In 2004, a woman in Missouri danced in a bar where the producers of the "Girls Gone Wild" videos were filming. She danced with her friends and danced in front of the camera, but when asked to take her shirt off she said no, her attorneys later said. Then, another woman pulled down her top, and the clip made it into one of the videos without the woman, identified in court documents as Jane Doe, having given her permission. When she found out she was in a video in 2008, she sued. A jury decided in favor of the producers on Friday. Why?:
. . . Patrick O'Brien, the jury foreman, told a reporter later that an 11-member majority decided that Doe had in effect consented by being in the bar and dancing for the photographer. In a trial such as this one, agreement by nine of 12 jurors is enough for a verdict.
'Through her actions, she gave implied consent,' O'Brien said. 'She was really playing to the camera. She knew what she was doing.'
Progressives often have their suspicions of the criminal-justice system reinforced by fact. For example, studies routinely come out showing how unfair the criminal-justice system is to blacks and Latinos, to the surprise of no one on the left. While the jury system, in which we're all meant to be judged by a panel of our peers, is great in theory, the truth is those peers bring with them prejudices and biases.
This case is evidence of one of the most pernicious stereotypes of women. O'Brien can't seem to fathom that it's entirely possible that a woman can want to dance and drink, and even play it up for a cameraman, without having her breasts exposed by a third party. What's especially horrible, though, is that at least eight of the 12 people on the jury agreed with him.
-- Monica Potts
