It is the big celebrity case that wasn't. When Kobe Bryant was indicted for sexual assault, he joined celebrities Robert Blake and Martha Stewart as the accused of national scrutiny. Blake's trial is still on hold. To the surprise of many, Stewart was convicted and has been sentenced to months in prison. Criminal charges against Bryant were dismissed, with prejudice, last week.
I wondered if the prosecution was desperate when it made a last ditch effort to undermine the defense in an earlier entry. Asking that all DNA evidence be excluded, apparently to hide allegations the accuser had intercourse with another man within a few hours of the encounter with Bryant, seemed to signal defeat. My skepticism proved accurate. The prosecution dropped the charges without even waiting for a ruling on its motion.
The New York Times reports citizens of the small town in Colorado where the victim lived are glad to have the case go away. They look forward to returning to normalcy and regret the expense, a reported $400,000, the episode cost the county.
Coverage by KABC-TV in Los Angeles focuses on Bryant's 'apology.'
In the end, the rape case against Kobe Bryant was dropped because the young woman accusing him did not want to testify at trial. Without her, District Attorney Mark Hurlbert said they could not proceed.
. . .In a statement, Bryant, while not admitting blame, apologized to the woman.
"I want to apologize for my behavior that night," he wrote, "and for the consequences she has suffered in the past year."
Should Bryant have apologized? From a legal perspective, the answer is probably no. Since a civil suit alleging he did the woman harm is still pending, an apology could be used as evidence against him. However, the dismissal of the criminal case makes it less likely the civil case will go forward. Even if it does, a jury will be harder to convince that Bryant harmed his accuser and that she deserves damagaes as a result. The best evidence she could have would be a conviction of Bryant in a a criminal trial. It is possible the parties will reach a settlement of the civil suit. But, the accuser will have fewer chips to bargain with as a result of the dismissal of the criminal case.
Some other sources see the gamesmanship of the Bryant prosecution as proof a prosecutor succumbed to the allure of convicting a public figure at the expense of common sense. The GJ Sentinel, in Colorado, takes the person who made the decision to indict Bryant to task.
But one thing has been reasonably clear from the get-go: The prosecution never had a strong case. It was riddled with inconsistencies and evidence that challenged the accuser’s story. It was highly unlikely that 35-year-old District Attorney Mark Hurlbert and his equally youthful staff could have convinced a jury of Bryant’s guilt, even if the young woman had not decided at the last minute that she didn’t want to proceed with the case.
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Article comments
1 - Mac Diva
Is anyone else having problems with the site? Notice the ad at the top of this entry, interrupting the content. It should not be there. Also, I am getting pop ups claiming I need MIME plug-ins before I can view any Blogcritics page. I don't need plug-ins, and, besides, I have pop ups turned off in Safari. Strange.
2 - Mark Saleski
i noticed the mime popup requests a couple of days ago. not sure what content changed on the page for this.
i just removed my default plugin in mozilla and it went away.
i suspect the ad at the top of the page is on purpose.
3 - bhw
When Kobe Bryant was indicted for murder,
Whoops, make that sexual assault.
That is particularly true for a celebrity who relies on endorsements and public good will to remain a multi-millionaire.
Bryant just signed a new multi-year, multi-multimillion dollar contract with the Lakers. He doesn't need any endorsements or public good will to keep him rich. His basketball skills do that for him.
The thing with celebrity sexual assault cases, as with the Michael Jackson case, is that the potential jackpot from a civil trial can be huge. And that motivation always hangs over the accuser's head.
Bryant, like Jackson, may very well be guilty. We have never heard any of the statements Bryant gave to the police, in which he supposedly contradicted himself. I don't know if we'll hear any of it if the civil case goes to trial.
4 - Mac Diva
Thanks, bhw. I'm blogging without coffee, today. Forgot to buy beans.
Mark, the top ad is a repeat of one on the bottom. And, no, there isn't any visible code to explain it. I'll try to remove the Mozilla plug-in. It will be good not to have to go through an extra step of shutting the pop up each time I look at a page here.
5 - bhw
I hear you, MD. I gave up coffee a couple of months ago. It's not easy to go without caffeine!
6 - Joe
bhw-
He won't be in the poor house, but his earning potential is severely curtailed. Consider that Michael Jordan earned something in the vicinity of $35M this year without playing a game or that Tiger Woods made around $80M with $70M coming from endorsements. So after shelling out a couple million for a "forgive my cheating ways" diamond ring, this is adds insult to injury.
7 - bhw
Joe, I agree that he'll lose out on endorsement deals, but he's not dependent upon them to remain obscenely wealthy.
And it only adds insult to injury if Bryant is innocent of the charge. I'm sure it sucks to be a wealthy male celebrity in the sense that somebody can always try to ruin you for some quick cash.
But then again, it doesn't really suck to be a wealthy celebrity, does it? Plus, Bryant would not be in this position if he hadn't had sex with someone other than his wife, consensual or not. He put himself in a position to damage his marriage and his image, at the very least.
8 - bhw
I should add that most people basically expect athletes to have extra-marital flings, so I don't think that alone would have hurt Kobe all that much.
9 - Jeremy Chrysler
MD,
I've heard that Kobe's apology was a concession paid to the prosecution. I don't believe there were any promises made that there wouldn't be a civil trial, but I'm pretty sure that Kobe's apology was mutually agreed to be exempt from being admitted into any civil proceedings.
I think a civil trial is unlikely, but we'll see.
Irrespective of the veracity of the rape claim, I was saddened to hear the cheers and sighs of relief that Kobe had only brazenly committed adultery with a recent high school grad whom he just met.
By the way, bhw, I'm not sure that I expect athletes to have extra-marital affairs. I have no doubt that many do, and I wouldn't be overly surprised to hear that the number of sexual partners in a year for your average single NBA player is in the dozens, but I, for one expect married NBA players to honor their committments, even if they disappoint.
10 - Phillip Winn
Hmm, I'm using Safari and get no popups or anything else complaining about MIME-anything.
Do you have the flash plugin installed? There is now a flash ad at the bottom of the left column.
11 - Phillip Winn
Anybody? Of course, we can always have this discussion on the Yahoo Group created for this purpose...
12 - Mac Diva
Another oddity is that I am getting the pop-up urging plug-ins in both Safari and IE. I had a tech look at the site yesterday. (Was already at a computer store. Wanted a proper case for my brand new fourth generation iPod. They are not available yet.) He said the problem is with the site, not my installations.
I did trash the Mozilla default folder as Mark suggested, but it has made no difference. I did a Find and dumped the folder when it came up. If there is something else you did, let me us know, Mark.
13 - Phillip Winn
And yet I'm commenting from within Safari right now, with no problems. I don't know if I even still have MSIE installed on my Mac, but I'll check.
I'm running Safari 1.2.3.
14 - Phillip Winn
In MSIE 5.2, I do get a warning about missing a MIME plugin. It's a browser dialog, not a pop-up. I'll look into that, and see if it's an ad or something causing it.
I never got any warnings in MSIE/Win, Firefox/Win, Safari/Mac, or Firefox/Mac -- only in MSIE/Mac.