The Myth of St. Marcus ____________________________________________________ “We are very concerned about a jury that would place a burden on a 15-year-old to fight off someone twice her size.”
- Mike Prieto, attorney for Marcus Dixon's accuser
_____________________________
By Robert Stacy McCain
THE ROME NEWS-TRIBUNE
Sunday, April 4, 2004

A couple months ago, I was talking with a journalist friend in Washington when I happened to begin a sentence, “When I lived in Rome ….”
“Rome, Georgia?” he asked.
“Yes, I lived there for six years.”
Then the question: “What do you know about the Marcus Dixon case?”
Frankly, I didn’t know much. I recalled that Dixon was a football player who had been accused of rape.
“But,” my friend said, “the jury said it was consensual sex. He got 10 years for another charge.”
I was impressed by my friend’s knowledge of judicial proceedings in Northwest Georgia. I didn‘t realize that the case was on its way to being a national sensation, and didn’t know enough about it to discuss the details. But I promised my friend I’d look into it and let him know what I found out.
If the Dixon case hadn’t happened in the Deep South, it probably wouldn’t have attracted the attention of the New York Times, Fox News and Oprah Winfrey. Some folks just can’t let go of the idea that Dixie (especially the small-town South) is a fever swamp of malign racial hatred. So when a white teenager in a small Southern town accuses a black teenager of rape, it appeals to the stereotypes dear to folks in New York network newsrooms, who then cue up the stock footage of Klan marches -- and accuracy be damned.
Knowing what I know about Rome and Floyd County, I was skeptical of the idea that Dixon was the victim of a malicious racist conspiracy. I knew the police and courts to be fair, professional and thorough. Whether or not the General Assembly acted wisely in decreeing a mandatory 10-year-sentence for aggravated child molestation -- and whether the law was intended to apply to a case like Dixon’s -- is a fair question., a question now before the Georgia Supreme Court.
Yet Dixon’s defenders have not been content to limit their appeals to court pleadings, and they have not restricted their arguments to narrow legal concerns. Instead, they have made very broad accusations, impugning the character of an entire community, suggesting that Marcus Dixon is not merely entangled in the unexpected consequences of mandatory sentencing, but that Dixon is an altogether innocent victim of racism.
Dixon’s defenders enlisted a top Atlanta public relations firm to publicize the case, although the value of publicity to an appellate court procedure is dubious at best. Why would a state supreme court justice, with access to the entire trial transcript and every other relevant document, need to watch “Oprah” to learn about the case? Or do Dixon’s defenders imagine that the justices can be influenced by tabloid TV coverage?
Whatever the rationale of such publicity-seeking, Dixon’s advocates have, in the process of enlisting the major media on their behalf, unleashed the hounds of hell against Floyd County. They have promoted half-truths and insinuated falsehoods, and -- unforgivably -- have even brought to Rome a disreputable Atlanta demagogue, Rep. Tyrone Brooks, to slander and defame every citizen of the community.
The actions of police, prosecutors and judges are undertaken in the name of the community. If Dixon’s prosecution was, as his defenders claim, “a legal lynching,” then everyone in Floyd County is a party to the injustice. If no one in Floyd County dares speak out against such defamation, I will.

A lie twice over

As I said, I told my friend I’d look into the Dixon case, and I did so at some length, but then I decided against writing anything about it. I could see that every other voice in the media was devoted to the beatification of St. Marcus of Lindale, and I didn’t relish being the lone skeptic. And so I was just going to let the subject drop, until I saw what Patricia Williams wrote about the case.
Ms. Williams is a feminist lawyer who writes a weekly column in The Nation, one of the oldest journals of American liberalism. In a grab-bag column that threw in everything from federal Judge Charles Pickering’s 1959 law journal writings to Strom Thurmond’s illegitimate daughter, Ms. Williams wrote:
“Take the case of Marcus Dixon, an honor student and high school football hero who was admitted to Vanderbilt University on a full scholarship. He had a consensual sexual relationship with his steady girlfriend when he had just turned 18 and she was three months shy of 16. … Marcus Dixon has been convicted by a jury and sentenced to the maximum ten-year sentence. Race was not mentioned explicitly, of course, but is it really a total surprise to learn that Dixon is black and that his girlfriend is white?”
That is a flat lie, twice over: The jury did not convict Dixon of rape, but no one has credibly suggested that Dixon’s accuser was his “steady girlfriend.” And their “sexual relationship” lasted about 15 minutes in a trailer classroom after school on the afternoon of Feb. 10, 2003.
This is what Dixon’s advocates have brought about: A girl who says she was raped finds herself described as the “steady girlfriend” of her accused rapist by one of the nation’s most prominent feminist writers.
Yet Dixon’s accuser has never recanted her claim that she was the victim of rape. Indeed, in her $4 million lawsuit against Floyd County school officials, the accuser asserts that she was “physically sexually assaulted and raped against her will.”
Journalists are supposed to be skeptical, but apparently this skepticism is suspended when the story is as juicy as a “legal lynching” over interracial sex in Georgia. So let us ask the question that the New York Times apparently never thought to ask: If this is such a clear-cut case of consensual sex, why did police and prosecutors think they could prove Dixon was guilty of rape?
Not everyone arrested and accused of a crime is guilty, of course. Cops and prosecutors sometimes make mistakes. But to go forward with a rape trial -- especially one as potentially explosive as the Dixon case -- shows a high level of confidence on the part of the prosecuting attorney. Prosecutors hate to subject victims of sex crimes to cross-examination if they don’t have to, so these cases are frequently resolved by plea bargains and never brought to trial.
The fact that Dixon’s case made it all the way to a jury trial suggests that not only did prosecutors believe he was guilty, but they felt pretty sure they could prove his guilt. Why did they believe that?

The witness who didn’t testify: Marcus Dixon

Despite the fact that no one saw what happened in that classroom on Feb. 10, 2003, the prosecution had strong witnesses. They had the statements of the school officials to whom Dixon’s accuser first related her rape claim. They had the testimony of the nurse who examined the accuser at a sexual assault treatment center.
Prosecutors had another witness who implicated Dixon: Marcus Dixon himself. When confronted by police, Dixon told two different lies. First, he claimed he hadn’t been on campus at the time of the incident. Then he claimed he had “snuck” the girl into his home to have sex: “I had sex, but it wasn’t at no school. … I guess they call it consensual sex or something like that. I didn’t force nobody to do nothing.”
The police had those lies on tape. If Dixon did nothing wrong, why did he tell two different lies about it?
Dixon’s lies explain an important fact that the national media always overlook: Dixon never took the witness stand in his own defense. Though he now freely grants jailhouse interviews to Oprah and other media, when his freedom was at stake in the Floyd County courthouse, Dixon didn’t testify. Why? Probably because his lawyers knew that Dixon couldn’t withstand cross-examination, when the prosecution would confront him with his earlier lies.
Media accounts of the martyrdom of St. Marcus always manage to call him an honor student, but never mention that he is an admitted liar. And seldom do they mention that he has been repeatedly accused of sex offenses.
Dixon’s documented record of sexual misconduct at Pepperell High School was surely the main reason prosecutors felt confident they could convict him of rape. School disciplinary records indicated that on March 12, 2001, Dixon exposed himself to a girl in English class, and that on April 23, 2002, Dixon molested a freshman girl on the Pepperell track team.
Indecent exposure and sexual assault are crimes. Georgia law requires that school officials report sex crimes to law enforcement. Apparently, Pepperell officials didn’t believe that law covered star athletes, and so the incidents were handled “in-house.” But prosecutors said the disciplinary records (evidence which Dixon’s lawyers tried to have suppressed) demonstrated that Dixon, in addition to being a liar, was a “sexual predator.”

Consulting an expert

Prosecutors aren’t the only ones who see a pattern in Dixon’s behavior. I interviewed Joyanna Silberg, a psychologist who coordinates a program for sex abuse victims at Sheppard Pratt Hospital in Baltimore. Without telling her that I was asking about the Marcus Dixon case, I gave her these details: A boy is accused of indecent exposure at 16, accused of molestation at 17, and accused of rape at age 18.
“Sounds like a boy who has severe problems with impulse control,” Silberg answered. “You could surmise that he has progressively greater difficulty controlling his sexual impulsivity over time.”
Prosecutors didn’t solicit expert testimony at Dixon’s trial. They probably didn’t think it necessary. They probably supposed that jurors would see the same thing they saw: a sexual predator with an escalating pattern of offenses, who lied to police when confronted with the accusation of rape.
Dixon was acquitted of rape. It is not known how much weight the jurors placed on the testimony of Dixon’s friends, who claimed the girl told them she consented to sex. What some jurors have said is that they did not find the girl’s testimony convincing. Particularly, the jurors said they didn‘t believe the girl‘s description of how Dixon removed her jeans. She said that Dixon, while restraining her arms, used his knees and elbows to get her jeans off.
This puzzled me. The testimony about the girl’s injuries (including bruises to her arms) was entirely consistent with a violent and painful sexual assault. So why would her version of what happened be so far-fetched? I put that question to Silberg.
“Victims differ in their ability to recount a believable story,” the psychologist told me. “The most difficult thing for victims to discuss is ways in which they didn't fight, were passive and might have even felt that they were assisting their attacker.
“The implied threat that the victim feels is very great, and so they often put themselves in a 'victim stance,' where they feel helpless, powerless and need to accommodate to the attacker,” Silberg continued. “Those details are the hardest ones to describe because they feel such a sense of shame for having cooperated, even if it was under implied threat or overpowering force.”
“Such a sense of shame” -- and now national columnists who call themselves feminists dare describe this girl as the “steady girlfriend” of the man she says raped her.
Remember, Silberg told me this after hearing only a sketchy outline of the Dixon case; her views are based on years of previous experience with victims of sexual assault. Think of what her words might mean when applied to Dixon’s accuser. You see why, when the jury failed to convict Dixon of rape, the girl’s attorney, Mike Prieto, said: “We are very concerned about a jury that would place a burden on a 15-year-old to fight off someone twice her size.”
Exactly. Imagine this 15-year-old girl working alone in a trailer classroom after school, confronted with a 6-foot-6, 260-pound all-state defensive end. If she said no, and if he refused to take no for an answer, how was she supposed to stop him? She might have been too frightened even to say no.

Georgia law: No consent at 15

Whether she said no, whether she fought or didn‘t fight, whatever happened in that Pepperell High classroom on Feb. 10, 2003, Dixon broke the law. What he did was wrong, it was criminal, and he and his defenders apparently want to ignore this unpleasant fact, since it detracts from their sacred myth of St. Marcus.
Dixon was acquitted of rape. He was convicted of statutory rape and aggravated child molestation. But, contrary to the assertions of various journalists and pundits, the jury didn’t find that the sex he had with a 15-year-old girl was “consensual” -- from a legal standpoint, such a thing is impossible.
Under Georgia law, no one under age 16 can consent to sex. One might as well speak of “consensual sex” with a 12-year-old.
Furthermore, being found not guilty in a criminal trial is not the same thing as being innocent. A jury must find evidence of guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt,” and the rape case against Dixon apparently didn’t satisfy jurors to that degree of certainty. Yet the evidence was sufficient for that same jury to find him guilty of aggravated child molestation -- a felony which applies to sex with someone under age 16 resulting in injury.
The Georgia Supreme Court is now considering whether this statute, and its attendant mandatory 10-year sentence, was properly applied to Dixon’s case. While most Floyd Countians would surely be satisfied to wait quietly while the justices decide the case, Dixon’s defenders have rejected that approach. Instead, they have launched a nationwide campaign of vituperation and slander, denouncing Floyd County officials as racist perpetrators of a “legal lynching,” and generally portraying the community as Klansville, U.S.A.
Along the way, Dixon’s defenders have sought to portray him as St. Marcus, an innocent martyr -- although, admittedly, a martyr who lied to police about committing statutory rape on school property.

Racist prosecutors?

His defenders have repeatedly proclaimed that race is the only reason Dixon was prosecuted. This is an interesting accusation, given that Dixon’s defenders were the first to raise the race issue. But where is the evidence?
It’s not as if Floyd County routinely prosecutes black men who date white women. You can see interracial couples at the mall or the movie theater or any other place in Rome where people mingle. Sure, some people (white and black alike) may frown on such affairs, but they don’t call the cops. It’s not a crime, and it’s not treated like one.
Nor are charges of statutory rape and aggravated child molestation routinely used by Floyd County prosecutors in cases of interracial sex involving teenagers. Indeed, Dixon’s own lawyers say they can’t find a single case in the entire state of Georgia where the aggravated child molestation statute has been used in a case like Dixon’s.
If racism were as rampant in Floyd County as Dixon’s defenders would have us believe, it is surprising that police and prosecutors waited until 2003 to stage a “legal lynching.” It’s not as if Dixon were the first black teenager in Floyd County to have sex with a white girl. And, as a popular star athlete, Dixon may have had lots of white girlfriends at Pepperell, girlfriends who never pressed felony charges against him..
However, at least three girls accused Dixon of sexual misconduct: the first said he exposed himself; the second said he molested her; and the third accused him of rape. All three girls were white. All were under the age of consent (two were 15, one was 14). All three incidents occurred at school.
If there is a pattern here, it is not a pattern of racist prosecutors singling out black men involved in interracial relationships. Rather, it is a pattern of Dixon getting in trouble for sexual misconduct involving underage white girls at school.
What do the acolytes of St. Marcus mean when they describe Dixon’s prosecution as a “legal lynching,” and portray Floyd County as a place where racial injustice is routine?
When the girl told a school counselor she had been raped, should the counselor -- as Pepperell officials previously had done with accusations against Dixon -- have swept the incident under the rug by handling it “in-house”? And once school officials called the police, should the police have refused to investigate the case, rather than be party to a “legal lynching”?
When Dixon twice lied to Floyd County detectives, should investigators have shrugged off his deception? When a sexual assault treatment center reported that the girl had suffered gynecological injuries, bruises to her arms and a split lip as a result of the incident, should the prosecuting attorneys have discounted this evidence as racially biased?
The girl had a reason to be in that trailer classroom more than an hour after school let out on Feb. 10, 2003. She was being paid to clean that classroom. Marcus Dixon had only one reason to be in that classroom: to have sex with a 15-year-old girl. Leaving aside the issue of consent, Dixon did something wrong and illegal, and he knew it was wrong and illegal before he did it.
What about consent? Dixon’s defenders would have us believe that this girl could think of no more romantic setting for her first sexual experience than a trailer classroom at Pepperell, with a guy she barely knew. Never mind the usual fears of pregnancy and disease. The St. Marcus mythmakers would have us believe this girl was not only willing to risk school disciplinary proceedings if caught, but was also willing to risk losing the after-school job she was working to buy herself a car.
According to Dixon’s defenders, after this girl risked so much to have “consensual” sex with Dixon, she then suddenly decided she wanted her lover to spend Valentine’s Day in jail.
Wow. What a fiendish plot.

A one-sided story

I don’t know what happened in that classroom on Feb. 10, 2003. Neither do Oprah Winfrey or Tyrone Brooks or Patricia Williams or any of the others who have depicted Marcus Dixon as an innocent victim of racism.
What I do know is that this accusation of racism must be seen for what it is: an attempt to cast blame on the girl who says she was raped. If Dixon’s offenders are to be believed, this evil white girl seduced St. Marcus, then lied to school officials, lied to police and perjured herself in court as part of a racist conspiracy against him.
By blaming the victim, by calling her a liar, and by publicly accusing Floyd County officials of being co-conspirators in racially motivated injustice, Dixon’s defenders have forced Floyd Countians to ask themselves which is the real injustice: Dixon’s conviction and 10-year sentence for aggravated child molestation, or his acquittal on the rape charge?
I am surprised that the people of Floyd County would sit silently while Dixon’s defenders blame this girl and defame the officials who prosecuted the case. I see news stories of large rallies on behalf of Marcus Dixon, but have yet to hear of a single rally in defense of Dixon’s accuser.
Maybe I’ve missed something, being 700 miles away from my former home. Maybe this girl is well known to Floyd Countians as lying white trash and a racist troublemaker.
Maybe everyone thinks the cops and prosecutors really are a bunch of closet Klansmen.
There are usually two sides to every story. Maybe this is an exception. Maybe the only side to this story is the one told by Tyrone Brooks -- you’re all a bunch of wicked racists, only too happy to send an innocent black man to prison.
Or maybe those who have smeared Dixon’s accuser -- and have maligned the reputation of Floyd County -- are just opportunistic demagogues, seizing upon a flimsy excuse to gin up hatred with their irresponsible rhetoric.
It’s one or the other, and you don’t need a Georgia Supreme Court ruling to decide what you believe.

___________________
_____ UPDATE _____

Dixon’s conviction voided by Ga. Supreme Court

On May 3, 2004, the Georgia Supreme Court, on a 4-3 vote, overturned Marcus Dixon’s aggravated child molestation conviction, and he was set free.
CLICK HERE to read the Georgia Supreme Court decision (PDF format).
____________________________
Freed, yes. Vindicated? No.
By Robert Stacy McCain
ROME NEWS-TRIBUNE
May 6, 2004

Marcus Dixon is free. The Georgia Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that state laws for statutory rape and aggravated child molestation were in conflict, and that this conflict required that Dixon's conviction for aggravated child molestation -- with its 10-year-mandatory sentence -- be voided.
The court's ruling was no surprise. Given the legislative history of the relevant statutes, most legal analysts had expected that the 10-year sentence would be thrown out. There was thus never any need for the wild accusations of racism which Dixon's defenders leveled against Floyd County officials in every media venue from the New York Times to "Oprah."
While Marcus Dixon is free, he is not vindicated. A careful reading of the court's ruling makes clear that the justices were offended by some of the reckless claims made on Dixon's behalf. Chief Justice Norman Fletcher's decision notes that Dixon's acquittal on a rape charge "means only that the State failed to prove the element of force beyond a reasonable doubt, and not that the activity was wholly consensual." So much for the various commentators who described Dixon's accuser as his "girlfriend."
In a concurring decision, Justice Carol Hunstein emphasizes that the verdict "did not establish that the sexual intercourse alleged by the victim was consensual." Apparently impressed with evidence of Dixon's prior sexual misconduct at Pepperell High School, Justice Hunstein urged "in the strongest possible terms" that the General Assembly clarify laws dealing with "teenage sexual predators who prey upon other children."
And three justices, led by Justice P. Harris Hines, were opposed to overturning Dixon's conviction for aggravated child molestation. According to Justice Hines, there is a clear distinction in Georgia law between the crimes of misdemeanor statutory rape and aggravated child molestation, and that conviction for one does not prevent conviction for the other. Justice Hines says the majority's decision "clouded the law," effectively voiding the acts of the legislature and the verdict of the jury.
So now, Dixon is free to pursue his football career. Oprah Winfrey and the New York Times can seek elsewhere for Old South racism, Tyrone Brooks can apply his demagoguery to other "causes," and the various "Free Marcus" charities can quietly pocket their donations. Floyd County will try to repair its reputation, after having been smeared as Klansville, USA.
The big story of a "legal lynching" is over, and the media circus leaves town -- without a second thought for a teenage girl who still says she was the victim of rape.

r.s.mccain@worldnet.att.net

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Marcus Dixon rape racism Rome Georgia black white teen teenager Klan KKK accused Marcus Dixon consensual sex athlete Rome Georgia white girl Oprah Winfrey black boy Vanderbilt honor student football Marcus Dixon rape racism Rome Georgia black white teen teenager Klan KKK accused Marcus Dixon consensual sex athlete Rome Georgia white girl Oprah Winfrey black boy Vanderbilt honor student football Marcus Dixon rape racism Rome Georgia black white teen teenager Klan KKK accused Marcus Dixon consensual sex athlete Rome Georgia white girl Oprah Winfrey black boy Vanderbilt honor student football Marcus Dixon rape racism Rome Georgia black white teen teenager Klan KKK accused Marcus Dixon consensual sex athlete Rome Georgia white girl Oprah Winfrey black boy Vanderbilt honor student football Marcus Dixon rape racism Rome Georgia black white teen teenager Klan KKK accused Marcus Dixon consensual sex athlete Rome Georgia white girl Oprah Winfrey black boy Vanderbilt honor student football Marcus Dixon rape racism Rome Georgia black white teen teenager Klan KKK accused Marcus Dixon consensual sex athlete Rome Georgia white girl Oprah Winfrey black boy Vanderbilt honor student football Marcus Dixon rape racism Rome Georgia black white teen teenager Klan KKK accused Marcus Dixon consensual sex athlete Rome Georgia white girl Oprah Winfrey black boy Vanderbilt honor student football Marcus Dixon rape racism Rome Georgia black white teen teenager Klan KKK accused Marcus Dixon consensual sex athlete Rome Georgia white girl Oprah Winfrey black boy Vanderbilt honor student football Marcus Dixon rape racism Rome Georgia black white teen teenager Klan KKK accused Marcus Dixon consensual sex athlete Rome Georgia white girl Oprah Winfrey black boy Vanderbilt honor student football Marcus Dixon rape racism Rome Georgia black white teen teenager Klan KKK accused Marcus Dixon consensual sex athlete Rome Georgia white girl Oprah Winfrey black boy Vanderbilt honor student football Marcus Dixon rape racism Rome Georgia black white teen teenager Klan KKK accused Marcus Dixon consensual sex athlete Rome Georgia white girl Oprah Winfrey black boy Vanderbilt honor student football Marcus Dixon rape racism Rome Georgia black white teen teenager Klan KKK accused Marcus Dixon consensual sex athlete Rome Georgia white girl Oprah Winfrey black boy Vanderbilt honor student football