KOBE BRYANT DEAD AT 41: NBA legend, 13 yr-old daughter Gianna among 9 confirmed dead

[SleepingHero]

MUST READ ARTICLE:

https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/285...ife-all-it

This is SOOOO good. Nails this subject perfectly.

Some quotes:


"I wondered what the woman who alleged that Bryant raped her in 2003 might think upon hearing that word, "hero." What horrible pain might resurface for her and other survivors with the news of his death. What she must feel hearing people gush over the many accomplishments of this man's life and skipping over the one night that came to define hers."

"It's hard to speak plainly and fully about someone in the wake of a tragedy. I imagine part of that also is projection: We glimpse our own mortality and that of the ones we love and hope that when the time comes, people will avoid the messy stuff. A clean ending, one that glosses over the uncomfortable truths of life, might seem more respectful to the person who died, but it can wreak havoc on those left behind."

"We do too much mythologizing in sport. Athletes are invincible, games are war, wins are moral currency, and the greatest among us are gods who will never be forgotten."
"After 14 months of enduring public scrutiny, including death threats left on her home answering machine, she was "physically ill" as the trial approached and decided she no longer wanted to testify. Criminal charges were dropped, and a civil case was settled with a nondisclosure agreement that has prevented the woman from speaking about the incident. It's impossible to know how many people watched as this very high-profile case unfolded, saw the way this woman was treated and decided not to speak out about their own sexual assaults."

"Neither time nor death can earn you salvation. What can? The hard, messy work of reconciling your actions and how they've affected others. The uncomfortable task of seeking forgiveness and proving you've earned it. We might never know if Bryant got the chance to do that. He's gone far too soon, at 41 years old. And so we're left to grapple with the complicated legacy he leaves behind. To argue with one another about the fairness of an honest retrospective. To decide for ourselves whether to remember the man he was or just the man we wanted him to be."

I can go into details on counters to but it didn’t come across as an even handed article. The alleged victim changed portions of her original testimony.  She did miserably in mock trials conducted by the prosecution. So much so that they did not feel good about the case either. Why does the author not talk about those things?  Kobe might be totally guilty. However, it is not as if false accusations of rape are something we have never witnessed in our lives either.

The article also fails to mention that when the victim went to the hospital to have the rape kit conducted, they found semen from a different man in her underwear. When questioned, she said she forgot thathappened and she mistakenly put on a dirty pair before she left the house. It also skewed the rape kit results, as that semen was found in the test. 

It wasn't an even handed article. BUT I do think the overall point that she was trying to get at was reconciling your failures is the true path to salvation. What we do know for sure is that Kobe cheated on his wife. Adultery is a deadly sin. Since his sin, Kobe worked to make his marriage work and by all accounts became an incredible father/husband and raised his children in a loving home. So at the very least, I think Kobe achieved at least some sense of salvation from that incident.

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You have to think he had some fear of being convicted to settle at all, because at that point the damage was done publicly so he wasn't paying her off to keep it out of the news. 

Civil court has a different standard for convicting. It's based on the preponderance of evidence, not beyond a reasonable doubt. 

Criminally, the case was shaky to begin with and was quickly thrown out after the victim refused to testify. She filed a civil suit, and based on the preponderance of evidence she had a good chance of winning. She just needed to convince the judge that it probably happened, not with overwhelming evidence like in criminal court. So Kobe's legal team smartly decided to settle privately instead of letting headlines say "Kobe Loses Rape Case". And like others said, the apology was probably apart of the settlement.

And on a separate point, if, for some miraculous reason, new convincing evidence came out tomorrow that Kobe did indeed rape that girl, I will 100% condemn Kobe for what he did. But just based on what occurred all those years ago, I find it annoying that people bring it up now to try to smear Kobe's legacy.