Guilty?

Is Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK), the former chief of International Monetary Fund, guilty of sexually assaulting a chambermaid at a New York hotel on 14 May 2011? I don’t know. I am not going to argue one way or the other because I don’t have any evidence. My objective in this post is different. I would like to explore why a large number of people have been persuaded very easily to pronounce him guilty or to conclude that he has been framed – all based on patchy information gleaned from the news media.

Perhaps only two people know exactly what happened in the hotel’s $3000 a night suite on May 14: DSK and the Sofitel chambermaid who made the accusation. She has given a graphic description of what she says happened. DSK has denied it vehemently: “I want to say that I deny with the greatest possible firmness all of the allegations that have been made against me.” By and by the New York police Department will hopefully ferret out enough evidence to reconstruct with some certainty what happened. What is amazing then is the ease with which people came to a firm conclusion as soon as they received news of DSK’s dramatic arrest.

Online versions of news reports about the event have numerous reader comments based on the firm conviction that DSK is guilty as charged. Here are some of the reasons mentioned. He has a reputation for being a womanizer, a seducer, a ‘busy rabbit.’ In 2008 he publicly admitted to an affair he had had with a Hungarian subordinate. It is extremely unlikely that the New York police would touch such a powerful man without enough evidence. Some also say that an immigrant woman, a widow with a fifteen-year-old daughter to support, would not dare make a false allegation of this kind against a guest in the luxury suite of the upscale hotel and risk dismissal.

There are a large number of people, especially in France, who are equally sure that DSK is not at all guilty, but a victim of an elaborate set-up. They are not sure whether the conspiracy was hatched by Nicolas Sarkozy, whom DSK was expected to beat in the forthcoming French election, or by the Americans who were unhappy with the way he was managing the IMF. But they are sure that DSK could not have forced himself on a chambermaid. They readily agree that DSK had a reputation for seducing women.  But sexual assault is different. When he could easily get women, either by seducing them or by paying for their services, why would he force himself on a lowly domestic? At the most he may have been a little indiscreet. Or he may have had consensual sex with the maid. But it is an irresponsible travesty of justice, they argue, to presume guilt and put him in jail.

Until a fair trial is conducted and adequate evidence presented, we cannot really conclude whether DSK was an attacker or a victim.

What is interesting is our tendency to pick up or to be influenced by only those arguments that are in line with our beliefs or biases. We should not be surprised if others do not accept our arguments that are not in line with their beliefs. This is roughly the same point I make in my earlier post, Murder most foul.