BUT, MARV WILL BE IN TEMPLE

Dartboard is saddened by the fate of broadcasting great Marv Albert. Two weeks ago Marv plead guilty to misdemeanor charges of assault and battery, putting an end to the trial which held him accused of biting and sexually assaulting 42-year-old Vanessa Perhach. Marv was promptly fired by NBC. Dartboard believes that the trial was a sham and that the network's action was an injustice.

Marv's plea was less an admission of wrong-doing than the last resort of a man who had been subjected to an unnecessary parade of humiliations. His accuser, a woman who previously had been convicted of harassing and threatening to kill an ex-boyfriend, was permitted to remain shielded in anonymity while the intimate details of Marv's personal life were plastered across the headlines. It is certainly a noble goal to protect the victims of sexual assault from mistreatment in the courtroom, but why should Marv's past conduct have been subject to the closest scrutiny, while Perhach's character history have remained off-limits? Perhach is not a minor, and she admits that the alleged assault occurred in the context of a consentual encounter. Neither of these facts excuses an assault if one occurred, but both parties deserve a mature examination.

Marv copped his plea bargain at a point in the trial when many legal experts felt he was on his way to acquittal. The defense had just presented evidence that Perhach had attempted to bribe a cab driver to get him to make damaging claims about Marv. The credibility of Marv's accuser was thus finally cast into appropriate doubt. When Marv finally did decide to throw in the towel, it came after a witness testified about a past sexual-encounter, during which she claimed he wore women's lingerie and a garter belt. Therefore, Marv's plea can accurately be viewed as driven by fatigue and the understandable desire to escape further embarrassment.

Considering the obvious uncertainty of Marv's actual criminal guilt, Dartboard considers NBC's action to be highly inappropriate. All that we know for sure is that Marv liked his sex a little kinky. Many people on this campus would probably be a lot happier if they followed Marv's example. We say to NBC, re-hire Marv. Only then will Lady Justice cry, "Yesss!"