Nifong’s conduct in this case is the most unethical of any district attorney I have ever seen; I cannot recall a case in the last 15-20 years in which this many procedural violations were known at this stage of the process.
The media, of course, were not initially quiet: led by the New York Times, early coverage all but had the players tried and convicted. The case fit into a comfortable narrative for a media elite of out-of-control wealthy white athletes violating a poor African-American woman. As the case has collapsed, most media—with the crucial exception of the Raleigh News & Observer and CBS’s 60 Minutes—abandoned interest in the affair, rather than revisiting their early flawed reporting. The New York Times, meanwhile, published a widely ridiculed August article that read more like a public relations piece for Nifong than a piece of journalism. The article contained four out-and-out errors of fact, all of which tilted the story in favor of the prosecution, and all of which the Times refused to correct…
In the first week of the investigation (March 16-23), Duke administrators actively assisted the state. Without informing President Richard Brodhead, administrators demanded from the captains a candid account of the evening’s events, allegedly citing a non-existent “student-faculty” privilege to encourage the captains to disclose any criminal activity. Multiple sources told me that Coach Mike Pressler, apparently acting on orders from above, instructed the other players not to tell their parents about the police inquiry. Meanwhile, Dean Sue Wasiolek arranged for a local lawyer, Wes Covington, to act as a “facilitator” in arranging for a group meeting with police.
Houston Baker, a professor of English and Afro-American Studies, issued a public letter denouncing the “abhorrent sexual assault, verbal racial violence, and drunken white male privilege loosed amongst us” and demanding the “immediate dismissals” of “the team itself and its players.” Then, on April 6, 88 members of Duke’s arts and sciences faculty signed a public statement saying “thank you” to campus demonstrators who had distributed a “wanted” poster of the lacrosse players and publicly branded the players “rapists.”
Johnson’s book is called Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case. Nifong would appear to be getting his due. What about the others?
http://www.dinocrat....nly-guilty-one/
I have been reading the fascinating new book by KC Johnson and Stuart Taylor on the Duke Lacrosse fiasco entitled, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case.
The opening chapters describe the milieu at Duke, including the hardcore partying that was going on by both the men and women on campus. There is mention that the Duke women were as horny as the guys there with more than one sorority on campus hiring male strippers (page 2) but this was never picked up in the media (of course not, male strippers for women are considered empowerment, while for men they're sexist).
The book lists these false rape statistics including one from Linda Fairstein, former head of the sex-crimes unit of the Manhattan District Attorney's office who wrote, "There are about 4000 reports of rape each year in Manhattan. Of these, about half simply did not happen" (page 374).
http://drhelen.blogs...-injustice.html
Crystal Mangum convicted of second degree murder
Crystal Gail Mangum is an African-American woman who is best known for making false allegations of rape against white lacrosse players in the racially charged Duke lacrosse case.
Duke lacrosse case
After arriving, intoxicated, with a fellow stripper for a strip tease at a house rented by three of the Duke University men's lacrosse team captains, she became involved in an argument with the occupants of the house, and left. After becoming involved in an altercation with her fellow stripper that necessitated police assistance, she made a false allegation of rape. District Attorney Mike Nifong, up for reelection, pursued the case despite questions about the credibility of Mangum, and exculpatory evidence that failed to demonstrate that Mangum had been raped by the Duke lacrosse players. It took nearly a year for the attorney-general's office to dismiss the charges and declare that the players were innocent of the charges laid against them by Nifong.
Mangum was arrested on April 2, 2011, following accusations that she stabbed and seriously injured her boyfriend. She was charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious bodily injury, a class C felony in North Carolina. Her boyfriend later died in the hospital, and Mangum was indicted on a murder charge.
On November 22, 2013, Mangum was found guilty of second-degree murder by a jury of seven men and five women. Judge Paul Ridgeway sentenced her to serve a minimum of 14 years, 2 months and a maximum of 18 years in prison.
http://en.wikipedia....tal_Gail_Mangum