OT: Det News uncovers old, dropped sexual assault indictment against Matt Patricia
That's the biggest issue here. The Lions didn't ask (under prevailing employment laws, may have been restricted from doing so) and Patricia didn't offer.
What I can't shake about the DetNews article is the nagging feeling that it reads an awful lot like the Freep hit piece on Rich Rodriguez that begat Stretchgate.
The Ford family should buy the Det. News then close it down.
Ford family should sell the team, sell their car company, leave Detroit, and go lay on a beach somewhere and produce more spoiled trust fund babies.
When are other Lions fans going to figure it out - as long as the Ford family owns the Lions, bad things will continue to happen. And it is not just bad luck - it is poor decision making in total. There is always an excuse for each dumb decision. When you add 100 of them together - the excuses get old. The Fords are pathetic.
I want to join you.
Good so you agree that side of the coin exists. Your 100% correct, the other side of the coin exists as well. When we have two possible outcomes we need some kind of system, preferably one that is time tested and was founded on pricipals developed over 1,000s of years, to examine the facts and determine what the truth is. This is been my point the whole time. Charges were dropped. You can have yoru opinion, but that opinion is dangerous if widely applied to society. I like my opinions to consistent with a society I'd like to live in. I'd like not to be destroyed for something I am only accused of because literally anyone can say anything about anyone at any time.
It's terrifying to me that Matt Patricia's life is ruined because he was once credibly charged with sexual assault. This has thoroughly derailed his career and I'm sure he will never coach in the NFL again. We must band together to defend this man we've never met against these cruel accusations.
If this was Marinelli like year 3, you could take the people diving in defending Patricia on here and cut them in half at least.
That's hard core sports fans.
A high high percentage of them should avoid times when social issues and sports are combined. And do it at all costs.
1997 was still the dark ages of sexual assault prosecutions if you were a victim. This happened in a very conservative and pro-male cultural state in Texas. In a tourist area where authorities would have further incentive to look the other way. Yet the guy was indicted by a grand jury and for months the case progressed. Until the victim got cold feet about testifying. Again very common in 1997 given the social climate of the country.
And if he was "anxious to prove his innocence" why did he apparently take no steps to do so by going after the girl who apparently falsely accused an innocent man.
What he says on this deal is crap and meaningless. If he says anything but "it never happened" he risks his entire career. That's a pretty big incentive to gamble on a lie and hope the water doesn't pop open the dam.
The other really large issue here is wait until the grand jury and court file leaks. Or a friend of a friend of the victim comes forward and starts talking. Or the victim herself. It could happen at any moment.
And if you think the Lions are on top of all that, get real. They couldn't even bother to do a 30 second internet search to vet the guy in the first place.
They are starting with the conclusion that they must defend the hire and the football czar who made the hire. Do you really honestly think that starting point is going to lead to a thorough deep investigation of this by the organization.
Not necessarily. The article in the Detroit News makes pretty clear that each state and Federal employment laws vary; but in general, without a conviction, the candidate is under no obligation to volunteer the information.
He beat up a kid in High school too. Terrible.
Provided the information in the article is all correct, I'd have to guess that the likelihood is that he indeed committed the crime. The most likely situation is that she declined to testify based on the retraumitzation she'd have to endure. It's not going to make her any less assaulted and he isn't going to pose any further threat to her regardless of the outcome in the justice system. Also, the logistics of testifying if she went to college somewhere outside of Texas is not going to be simple. She may also not be able to recall the facts clearly enough to sound credible since trauma has that effect on memory. She may also have been intoxicated, which makes it even more difficult to provide a credible testimony.
The counterfactual is that she made it up and didn't want to deal with the consequences if she was discovered as a liar.
Given the likelihood of the options, he probably did it. That is not and should not be the standard for conviction in our justice system. I'm actually not really sure why people think the court system is effective at punishing criminals. How many crimes get committed vs. how many get prosecuted to successful conviction? It has to be a tiny fraction. This is the price we pay for have a low false positive rate. As a society, we've prioritized not punishing the innocent, which makes sense to most people, including me.
But, it doesn't mean we have to shackle our personal opinions to the outcome of court proceedings. We, unlike our court system, are provided the freedom to judge based on the preponderance of evidence and probability of counterfactuals. Some are making the case that because he was not found guilty, it's taking the high road to also perceive him as 100% innocent. Nobody would apply that same standard if they could be personally affected by the outcome of a hiring an unconvicted, yet suspicious character. The same goes with finding a spouse, babysitter, making friends, etc.
Calling the evidence thin is a judgment call. I think it's the wrong call, but I understand if you judge it differently. All I ask is that you don't apply judgment based on your view of his position in sports. I really want him to be innocent. I'm a Lions fan and am going to root for him to succeed, but I'm internally conflicted about this story. If you're not letting a sports rooting interest cloud your judgment, then I accept it as valid.
I would certainly be more confident if there was more than one accuser or a corroborating witness (like many of the more famous examples of late), but I think an accusation like this is probably only made if there was a real crime committed. And it's easy to see why she would not want to testify. There is a mountain of evidence explaining why victims refuse to testify against their assailants.
He was already hired. Obviusly we can all have our personal opinions on his guilt, but those are all farts in the wind. Some are saying he should be fired because if this, which is an opinion that igores the legal reality of the situation. At least those you speak of are shackling their opinions to something that makes sense and accurately reflects the legal standing of the allegations and what will happen. The "he should be fired" take does not. It's a virtue signaling "assault and bad things are bad guys, I'm moral, look at me!" statement that doesn't make sense or offer any real insight.
Your point that he was already hired is meaningful. Somehow it does seem harder to fire him now. If I had known about this before the hiring, I would have called for someone else to be hired. I'll have to think about that paradox for a bit.
The general sense you've been pushing on this thread, however, is that his employment ought not be in question because he wasn't convicted. You've used a faith in the American justice system to peddle that. The justice system only works if the victim cooperates, and even then it doesn't always convict the guilty. While the justice system here is better than most, it still isn't very good, especially in these types of cases. So, when considering whether someone keeps their job or not, it's rational to use the best available judgment as to whether somebody is clean or a guilty of a heinous crime.
"The justice system only works if the victim cooperates"
What about murders, ndekett? Has there ever been a murder conviction? Seems like that answer should be no since a murder victim has never in the history of the planet cooperated in a trial.
Are we still being rational and using our best available judgment here? Or are you shoveling shit in the cracks of your "Patricia must have raped her" narrative?
I can't believe I have to explain this to you. That serves me right for not being as thorough as I should be.
Murders, as you've noticed, don't have living victims. To be convicted of a murder, a perpetrator has to have overwhelming evidence against them. This might include eyewitness testimony, DNA evidence, motive to commit the murder, a weapon, etc. If there is a suspect that has a good amount of evidence against them and that evidence is known, they'll be prosecuted. Sometimes even very good evidence isn't enough to produce a conviction. I can think of at least one very famous example of this.
Rape, in some cases, has a living victim. It's also not quite as obvious whether a rape has even occurred. For example, there is no carcass left behind after a rape. The evidence that does exist is often contingent on the cooperation of a victim. This could include semen, blood, vaiginal/anal tearing, other witnesses, victim testimony, bruising, symptoms from strangulation, etc. For reasons that should be ovious to you, sometimes people would prefer that those pieces of evidence are not collected and presented in court. If it's clear that the assailant poses no future threat to the victim, as is the case when it's two strangers in a city neither of them live in, then the victim has less to gain by cooperating with the prosecution and very much to lose personally. So, while the case could still be prosecuted, there is almost zero hope of a conviction without victim cooperation.
To answer you question, I'm not shoveling shit in the cracks of a narrative that I'm hoping isn't true. I'm a Lions fan. I was excited when he was hired. I'm still hoping there is more to the story (in his favor) than was presented by a publication that I don't respect a lot. But, if I'm trying assign probabilities to the different scenarios, it seems that Matt Patricia is more likely guilty of something terrible than not.
first the more sincere one: you are comparing 'who-dunnits' with 'consent' in the majority of murder vs. sexual assault cases. in that sense its apples and oranges. the standard of proof is the same though, beyond a reasonable doubt. and for the who-dunnit sex cases, they swab for DNA and put it in a data bank. matches come up and cases are made.
the second, more cynical response is that a murder is just like any other case except you have one less witness. depending on who got killed, sometimes that aids in conviction. as fellow mgoblogger guthrie would agree, 'when crimes are committed in hell you don't have angels for witnesses'. see, e.g., every gang homicide i ever prosecuted.
Obviously you have your pick to hire who you want. Once you've hired someone there is a contract in place and as far as I know you can't fire someone for legally not comitting a crime and only if they did comitt a crime they did not disclose or lied about.
I was going to ask what would be a good system if the one we have isn't very good. You said "best available judgement". Again best available judgement is highly subjective. Who get's to have that judgement. What determines what the best judgement is? A king? A group of your peers evaluating all the facts laid out before them with the help of lawayers presenting both sides and arbitrated or managed by a neutral judge who applies the laws that have been tweaked and formed over many years based on precendent and carefull examined prior rulings? All human systems will have error of course, but again, what is a better system? Best available judgement can be used on a personal opinion level, but has little to no appplication in the real world where people's lives are at stake.
With sexual assault the accuser can ruin a person's life just by accusing them even if nothing happened. This is in the court of public opinion of course. That is a lot of power. Sexual assault and rape is one of the most disgusting crimes one can committ and the penalty should be severe. The stakes are high and we MUST use the best system we have available and apply the law. Best judgement, in my opinion, does not achieve this goal. If there is a better system then we should use that. I'd love to hear everyone who things he should be fired immediately, what that system is. If you don't have anything, the arguement is over.
is that the Lions didn't know about this before hiring him. They should have either investigated it, determined it was not a problem and been ready to talk about it if it ever came up, or they shouldn't have hired him.
But to not know is so Lions.
Not gonna comment on the particulars of Matt Patricia's case, but as a general comment... I think we have to be really careful about how we cite Duke lacrosse / Tawana Brawley / UVA regarding the dangers of false rape allegations. Did they happen and were they unfairly defamatory to the accused? Yes, they were.
But, they're also notorious because they represent the minority of instances were a false allegation WAS reported. And that notoriety, whether we intend it or not, has the concomitant side-effect of minimizing the far more frequence case where it IS sexual assault and it's NOT reported. It's a problem when ~7% of instances dictate 90% of the narrative.
We have to acknowledge both that the accused can't just be summarily condemned by the mere fact of an accusation AND acknowledge how in the majority of cases it takes an extraordinary amount of courage and fortitude to report that you've been assaulted, as well as the exigent peer and societal pressures that make reporting such an arduous process.
until proven guilty. Why is this basic concept so hard for many people to understand? The case didn't even go to trial! It's sickening to think this is even brought up so many years later. The accuser remains anonymous while the accused gets dragged through the mud. In the name of justice and decency, everybody should respect his innocence under the law and let him live his life.
You should know that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Article VI, Clause 2. And the 1st Amendment of the Constitution protects freedom of speech, which I would imagine includes freedom to speculate on a past civil lawsuit.
Also innocent until proven guilty is a generic term used to refer to legal innocence/guilt. People can think whatever they want. I can think you are guilty of murder. It is outside the scope of the term.