From the category archives:

ethics

Documenting the Duke Rush to Judgment (NPR Weekend Edition Saturday)

by Viviane on 09/01/2007

in crime,ethics,rape

In the aftermath of the Duke lacrosse rape case, lawyers in North Carolina are learning lessons from the faulty rush to judgment against three college athletes.

From the start, when players Reade Seligmann, David Evans and Collin Finnerty were wrongfully indicted for raping a stripper in 2006, there was a stampede by the media, some members of Duke faculty and one overzealous prosecutor to prove them guilty, say authors Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson.

In their new book, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case, Taylor, a columnist for National Journal, and Johnson, a history professor at Brooklyn College and CUNY, document the facts of the case and how they were misconstrued to assume guilt.

(more . . . + book excerpt)

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The Ethicist: Sexual Politics (NYT)

by Viviane on 08/27/2007

in ethics,STDs

I am a lawyer. During a first date with another lawyer, we had sex, and I wore a condom. Days later, when I came down with a bad fever and couldn’t determine the cause, she revealed that she had genital herpes. A judgeship will soon open up in her county, and she’s a near lock for it. But if I report her lapse of sexual ethics, I doubt that the selection committee will pick her. Should I? — NAME WITHHELD

You should not. No doubt your paramour acted dreadfully. She should have told you that she had herpes and let you decide whether you wished to accept that risk. But the selection committee is not choosing a role model for the kids or someone to ride the express elevator to heaven; it seeks a person who will excel at a particular job. I do not believe that this sort of sexual misconduct correlates with an inability to be a good judge.

(more. . . )

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Removal of Girl’s Uterus in ‘Ashley Treatment’ Breaks State Law (Wired)

by Viviane on 05/09/2007

in ethics,hysterectomy,law,sterilization

Under pressure from a disabilities rights group, Seattle Children’s hospital administrators admitted Tuesday that they violated the law by failing to consult a judge before removing the uterus of a severely disabled 6-year-old girl known as “Ashley.” But they said they stand by the procedure as appropriate for some children with special needs.

“We believe we acted in Ashley’s best interests,” said Dr. David Fisher, medical director of Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center, at a press conference.

Doctors say Ashley, 9, has the mental capacity of a three-month-old. With the blessing of the girl’s family, the hospital performed a hysterectomy, removed her breast buds and gave her hormone therapy — controversial procedures aimed at improving her quality of life by keeping her small and arresting her normal development into a sexually mature adult.

Washington state law forbids involuntary sterilization without court approval. A 38-page report first made public Tuesday by the Washington Protection and Advocacy System, a federally funded advocacy organization for people with disabilities, found that the hospital wrongly relied on the opinion of an attorney who advised Ashley’s family that a judge’s involvement was not necessary. (more. . . )

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Bitch Ph.D responds to Kos’ post regarding blogger code of conduct

by Viviane on 04/13/2007

in bloggers,ethics,harassment,stalking

…Dude, this post is messed up. I agree with you that the proposed blogger code of conduct is asinine, but it certainly doesn’t follow that Kathy Sierra (or any other women who are threatened with death, rape, or frivolous lawsuit, ahem) are making shit up or overreacting or (as you kind of imply) being hysterical.

Maybe, despite being a major blogger, you haven’t spent much time thinking about the specific online experiences of women. In which case, you should know that women online–not just bloggers, but women in chat rooms or commenting on blogs or on internet forums–get twenty-five times more harassment than men do. That’s not 25%; it’s 2500%.

In other words, no; you haven’t gotten “your fair share” of this kind of thing. Not even close. And good for you; no one should have to put up with that crap. But when your own experience of harassment is, relatively speaking, very minimal, it’s really easy to tell other people that they should just ignore it. It’s hard to realize exactly how much cultural energy is devoted to teaching women to be afraid.

(more…)

[via Amber Rhea's Twitter]

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A Rogue Prosecutor" (The Wirenius Report Blog)

by Viviane on 04/12/2007

in ethics,law,legal,rape

John Wirenius (a former public defender), comments on the press conference held yesterday by North Carolina’s Attorney General Roy Cooper regarding of the dropping of charges in the Duke lacrosse team rape case:

…Two things stand out for me in Cooper’s press conference:

First, Cooper was willing to criticize, in genuinely scathing terms, a sitting District Attorney for abusing defendants’ rights. I practiced as a public defender for three years in New York City’s Legal Aid Society, doing criminal appeals. I had several cases that presented instances of DA misconduct at the trial level. It takes a high showing before the State admits error, and it certainly seldom does so so overtly, and in such detail.

Second, and more importantly, Cooper went far further than I envisioned; a cautious state lawyer would have merely said that there was “insufficient evidence to support a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt” and dismissed the charges. Cooper went remarkably far to try to give the accused their reputations back, going so far as to state:

Based on the significant inconsistencies between the evidence and the various accounts given by the accusing witness, we believe that these three individuals are innocent of these charges,” Cooper said at the news conference today. Although rape victims often give accounts that contain inconsistencies, he said, in this case they were overwhelming and could not be reconciled with other evidence. Eyewitness identification procedures used in the case were unreliable, no DNA evidence or other witness confirmed the accuser’s story, and “she contradicts herself,” Cooper said. All this “led us to the conclusion that no attack occurred,” he said.

(more…)

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The Shame Game (Columbia Journalism Review)

by Viviane on 02/11/2007

in Dateline,ethics,law,legal,media,pedophiles

By Douglas McCollam

It was just before 3 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon last November when a contingent of police gathered outside the home of Louis Conradt Jr., a longtime county prosecutor living in the small community of Terrell, Texas, just east of Dallas. Though the fifty-six-year-old Conradt was a colleague of some of the officers, they hadn’t come to discuss a case or for a backyard barbeque. Rather, the veteran district attorney, who had prosecuted hundreds of felonies during more than two decades in law enforcement, was himself the target of an unusual criminal probe. For weeks the police in the nearby town of Murphy had been working with the online watchdog group Perverted Justice and producers from Dateline NBC’s popular “To Catch a Predator” series in an elaborate sting operation targeting adults cruising the Internet to solicit sex from minors. Dateline had leased a house in an upscale subdivision, outfitted it with multiple hidden cameras, and hired actors to impersonate minors to help lure suspects into the trap. As with several similar operations previously conducted by Dateline, there was no shortage of men looking to score with underage boys and girls. In all, twenty-four men were caught in the Murphy sting, including a retired doctor, a traveling businessman, a school teacher, and a Navy veteran.

Conradt had never shown up at the Dateline house, but according to the police, using the screen name “inxs00,” he did engage in explicit sexual exchanges in an Internet chat room with someone he believed to be a thirteen-year-old boy (but was actually a volunteer for Perverted Justice). Under a Texas law adopted in 2005 to combat Internet predators, it is a second-degree felony to have such communications with someone under the age of fourteen, even if no actual sexual contact takes place. Armed with a search warrant — and with a Dateline camera crew on the scene — the police went to Conradt’s home to arrest him. When the prosecutor failed to answer the door or answer phone calls, police forced their way into the house. Inside they encountered the prosecutor in a hallway holding a semiautomatic handgun. “I’m not going to hurt anybody,” Conradt reportedly told the police. Then he fired a single bullet into his own head. (more…)

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Dear Abby Lee: We’ve outed you!

by Viviane on 01/03/2007

in bloggers,ethics,journalism,London,news,nicholas hellen,press,privacy,sexbloggers,sexblogs

gwaotm Dear Abby Lee: Weve outed you!Having the Sex Carnival has allowed us to post about a wide range of subjects and concerns, depending on our whims: sex and sexuality, news, local events of interest, blogs and blogging, security and privacy.

And you know privacy and protecting a blogger’s identity is a big concern of mine.

Which is why I am reposting (at her request) a threatening email sent to the Girl with a One Track Mind by Nicholas Hellen of The Sunday Times (London) on the eve of her outing.

It’s part of her 2006 roundup post, which collects the highs and lows of her past year, a year defined by her being outed by the media. (“I’ve been proud that my writing crossed into the book medium this year; I’ve been gutted that I lost my anonymity in the process.)

You think you are being careful about protecting your identity, but trust me, you’re not.

-Viviane

Update: Abby commented on the post: “Other sexbloggers may be interested to know that this Sunday Times journalist Nicholas Hellen was also responsible for the extended harassment of the sexblogger-turned author Belle de Jour, all throughout 2004 and 2005.”
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Below is one of the actual emails from the Sunday Times newspaper which was sent to me the day prior to the publication of their article ‘outing’ me. [For reasons of privacy, I have deleted certain details in the parentheses]. I print this to show the level newspapers will stoop to, to get a ‘story’, and also to highlight the private effect that an article such as this can have:

Aug 5, 2006 11:08 AM

Dear Miss [my name],

We intend to publish a prominent news story in this weekend’s paper, revealing your identity as the author of the book, Girl With a One Track Mind.

We have matched up the dates of films you have worked on – Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Batman Begins and Lara Croft Tomb Raider – and it is clear that they correlate to your blog. We have obtained your birth certificate, and details about where you went to school and college.

We propose to publish the fact that you are 33 and live in [my address] -London, and that your mother, [her name], is a [her address] -based [her profession]. The article includes extracts from your book and blog, relevant to your career in the film industry. We also have a picture of you, taken outside your flat.

Unfortunately, the picture is not particularly flattering and might undermine the image that has been built up around your persona as Abby Lee. I think it would be helpful to both sides if you agreed to a photo shoot today so that we can publish a more attractive image.

We are proposing to assign you our senior portrait photographer, Francesco Guidicini, and would arrange everything to your convenience, including a car to pick you up. We would expect you to provide your own clothes and make up. As the story will be on a colour page, we would prefer the outfit to be one of colourful eveningwear.

We did put this proposal to you yesterday, but heard nothing back. Clearly this is now a matter of urgency, and I would appreciate you contacting me as soon as possible. To avoid any doubt we will, of course, publish the story as it is if we do not hear from you.

Yours sincerely,
Nicholas Hellen
Acting News Editor

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