Notre Dame football player not charged for assault after freshman commits suicide

[Lorien]

Notre Dame's Punt in the Probe of Lizzy Seeberg's Sad Death

LOS ANGELES -- Elizabeth "Lizzy" Seeberg was a college freshman with a wide-open smile – here is a heartbreaking photo of her in spaghetti straps and pearls – who built houses with Habitat for Humanity and hoped to become a nurse. Lizzy also suffered from depression, and 10 days after telling friends and campus cops that she'd been sexually assaulted by a University of Notre Dame football player, rape crisis volunteers who knew she had missed a counseling session found her barely breathing in her dorm room.



The 19-year-old daughter of serious Catholics and prominent volunteers in the Chicago suburb of Northbrook died on Sept. 10, of what turned out to be a lethal dose of the anti-depressant Effexor. And the football player, who hasn't been named? He is not only still in school, but wasn't even benched, according to the Chicago Tribune, and presumably will take the field against University of Southern California on Saturday, with my whole ND-adoring family in attendance. I love my alma mater, (really, I do) but the thought that I might be cheering for Lizzy's attacker makes me want to shake down more than some thunder.

Not long after the semester began, on the evening of Aug. 31, Seeberg told her friends at St. Mary's College, the all-women's school across the road from Notre Dame, that she had been assaulted but not raped in an attack that was interrupted by a knock on a dorm-room door. That same night, she sat down and hand-wrote an account of all that had happened, and the next day made a full report to the Notre Dame cops. She also sought treatment at a hospital, where she submitted to DNA testing and accepted an offer of counseling.

More: http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/11/25/notre-dames-shameful-punt-in-the-probe-of-lizzy-seebergs-sad-d/

[Odin2005]

1. Horrific, but I am not suprised at all. sports team members are NEVER punished.

:grr:

[Initech]

9. Oh I know - look at Brett Farve and Ben Rothlisberger.

Both huge assholes who were involved in sex scandals like this - never punished. :grr:

[Odin2005]

10. WHAAA? Never heard of the Favre one!

[KamaAina]

14. Your hero was caught "sexting" to a team hostess

while he was with the Jets. :eyes:

[Odin2005]

17. Oh, his asshole sexting crap, now I remeber!

:banghead:

[MadMaddie]

15. Yea, apparantly he texted a picture of his "Football" to the lady.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/07/brett-favre-naked-pictures-photos_n_754490.html

[JI7]

22. this is not comparable to the guy who send pics

[Ozymanithrax]

2. There is a lot of money in football. n/t

[Desertrose]

3. So wrong on so many levels.....

How heartbreaking for her family...

[Hestia]

4. Shocking: College Rapists Almost Always Get Off the Hook

http://www.alternet.org/story/148460/shocking%3A_college_rapists_almost_always_get_off_the_hook?page=entire

[alphafemale]

5. .

[blondeatlast]

7. Since the local cops aren't investigating and are arguing over who has jurisdiction, it

appears there will be no justice here for any of the parties.

Still, pardon me for grieving an unnecessary suicide.

[blondeatlast]

8. Wow--what happened to that lovely snark? nt

[alphafemale]

11. Yeah. I though better of it. Belief in the justice system is so anti female.

[blondeatlast]

12. Whatever. nt

[ThatsMyBarack]

6. Money talks, nobody walks.

Screw that. THIS has to stop! :mad:

[CoffeeCat]

13. I was an RA at a Big Ten College...

...and a woman on my floor was gang raped by three men on the football team. She tried to kill herself
by overdosing on pills, but luckily, she didn't succeed.

After I reported the incident, my boss--the Hall Coordinator--reported the sexual assault. These men were
questioned and it was determined that there was not enough evidence to take the allegations beyond the
university walls. In short, the issue just died and the men were never held accountable.

I saw the aftermath. I also saw and knew this woman on a daily basis before the gang raped. She became
an entirely different person. She tried to hang on, even after the suicide and finish the semester. She
rarely left her dorm room after this, and ended up dropping out before the year ended.

Very sad. I'm sorry the woman in the OP was successful at killing herself.

[MadMaddie]

16. These men feel they are above the law and the universities

enable them to feel this way. If they do go to trial the woman is put on trial not the players.

[dkf]

18. Sounds like the parents are going to do what they need to to find out the truth.

Should a person suffering from depression be so far from family and friends though? She probably needed more of a support structure than new college friends and rape counselors.

[Kingofalldems]

19. We are a nation of jock sniffers

If you can play with a ball, you can literally get away with murder.

[Tsiyu]

20. Another overt message to the women of Notre Dame and St. Mary's

You have no value.

Male Athletes can treat you any way they choose.

Way to go, Administration and law enforcement and parents of these schools.

Way to go! :applause:










:sarcasm:

[Starry Messenger]

21. RIP Lizzy.

There have been conflicting reports about whether Notre Dame ever reported her allegations to the county cops who were supposed to be investigating her death. And lucky Notre Dame, from the sound of it, that any crimes committed on the campus are handled not by the South Bend Police Department, but by St. Joseph's County. I say this because county officials at first said the school hadn't informed them of Seeberg's allegations at all. Then, after her death became national news, they changed their story and said their lead investigator had gotten such a call "a couple days" after being assigned to the case, but had disregarded the information because "he just didn't feel it was important."

Tragic. But probably pretty typical, considering the standing women have in society here.

[blondeatlast]

23. Yeah--and I'm guessing "conflicting reports" means it WASN'T reported until

a stink was made about it--and still no one took any initiative to actually investigate the allegations.

[Starry Messenger]

26. I'm sensing a lot of ass-covering going on there.

I can't even imagine what her parents must be going through.

[asilsmit]

24. Ok, I actually delurked to comment on this

Everybody sees this as some sort of political decision or double standard for a jock, etc. There is a simple point that everybody is missing. The constitution recognizes a right to confront one's accuser. In this case, the accuser is dead, and by her own hand. In that circumstance, it is almost impossible in the vast majority of cases to win the case.

There are hearsay exceptions that could allow some things she claimed to be admitted, such as present sense impression, excited utterance etc. I have no idea, nor does anybody here, how much of this type of evidence there is.

In the vast majority of cases where an alleged victim kills herself, the prosecution will have to drop the case, and that is consistent with constitutional protections of the 6th amendment.

If one believes in defendant's rights, and it seems in many cases those beliefs are selectively held as this thread shows, then one respects the 6th amendment. Again, there are rare instances in such a case where the prosecution could go forward, but they are very very rare. The right to confront one's accuser is near sacrosanct and many have rightly complained that one of the problems with not trying terrorists in civil courts is that many of these kangaroo type courts prevent THEM from confronting their accuser. An accused rapist should certainly have at least the same rights as an accused terrorist.

[lolly]

25. Explains why prosecution isn't going forward now

Why didn't it go forward while she was still alive?

Why was it ignored and pushed under the rug when it was first reported?

[asilsmit]

29. That's a different issue

I was responding to the multitude of posts specifically criticizing the decision not to charge. As for why it was "ignored" etc. that's a different question, and assuming it is true - I don't have the answer. I suggest most people don't. It may be protection of a jock, or it may simply be the case was not strong enough to charge, etc. at that point, there may have been discrepancies requiring further investigation, etc.? Who the heck knows?

But that wasn't my point. It's an intriguing question, though.

[Liquorice]

27. He wasn't arrested after she reported the rape. He was allowed to go on playing on the team after

she reported that he raped her. That is probably why she killed herself.

[asilsmit]

30. And frequently, a summary

arrest is not made immediately after a rape accusation. In fact, it's probably true in the majority of cases. There are a # of reasons to make a custodial arrest, but generally speaking there are also very good reasons not to make one, depending on the facts and circumstances. It is quite common in rape allegations for investigators to hold off on making an arrest until they have sufficient "ammunition" so to speak to conduct an effective interview. That's what Reid interrogation technique teaches as proper procedure. Even assuming there was sufficicent evidence to make an arrest, there may not have been sufficient to charge, which means the guy gets released quickly anyway, and he is now tipped off that an investigation is happening. Often, the element of surprise works in the investigators' favor.

Summary arrests are common when cops interrup a crime in progress or just occurred, etc. In other types of cases, it often benefits them to wait. The feds use this tactic frequently, waiting until they have sufficient "ammunition" to interrogate effectively (that way they can recognize lies, etc. due to other evidence they have and attack the 'story').

The nature of rape is frequently that there are no witnesses and especially if there were lab results pending, it benefits the prosecution quite frequently to WAIT.

The point of an arrest is not to "punish". The point of an arrest is to stop a crime in progress, identify a perpetrator, detain the individual so he can't flee, etc. The decision to arrest is based on the extent to which those factors apply, as well as whether any statutory requirements for arrest exist.

[juajen]

31. It was assault, not rape; but, there was DNA evidence.

It helps to read the article. Just sayin'.

[Enthusiast]

32. Okay. But couldn't we at

least secretly beat the shit out of the perpetrator?

[AsahinaKimi]

28. so sad

:cry: