Jumping to conclusions on Dominique Strauss-Kahn and a note about the legal system

By TigerHawk

 

The legal case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn is collapsing, according to the New York Times, and so perhaps is the moral case. There has been and will be plenty of hashing and gnashing of this, but I have two quick items.

First, I was to some degree a DSK conclusion-jumper, and am sorry about that. A good reminder that even in today's transparent world the facts sometimes take some time to emerge.

Second, this note from an Instapundit reader is worth passing along:

UPDATE: A reader emails: “If DSK is innocent, and what happened was either consented to or just ‘bad sex’ (as Ann Althouse would say), then I think it’s an instructive example of the power imbalance between men and women in the legal setting. Also, a powerful example of what a class-neutral legal system we have.”

There is much to argue about in both points, but they are true enough to provoke a good discussion. I'll leave the "gender/power imbalance" for y'all to hash out in the comments while I go about my day. With regard to the purported class-neutrality of the legal system, there are at least two trends that run in opposite directions. On the one hand, the prosecutorial populism of the last twenty years or so (witness the extended campaigns against Wall Streeters, starting with Rudy Giuliani's perp walks and the legal war against Michael Milken), has resulted in a great many very high profile prosecutions of the super-rich. American prosecutors, being future and sometimes actual politicians, love busting rich folks, even if they have a weak case. On the other hand, an ordinary American confronting the legal system has a much greater chance of success if he or she has the financial resources to mount a vigorous defense. These two conditions manifestly co-exist and muddle any general conclusion about the aggregate "class-neutrality" or lack thereof in the American criminal justice system.

Release the hounds.