I'm not sure why it would bother you. It's exactly what you're doing out of the other side of your mouth.
I'm not refuting a rape accusation by saying that sometimes meritless cases are brought. I'm pointing out the obvious because it seems to be getting ignored. This is why we have a Judicial system. However, I am refuting your accusations that anyone who doesn't see Kobe as a convicted rapist isn't some rapist-apologist, which is what most of your posts are implying. That's not fair to them either. He wasn't convicted. Just because you think the evidence, distilled down from nothing more than the prosecutor's complaint and the victim's accusations (not to mention, brought to you by a media that is, for lack of a better word, unreliable), is enough, then why bother with a trial ever? I mean, you talk about this case as if there is no other side, there is, we've just never heard it, because it never got that far. Why even have a defense bar if the standard is "Victim says X, prosecutor types up X, therefore Y is guilty?" Because that's all I keep reading other than the "He admitted he raped her" stuff, which anyone who knows anything about the law knows what his lawyer wrote and read on his behalf was far from a confession, but rather a requirement they had to comply with, and as Preacher pointed out in the previous page, is an affirmative defense to a rape charge. Mens Rea means something in the law.
As for OJ, he was found liable for their deaths in civil court, and he stood trial, and everyone on Earth heard the prosecution and heard the defense, so we have a whole lot more information in that case than we do in Kobe's. People have the right to have opinions, and in OJ's case, we had so much more information that those opinions are far more informed than they are in Kobe's case. Kobe's defense was never heard. I can't believe you don't understand the distinction. In fact, I know you do. Ray Lewis, you'll never hear me call him a murderer. I don't even know what "involved in a murder" means. Are you saying he plunged the knife into the victims? Are you saying he was there (that hasn't been refuted)? Are you saying he got blood on his clothes and got rid of them? From what I remember of the case, there was a melee outside a nightclub, two people were stabbed, Ray Lewis might have done it, his friends might have done it, but the interesting thing is only Ray Lewis was actually convicted of any crime (obstruction, for initially lying to police about being there, which while bad, is a far cry from actually stabbing someone) while the guys he testified against were acquitted, so to answer your question, fuck if I know if he committed a murder or not. I'm certainly not going to say he did when the prosecutor didn't think there was even enough evidence to even charge him. The reason nobody blinks around here when it's mentioned is because everyone here hates Ray Lewis, and he didn't fall from the sky in a helicopter last week, so there is no reason to discuss his legacy at the moment. I think it's pretty obvious that he knows more about what happened that night than he's ever said, but I don't think that makes him a murderer. I know a kid that stole some candy in middle school, and I might have even been there when he did, but does that make me a shoplifter because I didn't tell my parents or the police or anyone that he did it?
This has nothing to do with rape vs. murder or any other crime. I don't see anybody showing up around here to say Rae Carruth might not be a murderer, or Bill Cosby not be a sexual predator. Because, you know, they are, and they went to trial and were convicted of it. If you'd like, I can post 1,000 links of murderers who were accused, another 1,000 of whom were even convicted, and then later found not guilty or exonerated. The type of crime is irrelevant when it comes to a discussion about the Judicial system and the concept of one being innocent until proven guilty. I don't give two shits what kind of crime it is, people should be coming out of the woodwork to argue evidence, and intent and everything else. Otherwise, fuck it, someone says you did it, you did it.