“…there was virtually no investigation at all.”
By The Amy Schumer sketch I linked to earlier today is, alas, applicable to a much wider array of institutions:
As she gave her account to the police, several bruises began to appear, indicating recent trauma. Tests would later find semen on her underwear.
For nearly a year, the events of that evening remained a well-kept secret until the woman’s allegations burst into the open, roiling the university and threatening a prized asset: Jameis Winston, one of the marquee names of college football.
Three weeks after Mr. Winston was publicly identified as the suspect, the storm had passed. The local prosecutor announced that he lacked the evidence to charge Mr. Winston with rape. The quarterback would go on to win the Heisman Trophy and lead Florida State to the national championship.
In his announcement, the prosecutor, William N. Meggs, acknowledged a number of shortcomings in the police investigation. In fact, an examination by The New York Times has found that there was virtually no investigation at all, either by the police or the university.
Definitely do read the whole depressing thing.
Congress, as some of you remember, attempted to create a civil remedy in cases where state authorities were negligent in sexual assault cases, but this was deemed inconsistent with the Republican war on federal civil rights enforcement via whatever doctrine can be invented or exhumed from the Taney Court. (U.S. v. Morrision, as it happens, also involved a case where a state university put the health of the football team above the security of the person of women on campus, reason the umpteenth for not putting states’ “rights” ahead of actual human rights.) Until conservatives on the Supreme Court rule the Civil Rights Act unconstitutional, however, the way Florida State handled the case is almost certainly illegal, and I hope the Department of Justice is investigating assiduously.