The Derrick Rose Trial Is Already Getting Intense

Patrick Redford, 05/10/2016

After a day and a half of jury selection, the Derrick Rose civil trial finally made its way today to opening statements. According to reports from the courthouse, things got intense almost immediately. Jane Doe’s lawyer Waukeen McCoy gave a very graphic description of the alleged gang rape, the New York Post’s Julia Marsh reported, saying the three men “took turns raping her” while she went “in and out of consciousness.”

McCoy went over several parts of narrative that Doe’s legal team has discussed before: She got drunk, and possibly drugged, while hanging out with Rose and his friends, then went home and passed out. Rose and his friends came over and raped her. McCoy added that one of the co-defendants “went twice” with Doe but can’t remember what order the men went in, Marsh reported. Doe told her roommates and a coworker what happened but didn’t go to the police, McCoy told jurors, because “she was embarrassed.”

Lawyers for Rose and his co-defendants, friends Randall Hampton and Rayn Allen, were much more aggressive, immediately trying to leverage the fact that there were no black members of the eight-person jury. During jury selection, Mike Baute went straight at the jury and tried to ask them a series of questions about their sex lives (also via the Post’s Marsh):

His inquires including asking women “If your daughter came home with a black man, would that be OK?” and “Does a fact pattern involving three men having sex with a a woman offend you?”

The intense probing caused members of the jury pool to laugh nervously and shoot shocked stares at each other.

But they were spared having to answer if they ever used hook-up apps like Tinder or Bumble, with the judge scolding Baute: “Counsel, that is inappropriate.”

During their opening arguments, Baute and Mike Monico portrayed Doe as a gold digger who was not drunk when Rose and his friends went over to her apartment. They continued a line of attacks they’d used before the trial began, with Baute comparing the alleged rape to a lottery ticket, and Monico calling the victim’s allegations toward Rose and the other two defendants.“horrible.”