victim here was Weinstein.
And somehow the New York police and prosecutors were unable to ferret that out, and for some strange reason they believed the victims instead.
Such an archaic point of view. That’s what we have had to deal with for centuries. Women tempt men, etc.
And it also seems so reminiscent of Saudi Arabia.
In the courtroom, the job of Weinstein’s attorney is to defend her client zealously, bounded only by the rules of legal ethics, not to be a good feminist or a nice person or anything else.
I think people did fairly criticize her for some of her comments in an interview about how she’d never been sexually assaulted because she’d never put herself in that position, etc. That seems counterproductive tactically as well as immoral.
And certainly there’s room for discussion as to whether the playbook that she was following is still the best defensive strategy. It may be that those “shibboleths” are outdated and don’t work any more and maybe even backfire — that would be a good thing, and eventually legal strategy would catch up to that new world. (The linked article goes on to quote some other attorneys who suggest just that.)
I think a lot of aggressive trial tactics are counterproductive posturing, and that it’s generally better to come across as kind, reasonable, and emotionally composed. But if your theory of the case, for better or worse, is that the accusers are lying or exaggerating, you really have to go after them. You can’t play softball with them.
I know. But none of that means onlookers can’t say it stinks.
There are other ways. In NZ, while far from perfect, we have reduced the most extreme examples of victim blaming and attacks in our Courts. Proposals are in place to further amend the process while ensuring justice for accused is not compromised.
news article
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/393468/government-proposes-justice-system-changes-to-sexual-violence-cases
Ministry of Justice document
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=2ahUKEwjfw5-Uz-vnAhVV7HMBHRF_CsQQFjABegQIARAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.justice.govt.nz%2Fassets%2FDocuments%2FPublications%2F7236-Proactive-release-SV-response-final.pdf&usg=AOvVaw1SDNNaCz_719ng2RISPtEk
Sorry about the long link
tl;dr
There are other ways of ensuring a fair trial than calling someone a lying whore who had it coming. We also don’t need to make a victim of (alleged) sexual assault repeat their evidence over and over until they either become numb or break down completely.
Oh, but Rob, that just takes all the fun away! How much fun can the trial be for the (alleged) rapist if he can’t watch his victim being humiliated again? And again? And again?
Seriously, defending your client zealously should not involve lying, using a verbal battering ram on witnesses, or making hay of jurisprudence. The fact that it does seem to, at least in America, makes a mockery of the word justice.
“And somehow the New York police and prosecutors were unable to ferret that out, and for some strange reason they believed the victims instead.”
But the police had evidence on Weinstein, and Vance decided not to prosecute. I’m sure the $10,000 donation from Weinstein’s lawyer had nothing to do with it:
https://lawandcrime.com/opinion/first-trumps-kids-and-now-weinstein-the-manhattan-da-keeps-letting-the-rich-and-powerful-walk/
What I don’t understand is why is Vance still the DA?
Speaking of victim blaming:
Asked whether she had herself ever been sexually assaulted, [Rotunno] replied: “I have not. Because I never put myself in that position.” and went on to elaborate: “I’ve always made choices, from college age on, where I never drank too much, I never went home with someone I didn’t know, I just never put myself in any vulnerable circumstance ever,”
(see https://www.thecut.com/2020/02/weinstein-lawyer-donna-rotunno-accused-of-victim-blaming.html)
I never drank too much (and not in public). I never went home with someone I didn’t know. From high school age on (make that from birth on, but I wasn’t in as much control of those things until I could drive). I have been sexually assaulted. I have been sexually harassed.
It is not the victim’s fault that they choose to live life rather than put on a burqua, never go anywhere where there might be men, never leave their house for any reason, and make sure they live 100% alone so they don’t have to worry about domestic violence and sexual assault from their partner. Women fought hard for the right to be fully involved in business, politics, arts, academia, etc…and for that, we are supposed to accept that our very presence outside our own home is invitation – no, consent – to men who want to dominate women. I call bullshit.
I also have never engaged in any of those listed “risky” behaviours. I’ve only had a couple of incidents of potential assaults that (by sheer luck) I have been able to extract myself from. I (of course) have endured decades of sexual harassment, to varying degrees, though in my case, the frequency and severity of these were significantly lessened by my social, educational and economic privilege.
Lucky for Rotunno that she had not been assaulted. On the other hand, I would bet money that she has been harassed. And I would bet more money that she would likely dismiss such incidents – as we all know, “boys will be boys”, and sexual harassment is the price women must pay if we want to live in a man’s word.
Which of course leads to a couple of questions:
(1) Why do we have to pay that price if men don’t?
(2) Who says it’s a man’s world? I know the answer, but that leads to another question:
(3) Why should men get to determine whose world it is when we all live here?