Is the Horror of False Accusation More Urgent and Credible when Harvard Law Prof Alan Dershowitz Describes It?

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From “A Nightmare of False Accusation That Could Happen to You” by Alan M. Dershowitz (The Wall Street Journal, Jan. 14, 2015):

Alan M. Dershowitz, arguably “the best-known criminal lawyer in the world,” is a Harvard Law School professor emeritus and a distinguished and prolific writer.

Imagine the following situation: You’re a 76-year-old man, happily married for nearly 30 years, with three children and two grandchildren. You’ve recently retired after 50 years of teaching at Harvard Law School. You have an unblemished personal record, though your legal and political views are controversial. You wake up on the day before New Year’s Eve to learn that two lawyers have filed a legal document that, in passing, asserts that 15 years ago you had sex on numerous occasions and in numerous locations with an underage female.

The accusation doesn’t mention the alleged victim’s name—she’s referred to as Jane Doe #3, and the court document includes no affidavit by her. But her name doesn’t really matter, because you have never had sex with anyone other than your wife during the relevant time period. The accusations against you are totally false, and you can prove it.

Well, that is my situation: I’m the one who has been falsely accused. But let’s continue to imagine it was you:

Your first instinct is to call your lawyer and have him file a denial to the court in which the accusation was made. But your lawyer informs you that you can’t do that because you’re not a party to the lawsuit (against the United States government seeking to vacate the plea bargain your client struck seven years earlier) and have no standing to file any papers.

Not to worry, you imagine, because the lawyers who accused you of these heinous crimes will certainly have to prove them in court, which they will be unable to do, because they’re not true.

No, your lawyer tells you. They didn’t ask for a hearing or any other opportunity to prove the truth of what they alleged. So the accusation will remain on the public record without anyone having to prove it or you having any opportunity to disprove it.

Well, at least you can sue for defamation the two lawyers and the woman who made the false charges. No, you can’t, your lawyer tells you. They leveled the accusation in a court document, which protects them against the defamation lawsuit as a result of the so-called litigation privilege.

[…]

Welcome to the Kafkaesque world of American justice.

Copyright © 2015 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com

*“Imagine the same thing happening to a person who did not have the resources to fight back,” Prof. Dershowitz invites his Wall Street Journal audience, which is something readers here likely don’t have to imagine.

9 thoughts on “Is the Horror of False Accusation More Urgent and Credible when Harvard Law Prof Alan Dershowitz Describes It?”

  1. Pingback: Is the Horror of False Accusation More Urgent and Credible when Harvard Law Prof Alan Dershowitz Describes It? | Civil Rights in Family Law Florida

  2. Reblogged this on | truthaholics and commented:
    “Mr. Dershowitz, you’re the one making yourself look guilty. You make a succinct statement to the media that you’ll waive statute of limitations, but when confronted, you have a condition that can’t be met (like a Catch 22). You succinctly say you’re wiling to be deposed, but when confronted, you have a condition (that can’t be met). You say “if I knowingly had sex with an underage girl…”. Knowingly?? You say “As far as I know, I’ve never met the woman, etc.” As far as you know?? What’s the purpose of those qualifiers… Is there a means of you “not knowing”? Then you talk about being married for 28 years and never had sex with anyone other than your wife during the “relevant” time period. Define relevant? If the relevant time period is the Virginia Roberts years, does that mean you’ve had sex with someone other than you wife during your 28 years of marriage? You have yet to make a clean, clear, non-disputable statement. Then, your comments about never being on Epstein’s properties other than with your wife and daughter…followed later by telling Local 10 Miami that you did have a massage (with an adult woman) but you kept your underwear on…Huh? Was your wife there when you had that massage. No one thinks you’re stupid, but most people thinking you’re dancing. Around the truth, that is.”
    Well said by Guest!

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  5. This is so heart-breaking and horrific to read. And it is happening every single day in the United States. It is odd that I had a nightmare about the hopelessness of this very thing last night. But then I have these nightmares a lot of nights now. I think how I was a normal citizen living in the United States, a senior who had NO criminal record, and no kind of history of doing anything wrong even in a civil situation. And yet, here I am, having been convicted without the opportunity to exercise my civil rights under the Constitution of the United States. I am convicted and it will be on my record until perhaps I am dead because some bullies staged a false situation and the law and the rest of society in my area went along with it. These people had bullied me from the beginning, but here I am being considered the wrongful doer. Who stood up for me when I was being bullied? Who helped me in any way?What legal organization could help a senior who is low-income? I had gone to an attorney I thought might take the case ahead of time, and basically he wasted more than the half hour (I was supposed to get for free and then charged me $200. In the end, what did I learn there? That basically there was NOTHING I could do about the bullying and that I should get a gun!

    Geez, sometimes I wonder if it is really worth living in this world when there is so much insanity going on. So much injustice carried out on a daily basis. Judges are no longer really concerned with doing a good and honorable job; they are concerned with clearing their calendar each day in the most expedient way. Just get them up there and in 5 – 10 min. max, make a decision and that is that. I don’t know about others, but I am really having difficulty coping with this. I can’t sleep at night and the injustice keeps running through my head like a bad movie that is stuck and keeps playing over and over and over. I want to get up and leave, but I’m stuck in that seat. I have this feeling that everyone else who has been through this feels a lot the same way.

    As always, thank you for the excellent sharing. In a way, as horrible as it is to know these things, it is what can ultimately set us all free. We cannot fight what we don’t know. Peace and many blessings, Anne

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    1. A man who wrote recently describes himself as living “like a hamster.” He used to drive a Porsche. A (disabled) woman whose petition story I posted a few months ago says she cries herself to sleep each night. Here’s a very small bit from a very long and moving letter I got the other day from a mother of three:

      I will have that prick’s bogus restraining order on my record today, tomorrow, next week, and on and on into perpetuity. I am a licensed professional whose employers require a full background check prior to being hired. I honestly don’t know how that restraining order was missed by the company that my most recent employer contracted to perform my pre-employment vetting. I live with the ever-present dread that someday, someone will unearth the perverse landmine that my abusive ex planted in my legal record, and that dread hasn’t lessened one whit since the day the restraining order was granted.

      She was writing four years after what she calls an “odyssey” began. (“My memory of the surreal, humiliating, and completely unexpected ruling that day, made even more galling by the judge’s proclamation that he found the defendant to be ‘more credible’ than me, is as grievously harrowing today as it was then.”)

      A lot of people report remaining in a state of suspended animation (I know this state) for years, anticipating that someone associated with the matter will “come clean” or succumb to conscience. They repeatedly make appeals (to others) that are ignored. They wait while life passes them by, some of them daily racked with the pains of loss, betrayal, and foreboding.

      Their accusers just go about the business of living. They take sexy vacations, start new hobbies, rear their kids, finish degrees…while the people whose lives they derail drift along, sleepless and tormented.

      I might write to Prof. Dershowitz, Anne. I’m composing this reply at home, and I don’t have the WSJ article in front of me to quote, but in it he pledges not to rest until he’s corrected the loopholes in the law that he describes as blocking him at every turn from clearing his name. You might write to him yourself.

      Part of what’s allowed this travesty to endure this long is that eminent jurists like Prof. Dershowitz have never been sensitized to its injustice. Restraining orders are sort of the justice system’s “bargain basement.” They’re mundane and wishy-washy, and most attorneys (never mind Harvard Law School professors) just think of them as having little consequence and eventually fading away.

      The fact is, though, that it’s perfectly simple to represent someone as a rapist on a restraining order, and the claim may never even be commented on or factor into a ruling. Like the claim against Prof. Dershowitz…it’s just “there” (one claim among any possible number). Restraining order trials are civil procedures, so idle criminal allegations don’t have to be verified; they merely add to the force of the petition. The judge rules on whether s/he finds “preponderant” merit in the sum total of the petitioner’s claims to warrant the issuance of an order.

      I’ve even heard from a woman who was accused of “raping” her boyfriend, i.e., coercing him into sex. The poor woman (very credibly) said the truth was that she repeatedly returned to him despite many confessed affairs. He manipulated her horribly and had a character disorder that would have been obvious to anyone who wasn’t a judge. She was also a mom and didn’t know how she’d provide for her child if the man’s allegations succeeded—and this guy had reported her everywhere, including to the military! There’s no provision in the law to shut down cranks. Even people of considerable financial means fail. For people whose financial resources are limited or none, it’s typically hopeless.

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    2. Mr. Dershowitz, you’re the one making yourself look guilty. You make a succinct statement to the media that you’ll waive statute of limitations, but when confronted, you have a condition that can’t be met (like a Catch 22). You succinctly say you’re wiling to be deposed, but when confronted, you have a condition (that can’t be met). You say “if I knowingly had sex with an underage girl…”. Knowingly?? You say “As far as I know, I’ve never met the woman, etc.” As far as you know?? What’s the purpose of those qualifiers… Is there a means of you “not knowing”? Then you talk about being married for 28 years and never had sex with anyone other than your wife during the “relevant” time period. Define relevant? If the relevant time period is the Virginia Roberts years, does that mean you’ve had sex with someone other than you wife during your 28 years of marriage? You have yet to make a clean, clear, non-disputable statement. Then, your comments about never being on Epstein’s properties other than with your wife and daughter…followed later by telling Local 10 Miami that you did have a massage (with an adult woman) but you kept your underwear on…Huh? Was your wife there when you had that massage. No one thinks your stupid, but most people thinking you’re dancing. Around the truth, that is.

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      1. No reasonably framed comments to this forum will be rejected or censored. However, Mr. Dershowitz’s article was quoted not in defense of what he may or may not have done but to show how easily damning allegations that may allow no defense can be placed on permanent display.

        It was quoted here because many people face the same situation in restraining order trials: they’re lied about in superficial, mere minutes-long proceedings; allegations that may never even be entertained by the court, let alone dispositively ruled upon, are nevertheless preserved for all time (and can include those of any crime, including rape); and those who are lied about have no means to “counterattack” once that gavel falls.

        Perjury isn’t prosecuted, and they can’t sue for defamation. Their names are nevertheless entered into police databases and other public registries to their detriment (following, it should be noted, a civil hearing, in which no representation is provided, and not a criminal trial), and social and professional ramifications can be extreme.

        We consider allegations “validated” when they’re entered into “the record.”

        In regards to your comment, directed as it is to the estimable professor himself, I’m disposed to point out generally that the questions you pose seem to fall under the category of “What possible business is it of yours?” (the man isn’t on trial) and to point out specifically that what’s meant by “knowingly” is that (speaking hypothetically) it’s possible to have sex with an underage person and not know the person is underage. I don’t think what would be meant is that someone “unknowingly” had sex—and you should recognize that it betrays your own prejudices that you should interpret the remark this way (you want to affix blame because an idle accusation was idly made). The questions you’ve apparently quoted, moreover and significantly, are obviously intended rhetorically. “As far as I know,” finally, seems a fair qualifier for someone to use who’s lived a long and very public life.

        I don’t know if the presumption is conditioned by reality TV or the modern familiarity shown to celebrities, whom we now address by their first names as if they were our “buds” and “bros,” but when did it become okay to poke our noses into affairs we know nothing about and have no personal stake in? Your reaction is why it’s a big deal that public allegations can be made that forbid any formal mode of redress.

        To quote Bloomberg columnist Megan McArdle, “You can’t just accuse people of rape.”

        http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-12-09/you-cant-just-accuse-people-of-rape

        Prof. Dershowitz wouldn’t have to “dance” if he were permitted to formally answer the allegations and obtain a decisive ruling on them in a court of law instead of a newspaper or tabloid.

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