Must Be Nice

Ah the advantages and lessons young men learn as elite athletes. Take the case of Lamar Owens Jr., for example. Today, he was acquitted of rape charges, but, "...the jury of five Naval officers found that Owens "wrongfully entered the room without permission and wrongfully engaged in consensual sex." Does that seem odd to anyone else? I don't even think I understand that.

Two main facts were presented in the case.

The first, a tape of a phone conversation between Owens and his accuser. The man can be heard apologizing to the woman and while, "...speaking in a soft voice and apparently weeping at times, says he considered killing himself. He tells the woman he "didn't do it for long" and that "you weren't awake."

How thoughtful. And really, not incriminating at all.

The second piece of evidence? Well it wasn't actually presented at the trial, but I'm sure the fellow Navy jury had it fresh in their minds:

A highlight reel from the Navy quarterback's successful season in which he led the team to an 8-4 record with victories over Army and Air Force, and a win over Colorado State in the Poinsettia Bowl and was voted the team MVP. That's quite a resume there.

All of the above is well and good, but what's really irritating about this entire case is the behavior of the judge, who would not allow an expert witness to testify and severely limited the testimony of another:

The judge said the jurors didn't need an expert to tell them that wounds from sexual trauma can heal quickly. Then he said that "the most fascinating creature developed by the Lord God Almighty is the human woman." Maksym sustained a defense objection to the witness and did not allow the prosecution's expert witness - Navy Lt. Cmdr. Cynthia Ferguson, a nurse, midwife and forensic rape examiner at Bethesda - to testify. "She's not even a physician," he said. He added that Ferguson - who had been brought into court to testify before the judge and lawyers but not yet to the jury - showed prejudice because she assumed all the women she examines in rape cases are victims.

Maksym's insulting behavior didn't end there. Regarding another of the prosecution's witnesses, "...He allowed the testimony of Lopez-Roca, a military psychiatrist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, but limited what prosecutors could ask him. We're not talking about the son of Freud here," Maksym said of Lopez-Roca"

So in summation, we have a guy who admits to having sex with a passed out woman, a judge who won't allow a forensic rape examiner to testify and who openly equates women with "creatures" and a defense that states a woman who is so drunk she can't remember what happened isn't also so drunk that she could not feasibly have consented to sex.

What does all this equate? An acquittal.

Must be nice. Go team.