What’s this, Prince Andrew isn’t cooperating with the Epstein investigation? I mean, he said he would, right? Sometimes I think–and hear me out on this, because I know it’s controversial–that people who have underage sex with boys or girls sometimes band together into secret groups guarded by institutional privilege.
Now, I’m not sure about that, and there may indeed be another side to this. I mean, alleged rapists have feelings too, amirite? I’m sure Prince Andrew, Duke of York, KG, GCVO, GD, ADC(P), POS, must be going through a tough time right now and just hasn’t gotten around to talking to prosecutors at the SDNY about his boon companion Jeffrey Epstein. Also, what about his rights? Shouldn’t he be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law by testimony from grown women trying to put something horrible in their past behind them, who should be happy to take time from their new lives to dredge up the details of how they were raped as teenagers, all while being dragged through the mud by attorneys paid millions of dollars by the men they’re accusing?
stinger
Hear me out on this, because I know it’s controversial, but it sometimes seems that different standards apply to British royalty than to Basketball royalty.
Darkrose
This is a great post title, but I laughed out loud last week when I saw the Flight of the Conchords reference.
Amir Khalid
@mistermix:
Yes, he should be presumed innocent until proven guilty. It sucks that crimes exist for which the victim suffers more shame than the perp. It sucks that testifying against a sexual assailant means reliving the horror you went through. It’s supicious that Andrew’s claiming innocence while acting like he’s got something to hide. But none of that means that he — or anyone in his situation — deserves to lose that presumption. No matter how much you enjoy savouring the pickle he’s in.
HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes
@Darkrose: I’m glad you caught it. That song made a lot of appearances here when it first came out.
Cacti
I’ve never understood the fascination of American media, and some Americans, with the collection of useless inbreds that are called a royal family.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
What?
Aleta
Greater good you know. Collateral damage to be regretted of course. To whom much is given, much is required from others. Serving a higher purpose. Can’t be helped.
Mr. Kite
Oh noes, watch out you’re angering the BJ royalists again. I’ll have you know, sir, that the Saxe Coburg Gotha inbreeding has to be deferred to. I think it has something to do with their perfect skin or something.
JaySinWA
I can hear PopeHat screaming, “yes, yes, somebody finally gets it. Shut up and don’t volunteer anything (without a lawyer present)” Although I sometimes wonder if it’s just about billable hours.
Mathguy
A very fine piece of snark.
E.
@Amir Khalid:
The presumption is a legal obligation, not a social one.
Amir Khalid
@E.:
It should be a social one too.
WhatsMyNym
Age of consent in Britain is 16. Alleged meeting occurred in London and she was 17.
ETA: Andrew is still trash for hanging around with Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
justawriter
He should have stuck with Koo Stark. She’s had a much more interesting life than he did.
MattF
Ick. Andrew is slime. Royal slime, I should say.
Barbara
@Amir Khalid: Yes, indeed.
Loathe Prince Andrew and assume that, at best, he doesn’t actually know whether or which women were of legal age when he schtupped them, but it is absolutely the case that crimes have to be proven.
Barbara
@WhatsMyNym: Right, but she was “trafficked” as a minor from the U.S. and it is not clear that he would have no culpability for that crime (conspiracy to commit rape). Not that he is likely to be charged, but the age of consent in England is exculpatory only for some crimes, not all.
WhatsMyNym
@Barbara: Andrew has not been charged with any crime.
Eolirin
@Barbara: Would that potential conspiracy charge be in US or UK jurisdiction? (Or both)
Cacti
@Barbara: And the UK is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which requires protection of children against abuse or exploitation.
Spiriting a minor abroad to evade the consent laws of her home country is both abusive and exploitive.
OzarkHillbilly
@Amir Khalid:
Yes but isn’t it funny how the presumption of innocence is reserved for rich fucks who can afford a bevy of high priced lawyers and any bail that might be imposed, while poor fucks are presumed guilty? I mean, that’s why they’re rotting in jail without ever be convicted of anything, right?
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Not by the people who comment here.
OzarkHillbilly
@Barbara:
Rikers Island is fool of people who would beg to differ.
Cacti
@OzarkHillbilly: As has been mentioned here frequently, there will always be two groups under the law, even in supposedly developed nations:
The small favored group, whom the law protects but does not bind, and the large disfavored group, whom the law binds but does not protect.
E.
It just seems a bit incoherent to insist that we not, in our social lives, make inferences and express our conclusions about the guilt or innocence of people whose alleged crimes are splashed across our screens. I can see making a personal commitment to letting legal proceedings play out before discussing the guilt or innocence of any alleged criminal, but i don’t see the point of scolding people who look at a duck and call it a duck for the purpose of engaging in discourse about our present human condition in this historical moment on a political blog. (It is of course a completely different matter when called upon to render judgment in a jury trial.)
JaySinWA
Do we need a “break glass, not all commenters” button here?
Baud
@JaySinWA:
I don’t know. I just don’t like seeing people argue against good liberal principles because our society has done a piss poor job applying those principles to everyone equally.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud:
Who’s arguing against good liberal principles? I’m just pointing out facts.
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
Maybe there should be a social presumption of innocence, but:
E.
@Baud: I don’t remember us going easy on H. Weinstein, D. Trump, and, before his conviction, B. Cosby. Why all the love for this particular rich white guy in the photo with the pretty blond girl? As others have said, our justice system has nice principles and piss-poor practice. Yes IAAL and have seen it daily. For #MeToo to work it took a lot of people saying to hell with it and outing these fuckers and demanding justice, and that doesn’t happen by stroking your chin and urging patience.
Emma from FL
“William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”
Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”
William Roper: “Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!”
Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!”
― Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons
MattF
@E.: FWIW, I agree. I don’t foresee being a juror on this subject, and in the event, I can point to this comment during voir dire to demonstrate my unfitness for that duty.
Brachiator
@stinger:
Fun fact. Her Majesty the Queen has sovereign immunity, and can not be charged with any criminal or civil offense.
And from the UK Sun:
Accusations directed at Andrew popped up fairly recently in a 2011 Vanity Fair article. The matter was never strongly investigated.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: Fair enough. I read your comment in the context of MM’s original post and the prior comments, which seemed to be debating the point.
@E.: What love? I just don’t want us to question the presumption of innocence in legal proceedings.
jl
People are legally entitled to presumption of innocence unless proven guilty in a court of law. But in terms of popular opinion, and common sense assumptions about the facts, outside the courts, Prince Andrew is acting pretty damn suspiciously. Horrible no good incriminating interview on television, now passive aggressively resisting an initial interview by investigators. I can’t put the guy in jail, but I won’t jump through hoops to think up excuses for his behavior.
@Brachiator: While president, US Grant insisted on paying his speeding tickets, and one fine for reckless driving when his speeding carriage sideswiped a kid (who wasn’t seriously injured). Before I read this I didn’t know there were detailed traffic laws during horse and buggy era. But the story does make clear that there are differences in standards in different times, and differences in the personal character in different powerful people (though Grant wasn’t virtuous enough to easily break his reckless horse riding and buggy driving habit).
Brachiator
@Amir Khalid:
The Internet Court of Justice is founded on the principles of speculation, gossip, and innuendo.
Mart
OT – The former VP of Eric Prince’s Blackwater, Cofer Black, current Chairman of Total Intel, a private intelligence gathering group owned by Blackwater; was appointed to the Burisma board in 2017, and remains on the board today. Black is ex CIA, was appointed by George W Bush as Coordinator of Counterterrorism, (a position he left in 2004) and is a former Romney confident. (Blackwater’s Eric Prince is Secretary of Education Betsy Devos’ brother and a close confident of Tramp’s.)
There again seem to be layers of truth here we are deemed unable to know; like the Bhengazi consulate fronting the CIA selling weapons to the “good militias”. Shit is fucked up and shit.
jl
@Mart: There are reliable reports that Giuliani and ex Secty of Energy Rick Perry were using Giumiani’s bogus corruption investigation into the Bidens in order to extort and corrupt their way into graft money in the Ukrainian gas industry.
So, in addition to trying to fix the 2020 election, the Trumpsters are using it as a distraction from them doing exactly the same thing as what they are falsely accusing the Bidens of doing.
With the Trumpsters, its filth, corruption and lies all the way down. McConnell seems a piker compared to them.
Brachiator
@Cacti:
Even thought the US broke away from Britain, it has always been closer to that country in terms of culture, economy, etc. than to any other nation.
And of course, during the Gilded Age, some wealthy people were hot to have their daughters marry European aristocrats.
Even in the 1940s, society pages were all a titter at the marriage of Kathleen Kennedy to the heir to the 10th Duke of Devonshire.
cmorenc
The explanation for Andrew’s reluctance to make good on his initial willingness to cooperate may have as much to do with his recognition from the disastrous results of his November 2019 BBC interview that he is afflicted with foot-in-mouth disease, as it is with whatever his degree of actual guilty conduct was in connection with Jeffrey Epstein.
Cacti
@cmorenc: Or he could be guilty.
James E Powell
@Brachiator:
Let’s not forget the mob justice with metaphorical pitchforks and torches.
jl
@cmorenc: But doesn’t excuse his lack of response to request for an interview. Andrew can afford good lawyers, and good lawyers should know how to protect him from foot in mouth disease without completely blowing off investigators.
James E Powell
@Brachiator:
More so than Canada?
VeniceRiley
I highly recommend Ronan Farrow’s book and podcast of the same name: Catch & Kill
Brachiator
@jl:
I think there are honorable people and scoundrels in every era.
Maybe more scoundrels today.
Brachiator
@James E Powell:
Yep. Most of the prominent Canadians that come to mind for Americans are people who came down here.
Lorne Greene, William Shatner, Neil Young.
Also, we tried to invade Canada a couple of times. Did not engender warm feelings.
jl
@Brachiator: ” Did not engender warm feelings. ”
But Canadians feel charitably sorry for us.
Cacti
Well, they did send us Bryan Adams.
Mary G
I have to admit, I am one of those people who used to love Regency romances, Gosford Park, Upstairs Downstairs, etc. Part of the charm of the Great British Bakeoff is the beautiful great house and its grounds with flowers, acres of grass, and baby lambs frolicking.
As I’ve gotten older though, due to Schrodinger’s Cat here and reading more widely, I don’t enjoy that stuff nearly as much, because I think of the all the people who had to work in the coal mines, and toil on the tea plantations so that the 0.01% could enjoy that life.
That said:
J R in WV
I don’t have much to say, other than I’m another believer in democracy who sees nothing worth my time in following the British royals, who are by and large just a microsection of humanity, some good, some bad, but over all nothing special at all. Princes and Lords give me a pain in my arse, big time. Dukes and Barons too. All those “traditions” are mostly hideous hide-bound rules intended to preserve power for those who stole it all back in the day.
Our political power classes are just as bad, too, as we see on nationwide TV.
I’m spending time with the dogs, who are adorable, and the comics, which are amusing.
Spc
@Cacti: depends on what state, consent laws vary in the US. Many are also 16 or 17. Delequency of a minor still applies.
OzarkHillbilly
@J R in WV: I had to go to the local Lowes this AM. Brought the hounds in with me. People kept smiling at me every time they walked by. So I checked my fly.
StringOnAStick
I recently found out that there is royalty in my family line, and I can barely care at all about it. I was proud of the fact that I was 100% peasant. It does explain my late grandmother’s harping on the topic and acting like her side of the family was so much “better” than her husband’s or my mom’s poor farming parents. Funny, of all my relatives she’s the one who had the least amount of “nice” in her; maybe it’s the royal blood…
Roger Moore
@James E Powell:
It might be more fair to say that a lot of Americans never gave up their sentimental attachment to the UK as the mother country. Many other former colonies have similar attitudes: even if they resent the colonial abuses, they still have a strong cultural attachment to their former colonial power. We don’t have the same kind of sentimental attachment to Canada.
Brachiator
@Mary G:
Nature abhors a vacuum. Social media abhors the absence of an opinion, hot take, comment or rant.
As Descartes once said, “Adnoto ergo sum.”
— I comment, therefore I am
jl
@StringOnAStick: For a while I feared I was not 100 percent peasant. But then I learned from some family members who got into serious genealogy that the stories about royal connections were BS. Nothing but extremely poor peasant flunkies of royalty who sent them the annual tax of whatever their farm plots grew and raised.
But, hey, maybe being a serf is connection enough! They could see the manor house in the distance. Boom! Royal connection! Yondah is da casttel of my mastah!
jl
The US attempts to invade Canada were just miserable humiliating failures for us, hard to believe that Canada resents them. Probably Canadians regard them as grim hilarities, horrid black comedies. Hence, their gracious ‘Sorry’ for the US.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Cacti: And David Brooks.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly:
This seems prudent.
catclub
@Mary G: First episode of Downton Abbey. (and any others I could not avoid). The British upper class sure looked like a complete waste of air.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mary G:
I love Gosford Park. It just needed more Eileen Atkins
Brachiator
@jl:
In the approach to the War of 1812, some Americans thought that the conquest of Canada would be a sure thing.
But as it turned out, it flamed moderate flames of nationalism.
As nice as Canadians always have been, they still were not up for being absorbed by the United States.
cmorenc
@jl: @cmorenc:
Explaining someone’s conduct is not the same as excusing them for choosing that course of conduct. Similarly, there’s a huge difference between understanding someone’s motives or conduct and justifying their motives or conduct.
Brachiator
@jl:
There are people whose job it is to protect the monarchy. This is even more important than affording good lawyers, or the UK equivalent.
Feathers
@Amir Khalid: The problem with using “presumption of innocence” in sexual assault cases is that this necessarily demands that we start from the assumption that the victim is lying and the assailant is telling the truth. This problem is a large part of why rape is so rarely reported and severely underprosecuted. If the victim’s word is not presumed to be truthful, we might as well just admit that a rape committed without witnesses isn’t actually a crime.
An interesting note here is that in the pre-Christian brehon code, a couple who wanted to have sex didn’t have to get married, but they did have to let people know what they intended. If a man had sex with a woman and nobody else knew about her having agreed to it beforehand, he was guilty of rape. For her part, if a woman became pregnant without anyone knowing who she had had sex with, she was not allowed to demand that any man support the child.
jl
@Brachiator: IIRC my history correctly, Jefferson said ‘It is a mere matter of marching.” Oops!
Brachiator
@Feathers:
I don’t agree with this at all. You are also doing some prejudging here by assuming that their is “an assailant.”
It is one thing to take accusations seriously. It is something else to presume that you know the facts in advance. It is also incorrect to suggest that there is any good to be gained from presuming that any party in the case must be innocent or guilty.
Feathers
@Brachiator: So you are assuming that any woman who says she has been raped is a lying whore. Thanks for letting us all know.
Brachiator
@jl:
IIRC my history correctly, Jefferson said ‘It is a mere matter of marching.”
Yep.
Duane was the editor of a Philadelphia newspaper.
Brachiator
@Feathers:
This is ridiculous. I never said or implied anything like this.
Do you have enough decency to apologize?
Robert Sneddon
@Feathers: I was on a jury a couple of years ago in Edinburgh and listened to two young women give evidence that their father had raped them while they were under-age.
I did not believe them. No-one else in the jury believed them. We rendered a verdict of Not Guilty on those charges (or “libels” as they are called in Scottish law) after only a couple of hours deliberation with most of that time taken up determining whether anyone on the jury could plausibly make a case for conviction. No-one could.
My private opinion, and I think it was held by quite a few of my fellow jurors was their father was a total and utter bastard but the women’s evidence was not credible and there was no other evidence presented to us to make us change our minds.
TomatoQueen
Andrew has been described elsewhere and a while ago as having “the brains of a rusk.”
Feathers
@Brachiator: No. Are you going to apologize for saying:
You are doing some real prejudging by assuming that there is not an assailant when someone has sworn an oath that they were raped. I agree that there is a need to wait for final judgement when there is a matter before the law, but this demand that any accuser must necessarily be lying is why we have a situation where women are basically consenting to be raped if they are ever alone with a man. (Genders may vary.) And if you do not think that my words are an accurate reflection of how the law has traditionally treated rape victims, then please think upon the matter a bit further. In this area, the law is an ass, and there needs to be a reckoning.
Feathers
@Robert Sneddon: I have no problem with your listening to the evidence on both sides and deciding on a not guilty verdict. I have a real problem with the lawyerly view that these young women (and all rape victims) should be assumed to be lying about the entire matter and that we cannot say an assault occurred unless there was a guilty verdict in a court of law.
There is a huge gap between law and justice in all these cases and the legal profession needs to have some humility about this, rather than hide behind “presumption of innocence = no rapes here.”
Feathers
@Robert Sneddon: This case sounds interesting. When I was looking at a degree with a thesis, I was considering writing about how the mystery novel genre fell apart when dealing with rape rather than murder. I read a lot of mysteries, especially the women detective novels of the 90s. It fascinated me how you can’t take the plot structure that has a dead body at the center and use it to write about a crime with a living victim.
One of the examples I thought of was the Natalee Holloway. Endless TV coverage, her mother on all the TV shows, demanding justice. Van Der Sloot went on to murder another woman and confessed to killing Natalee years later, while in prison. But what would have been the result if she had survived the murder and shown up raped at the police station? Every moment of her life would have been the same, just that she would be so inconveniently alive and demanding justice on her own behalf.
Robert Sneddon
@Feathers: Everyone in that court giving evidence swore an oath to tell the truth. Someone was lying (and the father faced other charges where the evidence was clearer). Should the father’s statement of innocence against the libels of rape of his teenage daughters be presumed a lie simply because of the nature of the crimes he was charged with? I doubt you would accept a determination of guilt by accusation to be just in other crimes such as burglary or violence.
In nearly all the other charges the father faced we, the jury, thought by a solid majority that he was guilty of them. That belief did not meet the level of beyond a reasonable doubt as there was not sufficient corroboration and no physical evidence. We did get to bring in the unique Scots law verdict of “Not proven” on those libels i.e. “we think you did it but the proof wasn’t quite sufficient”.
Barbara
@Feathers: This is ridiculous. The presumption of innocence means that the state must present evidence, not that those giving evidence are presumed to be lying, which could apply in all sorts of situations, not just rape. E.g., an accusation of assault or theft. An accuser’s testimony can be sufficiently persuasive to convict a person. There is no instruction to the jury that anyone should be presumed to be a liar.
Emma
@VeniceRiley: agree! Haven’t read the book, but I’ve been keeping up with the podcast. Farrow does a great job of getting out of the way and letting his interviewees speak for themselves, while also being sensitive of not making them repeat the trauma unnecessarily.
jl
@Brachiator: Uncomfortable to think of Jefferson, in this case, as the insane GOP neocon of his day.
Brachiator
@jl:
Quite a number of people got swept up in nationalist fever.
Feathers
@Barbara: But this “presumption of innocence” is being taken to hold outside the courtroom. I’ve been told that we can’t even presume there was an assailant when talking about a rape case.
There was a recent documentary about rape, nominated for an Oscar. There was a great deal of commentary against it, saying that it had the facts of the cases wrong. What it did was tell the women’s version of what happened. Which, apparently, was all lies because of the “presumption of innocence.” This construction does not fit well into the real world experience of sexual assault and we would be better off if the legal community acknowledged that rape victims have the right to talk about what happened to them.
Barbara
@Feathers: “I have been told.” I don’t have any context for this. Look, there is NO question that rape is not treated like other crimes. That prosecutors frequently refuse to bring prosecutions because they think juries won’t convict, which just leads to the outcome of not bothering to put the defendant to the agony of mounting a defense even when the prosecutor themselves believe that the defendant is guilty. It is, in essence giving in and reinforcing existing community bias and it’s outrageous. But it’s not outrageous because the defendant has a legal presumption of innocence.
Tehanu
@Feathers: isn’t it possible that a woman who has been raped isn’t lying, but is mistakenly accusing the wrong person? You sound like you’re saying all accusations must be true.