Mods, feel free to move to other sports, but I feel it belongs here.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=4300383
Another miscarriage of justice? Eric Frimpong is soccer player from Ghana convicted of raping 'Jane Doe', based on primarily on her unreliable testimony (assuming a .29 blood alcohol level makes you unreliable - at .35 you're considered aenesthetized) and his lack of an alibi (since when does that make one guilty?) Frimpong was the only suspect, even though semen in her underwear from the night the attack took place matched her boyfriend who was confirmed to have seen her that night.
Hopefully this thing goes to appeal and this mess of trial can get properly sorted out - one way or the other. I don't presume to have the answer to what happened, but this trial had evidence suppressed and covered up (when the first dentist consulted didn't give the prosecution the answer they wanted, they went to the next one without telling the defense), racial overtones, and a juror who later came out and said that she made a mistake.
Quote:
Semen found on Doe's underwear didn't match Frimpong's -- but it was a match for that of Benjamin Randall, Doe's sexual partner throughout her freshman year. Randall told authorities that he and Doe had engaged in intercourse seven days before the rape; Doe said they'd had sex four days prior but that she thought she was wearing different underwear, and she told a nurse that they'd used a condom. (During the trial, Doe and Randall confirmed they'd been together at parties the night she met Frimpong. Randall testified that, while en route to a friend's house, he spotted Doe and Frimpong walking on Del Playa at about 11:40 p.m. Randall then called Doe, and she told him she was headed to "Eric's house to play beer pong." Under cross-examination by Sanger, Randall admitted, "I might've been a little upset. I guess you can call that jealousy." He also testified that after the call, he returned to his dorm at Santa Barbara City College, where he spent the night alone.)
Despite having DNA evidence matched to him, Randall was never a suspect. Neither was the man who retrieved Doe's purse, which she said she'd lost either on the beach or at Frimpong's home. It was delivered to the sheriff's department the next day, minus $30, by someone described in the police report as a "can recycler." But because of a "language barrier," he wasn't questioned.
Frimpong was the only suspect, even though there was no apparent sign of sexual activity -- no blood, semen, vaginal secretions -- or any scratches or other telltale marks of rape on his body or clothes. The absence of abrasions was odd. Doe told authorities she was wearing a "thicker ring" on her right ring finger and that she hit her attacker so hard, "all my knuckles were screwed up." There was also very little sand found on his clothes. (At the trial, Dianne Burns, a criminologist who examined the physical evidence, testified to the presence of two small vials' worth of sand in the cuffs of Frimpong's jeans and in one pocket.)
Still, the district attorney's office pressed on, in a case reminiscent of one that was unraveling on the East Coast. "There was always a strong parallel to the Duke case," Vom Steeg says. "From the start, the sheriff's department felt like they had their guy. But when the evidence didn't turn out the way it was supposed to, their position became, 'If she's willing to testify, we'll go forward.' "
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