Crying wolf about rape

Kyle-Anne Shiver:

Now that the Duke "rape" case has been brought to its conclusion and the falsely-accused young men have been thoroughly exonerated, it is time for us - especially us women -- to come down hard on the woman who cried "Wolf" and those who enabled her. They caused a whole lot more damage than the little boys in the fairytale.

Certainly these young men and their families deserve all of the solace and restitution that we can offer them. Their suffering has been genuine and substantial. And the female accuser is not the only one bearing blame for that. Mr. Nifong has disgraced his profession and the good people of his jurisdiction. His political career would now seem to be at an abrupt end, and rightly so. Duke University will most likely suffer diminished enrollments and contributions for a number of years to come as a reflection of the public disgust at its cowardly rush to invoke vigilante justice. In one fell swoop, those 88 faculty members and their President made Duke's high tuition look more like the inflated price sticker on a used car than any sort of a good deal.

Every bit of this colossal damage was caused by one woman's lie. She is said to have a "troubled" history. But if she is regarded as incapacitated enough to escape punishment for a vicious and harmful lie, then the behavior of Nifong in going forward on her slim testimony is all the worse.

But as sad as this is, it is only the beginning of the toll - especially for women.

... This woman with her prosecutorial megaphone has done grievous damage that will continue to haunt every female in true sexual peril for a long, long time.

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This post points out that the consequences can be deadly when a woman makes a false rape charge.

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Caught in the act with her lover, Tracy Denise Roberson — thinking quickly, if not clearly — cried rape, authorities say. Her husband pulled a gun and killed the other man with a shot to the head.

On Thursday, a grand jury handed up a manslaughter indictment — against the wife, not the husband.

In a case likely to reinforce the state's reputation for don't-mess-with-Texas justice, the grand jury declined to charge the husband with murder, the charge on which he was arrested by police.

"If I found somebody with my wife or with my kids in my house, there's no telling what I might do," said Juan Muniz, 33, who was having lunch today with one of his two small children at a restaurant in the middle-class suburban Dallas neighborhood where the Robersons lived. "I probably would have done the same thing."

Tracy Roberson, 35, could get two to 20 years in prison in the slaying of Devin LaSalle, a 32-year-old UPS employee.

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I think the charge against Tracy Roberson is justified. I also think charges against the false accuser in the Duke case would be justified. The kind of conduct that is alleged in both cases against these women is conduct that puts both men and women at risk.