The Closing Arguments In The Derrick Rose Trial Were Filled With Personal Insults

The civil suit against Derrick Rose for sexual assault was sent to the jury for deliberation on Tuesday, and a verdict is expected to come down on Wednesday. Before all that, however, each side in the case gave their closing arguments, and they were just as personal and based in the character of the persons involved as the testimony had been.

From Deadspin’s Diana Moskovitz:

[Defense attorney Waukeen] McCoy said what happened to his client was a classic case of gang rape, an example of “three men running a train rape” over Doe.
[…]

“She never had a motive to take his money,” [McCoy] said. Calling her a gold digger was “an insult to her character and type of woman she is.”


McCoy also insisted that the text messages Doe sent to Rose and to her friends, the tone of which called into question her emotional distress following the night in question, were “red herrings” meant to “slut-shame” his client.

Rose’s defense team’s closing arguments were meant to give the jury exactly the perception of Doe as a gold digger, and asked the jury to “rise above” the fraught language of “gang rape” and “sexual deviants” because they invoke powerful racial stereotypes (the jury is mostly white, but Doe’s legal team is black).

More from Moskovitz:

As for discrepancies between all three men’s stories, Baute said that was proof they were telling the truth because liars would have coordinated better.

[…]

“She wants money, and she’s upset that Derrick ended the sexual relationship,” he said, later adding that she was “not a real rape victim.”

Doe, he said, was a liar. “She lied 50 times on the stand,” he said. He said that Groff was lying too and that she had tried to sleep with Rose at the Beverly Hill homes, but Rose turned her down.

Cases of sexual assault are always personal, but this one seems to especially hinge on whose account the jury believes, and whose character the opposing legal team sufficiently tore down. When the verdict is handed down, it will provide a merciful end to what has been an incredibly ugly court proceeding.

(Via Deadspin)

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