Politics: “Naming the victim” gets fresh scrutiny after Strauss-Kahn case
- For a person who has already been violated once, all the media exposure violates them again. We have a strong tradition of defendant’s rights. But if you’re a victim, you have fewer rights than an accused person.
- National Center for Victims of Crime executive director Mai Fernandez • Offering an argument against the idea of naming the victim in high-profile rape cases like that of Dominique Strauss-Kahn. There’s a good point in this — we do everything to cover the stories of high-profile sexual assault cases — but we never name the victim, even when we note every other detail about their lives, down to their money problems. The tradition of not naming the victim in cases like this one, which stretches back a century, is getting fresh scrutiny in the wake of new details in the Strauss-Kahn case. One guy getting some airtime as a result of these new revelations is Alan Dershowitz, a defense lawyer most famous for the O.J. Simpson trial, who says that the practice saddles the defendant with the presumption of guilt — especially when, as in the case of Strauss-Kahn, they take a perp walk. What do you guys think? Is Alan barking up the wrong tree? source
