My mom was a sensible daughter of Pennsylvania, as well as one of the first female assistant district attorneys in San Mateo County, a criminal defense lawyer, and a Superior Court judge, and after she swore me into the California Bar, she gave me this advice: “Everybody lies.” I think about that a lot, especially when I consider something like the Cornell Seven controversy. Since it appears that Jane Doe is telling two different stories — one apparently under oath to the authorities and one in a civil complaint a couple of years later — that pretty clearly establishes Judge Mom’s maxim. One of her stories has to be a lie, if not both.

We’re told that we are supposed to believe all victims, but why? First of all, how do we know they are victims? When you declare someone a victim, you’ve already accepted the claim without hearing the evidence. The technical term in a criminal matter, when there is no dead body or stolen property and the existence of the alleged crime is itself disputed, should be accuser. In a civil lawsuit, which she has filed, it is plaintiff. Here, the issue is whether there was a crime, or, in the lawsuit, whether there was a tort. She says yes, and the men presumably say no. So we don’t know if there even is a victim yet. Assuming there is assumes the truth of the charge. But then, apparently you don’t get a presumption of innocence if you have a penis.

We don’t owe accusers anything except to treat the accusation seriously, to investigate both sides’ claims, and to test the admissible evidence against clear laws. But that’s not what the leftists and feminists want to do here. That’s not what New York Gov. Kathy Hochul wanted done by appointing New York Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor. Hochul had already framed the young woman as a victim who was “literally gang raped,” and said she deserves to have “justice pursued.” Her catspaw James is supposed to run an objective criminal investigation? That’s a travesty. She has her marching orders, and she will march accordingly.

To the left, this is a feature and not a bug. The nightmare of leftist justice is that rules don’t matter, nor does evidence. Only the outcome matters, and that outcome is predetermined by what is most convenient to the left. That’s why Derek Chauvin is in prison when George Floyd overdosed on fentanyl. Chauvin was a symbol. That’s why they would like to put the seven young men in jail. They are a symbol, too.

I will agree with one thing the leftists and feminists say. When a society is governed by clear rules to which you apply admissible evidence, you have a patriarchy. It’s a distinctly male way of looking at things: dispassionately, without emotion, an objective process where the outcome of the analysis is not predetermined. In fact, they get mad at having to comply with procedures, where the men have a chance to test the evidence, to contradict the woman, to cross-examine her. Why? Because if you can actually defend yourself, you have the capacity to disprove the claim. That can’t happen. The objective truth is irrelevant. There’s a higher........

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