By Kyle Jorrey
Sports Editor
With the Los Angeles Lakers in the midst of a nine-game win streak and a run on the Western Conference leading Sacramento Kings, hoops superstar Kobe Bryant is again in the national spotlight. While many Southern California residents have taken great pleasure in Bryant’s re-emergence as one of the game’s top performers, others, including those at Pepperdine, have not forgotten the fact that the 24-year old NBA star remains on trial in Eagle County, Colo., facing the serious charge of rape.
Though crucial pretrial hearings and motions are in the works, as Judge Terry Ruckreigle tries to decide what evidence can and cannot be used by both sides, according to legal experts the actual start of the criminal trial remains many months away.
In the meantime, the Graphic hit the Pepperdine campus to find out the reactions to all the events that have transpired since the 19-year old Colorado woman accused Bryant 10 months ago.
Junior television production major Robbie Mooring, a self-proclaimed “Laker hater,” said the case has come up often this semester in his Mass Communication Law class.
“It’s just unfortunate for both parties in the matter,” said Mooring. “You don’t want anybody to be the victim of a rape and you don’t want anyone to go through what Kobe is going through.”
One of the biggest issues in the trial to date is the defense team’s efforts to circumvent Colorado’s stringent rape-shield law, which makes the alleged victim’s sexual history inadmissible in a rape trial. Defense attorneys Pamela Mackey and Hal Haddon have been aggressively trying to convince the judge that her sexual activity on and around June 30 is relevant to the case.
“From a legal standpoint I think it is relevant to the case, but I don’t think she should have to be in the public light during all of that,” Mooring said. “I think there are certain things the court can do to withhold her identity and make sure she doesn’t have to suffer anymore than she has to.”
David Miller, a senior creative writing major and Laker fan, said he has been turned off by the defense team’s plan of attack.
“I’ve been following it pretty closely and I think some of Kobe’s defense tactics have been a little suspicious,” Miller said. “The way that they’ve tried to get her name released, trying to expose her sexual past, I think those aren’t in Kobe’s best interest.”
Like others interviewed, Miller was skeptical of the accuser’s story when he first heard the breaking news last July.
“My first instinct was that I didn’t really believe it,” Miller said. “I thought it was something to get Kobe because he was in a position of power.”
But, Miller said, Bryant’s infidelity was not something out of the ordinary for the NBA.
“I don’t think professional athletes have ever been models of exemplary behavior at any point, now it’s just more in the public’s eye,” he said.
Sophomore Kesley Ball, a 25-year old communication major and member of the women’s basketball team, said she believes Bryant’s star status may cloud the judgment of the public concerning his trial.
“He was such a superhero in so many people’s minds that even though he did do something wrong they still look at him as a guy who can do no wrong,” Ball said.
When asked if she thinks fans are able to separate Bryant the basketball player from Bryant the person, she said yes, but noted that some might need to rethink who they look up to.
“If you’re picking a role model, I think you want to pick someone who is a good person and a good athlete.”
Sophomore Cody Horning, a economics major and member of the men’s basketball team, said what happened to Bryant has given him warning of the dangers of superstardom.
“I think it made me think even more because it happened to Kobe,” the 20-year old said. “Personally I think he’s not guilty, so all that teaches me is that you have got to be smart as hell about your actions when you’re in that position. Look what it has done to him, to his marriage…”
For senior Adam Buckingham, an economics major and high school basketball standout, the incident was another example of a professional athlete believing he was above the system.
“A lot of pro athletes take crazy risks, defy the odds, because they think they can get away with anything. It is this invincibility delusion,” Buckingham said.
Buckingham added that he believes Bryant is innocent, and places some of the blame on the sports media for making him out to be somebody he wasn’t.
“They are professional athletes, they aren’t paid to be role models, they are paid to play basketball,” he said.
Pepperdine Head Coach Marv Dunphy of the men’s volleyball team disagreed. He said it is up to professional athletes to conduct themselves in such a manner that is conducive to their profession.
“For me, it’s got be the whole package,” Dunphy said. “I think they are deriving so much from the public, to say that they are not to be held accountable is ludicrous. What they like to say is that it is up to the parents to tell kids right from wrong, but we are a community of people. Like they say, ‘It takes a village to raise a child.’”
Pepperdine psychology professor Dr. Jennifer Gosselin said her Women and Psychology class has discussed the Bryant topic in terms of “the broader societal issue of women being blamed for being sexually assaulted.”
She said it is cause for concern that so many have turned against the victim before the trial has even begun.
“I’m not saying that this woman was assaulted, but there is a tendency to blame the person who is accusing someone of sexual assault.”
She said matters are only made worse when a professional athlete is involved.
“I think that Kobe has almost hero-like status, especially among fans, and anyone who accused him of something regardless of whether it’s true is going to be vilified.”
Gosselin noted that rate of false accusations of rape is around one percent. She said the defense team’s tactics may have grave consequences and people need to take notice.
“This is not a women’s issue, this is a human issue, and men and women should be aware of sexual assault and the damaging effects it has,” Gosselin said.
Submitted April 1, 2004