URBAN PERSPECTIVE-President Obama did not pass judgment on the guilt or innocence of Bill Cosby when he gave his frank thoughts on revoking the Medal of Freedom Award Cosby got from then President Bush in 2002. Obama has no authority to do that. But he does have authority to speak out on rape. He did and reiterated what should have long since been a no brainer in law and public policy; namely that rape is a hideous crime and should be harshly prosecuted. But the Cosby debacle shows that if anything that’s far from the case.
Whether it’s a rich and famous guy like Cosby or in far too many cases the average Joe, many do skip away scot free.
They’ve got a lot to hide behind. The tough statues of limitations, the he said, she said absence of witnesses, no physical evidence, the reluctance of women to press charges, and the reluctance of far too many in law enforcement to believe them when they do.
Just look at what many of the 45 women that accused Cosby of rape to date have said about why they didn’t speak up and what happened to them when a few of them did. They were virtually run out of Dodge on a rail, victim baited and bashed, and practically stamped with the Scarlet Letter of shame and revulsion.
Even as the evidence mounts of Cosby’s sexual rampages, there’s still a wide body of the public that shakes its head in disbelief and even rallies around Cos.
The most that some of the alleged victims could ever hope for was a hefty civil court settlement. Cosby, they said, was immune from prosecution because the statute of limitations had long since run out on most of the claims. They were right and wrong.
As of 2014, Cosby, or anyone else who committed rape and sexual assault, was home free in 34 states that had statutes that ran anywhere from 3 to 30 years for filing rape cases depending on the circumstances of the sexual ravage.
This also brings up the deeply troubling question of why Cosby’s alleged victims kept silent for so long.
The Iowa Law Review, in March, 2014, gave an answer. It found that rape is routinely underreported in dozens of cities. The rape claims were dismissed out of hand with little or no investigation. The result was there were no report, no statistical count, and no record of an attack. The study zeroed in on the prime reason for this, namely disbelief. It's that disbelief that shields many men … especially rich, powerful, Olympian-like celebrity icons such as Cosby from legal harm.
They are reflexively believed when they scream foul at their accuser. They lambaste them as liars, cheats, and gold diggers, or ridicule and demean them as sluts. If things get too hot, they toss out a few dollars in hush money settlements and the screams are even louder that it was all a shakedown operation in the first place and the victim is further demonized.
Cosby is the classic textbook example of how men who are alleged to commit rape routinely get away with it. Contrary to the non-stop slanders of his accusers, some did go to the police, attorneys, and their agents at the time he allegedly victimized them. But they quickly ran up against the wall of suspicion, indifference, and flat-out contempt and blame.
Decades later when they again came forth little had changed. They have been hit with the same wall of suspicion, ridicule, snickers, and even wisecracks about their motives and morals.
President Obama’s candid speak out on Cosby and rape is yet one more voice, a powerful voice, to help change that. The Cosby rape allegations have stirred a mild soul search on the part of some state legislators about how the law treats rape in their states. This means zeroing in on scrapping the time limits on the statute of limitations.Kansas in 2014 dumped its limitations statue, and legislators in Ohio considered it. Almost certainly, the new Cosby bombshell will cause even more states to rethink their time statutes on rapes.
As it now stands there’s comfort in knowing that a Cosby can be prosecuted in many states for rape no matter when he allegedly committed the crime. It’s just as comforting to know that that could even include Cosby.
Cosby may keep his Medal of Freedom but now that Obama has weighed in on the terrible acts that he’s accused of not much else.
(Earl Ofari Hutchinson is President of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable and an occasional contributor to CityWatch.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 13 Issue 58
Pub: Jul 17, 2015
