Requiem To Marion Barry: The Kavanaugh Sex Spectacle

  Scales_of_justice

By Robert Willmann

Update (Friday, 28 September):  It looks like Senator Lindsey Graham (Repub., South Carolina) might be reading SST.  On the radio shortly before 9:00 a.m. central time, he was talking, probably in the hallway, and was saying that there is no statute of limitations on rape in Maryland, and so if someone wanted to make a complaint to start the investigation of a criminal case, that could be done.  There are additional issues to research, such as whether a person to be charged was a juvenile or adult for purposes of crime at the time of the alleged offense, its effect on the statute of limitations, and so forth, as mentioned below. 

—– 

As a coincidence theorist, I find it mathematically interesting that accusations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh began when they did, and continued in sequence spaced out up to and including yesterday. 

Senator Dianne Feinstein (Democrat, California) is on the Senate Judiciary Committee.  She is also, surprisingly, on the Senate Intelligence Committee, given the financial investments and activities by her husband Richard Blum in China.  Right on cue, after the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing ended, Feinstein began Act 1 of the three act play you could see coming from a mile or kilometer away, with its three act structure:  the set-up, conflict, and resolution–

http://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/how-to-master-the-structure-of-script-writing/

http://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/screenplay-sequences-underpin-three-act-structure/

In Act 1, Feinstein revealed a mysterious letter that she would not disclose to her Democratic colleagues about an unnamed accuser who did not want to be known or get involved.  In Act 2, the accuser "comes forward" and her name becomes known and there is the demand that there be an investigation, that she testify before the committee, and that any vote be delayed.  Act 3 is played out today.  

Having been involved in the prosecution and defense of criminal sex cases, I am not watching the contrived spectacle now underway, which is political maneuvering and propaganda.  But I have seen an image of the goings-on, and am wondering who did Christine Blasey Ford's hair this morning and picked out the clothes she is wearing for her role as accuser. 

The Republicans on the Judiciary Committee scuttled around and painted themselves into a corner by tentatively agreeing on Saturday, 22 September, to a hearing of sorts for Thursday, 27 September, at which Ms. Ford would testify [1].  Then, by coincidence, of course, up popped a story in the New Yorker magazine on Sunday, 23 September, in which a female named Deborah Ramirez claimed that in the 1983-84 school year at Yale University, Kavanaugh exposed his male sex organ to her at a drunken dormitory party [2].  Waiting until the seventh paragraph of the article, authors Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer begin the disclaimers–

 

 

"Ramirez acknowledged that there are significant gaps in her memories of the evening, and that, if she ever presents her story to the F.B.I. or members of the Senate, she will inevitably be pressed on her motivation for coming forward after so many years, and questioned about her memory, given her drinking at the party."

In paragraph 10–

"The New Yorker has not confirmed with other eyewitnesses that Kavanaugh was present at the party."

Then on Wednesday, 26 September, purely by coincidence, and the day before the new committee hearing for Ms. Ford, up pops Julie Swetnick, with her written statement–

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/kavanaugh_swetnick_page1.jpg

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/kavanaugh_swetnick_page2.jpg

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/kavanaugh_swetnick_page3.jpg

Since some writers and commentors and certainly some readers here on SST have spent much time at work analyzing information, statements, and situations — especially when soldiers' lives are at stake — I do not have to take apart the Swetnick statement and discuss its unusual characteristics.  It is so full of holes you can drive an 18-wheeler truck through it, and readers can see for themselves.  Yesterday, 'Publius Tacitus' examined her "declaration" in a posting on this site.

An easy example:  notice the contradiction in paragraphs 11 and 13 in which Swetnick claims that in 1981-82 she purposely avoided drinking the punch at the parties because Kavanaugh and others made efforts to "spike the punch", but that in approximately 1982 was gang raped after being incapacitated by "Quaaludes or something similar placed in what I was drinking".

Swetnick's salacious statement seeks to make a direct criminal accusation against Kavanaugh by saying, in paragraph 12, that she "witnessed efforts by Mark Judge, Brett Kavanaugh, and others to cause girls to become inebriated and disoriented so that they could then be 'gang raped' in a side room or bedroom by a 'train' of numerous boys".  She continues:  "I have a firm recollection of seeing  boys lined up outside rooms at many of these parties [when? where?] waiting for their 'turn' with a girl inside the room.  These boys included Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh".

This accusation crosses the line into what is called in Texas the "law of parties" and "criminal responsibility for the conduct of another" [3].  In the federal court system the doctrine is referred to as "aiding and abetting".

In her crafty little statement, Ms. Swetnick is deliberately vague about where these "numerous" parties that were a "common occurrence" and "occurred nearly every weekend during the school year" actually took place.  She says in paragraph 2 that she graduated from Gaithersburg High School in Gaithersburg, Maryland, which tells us nothing about the location of the alleged bad conduct.  In paragraph 7 she said that she attended "well over 10 house parties in the Washington, D.C. area during the years 1981-83 where Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh were present".  She further says in paragraph 9 that she "witnessed such conduct on one occasion in Ocean City, Maryland during 'Beach Week' " [what conduct? that claimed in paragraph 8?].

Every District Attorney "in the Washington, D.C. area" (as Ms. Swetnick likes to say) can research the law to see what the statute of limitations is as to rape and other possible crimes alleged by Swetnick in her statement.  A "statute of limitations" or "limitation of actions" is the time period in which a civil or criminal case can be filed.  If the time period has expired, a case cannot be brought.  Some crimes have no statute of limitations.  The age of the participants is also part of the research. There will be an age at which a juvenile becomes an adult as far as crime is concerned.  In Texas and likely in other states, criminal cases against juveniles are handled differently than those against adults.  In some instances, a juvenile can, after a hearing, be designated as an adult, or "certified to stand trial as an adult", for a crime allegedly committed as a juvenile.  How this is affected by the statutes of limitation is also an issue that can be researched. 

I see that the University of Maryland has a law school [4].  With the privilege of available time in the academic world, a professor and perhaps some students could do this research and easily write an article on the issues of what the law says about the statute of limitations, possible crimes for investigation, and their relation to the matter of juveniles and adults, concerning this Swetnick matter.

Washington, D.C. itself is a separate entity, and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia prosecutes both federal and "serious local crime committed by adults" there [5].  It is interesting that the Justice Department website does not refer to juvenile offenses committed in Washington, D.C.  They may be handled by a locally elected D.C. "attorney general" [6].

If politicians want an investigation, let one begin by the District Attorneys in the area and the U.S. Attorney's Office in D.C.  So far as is known, Ms. Swetnick has not approached any of them with her dramatic complaint.

As a final note, why a requiem to former Washington, D.C mayor Marion Barry?  Not publicized much, if at all, were his academic accomplishments, as he had a master's degree in chemistry, which is not an easy thing to achieve.  He was a formidable politician and activist.  He was interrupted by an FBI sting operation in 1990 and arrested for a drug offense in the presence of a female in a hotel room.  With the current ongoing revelations of hostile attitudes and even actions by personnel of one or more federal agencies against candidate and now president Trump, the targeting of a politican with real charisma might be more than a coincidence.  The undercover FBI video of the event recorded for posterity the immortal words of Marion Barry, candidly repeated in paragraph 3 of this Washington Post story–

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/library/dc/barry/video.htm?noredirect=on

It can happen.

 

[1]  http://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/22/kavanaugh-accuser-accepts-senate-judiciary-committees-request-to-testify-836452

[2]  http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/senate-democrats-investigate-a-new-allegation-of-sexual-misconduct-from-the-supreme-court-nominee-brett-kavanaughs-college-years-deborah-ramirez

[3]  http://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/docs/PE/htm/PE.7.htm

[4]  http://www.law.umaryland.edu/index.html

[5]  http://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/about-us

[6]  http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/let-dcs-elected-attorney-general-prosecute-dc-crimes/2016/02/12/91ded204-c91c-11e5-88ff-e2d1b4289c2f_story.html?noredirect=on

 

This entry was posted in Current Affairs, government, Media, Politics, Ukraine Crisis. Bookmark the permalink.