https://billswire.usatoday.com/2023/08/02/buffalo-bills-matt-araiza-defamation-lawsuit-rape-accuser
For anyone who hasn't been following this, I don't blame you. Since I'm a diehard Bills fan, this has been a rough story.
As resulting investigations have emerged, Matt Araiza's innocence has only become clearer.
If anyone wants more specifics about the facts of the case, I'm happy to oblige.
What I'll say here is that I was on the side of my favorite sports team when they cut Ariza before playing a regular season snap in the NFL. I'm under no delusion that gang rape is something that people lie about all the time. It's not as if there was a clear financial motive behind the lawsuit in which Araiza was named -- it's not as if punters make DeShaun Watson money even if they have long and successful careers.
What's still true is that a punter isn't worth the distraction when this is supposed to be a year when you're contending for a championship.
That said, the accusations against Araiza went from plausibly true, to clearly not enough to stand up to a reasonable doubt, to plausibly a major civil problem, to not at a level that could hold water in civil court, to more likely than not that Araiza is innocent, to more likely than not that the woman in question did lie about the alleged incident.
There's evidence that Araiza had left the party hours before the alleged incident. Even the young woman's friends told investigators that she was bragging about her sexual encounters during the evening, and that they saw no indication that she was intoxicated.
So, the evidence is overwhelmingly stacking up in Araiza's favor.
Still, there are undeniable problems.
Defamation cases are almost impossible to win in These United States. We set a bar that I do believe is appropriately high. This is to the point that I was somewhat surprised that Johnny Depp won his lawsuit against Amber Heard despite having a ton of evidence on his side.
What's more, all Araiza can really expect to win from this is a clean reputation. That's valuable. But, even if he wins the lawsuit and is awarded with, say, whatever my Buffalo Bills would have paid him, it's unlikely that the accuser has the funds to ever pay him.
We saw a similar situation with Brian Banks's accuser. Banks was a more tragic situation, being that he was wrongfully imprisoned for several years, and his accuser was actually caught admitting that she lied. She was sued by Banks and the state, and ordered to pay just under $3 million for the false accusation. But, she has been on public assistance for years. She's never gonna be able to pay that.
What I'm gonna say now seems obvious if you don't think it through entirely. A movement to this principle, though, should be regarded in a move in the right direction if we're careful.
It's not a new idea that people who falsely accuse others of criminal offenses should be subjected to the same penalties that the people accused would be facing if they had been convicted. This concept has merit. It's reasonable to be pissed off that Jussie Smollett only spent a night in jail for an accusation that could have landed two people in prison for decades.
I still say that we have to remember that the worst thing that can be done to you is also the worst thing you can be wrongfully accused of doing to somebody else. It shouldn't be controversial to say that rapists are evil, and should be thoroughly and harshly punished. It also shouldn't be controversial to say that people who lie about being raped and file false accusations are garbage human beings. I know that I know too many real victims to tolerate the liars.
All that said, we do need to be clear with our words, and careful with any steps that we take.
No, false accusations, in the broadest sense of the term, shouldn't be met so harshly. People need to understand the concept of mens rea.
I don't believe for a second that Alice Sebold should face any repercussions for the forty years of hell that Anthony Broadwater went through. Sebold didn't lie. She was just wrong. Maybe a few police officers and prosecutors should be in prison. Not Sebold.
This philosophy of punishment for false accusations has to come with a clear case of a person lying, not just getting shit wrong.
There also should be an extent and a degree.
Jussie Smollett lied; but, at least he had the moral fortitude to not accuse anybody directly. We should all be thankful that nobody was charged with the fake assault. If police did actually manage to find the only two white men who have MAGA hats in Chicago who decided to take a stroll in the middle of the night, during a polar vortex, with bleach and a rope, and they brought them in, and Smollett said, "Yeah, looks like them." Smollett should probably have been facing forty years in prison rather than fifty days in jail.
If you're going to name names in your lie, you should have the book thrown at you. Either legally or culturally, the punishment should fit the crime.
Rape is no small crime, and the punishment shouldn't be small. Lying about being raped is no small crime, and he punishment shouldn't be small.