rigorousintuition.ca

sunny » Today, 15:58 wrote:The presumption of innocence cannot be given to both parties. Only one of them can be not guilty.

alwyn » 03 Feb 2014 17:43 wrote:reading the accounts that said wa was soon yi's mom's boyfriend, not her dad. i think however you look at this, it's icky. any boyfriend who dates mom then daugher is off. i never liked woody allen anyway, but i'm appalled by how many men are defending him because he is a 'great artist'. i think he's a neurotic little prick with a taste for pre-pubescent little girls, and while i realize that's just my opinion, none of his movies make me think anything different about him.

Sounder » 03 Feb 2014 16:02 wrote:
WA seems to genuinely enjoy the quiet life and that is not the general habit of hard core manipulators.

Her story rings true.

Why would the girl be lying at this point?

Her own brother believes her. Why shouldn't everybody?

All things being equal, it’s more likely that the [accusation against a] man who has spent a lifetime and a cinematic career walking the line of pedophilia (to put it mildly) ... is probably the right one.

I've now read Dylan's piece in the OP. Its tone and tenor do not vary in a substantial way from any account of any sexual abuse survivor I've ever read. The very idea that it could be a fabrication is preposterous.

I never cared for WA because he strikes me as someone that has commoditized his fuckedupness. Therefore it’s reasonable to at least suspect that he really is fucked up.

we are waking up gradually to the fact that we must listen to the voices of victims

any boyfriend who dates mom then daugher is off. i never liked woody allen anyway, but i'm appalled by how many men are defending him because he is a 'great artist'. i think he's a neurotic little prick with a taste for pre-pubescent little girls

In light of our culture of rape I feel the preponderance of doubt to a moral certainty belongs to Dylan.

WA seems to genuinely enjoy the quiet life and that is not the general habit of hard core manipulators.

"The question is whether, in a modern society, we are prepared to accept this continued criminal justice response to a crime that is extremely difficult to police, under-reported, under-prosecuted, committed by offenders who are prone to recidivism and which leaves victims with psychological and behavioural problems that sometimes remain with them throughout their lives (Bagley & Thurston 1996; Ullman & Filipas 2005).
Given the complexity of prosecuting child sex offences, it is likely that radical reform options are required to shift the focus of the trial from an inquiry into the child’s credibility and the degree of unreliability of her/his evidence into an investigation of the allegations made against the accused."

Honouring the rights of the accused while giving weight to testimony of abuse does not have to be a zero-sum game. But it is clear that we have yet to develop an ethical framework that can properly do both at the same time.

“The Yale team used psychologists on Allen’s payroll to make mental health conclusions.” He reported that the team had destroyed all of its notes, and that Leventhal did not interview Dylan, although she was called in nine times for questioning. They did not interview anyone who would corroborate her molestation claims. Judge Elliott Wilk, who presided over the custody hearing brought by Allen, wrote in his decision that he had “reservations about the reliability of the report.”

The specter of celebrity and Allen’s clout loomed over everything. The general public today has no memory of how complex, intense, and ugly this battle became. The court proceedings and hearings dragged on for more than four years. Although Allen spent millions of dollars in legal fees, he lost two trials and two appeals. The day after the Yale–New Haven clinic report came out, Maco issued a press release that said he was going to continue investigating.

Meanwhile, private investigators were hired by Allen. “There was a serious effort to dig up dirt on Maco and a number of state-police detectives and have an impact on the criminal investigation, and it did have an impact,” says Thibault, who spoke to some of the detectives involved. One of the top state-police investigators in the case told me, “They were trying to dig up dirt on the troopers—whether they were having affairs, what they were doing.” In his article, Thibault wrote that Allen’s lawyer Elkan Abramowitz acknowledged that at least 10 private investigators were hired, but, Thibault quoted him saying, “we didn’t go into any kind of smear campaign against the police.” Maco says, “I was informed by the state police that someone is going to be out there watching you. I was given the information to just be careful.”

At a key moment in the investigation, the trooper in charge of the case was accused of trying to leak a tape of Dylan to a local Fox affiliate in New York. The accusation was later proved to be false, but it prevented any Connecticut police from going to custody hearings in New York or from talking to New York authorities during the internal investigation. Their job was to determine whether or not there was probable cause to issue an arrest warrant. The top investigator I spoke to had interviewed Allen. “He had a scripted presentation, with his attorneys there. I did not find him credible,” the officer told me of the three-hour session. “I allowed him to say his piece without questions. When I questioned him, he starts stuttering and saying he didn’t do anything.” The officer stated, “There was never ‘Yes, I did’ or ‘No, I didn’t.’ There was not a clear, definitive yes or no.” (“You’ve seen how he talks sometimes,” Abramowitz says of Allen. “But there was no hesitation on the merits of what that was about.”)

In June 1993, Justice Elliott Wilk awarded custody of Dylan to Mia and denied Allen immediate visitation with the child. He allowed Moses to decide for himself whether he wanted to see his adoptive father again, and he increased Ronan’s—then Satchel’s—visits to three a week, supervised. The judge concluded that Allen demonstrated no parenting skills and was “self-absorbed, untrustworthy, and insensitive.” Allen’s trial strategy, he concluded, had been “to separate his children from their brothers and sisters; to turn the children against their mother.” He found “no credible evidence” to support Allen’s contention “that Ms. Farrow coached Dylan or that Ms. Farrow acted upon a desire for revenge against him for seducing Soon-Yi.” He found the molestation allegations inconclusive. Allen appealed, but the opinion was upheld.

Unlike the Yale–New Haven staff, the state investigators found Dylan credible. “When a little girl says someone digitally penetrated her,” one of them told me, “if a child relates pain to the incident at that age, that’s credible.” Maco had steered clear of any questioning of Dylan during the Yale–New Haven inquiry. After Wilk’s decision, however, he decided he needed to see for himself if she could be relied on to take the witness stand. “I sat down with the child, with my secretary, with another female from the state police, and we rolled around—we had stuffed animals. As soon as I broached the idea of Woody, the child just froze. Nothing.”

On September 24, 1993, Maco called a press conference to say that he believed he had probable cause to arrest Woody Allen but that he would not press charges because of the fragility of the “child victim.” Maco’s statement caused at least one legal expert to accuse him of wanting it both ways—of convicting Allen without a trial. Allen called a press conference to say that “vindictive” Mia’s “cheap scheming reeks of sleaze and deception.” He asked, “Did State’s Attorney Maco choose to overlook the truth and become a stooge for Miss Farrow because he didn’t like my films?”

“It should have been ‘complainant’ instead of ‘victim,’ ” Maco admitted to me, but he had felt he owed his community an explanation: “It’s not that the mother is a fabricator or concocter or that the child is unbelievable.” Dylan just wouldn’t cooperate, he said, so it would not have been fair to Allen or anyone involved to bring the case to trial. Allen’s lawyers swiftly filed ethics claims against Maco with two Connecticut state boards. The Connecticut Criminal Justice Commission, which appoints state prosecutors, dismissed the complaint, and a local panel of the Statewide Grievance Committee, which reviews and investigates attorney complaints, also dismissed it, but its decision was overturned by one vote in the Statewide Grievance Committee. It was not until a year after public hearings were held, in 1996—a “mini trial” with both Maco and Allen testifying—that Maco was found not to have violated the rules of professional conduct. It had cost the state more than $250,000 to defend him. Maco, whose more than 20-year record remains unblemished, was forced to absent himself from trials for a time. He retired early, in 2003.

Nordic » 04 Feb 2014 02:55 wrote:Thanks Willow. I can't believe there are people here who would even argue, and argue so vehemently, about this.

It's as disturbing to me as the molestation. How awful that this girl came out publicly and so many people choose to disbelieve her, all because they have some preconceived notion as to the character of the creep whose fake name is Woody Allen. He's a miserable and talented creep.

Men. Why am I one? This is why I always had more female friends than male. Men are dicks.