The Washington Post’s interviews with the three friends of “Jackie” who rallied around her in the immediate aftermath of events make clear that all three are skeptical of her claims.
Even more ominously:
[P]hotographs that were texted to one of the friends showing her date that night were actually pictures depicting one of Jackie’s high school classmates in Northern Virginia. That man, now a junior at a university in another state, confirmed that the photographs were of him and said he barely knew Jackie and hasn’t been to Charlottesville for at least six years.
December 11th, 2014 at 9:29AM
What a mess.
There’s got to be a special circle of hell reserved for Rolling Stone’s fact-checkers after this.
December 11th, 2014 at 2:18PM
UD are you still sticking by this statement from your earlier post?
“First of all, as I said above, something traumatically assaultive did happen. At this point, this seems to me beyond doubt…”
What then is your position on the Maxwell piece (which originally used the word ‘automatically’ instead of ‘generally’)?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…/no-matter-what-jackie…/
(the comments are the best part).
Would it make sense to grant anonymity to the accuser AND accused until concrete evidence has been presented?
December 11th, 2014 at 3:41PM
Steve: Thanks for the link. I had scanned the Maxwell piece, but I just read it again.
I think Maxwell is wrong. I think suggesting that we take as our default position in regard to all such claims a predisposition to believe the person is not very wise. My (continued) predisposition to believe that, yes, something traumatically assaultive did happen in this case hasn’t been undermined by the Wash Post interview with her friends, since as one of them says:
She could in fact be the world’s best actress. But I doubt it.
December 11th, 2014 at 5:12PM
Thanks for clarifying your position. So if hearsay is basically enough to create a predisposition when would it be wise to not form a predisposition? I am genuinely curious.
December 11th, 2014 at 5:18PM
I wouldn’t call three post-event witness accounts hearsay, though I don’t know precisely what lawyers would say hearsay is. Nor am I sure I’m expressing a predisposition, though I used that word in my last comment. I think I’m expressing a disposition toward believing that something traumatic happened to this woman, though as should be obvious from all that I’ve written about it, I’m perfectly willing to believe that her account will turn out to be so garbled as to be unactionable.
December 11th, 2014 at 6:10PM
Thanks, there is a good discussion of hearsay evidence at the link below. It is generally inadmissible in court. A basic tenet of common law is “innocent until proven guilty”. The burden is on the accuser to prove the accusation. Assuming something happened without any physical evidence is very prejudicial in my opinion.
I think we can both agree Jackie was upset or appeared to be upset. We can generally assume there is a cause when someone is upset. Beyond that, I think we can assume very little.
https://www.ohiobar.org/ForPublic/Resources/LawYouCanUse/Pages/LawYouCanUse-90.aspx
December 12th, 2014 at 10:42AM
It appears to me now that this was a catfishing attempt that spun out of control. “Randall” may not know it, but he may be the luckiest guy in Charlottesville. In another “Jackieverse,” his alter-ego is standing in front of a deanlet’s kangaroo court, having been accused of assault himself.
In the meantime, Sabrina Erdeley is doubtless working overtime to connect the latest Charlottesville murders to UVA frats. No doubt the alleged perp, Mr. Washington, received personal instruction from the Psychotic Seven frat boys. In the meantime, Teresa Sullivan must be considering a shutdown of the UVA Medical Center, where an actual serial killer and rapist was on the UVA payroll at the time of his last alleged crime.