Talk:Daniel Holtzclaw

Criminal Law Major

Doesn't look like Eastern Michigan offers a "Criminal Law" major as the article states he received http://catalog.emich.edu/content.php?catoid=11&navoid=1549 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.38.147.4 (talk) 21:49, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

I believe that I read "Criminology and Criminal Justice Major" somewhere else. 2602:252:D13:6D70:F1F0:636:A8FA:F68A (talk) 09:13, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

This article ([1]) states: "[he] obtain[ed] his criminal justice degree from Eastern Michigan". 2602:252:D13:6D70:CD48:DA6A:4989:2B3D (talk) 02:49, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Reply: This is a minor issue, as all policemen in training receive the minimum number of college credits needed for graduation by the state. (To be resolved separately). Lord Milner (talk) 05:54, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 31 January 2016

This can probably be attributed to ignorance, but it is extremely offensive and hurtful to victims the way the crimes in this article are phrased. To say that the officer first "forced the victim to perform oral sex" and then "raped her" reinforces the false belief that only penetration is rape which is based of an heteronormative socially-constructed belief that only penetrative sex is "Real sex". All of this officer's disgusting offenses either fall under sexual assault where genitals were not involved or "rape" when they were.

72.90.157.168 (talk) 04:59, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Can you propose a specific change which preserves the legal distinction? In Oklahoma (if I understand the sources correctly) rape is legally distinct from "forcible oral sodomy", both of which Holtzclaw was charged with. The legal distinction should not be removed from the article, as different charges are prosecuted differently, and have different sentencing guidelines. The sources used in the article clearly make this distinction. While forcible oral sex is obviously rape in a very real sense, as a legal matter, he was charged with sexual battery, forcible oral sodomy, rape, and other charges which are distinct from each other. Conflating those terms and concepts would make the article less informative. Grayfell (talk) 06:15, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

That person says "heteronormative", they are clearly wanting to bring their own gender politics into a very serious article. 92.13.86.180 (talk) 04:56, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. --allthefoxes ^(Talk) 17:40, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Just so you know, IP editor, wikipedia is not censored. --allthefoxes ^(Talk) 17:40, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Undue weight and fringe viewpoints

I have removed the following sentence from lead section that was added back by Adoring nanny (talk · contribs):

He has found support from conservative columnist Michelle Malkin and from people who have been wrongfully convicted.

Following the guidance at MOS:LEAD, WP:FRINGE and WP:WEIGHT, this sentence gives undue weight to fringe theories that are discussed in the Media coverage section of the page. Tkbrett (✉) 16:50, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

References

I have restored the material per WP:BLPBalance, which is explicit about this:

The idea expressed in meta:Eventualism—that every Wikipedia article is a work in progress, and that it is therefore okay for an article to be temporarily unbalanced because it will eventually be brought into shape—does not apply to biographies. Given their potential impact on biography subjects' lives, biographies must be fair to their subjects at all times.

Note in particular the last three words. Alternatively, feel free to argue here that it is fair to a person convicted of a crime, who has consistently insisted that the conviction is wrongful, and who has received substantial outside support on that insistence, to not even mention that in their biography.Adoring nanny (talk) 20:58, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

This is verging on grandstanding. He was convicted of multiple counts of rape, sexual battery, forcible oral sodomy, and other charges. That's why this article exists. His insistence that he is innocent is not automatically relevant, and this has already been explained in tedious detail. The degree to which outside support for his insistence is "substantial" hasn't been demonstrated by reliable, independent sources. The article mentions Malkin's support, as well as the Townhall blogger, but a local news blurbs are poor for demonstrating due weight for a detail of a conviction which received international coverage. Grayfell (talk) 21:07, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Grandstanding my ass. Let me ask you this. Suppose you were sitting in prison, convicted of crimes you didn't commit, and had regularly insisted as much. Would you agree that it would be fair to you for Wikipedia to fail to mention your insistence, right up there with your conviction?Adoring nanny (talk) 21:14, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Since it's apparently necessary: [2].Adoring nanny (talk) 21:48, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

As has already been explain to you multiple times, Wikipedia isn't the place to right great wrongs. Holtzclaw's behavior in prison could, reasonably, be assumed to be exactly the same whether he was innocent, or whether he was guilty. It doesn't change anything. Asking a manipulative hypothetical question is still has nothing to do with reliable sources. It's not up to the compassion or empathy of individual editors to decide if this is due weight or not, it's up to reliable, independent sources. So far, they do not seem compelling. Grayfell (talk) 21:56, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

You keep citing that essay as if it were Gospel. It's wrong on so many levels -- first of all, it has received coverage in reliable sources, namely Malkin. Secondly, it's not even policy, unlike WP:BLPBALANCE, which is. Thirdly, the question is directly relevant to WP:BLPBALANCE, it's right there in the policy -- "Biographies must be fair to their subjects at all times?" Thirdly, the only hypothetical in my question is "you" versus "Holtzclaw". The wrongful part is not hypo, as I imagine you've figured out by now, or could easily do so by simply following what's been explained to you. So you, apparently with the support of the community, are expressly violating a policy (unless you want to argue that this is fair?), based on an essay which doesn't even apply to our situation, since I didn't make the connections, as the essay said, Malkin did.Adoring nanny (talk) 23:00, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Malkin is not a reliable source, and Malkin is not an independent source for Malkin's opinions. My opinion on this case doesn't matter, and neither does yours. Asking an emotionally loaded, hypothetical question about me and what I would do if I were wrongfully convicted is so far removed from improving this article that it's a waste of time at best. Wikipedia is based on consensus, and your selective interpretation of WP:BLPBALANCE is not supported by consensus. Grayfell (talk) 23:27, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Is it your position that whether or not the conviction is wrongful is not relevant to whether or not the article is fair to Holtzclaw?Adoring nanny (talk) 01:34, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Huh? Can you rephrase that question, please?

Is the current article fair? As far as I can see, yes. He was convicted, and he still maintains his innocence. This is a fair summary of the the important details of "Daniel Holtzclaw" as the subject of a biography, right? Instead of playing rhetorical games about what my "position" is, the article must reflect what reliable sources say. I sincerely do not know if his conviction was wrongful or not. I am not qualified to say this conviction was wrongful, and as far as Wikipedia is concerned, neither is Malkin, and neither are you. The most we can say is that Malkin, a syndicated opinion columnist, has compiled information she believes is evidence that implies he's innocent. Malkin's perspective is mentioned in the article based on primary and routine local sources. Not every perspective belongs at all, and especially not in the lede, so why should this be expanded? Grayfell (talk) 02:03, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

I think truth or wrongfulness is relevant on multiple levels. For example, the article contains numerous declarative statements, in Wikipedia's voice, that Holtzclaw committed this sex crime or that. Among them are declarative statements that he committed crimes of which he was acquitted. I'm not a tort law expert, but at first sight, such statements would appear to be actionable, if left in place with a reasonable belief that they are false, or with willful disregard to whether or not they are false. It is arguable whether or not Holtzclaw is a public figure. He certainly didn't ask to have any of this thrown on him. In the case of a private figure, the burden of proof is lower. My attempts to revert such statements have been reverted (possibly not by you). Furthermore, although Verifiability is a thing, numerous Wikipedia policies also refer to truth. For example, see the phrase "factually inaccurate" in point 2 under WP:ELNO, which, if one accepts that the conviction was wrongful, would appear to rule out a large proportion of the sources in the article as it stands. Similarly, while WP:RS leads with verifiability, a search on the word "false" on that page brings up two hits, both of which strongly imply that spreading such information is undesirable. A search on "inaccurate" brings up a further hit. Again, if one goes to WP:V, a search on the word "false" brings up two hits, both of which strongly suggest that spreading such information is undesirable.Adoring nanny (talk) 17:01, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

If you want to discuss many other problems with the article, you should start a new section, as you have already been reminded of. As for "wrongful", I am responding to your comments which introduced that term as part of your hypothetical question. That said, you're going to need to do a hell of a lot more work on these sources if you want the Wikipedia article to dispute the large number of reliable outlets, and a court of law, based on one columnist.

Again, that's a separate, and much, much more complicated problem than the precise phrase in the lede. Instead of ctrl+f policies and essays, please read them fully if you intend to quote from them to make this case. This problem you are describing is very, very common, and I do not think your interpretation of how truth is determined by sources is going to work here. One problem is that when many reliable sources say something, and a few unreliable ones say something else, we don't split the difference. That's false balance. The arguments made by Malkin are persuasive to you as an editor, but that's not enough. Instead of butting-heads and and conceding the article to whoever is most dedicated (or whoever argues the loudest) we instead need to use reliable sources to summarize this for us. So for these sources I have seen appear very weak. Grayfell (talk) 21:04, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

But reality is not a voting game. If Malkin is using accurate evidence to arrive at a logical conclusion, that's reliable. And yes, I am saying that the other sources that choose not to examine the evidence and arrive at a the only logical conclusion are not reliable, yes absolutely including the court. I refuse to live in some sort of upside-down world where a source is "not reliable" because a lot of people don't like her politics, or because they consider her an "opinion columnist", or for whatever other reason, and another source is "reliable" because of official status or whatever other reason, when it is determinable with near-certainty that the first one is pushing a true thing and the second is not. The soundness of one's conclusions -- the question of whether or not they follow logically from the evidence one is examining -- trump everything. You could, if you chose to, take a look at the evidence, and I believe that, if you simply followed evidence and logic wherever they lead you, you would become just as convinced as I am, there would be no air between us, and no head-butting would be necessary. By continuing to patrol the article while choosing not to do that, you are the one who has lost contact with truth, fidelity to what is real, fairness, and justice. Quite frankly, the reason I appear to you to be loud is that you persist in your choice. And lastly, Wikipedia policy clearly does back me up in my insistence on looking at things this way. That is the heart of WP:CONTEXTMATTERS.Adoring nanny (talk) 22:57, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

I keep pointing to RGW for a reason. If Malkin is using accurate evidence to arrive at logical conclusions... Maybe it's reliable. I don't accept either of those things, so where does that leave us? Your individual trust in her conclusions, as she herself has presented them, is not enough for the article to change. Further, it wouldn't be enough even if I also agreed with you. Maybe she's 100% correct, or maybe she's ignoring contradictory evidence, or she may be arriving at illogical conclusions... Or something else altogether. Since she doesn't have a track-record for accuracy etc. we need reliable sources to evaluate her conclusions. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not an investigative journalism outlet. So yet again, if you have reliable sources for this perspective, let's see them.

It is not just me who considers her an opinion columnist, it's what she does for a living. I cannot pretend to like her politics, but that is very far from the main problem here. I cannot stress that enough. There are many people I disagree with deeply who I'm willing to cite in a Wikipedia article, when I think it's appropriate. This isn't about my personal understanding of these sources, or my opinion on Malkin's conclusions, it's about Wikipedia. If you understand RS, you understand why these things matter, and if you don't, you're going to have a hard time convincing others that this Wikipedia article needs to be rewritten to imply Holtzclaw is innocent.

My point was not to accuse you of being loud, it was to say that being 'loud' isn't relevant to being correct, which I assume we both understand. Grayfell (talk) 23:32, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes, and my point above was not to accuse you of intellectual cowardice. Despite our considerable differences, we do appear to have a certain shared understanding of what this is all about. You don't have to base your choice of whom to believe on your opinion of Malkin, mine, or anyone else's. It all has to do with the considerable verifiable (in the usual sense of the word, not the Wikipedia sense) detail in her articles, starting here, for example. [3] The article is full of direct quotes. Does it make logical sense that Malkin could have invented them? Many are checkable against the trial transcript and hearing testimony; others are checkable against Holtzclaw's interrogation video, which is easy to find via Google, and was linked from this article, though the link has gone dead. In light of all the hate Malkin gets, if she were inventing the quotes, someone would point this out. They haven't, at least not that I've seen. And National Review, whatever one thinks of their politics, would not want to work with someone who fabricates direct quotes. The logical conclusion is that she has made a genuine attempt to get her quotes correct, and likely they all are, though one can't rule out the possibility of an unintentional error somewhere. Now, if one accepts that much, there are further inferences one can draw, but I won't go there for now, because I have a feeling even that amount may already have made you uncomfortable.Adoring nanny (talk) 01:11, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Editorials/opinion columns generally aren't subject to the same degree of fact-checking that regular news articles receive. More importantly: Malkin's views haven't received significant coverage in other mainstream reliable sources, so it's undue to cite her specifically in the lead paragraph. Just about every notorious figure has some defenders. Nblund ^talk 18:58, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

But as I point out above, Malkin's NR columns are not opinion pieces. The fact that other outlets have reprinted some of them as "opinion" doesn't change that. So one should actually examine her sources to see if it demonstrates the point it is making, which it does, and go from there.Adoring nanny (talk) 23:18, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

National Review is an "editorial magazine". Her syndicate, where most outlets get her columns, lists her as an opinion columnist. Nowhere have I seen a compelling argument that her columns are not opinion. Any exceptions would need to be judged on a case-by-case basis, and that would require independent sources. Grayfell (talk) 00:01, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Seconded. Not all opinion columns are labeled "opinion column" by all outlets, and none of this would change the WP:DUE weight problem. Malkin herself acknowledges that she represents a tiny minority viewpoint and virtually no one believes her. We don't need to create a false balance by giving more prominence to the one person who is contrarian enough to disagree with other assessments. Nblund ^talk 19:51, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Jason Flom is an authority on wrongful convictions, neither is the biologist who spoke on his podcast in support of Holtzclaw's innocence. If it were just Malkin, I wouldn't give claims of fringe a second thought, but Flom et al. are no amateurs. Kire1975 (talk) 18:18, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

What the hell does "nominally totaling 18 years mean?"

Spec, the article says "records show that by mid-May 2022 Holtzclaw had served out the first 3 of his 18 sentences, nominally totaling 18 years." He's only going on year 6.

Wasn't he convicted for 263 consecutive years, not concurrent? 2601:C2:1:284F:816F:A269:7B79:9C64 (talk) 01:58, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, from what I can find, this appears to be true. Holtzclaw appealed to get it reduced to concurrent, but as recently as 2019 this appear was denied. Ex-EMU football star loses appeal to reduce 263-year sentence for rapes. Unless someone can find some more recent info, it seems like this section of the article is in error. Zaathras (talk) 02:08, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

If you click on the article's reference number 45[4], it will take you to an inmate search page. If you complete the captcha and search on "Holtzclaw", it will indeed tell you that he has completed three of his sentences, of 5, 5, and 8 years, respectively. But I have no idea if we can use that search or not. It's also not clear to me that "concurrent" was involved. Some US prison systems still have "good time" or similar systems. Adoring nanny (talk) 01:30, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Here is the law: http://www.oklegislature.gov/osstatuestitle.html

Lookup Title 21-13.1(15) Sodomy and Title 21-61.1 Concurrent Sentences

To find Consecutive Sentences, you must search the nearby pages close to the crime.

I've gone ahead and removed the portions that were sourced to an inmate database search. This feels WP:UNDUE. Adoring nanny (talk) 22:31, 15 April 2023 (UTC)