Rant - Duke Rape Case

[Kiwon]

This stripper had the DNA of five different men in or on her from that night, none of which belong to the accused players, but the players COULD be guilty of rape?

Kiwon, take a moment to catch your breath.

I think what 007 was saying is there still could have been a rape, even if the charged individuals weren't the perpetrators.

Breath caught.

I am a fan of all things 007 ("Bond, James Bond") and she can speak for herself but I took it from the context of the discussion that she was referring to the charges against the Duke players.

Really, I'm not going to dwell on this but the whole thing offends me. Good people want to have and promote racial harmony and low-life's like Crystal Mangum do so much to destroy people's good will.

This is a case where want you see is what you get. She's a shady character who was looking to shake down some rich kids and Mike Nifong is a unscrupulous public official. One lie led to another and then to another until finally the house of cards they both helped to construct came falling down.

Pinocchio is laughing at them now.

[GrnBay007]

Ah 007 you are as sweet as they come!

Got that right Baby! :P

Nifong was up for re-election running against black opposition. The case was upper class white boys vs. a black stripper in an area with a large black population. Do the math and you will see why it went as far as it did with virtually no evidence, including the girl who made the claim as her version of the story changed every time she told it.

Nifong will probably lose his license to practice law as the state attorney general looks into his misconduct.

Like I said, I didn't follow the case and didn't know anything about some re-election. My comments were directed toward them making the statement they were not proceeding due to her mental health problems.

I've seen so many plea bargains and charges dropped due to inappropriate witnesses and the reality of it is it's not that a crime didn't take place....just wasn't in the Prosecutors best interest to proceed. Ever see that movie from the 80's with Jodi Foster called Accused?

[GrnBay007]

Breath caught.

I am a fan of all things 007 ("Bond, James Bond") and she can speak for herself but I took it from the context of the discussion that she was referring to the charges against the Duke players.

Really, I'm not going to dwell on this but the whole thing offends me. Good people want to have and promote racial harmony and low-life's like Crystal Mangum do so much to destroy people's good will.

Kiwon, see my above post.

But I do have one question about your above comment....Good people want to have and promote racial harmony and low-life's like Crystal Mangum do so much to destroy people's good will.

Do you mean the nice Duke boys were trying to promote racial harmony by hiring a black stripper for their party? I think from now on they should just visit a public strip bar....for their own safety.

Also, I don't think this incident will damage those nice Duke boys for life. I bet they will grow up to make their parents very proud.

And yes, false accusations are wrong and should not be tolerated...I agree completely.....as long as that can be proved without a doubt.

[Kiwon]

My last word...

In 1955 a fourteen-year old black youth, Emmett Till, supposedly whistled at a white woman in Mississippi. He was murdered 3 days later in an incident that set in motion the modern day Civil Rights Movement.

America's South has an especially complicated history of racial injustice. Native Southerners can't escape the tragedies of the past but many are trying to make the present and future better and brighter.

Durham, N.C. has a population roughly 45% White, 44% Black. Allegations of rape can tear open social wounds that are very slow to heal. It can very quickly become 1955 again leaving whole communities divided along racial lines and passions enflamed.

It's easy to start a wildfire, but it's extraordinarily difficult to put it out.

Good people, black and white, work hard to build trust between their communities and that's why it's so painful and discouraging to have progress set back through a circumstance like this one.

Many people have been hurt through the lies and deception of this woman and the D.A.

Three innocent men had their faces and names splashed around the world, were identified as accused rapists and called "hooligans" while the identity and background of the accuser was protected. The D.A. manipulated the system and then continued with his charade leaving three families and a whole community in turmoil all the while he knew the accused men were innocent.

People grip about $3.00 a gallon gas. Well, each of these families is out probably over $1,000,000 in legal fees defending their innocent children. It is plain callus to minimize the hell that they unjustly went through for a year.

I have no sympathy for Crystal Mangum or Mike Nifong. They started a fire that turned into a wildfire and did enormous damage. Maybe, now, that the truth has come out will justice finally be done.

[Harlan Huckleby]

Good people want to have and promote racial harmony and low-life's like Crystal Mangum do so much to destroy people's good will.

I wouldn't blame Crystal Magnum, and certainly not call her a low life. She's probably sincerely believes each and every one of the 16 different versions of stories that she told. It seems that she was messed-up on drugs the night of the incident.

I was listening to a reporter on Charlie Rose show last night who has covered this case the past year. She has read all of Crystal Magnum's statements. She said they were so bizarre and inconsistent, she thought they might be an attempt by Magnum to get the prosecutor to drop the case. Her other theory was that Magnum was crazy.

The culprit in this whole affair is political correctness. The prosecutor was re-elected last fall because of his "righteous stand." A history of racial injustice should NEVER have been the issue, just like with the OJ case. The facts of the case are all that should be considered, out of fairness to the accused.

Immediately after the allegations were made, Jesse Jackson flew to the scene, gave speeches about racism, and said he would pay all remaining college tuition for the "victim." (I would like some reporter to do a follow up story on the Magnum/Jackson partnership, is he still supporting her? )

I like Jessie Jackson, personally. But this incident shows a terrible side of his schtick: too quick to judgment, too righteous. Jackson needs to apologize to those men who he defamed, and for his role in intensfying this injustice. I would be very pleased to see this, not sure he has it in him. Jackson often talks about forgiveness, and I think people would forgive him for this mistake.

[GrnBay007]

Hey HH, good to see you! Umm....the above that you have quoted was not something I wrote. You are slippin baby!!

[Jimx29]

I must of missed it....when was it that Jackson is gonna apologize for the "All the Hymies in Hymietown" quote? Or how about how he was supporting this hooker and was gonna pay her collage tuition? Or what about Sharpton for Tuwana Brawley, the Crown Heights Riots, and the Freddie's Fashion Mart murders- all things Sharpton played a big hand in, and he was basically an accessory to the murder of a few people in those last 2 cases (one a Jew and several Hispanics killed by black mobs that Sharpton incited)??

Friggin hypocrites anyway....

[pacfan]

I must of missed it....when was it that Jackson is gonna apologize for the "All the Hymies in Hymietown" quote? Or how about how he was supporting this hooker and was gonna pay her collage tuition? Or what about Sharpton for Tuwana Brawley, the Crown Heights Riots, and the Freddie's Fashion Mart murders- all things Sharpton played a big hand in, and he was basically an accessory to the murder of a few people in those last 2 cases (one a Jew and several Hispanics killed by black mobs that Sharpton incited)??

Friggin hypocrites anyway....

yep, the hypocrisy....

[mraynrand]

How about the arbiters of impartiality? The Tolerant Liberal educators who teach guilty until proven innocent. The feeling caring crowd that teaches the young people all the important life lessons in the Humanities, Women studies, and English Lit classes (I almost said Western Civilization class, but that probably doesn't exist at Duke - to quote Jesse Jackson "Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Civilization's go to go!"). These liberal paragons of virtue are exaulted enough to pass judgment before the legal system. 80 professors at Duke should be handed pick slips. But guess what - it will never happen.

Hey, whose coaching the Duke Mens Lacrosse team these days?

[Kiwon]

80 professors at Duke should be handed pick slips. But guess what - it will never happen.

I think it was 88 enlightened buddhas that immediately threw these guys overboard with a front page ad in the campus newspaper. Their moral compasses broke a long time again and they are never ever wrong. Ain't tenure great?

One in five American adults are functionally illiterate. Ah, who cares!

[Kiwon]

Duke D.A. says he will resign

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A tearful Mike Nifong said Friday he will resign as district attorney after admitting that he made improper statements about three Duke University lacrosse players who were once charged with raping a stripper.

"My community has suffered enough," Nifong said from the witness stand at his ethics trial on allegations that he violated rules of professional conduct in his handling of the case.

The players were later declared innocent by state prosecutors.

The North Carolina State Bar said Nifong withheld DNA test results from the players' defense attorneys, lied to the court and bar investigators, and made misleading and inflammatory comments about the three athletes, who were cleared of charges they raped a stripper at a team party in March 2006.

Nifong said he did not make all the mistakes alleged by the bar, "but they are my mistakes."

"It has become increasingly apparent, during the course of this week, in some ways that it might not have been before, that my presence as the district attorney in Durham is not furthering the cause of justice," Nifong said.

Nifong's soft-spoken statements were barely audible in the courtroom, where observers leaned forward in their chairs as they struggled to hear Nifong through his tears. But the families of since-cleared players Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and Dave Evans watched with little emotion, and Evans' attorney rejected Nifong's attempt to take responsibility.

"It was an obvious cynical ploy to save his law license, and his apology to these people is far too little and comes far too late," defense lawyer Joseph Cheshire said.

Nifong started in the Durham County prosecutor's office nearly three decades ago as a volunteer attorney fresh out of law school. If convicted by the disciplinary committee, he could lose his license to practice law in the state.

The inflammatory statements the bar cited included Nifong calling the players a "bunch of hooligans" and confidently proclaiming he wouldn't allow Durham to become known for "a bunch of lacrosse players from Duke raping a black girl."

On the stand Friday, Nifong said: "The comment about race was not a comment that should have been made."

He also testified about the DNA tests, saying that when he turned over the report to the defense, he "believed at the time that I had given them everything." He said he didn't realize until months later that additional DNA information was missing.

"My first reaction was a variation of 'oh crap,"' Nifong said. "'I didn't give them this?"'

One of the accused players testified earlier Friday that he and his teammates had been confident that the DNA testing would quickly clear them.

The results failed to show any physical contact between the accuser and the members of the lacrosse team, but Nifong still pressed ahead with the case and obtained indictments against Reade Seligmann, Dave Evans and Collin Finnerty.

"We went from being viewed as athletes to being viewed as rapists," Seligmann testified Friday.

Seligmann broke into tears as he described how his attorney got a call from Nifong notifying him of the indictment last year. He said the attorney glanced his way and said, "She picked you."

"My dad just fell to the floor, and I just sat on the ground," Seligmann said. "And I said, 'My life is over.' ... The first thing I thought about was, 'How am I going to tell my mom."'

His attorneys pulled together ATM receipts, cell phone records, time-stamped photos and the testimony of the cab driver who took Seligmann home the night of the off-campus party where the woman, hired to perform as a stripper, said she had been attacked.

"I don't know much about the law," Seligmann said, "but you hear the word alibi, and you think that's one of the first things a prosecutor would want to have. You don't charge an innocent person. I could never understand it."

Nifong's attorneys hoped to finish presenting their defense by Friday evening. The three-member panel hearing the case is expected to deliver a verdict not long after the trial concludes, perhaps as early as Saturday.

Nifong has declined several requests for interviews in recent months. His last public comment on the case before the ethics trial was a one-page statement released the day the case collapsed. In it, he apologized, but only "to the extent that I made judgments that ultimately proved to be incorrect."

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, who in April said the three athletes were "innocent" victims of a rogue prosecutor's "tragic rush to accuse," declined to comment. Gov. Mike Easley, who appointed Nifong to the job and will be called on to pick his replacement, also had no comment, a spokeswoman said.
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The North Carolina State Bar is doing a fantastic job in restoring the public's trust in the system by conducting this ethics trial and exposing and eventually stripping the law license away from one of their own.

Mike Nifong got himself into this mess and must pay the price. Lady Justice is blindfolded for a reason - she is supposed to treat everyone fairly no matter his or her race or economic background. However, Mike Nifong tried to manipulate the system for his own purposes and it blew up in his face.

He's in the same vein as the old Southern politicians/officals that perverted justice by manipulating racial tensions through Jim Crow laws. Only, in this case, he pandered to the black community in order to get re-elected one last time before retiring. He knowingly indicted innocent people and then abused the power of his office to keep the charade going for over a year.

He is learning that 29 years in the same D.A.'s office doesn't place him above the same laws he was sworn to uphold. He failed in his duties to the people of North Carolina and no one was served justice because his moral compass got supplanted by his ambition.

Well, Mike Nifong is famous now. This case will be in every legal ethics textbook for decades to come. The term "prosecutorial misconduct" and his name will be linked together for a long time. It's not the way he intended the story to end.

[Kiwon]

Smile............... Do you realize this guy was intentionally trying to put innocent individuals in prison for rape for the sake of his political gain? Just staggering.

Thank goodness he was stopped. Hopefully, a $30 million lawsuit against Durham will help other cities to better police their own officials. ----link

[Kiwon]

The first book about the case was published this week ----link