Go To Jail. Go Directly To Jail. Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200,000,000.

[Cindy C.]

Hey, all,

I've been following the sexual assault case against Kobe Bryant with
increasing interest.  I'm not happy with young Kobe.  And I'm *really*
not happy with his defense lawyer.

By way of background, Kobe Bryant is a *very* well-compensated
professional basketball star with a reputation as a general all-around
good guy.  Some months back, he had intercourse with a 19-year old
hotel employee.  Kobe had been a guest at the hotel where she works,
and the alleged attack took place in his room.  

Kobe says the sex was consensual.  He hasn't provided any evidence of
this yet, but the case is still in the pre-trial stage.

The victim says it was rape.  She has physical evidence of injury
inconsistent with consensual sex.  She reported the crime
*immediately* to another hotel employee, who took the allegations
seriously enough to escort her to her home that night.  Her father
went to the police the next morning.  Her account -- some consensual
kissing and hugging followed by her being abruptly whipped around,
grabbed by the scruff of the neck, bent over a chair, and forced to
submit -- sounds plausible, and there is physical evidence that things
got very rough.

Kobe, I think, is in a world of hurt.  They give out prison time in
Colorado for this sort of thing, I'm told.

Also appalling, though, is that Kobe seems to have found himself a
defense lawyer who will violate the court's orders and the Colorado
rape shield law when it suits her.  Despite a court order that the
victim's name not be mentioned in the hearing, Kobe's lawyer
"inadvertently" said the name *six* times.  Kobe's lawyer also
strongly implied that the victim had been with several other men on
previous evenings, which is dancing pretty close to violating the rape
shield law.  As best I can figure, Kobe's Dream Team is thinking their
best shot at an aquittal is by intimidating the complaining witness
into dropping the whole thing.  

So.  

Personally, I'm having some trouble finding reasonable doubt of guilt
here, myself.  But there are many things going on that I just can't
understand.  Why, for instance, are cameras being allowed in the
courtroom?  Why haven't Kobe's lawyers moved for a change of venue to
something other than this small town of Eagleton, CO, where everyone
knows everyone?  Aren't there sanctions for willfully violating the
rape shield law, and shouldn't there be?  Could this possibly be the
first time Kobe did such a thing (after all, you'd expect other women
to come forward with similar tales of assault in such a high-profile
case)?

Cindy -- whose default position is that the reason women report rape
is that they were *raped,* and who would never wind up seated on a
sexual assault case jury