MARCUS on 5.11.04 Oprah (NEW ONE)

[carnation]

Dixon case distortions color justice

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 03/16/2004

Dixon case distortions color justice
Jim Wooten










A few words about the Deep South, race, Marcus Dixon -- and public relations justice.

The Dixon case -- he being the promising Rome athlete serving 10 years in prison for sexually violating a 15-year-old -- is an example. But it's not, as Dixon supporters portray it, an example of "Deep South justice," a prejudicial characterization framed to elicit images of night riders, lynch mobs and institutional racism because he is black and the victim is white.

It is, rather, an example of the distortion that triumphs when justice is defined after the fact by sports and entertainment figures, stereotypers and a public relations machine determined to undo a verdict and sentence.

The victim, who was a virgin prior to the encounter, still denies she consented to sex with Dixon, a fellow student whom she barely knew. At the time of the offense she was working an after-school job as a custodian, cleaning a classroom trailer. The victim, according to Floyd County District Attorney Leigh E. Patterson, "sustained physical injuries which included bruising on her arms where she testified the defendant grabbed her" as well as vaginal injuries, and "her lip was bleeding from where she bit it during the attack."

The jury found Dixon guilty of statutory rape and aggravated child molestation. It found him not guilty of rape, sexual battery, aggravated assault and false imprisonment. "The jury's verdict of not guilty on those charges does not include any affirmative finding that the victim consented to the defendant," says Patterson. Whether any of them thought the mandatory 10-year sentence inappropriate is, she argues, beside the point. The jury's job is to decide guilt or innocence.

While some actual jurors have expressed reservations to sports and entertainment jurists, Bobby Bolinger, the foreman of the jury that consisted of five white males, four white females, one black female and two black males, told the Rome News-Tribune after the verdict: "I wouldn't change it [the decision] at all. We didn't ruin that man's life; he ruined his own life."

Some jurors did have misgivings -- especially after discovering that Dixon would be required by Georgia law to serve 10 years in prison. Nobody was present when the crime occurred except Dixon and the victim.

Dixon did not testify. As is often the case with post-conviction publicity campaigns, the victim ceases to be real. It is routinely recounted as gospel that she consented. She vehemently denies that.

Largely ignored, too, are previous examples of Dixon's inappropriate sexual behavior.

At trial, one female student, a classroom acquaintance who had no outside friendship with Dixon, testified that without warning he exposed himself to her in the classroom three years ago.

A second female, a 14-year-old sports acquaintance who had no outside friendship with Dixon, testified that after practice in April 2002, he put his hand down the front of her cheerleader shorts, inside her underwear, and attempted to "finger me against my will." She did not scream, but pushed him away. "He got mad and ran off, calling me a chicken," she testified. In neither case did the girl report the offense to teachers. In both, though, teachers subsequently found out. Dixon was suspended, but was not required to undergo therapy.

When asked by Detective Gary Conway about the two episodes, Dixon acknowledged that in his sophomore year he had been suspended for exposing himself. "Uh, just stupid, . . . girl ask me to just, you know." In his junior year, he acknowledged, a girl "said that I touched her." Where? he was asked. "Chest, I think, or something like that."

In that interview, he first denied knowing the third victim. Then he admitted he did, but only by her first name. He eventually admitted having sex with her, but insisted that it was voluntary and in his bedroom.He never acknowledged being in the trailer.

In that encounter, there was but one victim. It was not Marcus Dixon.