We covered some of this.

> He said that Gibson would likely only face a
> misdemeanor anyway

I can't believe a fraudulent acquisition of a seven figure payout by the state is a misdemeanor. Whatever a misdemeanor is...

> and if prosecuted, would probably claim that
> she was not being truthful in the hidden
> camera video.

Banks claimed he wasn't guilty, but the 'claim' didn't work out for him, did it? This is a weird time for our public servants in the prosecutor's office to lose faith in their skill.

As pissed and snotty as I was in the comments last year, at least I was correct.

Friends, modern justice does not promise that the courts will get everything right. It certainly doesn't promise that the rest of the world will cut you a check when it gets things wrong.

The best it can promise is that you won't find a better bargain anywhere.

I cannot believe that there was no physical exam on Wanetta Gibson. Looking for the basic signs of rape would have exonerated this man.

Well, something good came from all this.

May Brian be successful and make far more money than Wanetta Gibson got for lying about him.

Crid: "As pissed and snotty as I was in the comments last year..."

Like that narrows it down.

Damn her for what she did, indeed. I can't fathom how she doesn't have to pay back the money, at the VERY least. Our world has gone insane.

How about if DA's actually required actual evidence before prosecuting someone? Wouldn't that be a wonderful world? This "he said she said" and let the best lawyer win is bullshit. No proof no trial.

"In this case, this girl should be working to repay California taxpayers as well."

I agree she should be serving the same amount of time Brian did, but she should also be made to cover the cost of jailing Brian and herself as well.

"Like that narrows it down."

Well, he DID say last year.....

The lesson to be learned here is that no crime is so horrible that we should just take the accuser's word for it, lock up the accused and throw away the key. Indeed, the more horrible the crime, the greater the need for due process -- because the greater the injustice that will be done if the alleged victim is wrong, whether on purpose or not.

How about making her pay back the $1.5M to him?

Oh, and Patrick: an exam is a good idea, but is not the whole story. Unless a rapist beats a woman so as to leave marks or bruising, an exam is only going to show that they had sex -- which should not be enough to convict anybody.

Crid is right about that. The justice system is not perfect, its just better than the systems in other countries.

My understanding is that under Jewish law, "do not bear false witness" was taken to mean "do not give false testimony in court". And under the same law, the person found to have given false testimony would receive the same punishment that would have been given to the accused if the testimony had been believed.

Unfortunately, lies are uncovered in court all the time, and nobody does anything about it. Talk radio host Bill Handel refers to small claims court as "liar's court".

If a "you get the penalty that would have been given to the person you lied about" were imposed and consistently enforced, I think it would have a salubrious effect on the justice system.

Apparently (according to this report from last year), the mom was a key player in this plot:

http://blacksportsonline.com/home/2012/05/wanetta-gibsons-mom-wanda-rhodes-plotted-brian-banks-false-rape-accusation-for-money/

There's not much to laugh about here except the fate of the money.

"Friends, modern justice does not promise that the courts will get everything right."

Crid, yes. That's why they are called courts of law, not justice. the best we can do is enforce the laws failry. Justice is probably beyond us.

"It certainly doesn't promise that the rest of the world will cut you a check when it gets things wrong."

Yes. It's one thing where there is clear malfeasance on the part of the police or prosecutor or any other organ of govetrnment. Then there should beb a lawsuit and you should win. That's just part of holding government accountable.

It is not the same thing as some kind of bonus every time a decision is reversed.

In this case? Maybe the police were too believing, maybe the prosecutor was just looking for an easy stat. That's how that stuff works. But it's probably too close to call.

The one identifiably culprit here is that lying serpent Wanetta Gibson. They should take back every cent out of her hide.

I find it weird and suspicious that the ONLY time, pretty much, that people demand "an eye for an eye" - e.g., twenty years in jail for a false accusation - is when it's a rape accusation. Aren't false accusations of murder and robbery pretty devastating to innocent people too? (Of course, it's harder to frame someone for murder, but it CAN be done.)

I think those who falsely accuse another of a crime, and can be substantively proven to have done so, should at least serve the time their accusee did or would have, and should have to spend their life or a good bit of it paying that person restitution.

I couldn't agree more. However, "substantively proven" would be the difficult part. Even in a case like this, where the a-hole is caught on tape, so it would appear to be a slam-dunk, it probably wouldn't be. As defense attorney Wohl points out, she would probably claim that she was not being truthful in the hidden camera video.

Props to lenona and jd. The answers to problems like these are going to come from being more thoughtful, not more simplistic.

It's fun to be a hardass, it's just not always helpful.

"Aren't false accusations of murder and robbery pretty devastating to innocent people too? "

Lenona, history may have something to do with this, and that's wrong when it ocmes ot individual cases. The history is that rpae accusations were used in this ocuntry as a tactic in a campaign of

The other, and this is more substantive, is that lack of consent is at the core of the crime of rape, where that's not the case with robbery or murder, it is easy to think that false accusations are easier to make.

For one thing, there is a lot more motive to make a false rape accusation than a false murder accusation, so it probably does happen more often. No one makes a false murder accusation to cover up sex they don't want their parents or their spouse to find out about, or if they do, it's going to have to be a lot more intricate.

What's unfair in this is not that people are basing this special anger over FRAs on some percieved prevalence than on the actual harm done. Framing someone for murder is quite a bit more serious.

My point was that, other than rape, I simply cannot remember anyone who was framed for a crime who tried to demand that the same harsh punishment be imposed on the perjurer.

Take this case, from 2011:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/nyregion/a-revenge-plot-so-intricate-the-prosecutors-were-pawns.html?_r=0

"A Revenge Plot So Intricate, the Prosecutors Were Pawns"

First paragraphs:

Soon after Seemona Sumasar started dating Jerry Ramrattan, she had an inkling that something might be wrong.

He said he was a police detective, but never seemed to go to work. He seemed obsessed with “C.S.I.,” “Law & Order” and other television police dramas.

About a year after he moved into her house in Queens, their relationship soured. One day, he cornered her, taped her mouth and raped her, she said. Mr. Ramrattan was arrested.

But he soon took his revenge, the authorities said. Drawing on his knowledge of police procedure, gleaned from his time as an informer for law enforcement, he accomplished what prosecutors in New York called one of the most elaborate framing plots that they had ever seen.

One night, Ms. Sumasar was pulled over by the police. Before she could speak, detectives slapped handcuffs on her. “You know you did it,” she said one later shouted at her. “Just admit it.”

Ms. Sumasar, a former Morgan Stanley analyst who was running a restaurant, said she had no idea what that meant. Yet suddenly, she was being treated like a brazen criminal. She was charged with carrying out a series of armed robberies, based on what the police said was a wealth of evidence, including credible witness statements and proof that her car was the getaway vehicle.

In her first extensive interview about her ordeal, she recalled sitting in jail, consumed by one thought: “Jerry is behind this.”

But when she insisted to the authorities that he had set her up, they belittled her claims......

(snip)

I also saw her on a news video - "Woman Jailed for Fake Robberies." Don't know if it's still available. Anyway, even SHE never made the demand that her boyfriend should get what she would have gotten. No, she doesn't love him anymore.

Maybe there are good reasons we just don't believe in penalizing liars that way? (Another example: Even Michael Moore, who claimed O.J. was innocent and framed the LAPD, never suggested the LAPD should suffer the way he would have.)

Rape is a heinous, EVIL CRIME. It is heavily Underreported, because most women, and men who are raped, know people will not believe them--and they will be put through a living hell in order to try to prove it. Even if it could be proven easily, the torture of exposing that suffering publicly, is too much for many victims of rape.
AND THAT'S WHAT MAKES ME HAVE GREAT HATRED FOR THE ACTIONS OF PEOPLE WHO DARE TO RUIN AN INNOCENT MAN'S (or woman's) LIFE, BY FALSELY ACCUSING HIM OF RAPE--AND MAKE IT SO MUCH HARDER FOR THE BILLIONS OF REAL VICTIMS OF RAPE. Again, of the reported rape, 98-99% are real, only 1-2% are false. And there are SO many more unreported rapes. This woman has done something which is PURE EVIL!!! WHY IS SHE NOT IN JAIL?!?!??! She should be locked up for a longer period than he was. She is a danger to society. She deserves a 20 year sentence at least...