Yesterday in Juvenile Court, Judge Thomas Lipps found two young men
guilty of raping a young girl in Steubenville Ohio, and taking photos of her
naked and spreading them round the internet. “In this case…um…you know…regarding the
charges of rape, both defendents, Ma’lik Richmond and Trent Mays, are committed
to the department of youth services for a minimum period of one year and a
maximum period until you’re twenty-one.”
Three eyewitnesses testified against the
accused. The first said he was in the car with the two boys and the girl. He saw
Trent Mays use his fingers in sexual activity. He photographed it on his iPhone
for a couple of minutes then deleted it the next morning. The second eyewitness
said they drove the girl to a basement, where Ma’lik Richmond did a similar act,
then took photos of her naked. The third eyewitness said the girl wasn’t talking,
she wasn’t moving, so obviously she wasn’t participating.
The girl woke up the next
morning, still naked. That the eyewitnesses weren’t charged for complicity, and that nobody has even mentioned their wrong-doing is
mind-boggling.
This incident has created huge debate and
practically been tried on social media, with some, incredibly, actually believing
the young men were innocent and others baying for their blood. CNN’s reportage of
the judgment show quite blatantly on which side of the line they stood.Candy Crawley, on CNN, spoke with CNN reporter Poppy Harlow (the two pictured above), who has been
covering the case.
I expected the focus of the judgment and CNN’s reporting on it to be
about the details of the crime – that the boys carried her around like a pig,
urinated on her, raped her, took photographs of her and put them on the
internet - and about what that had done to the girl and her family, how she was
coping. And whether the sentence was commensurate with what these two boys had
done.
Candy Crawley introduced Poppy Harlow with “I cannot imagine…how
emotional that must have been sitting there in the courtroom.” Emotional for
who? The victim? As it happens, she was referring to the perpetrators and their
families. This is what Poppy Harlow had to say in reply.
“I’ve never experienced anything like it, Candy.” She spoke about how moving
the two young boys were, how they apologized with great heart, and broke down
in tears. She showed a clip of them doing so. To my mind Trent Mays (who took
the photos) he looked more scared than anything else. Ma’lik Richmond did seem
truly remorseful, but it’s easy to be in floods of tears and say sorry when
you’ve got caught and the whole world is watching you. There were no tears and
there was no remorse before the court case.
More shocking than anything else was Poppy Harlow’s clear sympathy for
the two boys who were football stars at their school, and whose careers, she
said, were over. “They literally watched as they believed their lives fell
apart…One of them, Malik Richmond…collapsed in the arms of his attorney…[saying]
‘my life is over, nobody is going to want me now’.”
That is not remorse about what you’ve done to your victim. It’s remorse
that you got caught and have to pay the consequences. Which point eluded Poppy Harlow.
She painted a very tragic and dramatic picture of the two poor boys and that
they would carry the term “sexual offender” for life. Their plight and their
ruined careers seemed to bother her more than what they had done, and what being
raped, carried round like a pig, urinated on and having photos of it all spread
around the internet did to the young girl and her family. In fact, Poppy didn’t
even mention that part. And Candy Crawley didn’t point it out.
And this is the 21st century. Two empowered women, one of
whom, Candy Crawley, has a lot of clout. She mediated one of the debates
between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in the run-up to the last
election.
Piers Morgan showed more sense. He discussed the case with Tracy Lords (the two are pictured above),
who was raped at age 10, and who has spoken out about insanity of the debate. “Young
kids” said Piers, by way of introduction, “do behave badly. I’m not going to
carry on saying the same thing but they do behave in a ridiculous manner when
they’re intoxicated. They all seem to be deeply regretful about what happened
and the taking of pictures is a modern-day curse if you like. It’s what they
all do. With everything. Do you have any sympathy for these two young boys?”
Savagery amongst young boys. The debate was mostly fuelled by the fact that the young girl was blind drunk. The argument is that girls mustn’t get drunk because guys might rape them. What about the argument that guys mustn’t get drunk because they might rape a girl?
The culture that girls and women must take responsibility for themselves but boys and men don’t have to is still alive and kicking. It is tragic that boys are still growing up in it; that these two will carry a stain for the rest of their lives. But so will the girl.
