Clinton defending rapist of 12 year old.

[Skwmom]

Last edited Sat Feb 20, 2016, 07:03 PM - Edit history (2)

Somehow this seems to have been left out of the ad.

In a sworn affidavit aiming to coerce a psychiatric evaluation of the sixth-grade victim, Clinton during the case nearly 40 years ago called into question the girl's emotional stability, arguing she had exhibited "a tendency to seek out older men and engage in... fantasizing." She added, citing a child psychology expert that "children in early adolescence tend to exaggerate or romanticize sexual experiences and that adolescents with disorganized families, such as the complainant, are even more prone to such behavior."

But in the recording, Clinton indicated she believed her client was indeed guilty. Heard laughing, she said the polygraph test he managed to pass "forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs."

LAUGHING. Really?

Update: I don't understand how anyone could listen to that audio and not be bothered by it.

Please cut the crap about our judicial system. She holds herself out as a defender of children. Listen to the audio. That is someone who is a defender of children? I'm sure this will go over great in the GE. Most people would not write this off as it's just how the judicial system works.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-stands-by-her-defense-of-1975-rape-suspect/

[dsc]

1. you know who else didn't think the guilty needed lawyers

Hitler, and Stalin, and Amin, and every other dictator on the planet. To have a problem with defense lawyers is to have a problem with a government not having the power to detain people unchecked, for any and all reasons it may deem proper. You are literally advocating for dictatorship.

[RiverLover]

2. So with this twisted logic, she was fighting ag Hitler when she CHOSE to defend a rapist

& say a child was asking for it?

Wow. wow

[atreides1]

5. No

She defended her client, wouldn't you want a lawyer to defend you?

That's what defense lawyers are suppose to do...defend their clients! And our system is an adversarial one, which sometimes means that things are said and done, that many find completely beyond the scope!

But until we can come up with a better system, it's the best one we have!

[tk2kewl]

33. i think the standard is zealously defend not gleefully defend

[msanthrope]

7. Court appointed. Read the article. She was not a defense attorney, but a judge

asked her to defend. But don't let facts get in the middle of the selective outrage.

I once got appointed to defend a statutory rapist. I won my case. What does that make me?

[RiverLover]

12. OK so was appointed. But she worked it & got this for the guy~

she was able to seize on loopholes to minimize the sentence of the suspect, 41-year-old Thomas Alfred Taylor. Though he faced 30 years to life in prison, Clinton negotiated a plea deal that sentenced him to just one year in county jail and four years of probation.

Lovely.

[msanthrope]

14. Absolutely. She gave a zealous defense. It's what our Constitution requires.

You don't get to have it both ways... If you were accused of a crime would you want an attorney who decided your guilt or innocence and then measured their enthusiasm for your defense based on that?

The client I referenced above absolutely had sex with the alleged victim. Should I have told him to simply enter a guilty plea?

[dsc]

20. she was assigned the case she didn't chose the case

and yes, she was fighting the idea that the government can just say rapist and make its opponents disappear.

[kath]

47. I've read that she did it as a favor for the judge.

probably figured it would help her career...

[Tanuki]

50. Where did you read that? eom

[dsc]

53. when a judge asks you to do something

as a young lawyer you do it. If my principal asks me to do something, I do it.

[ebayfool]

59. Not even a judge - a prosecutor!

Last edited Sat Feb 20, 2016, 12:39 PM - Edit history (2)

http://freebeacon.com/politics/the-hillary-tapes/

“The prosecutor called me a few years ago, he said he had a guy who had been accused of rape, and the guy wanted a woman lawyer,” said Clinton in the interview. “Would I do it as a favor for him?”


note to jury -
link is in the OP article:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-stands-by-her-defense-of-1975-rape-suspect/

[JTFrog]

62. Don't post shit from that disgusting site here.

What the fuck is wrong with people.

That website is a perfect right wing tool for useful idiots.

[ebayfool]

63. That "shit" is linked in the OP's CBS article. Take it up with CBS. Doesn't change facts.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-stands-by-her-defense-of-1975-rape-suspect/

Do you have an opinion on the quote?
“The prosecutor called me a few years ago, he said he had a guy who had been accused of rape, and the guy wanted a woman lawyer,” said Clinton in the interview. “Would I do it as a favor for him?

[JTFrog]

73. But it does.

I can guarantee you that this attack comes from the extreme right wing. The fact that this particular forum is overflowing with slime from every right wing rag out there makes me want to gag. I can see why the admins don't want this kind of hyperbolic conservative tinged propaganda fouling up the front page. Hopefully the changes they have alluded to for the next primary season will include moderators instead of juries.

[Jim Lane]

70. Your post doesn't address the substance.

From a quick glance at the site, I agree that it's right wing, full of attacks on both Clinton and Sanders. If a particular piece rested on the credibility of the Free Beacon, I wouldn't pay it much attention.

In this instance, however, it's not some right-winger asserting that he or she knows something. Instead, the report is based on a tape of an interview with Clinton. I took the time to listen to the tape (audiotape accompanied by an on-screen transcript). There are a few minor errors in the transcript. On the point at issue here, though, the person speaking on the tape does say what the Free Beacon asserts, and the speaker sounds enough like Clinton for me to believe it's her.

I suppose it's conceivable that the right-wing site could have hoaxed the whole thing up, with a phony story about tapes in a University of Arkansas archive, coupled with hiring an actor and actress to do the purported "interviews" over several hours. You should note, however, that this article in The New York Times reported on the contents of the tape, linking to the Free Beacon report. Were the Times fact-checkers asleep at the switch? Since the appearance of the Times article in 2014, has Clinton or anyone else questioned the authenticity of the tape?

On the evidence now before me, including the Free Beacon's political bias, I think it most likely that the Free Beacon is telling the truth on this particular point

[kath]

75. CNN has also reported on this story, and linked to the tape-recorded interview.

This opinion piece looks at that interview from a different, but interesting angle:

http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/01/opinion/callan-hillary-clinton/
much more in the article about different issues surrounding her involvement in the case and subsequent interviews, but here is an excerpt:

So it is sad really to see her throw this all away and apparently betray the secrets and interests of her client for the sake of telling a good story to a reporter. But that is exactly what she did when during a subsequent interview (also in the 1980s) she revealed that Taylor had taken and passed a polygraph test. She said on tape that she has "forever" lost her "faith" in polygraph tests. What Clinton really may have been saying here is that her client lied in claiming innocence when he took the polygraph test because he was really guilty.

In other words, she appears to have outed Taylor as a liar and a rapist. By framing the story in this way, Clinton violated not only the attorney-client privilege but also her obligation to fully represent the interests of her client as required by the attorney's "Code of Professional Responsibility."

It is utterly improper for a defense attorney to reveal a client confidence in this way. As a veteran teller of legal "war stories," my advice to Clinton is if you are going to tell one, leave out the child rapist case.

Clinton may have handled the case tactics well, but the way she talked about her client raises a serious question about her devotion to legal ethics in her early years of practice. We can only hope that the experience she has accumulated in public life has taught the former secretary of state that a devotion to ethical conduct and fidelity to the interests of those she represents are critically important character traits.

[JTFrog]

76. Seriously?

You think time should be wasted on their other articles? You think lending any kind of credence or driving traffic to that site is a good idea?

How about some of these ridiculous articles from that lovely source?

Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders Are the Same Person, Analysis Finds

Crazy Bernie Sanders Blames Koch Brothers for VA Scandal

Bernie Sanders's Fossil Socialism

Sanders and Wife Steered Campaign, Nonprofit Money to Family and Friends
Public records show pattern of payments to Democratic presidential candidate’s inner circle

Meet Bernie Sanders’ Israel Hating Advisers
Jewish Democrat taking advice from Israel critics

I don't think anyone who supports the mission statement of this website comes here to be bombarded with right wing points of view and propaganda.

[Jim Lane]

86. Let me tell you a tangentially relevant story about "right wing points of view and propaganda."

I sometimes edit Wikipedia. Someone had said that Wikipedia shouldn't include Communist propaganda. On the only occasion when I met Wikipedia's founder, Jimmy Wales, this somehow came up. I mentioned to him that Wikipedia had an article titled "And you are lynching Negroes". It's not about the lynchings of the Jim Crow era. It's about how the Russians would try to deflect criticism of their own country by bringing up lynchings as a tu quoque argument. Thus, the statement that there were lynchings is a classic example of Communist propaganda. Wales immediately added: "It also happens to be true," that being of course the point I was making. Wikipedia does in fact have an extensive article about "Lynching in the United States", thereby bolstering Communist propaganda to that extent. So what? It's true.

The point is that sneering at something as a right-wing point of view or as propaganda doesn't exclude the possibility that it's true. I personally am not interested in the right-wing attacks alleging that Clinton had Vince Foster killed or the like, and I agree with you that DUers don't come here to be bombarded by that stuff. I am, however, interested in truthful reporting, even if it picks up a right-wing attack (such as some of the attacks that Clinton supporters have posted about Sanders).

You've said nothing to undermine my conclusion that the woman on the tape is really Hillary Clinton and that, in the 1980s, she really said that she took this case as a favor to the prosecutor. The apparent contradiction with her more recent statements is hardly the most important reason to oppose her candidacy, but dismissing the whole thing as "propaganda" just won't cut it.

[JTFrog]

87. You certainly have a right to believe whatever you want.

Just as I have a right to believe that right wing points of view and propaganda aren't worth my time. And if and when there is ever a tiny spark of truth to them, that truth will be twisted into something resulting in the exact opposite of the truth. This is a well known phenomena and one of the things that used to make DU awesome was the lack of tolerance for said right wing views and propaganda.

I mean it's not like the right wing has a long history of distorting actual events in order to slime Democrats or anything.

[Jim Lane]

67. She seems to have changed her story over time.

In that tape from the 1980s she does say that the prosecutor asked her to take the case as a favor. That implies that she was willing to do it. In the article linked in the OP, however, her story is somewhat different. There she says that she was appointed by the judge, that she asked to be relieved of the representation, that she was not relieved, and that she then had an obligation to represent her client to the best of her ability.

I agree that, as long as she's his attorney, she has to do her best for him, even if she thinks he's guilty. The circumstances of her appointment, however, are somewhat murky. Her more recent statement doesn't mention anything about her willingness to do a favor for the prosecutor. Instead, she now gives the impression that she had no choice in the matter.

It seems unlikely to me that Arkansas law would have empowered a judge to compel an attorney to undertake a criminal defense, especially an attorney who's not employed by a public defender's office.

[ebayfool]

69. That's reasonable and I agree ...

I get that a lawyer has to do the best they can for a client. But the ever changing backdrop of being appointed v doing a favor I do have a problem with - Hilary seems to have a problem with picking a story and sticking do it. That speaks volumes to me as to her 'truthiness'!

[kath]

71. changing her story over time - gee, where have we seen THAT before?

how conveeeeennient {ChurchLady}

and your last sentence is important -- SHE WAS NOT EMPLOYED BY THE PUBLIC DEFENDER'S OFFICE AT THE TIME (or ever, as far as I know)

[UglyGreed]

77. Wow indeed

[magical thyme]

4. poster didn't say the guilty don't need lawyers

But those lawyers shouldn't be smearing and libeling children, especially child victims, in the guise of obtaining justice for their client. And they certainly shouldn't be amused by their (believed guilty) client's beating of the system.

That said lawyer then claims to be a defender of children's rights is, imo, as disgusting as her apparent amusement by killing ("we came, we saw, he died! HAH!HAH!HAH!&quot and war ("then we ought to take them out" "secretary Clinton?" "HAH!HAH!HAH!HAH!HAH!&quot

[msanthrope]

10. Sorry...but you don't get to have it both ways. Would you tell

a lawyer defending your son of similar charges "look be nice to the victim?" You absolutely would not. You would expect me as an attorney, to find everything and anything I could to impugn the victim's reliability and weaken the state's case.

[pipoman]

21. Only people with no knowledge of criminal process

Thinks this kind of nonsense....consider yourself lucky having never been between, say, 20 years in prison and the words of someone lying about you....but by all means, take it easy on the accuser, we wouldn't want them to have a bad day while testing their accusations for merit. No, if you ever are in a position like this you will expect no holds barred in the questioning of your accuser, as it should be....

I am a Bernie supporter and an avid civil liberation. I also have no time for people who like putting others in jail wrongly to save someone else having to tell a painful story....

[magical thyme]

56. there's a vast difference between "taking it easy on the accuser" and flat-out lying about them.

She lied about a 12 year old rape victim to get her client off. And laughed about it. That's disgusting imo.


You may find laughing about getting a rapist off. Rape and stalking victims don't find it all that amusing.

Likewise, as I wrote above, the same person laughing about that laughed about murder and war. I find that disgusting too.

[polly7]

58. Yeah .......... that's beyond sickening.

12 fucking years old!

[pipoman]

83. How do you know she lied?....perhaps...perhaps not....neither of us were there...

So you have no faith in the system....we all have various degrees of faith in it....compared to a lot of places ours is pretty good...the system doesn't require your approval or understanding to work.

BTW...the best possible defense for anyone accused by the state of a crime is among the most Democratic of principles....the least amount of innocent people in prison is a very Democratic principal....

[Jenny_92808]

41. +1

I couldn't agree more.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

64. Funny. Didn't Hillary try to keep Nixon from having legal representation during Watergate?

[dsc]

65. I don't think that happened.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

66. And I left my terms uncertain by design...I'm not sure if it happened either, but I did read it here

It was maybe a week ago.

[Art_from_Ark]

89. Snopes says that that particular allegation is false

http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/zeifman.asp

[Thinkingabout]

3. She never wrote a newspaper about women's rape fantasies.

[restorefreedom]

24. it was a comment on sexual morays and how women were viewed by some at the time

let's try and give a complete answer.....

[Thinkingabout]

31. Comment, a article he sent to the newspaper and they printed it, don't think it was a comment

and if it was not a good comment.

[restorefreedom]

32. the piece itself was the comment, thats what i meant

but i am sure it elicited a wide range of opinions. provocative pieces tend to do that, even in the 70's (or whenever it was )

[Thinkingabout]

60. And Hillary was a court appointed attorney in the mentioned case

And we know we are entitled to a defense in court fro charges we have, it is a part of the justice system.

[restorefreedom]

61. i actually already agreed with you on that point. please see #26 for more. nt

[kath]

72. NOT court-appointed. Took the case as a favor. see posts above.

She was never a public defender.

[Tanuki]

35. Sexual morays? Is that some kind of eel porn?

Sorry, couldn't resist....

[restorefreedom]

36. ewwww..but hey, we need to keep a sense of humor else we go crazy....nt

[pipoman]

84. Tell me mores...

[DemocratSinceBirth]

91. mores, not morays.

[restorefreedom]

92. long day :) nt

[msanthrope]

6. As a criminal defense attorney, I can only reflect on the fact that upholding the Constitution

for one's client is just and noble.

[kath]

49. Since the victim was TWELVE years old, this was a STATUTORY RAPE case, and her mental state,

Flirtatiousness, and all that crap that Hillary brought up trying to blame the victim had nothing to with the case.
Guy has sex with a twelve-year-old, he's guilty of statutory rape, period. A child can NOT give consent.

[dsc]

54. the defense was that it hadn't happened at all

that she had made it up. You claim she did this as a favor, no link as of yet.

[ebayfool]

57. Sounds like a favor to me (not assigned)

Last edited Sat Feb 20, 2016, 12:39 PM - Edit history (1)

snip/

“The prosecutor called me a few years ago, he said he had a guy who had been accused of rape, and the guy wanted a woman lawyer,” said Clinton in the interview. “Would I do it as a favor for him?”

http://freebeacon.com/politics/the-hillary-tapes/

note to jury -
link is in the OP article:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-stands-by-her-defense-of-1975-rape-suspect/

[pipoman]

85. No 12 year old girls ever lie....heavens no, why would a 12 year old lie?

What got into anyone to think a 12 year old might lie. If any 12 year old proclaims anyone did anything to anyone we should go straight to sentencing and summary execution because 12 year olds never lie....very Democratic...

[Thinkingabout]

80. Agree, I would hope if I had a serious issue there would be an attorney

To represent me, surely we know some are innocent for some charges. I am not sure this extends to newspaper articles.

[Skwmom]

96. Tell that to the voters who listen to that audio. Trump in describing Clinton: In a certain way evil

[Warren Stupidity]

8. this is fail - this is how our legal system works.

Your lawyer is supposed to defend you to the best of her abilities.

[DefenseLawyer]

9. I'm a criminal defense lawyer and a Sanders supporter

It has been my chosen profession for the last 21 years. I have chosen, as you frame it, to represent scores of people charged with rape, murder, child molesting and every other major felony you can think of. Some of those people were found guilty, some were not. My job, my chosen profession, is to try to make sure that all of them got treated fairly. I don't have one kind of defense for people I think are guilty and another for those I think are innocent. Everyone deserves a fair process. Especially given the knowledge that we are not always right in our assessment of who is "obviously guilty" when a case begins. I will continue to do my part to insure that if the State is going to take someone's freedom, they are going to do so based on solid evidence and not some farce of a process. I believe that to be an important role in our society. Of course, I'm a little biased. Maybe you don't.
If you think that I am pro-rape because I represent people accused of rape, I can only tell you I am not.

[msanthrope]

17. +1

[no_hypocrisy]

28. Agreed.

As a criminal defense attorney, my client is the United States Judicial System, with my client, the defendant, next in line.

[Skwmom]

42. Did you laugh? n/t

[Jenny_92808]

43. +1

Thank you for your excellent and thoughtful post.

[COLGATE4]

46. + another 1

[great white snark]

68. +1 for the effort but it won't dissuade the rationality impaired. (nt)

[noamnety]

11. Direct link to 6 minute audio (has transcriptions)

http://freebeacon.com/politics/audio-hillary-clinton-speaks-of-defense-of-child-rapist-in-newly-unearthed-tapes/

Very odd tone, like she's telling a funny anecdote about a squirrel getting into a bird feeder - not like she's telling the story of a child getting raped.

[msanthrope]

13. Sorry....but every defense lawyer has a story like this. You should hear

cops and firemen talk about their calls.

It's called gallows humor....it ain't pretty, but when you are called on to do the jobs that most people really don't want to do, this is how some people deal with it.

[noamnety]

15. Cops, firemen, secretaries of state ...

Yes, I am aware of several of them dehumanizing the victims and laughing about them.

[msanthrope]

16. I hope that if you ever need the services of a criminal

defense attorney, you find one who meets your purity standards. Granted, you're going to do a shitload of time......

[noamnety]

18. That's a very odd response to me.

Sort of sounds like you are gleefully hoping I spend decades in jail for disagreeing with you on the internet. ?

[msanthrope]

19. No....what I'm hoping for is a bit of self-reflection on your part. nt

[noamnety]

23. And the self-reflection would be ...

that I come around to a point of having enough compassion to support calling child rape victims a bit slutty as a defense in court, and laughing about it?

[msanthrope]

25. You would want a zealous defense. You would also have compassion and

understanding for someone who was court appointed to defend someone like this. I've been court appointed to defend people worse than this. And I've done with the Constitution requires.

[Skwmom]

44. This and the Gadaffi tape becoming common knowledge spells DISASTER. Why do you think Trump called

her in "a certain way evil."

[Bettie]

22. She was a defense attorney

and I believe she was court-appointed.

She did her job. At the time this happened, unfortunately, that is how rape trials were. Heck, to this day, rape victims are put on trial. Yes, it is a problem in our society, a long standing one.

One would hope that today, she'd handle it differently.

[kath]

51. She was NOT a defense attorney, and she did it as a FAVOR for someone.

[Bettie]

88. In that case, she was a defense attorney

So, it was her job to defend her client.

There are plenty of things to criticize her on, but I'm not going to criticize this one.

And I'm not, by any stretch, a Clinton supporter.

[restorefreedom]

26. our system works, imperfectly as it does,

because everyone gets representation. its there to protect all of us, but especially the marginalized who might be falsely accused and convicted. and i know you were not criticizing the system but it would be easy to do so in this case.

that said, her affect seemed off and her attitude was quite disturbing, at least to me..

[pipoman]

27. Lucky you...

Hope you never need to defend yourself from criminal complaints....if you do, I assure you, you will not care if your accuser has to tell a painful story or has to have a bad day if you are facing hard time....real life isn't as simple as the simple believe it is...

Something else people fail to understand is how a homicide detective can leave a crime scene and eat a pizza. How a coroner can disect a rotting corpse and bounce their baby on their knee an hour later. Doing the necessary but dirty work of society requires one to be able to disconnect. Being able to disconnect is sometimes a distasteful process for the lucky unknowing to watch.

[Jester Messiah]

29. So... I'm a Bernie guy, but...

I don't think we need to sling this kind of mud. There's plenty of ammo just in policy, positions, associations... this just demeans us all. I don't want to be part of it.

[myrna minx]

30. I'm a Bernie supporter with plenty of criticisms of Secretary Clinton

But this isn't one of them. One of the pillars of our justice system is that everyone, no matter how heinous the accused crime, is entitled to vigorous defense representation. This is demonstrated by John Adams' defense of the the accused of the Boston Massacre.

[speaktruthtopower]

34. As long as she wasn't

pretending to be the child's mother convincing her it was her fault, or other ethical violations, she was doing her job as a lawyer.

[Onlooker]

37. This thread belongs in Free Republic

Everyone is entitled to representation, and Hillary deserves credit for representing someone like that. Using the logic of the OP, criminals should be denied representation. Join the Republicans if that's what you believe.

[riversedge]

38. The RW has passed this piece of crap around for Years--now Sanders fans have started to pass

it around. How many times has it been posted on DU?? Several that I know of. The OP is Shameful.

[brooklynite]

39. Perhaps you'd be happier wit Donald Trump...

I suspect he'd prefer to "streamline" the criminal justice system.

[SoLeftIAmRight]

79. Trump beats $hillary in the general

not true for Sanders

You can help save America

[Boomer]

40. I'm a Bernie supporter, too

And the OP doesn't understand the most basic principles of our legal system. This is not a valid criticism of HRC.

[Skwmom]

45. I beg to differ. I do understand the basic principles of our legal system and using those basic

principles to defend her laughing and the audio interview - good luck with that.

[COLGATE4]

48. Your outrage at Hilary for doing the best job she

could as a court-appointed attorney is duly noted.

[Skwmom]

52. Did you listen to the audio? n/t

[itsrobert]

55. Please review the principles of of our Judicial System

https://rhdefense.com/2009/11/22/the-fundamental-principles-of-american-justice

http://www.lexisnexis.com/en-us/lawschool/pre-law/intro-to-american-legal-system.page

Our legal system under the BernieBros Bus.

[JonLeibowitz]

78. Give me a break. Plenty of Bernie supporters in this thread disagreeing vigorously. n/t

[KingCharlemagne]

74. She laughs about the creepiest shit, doesn't she: getting a child rapist off by victim shaming,

extra-judicial executions (Qadafi). Dare anyone say "banality of evil"?

[noretreatnosurrender]

81. Non Issue

She was appointed to defend her client to the best of her ability and she did. Everyone deserves a fair trial. The only criticism I could possibly offer is that she initially tried to get out of it.

"If you don't stand up in the toughest cases, you're worthless," he said. "The easy cases are easy." Ramsey Clark

[Odin2005]

82. That is some disgusting crap. Shame on her.

[jsmirman]

90. This post is disgusting

As someone said above, just beautiful to see Free Republic threads running wild on DU.

[bobbobbins01]

93. I don't think this is appropriate.

Everyone deserves a defense, and a defense attorney should play to win. There are so many other legitimate and timely reasons to criticize her, this is unnecessary and unhelpful.

[lovemydog]

94. A doctor isn't vilified for the kind of people s/he treats.

Everyone is entitled to legal defense in our country. Thank goodness.

[Cheese Sandwich]

95. True facts.