If a relative of yours were to be falsely accused of robbery, assault, or rape, I hope your first instinct would be to insist on evidence rather than unsupported allegation, trial by media, public character assassination, and that you would also insist on a fair and speedy trial. Your hope is well-founded. Is mine?

The Blackstone Formulation is an attempt to extend the rather elementary moral principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ to everyone, not just people to whom we are related. On the fairly simple grounds that to imprison an innocent is to commit a worse crime than the one they have been accused of with the additional problem being that it is now *you* perpetrating it.

My response had precisely the same amount to do with Bill Cosby as your cartoon. The entire premise of the cartoon was predicated on the idea that a group of, presumably intelligent, if somewhat axiomatically diabolical, supervillains were, collectively, unable to think of one reason why anyone would falsely accuse someone of rape. Bill Cosby may be the topical example of this unfortunately wide-spread falsehood, but your cartoon, with only the most minor of adjustments, could well be applied to any rape accusation.

I provided links to a number of sources which contradict this untenable premise — namely that there exist no reasons why anyone would make a false rape accusation. I genuinely apologize if this offended you. This was not my intention. I am prepared to accept in good faith the implication that you would have simply accepted my assertions without such support and shall not trouble you in that way in future unless invited.

Personally, when someone goes to the trouble of providing me with convincing evidence to support something contrary to my stated position I make sure to thank them and adjust my position accordingly but I must accept this appears to be somewhat heterodox behaviour. You may, however, verify this claim for yourself by simply glancing through the (small number of) comments under your cartoon on Alternet.

While guilty people certainly do beat the charges all the time, this is seen as preferable to the alternative. I am not sure where you were going with this paragraph to be honest. It all seems to be true but irrelevant to the topic at hand.

I would argue that almost EVERYONE has rushed to judgement on Bill Crosby, including you, and, as it happens, me as well, although I am desperately TRYING not to. This is precisely the problem that Blackstone sought to address. It is precisely why we have situations where a literal lynch mob surround the house, and are only prevented from perpetrating the roughest of justice by timely police intervention, of a well-known paediatrician (you read that right the first time).

Note also that, in your final paragraph you also ask for supporting evidence for the INNOCENCE of an alleged perpetrator. Russell’s teapot comes to mind here, as does the dragon in my garage. It is interesting to me that you appear to only want this caveat in place, and you are by no means alone in this desire, for this specific crime and no other, for some reason.

The number of people making an allegation, particularly against a wealthy African American of high public profile, should make very little impact on the likelihood of their guilt, in an ideal world. I can send you to numerous sources that show the real world effects, some of them utterly devastating, of that attitude if you like as well. Or we could just go for a game of lacrosse.

I am grateful for the fact that I have had some time to read more of your work today. I wonder if you realise how rare you are, for example, in that you at least acknowledge the deaths of the male school children in Nigeria — you will be hard-pressed to find mainstream commentary that shows that level of research or compassion — even though it was well-known locally that Boko Haram were burning the boys in their dorms and letting the girls go — with the kidnapping representing a radical change in MO. This once again speaks to your generally exemplary approach to your work. I hope I have at least given you pause for reflection in your assumptions about the matter of false rape accusation motivation. I have no reason to doubt otherwise as you seem to be a reasonable, thoughtful man whose work I shall continue to read and recommend.

And while this may, in the grand scheme of things, be a relatively small matter, I simply cannot ignore the egregious saurian micro-aggression and libel you have wantonly perpetrated. The Illuminati are obviously AMPHIBIANS - at least forty-ONE people believe so, and if that’s good enough for me…