The basic tale of Mike Nifong -- the disbarred, disgraced, jailed-for-a-day former Durham DA who may yet face a felony prosecution -- is widely known. But news reports have barely begun to plumb the depths of what may be the worst prosecutorial misconduct ever exposed while it was happening.
Desperate to win an election against a strong white candidate in a county about evenly divided between whites and blacks, Nifong (also white) seized on a patently incredible, constantly changing rape allegation against Duke lacrosse players. It was made in March 2006 by a deeply disturbed African-American stripper named Crystal Mangum. Using the case to inflame racial discord, the DA rode the black vote to victory.
The problem was that that the rape claim was a transparent fraud. And in hindsight, Nifong’s conduct seems bizarrely self-destructive. What kind of man would try to send three innocent young men to prison for 30 years to win an election? How could a career prosecutor not previously known as a nut or a rogue go so bad, so fast? How could he have thought he would get away with it?
Stuart Taylor and I (who jointly wrote this post, and one later today) have found widespread curiosity about these questions, especially among lawyers, while working on our new book, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case. So this first post in a week of guest-blogging focuses on Nifong’s background, character, and the months of escalating misconduct that have brought him down. Subsequent posts will examine the misconduct (as we see it) of dozens of Duke professors, many journalists, the Duke administration, and the Durham law enforcement establishment.
A North Carolina native, Nifong was an undistinguished student at the state university in Chapel Hill, where he acquired an intense dislike both for Duke students and for lacrosse players, and its law school, from which he graduated in 1978. His first and only job as a lawyer was as an assistant DA in Durham. The competent, if undistinguished, prosecutor tried around 300 felony cases and rose in seniority amid high turnover.
Nifong had a reputation as a tough, sometimes bullying prosecutor. He was known for throwing screaming, obscenity-laden fits at people he thought he could push around. But he was not known as a zealot or as unethical. After a medical leave in the late 1990s, Nifong moved to a sleepy job in traffic court.
Then Governor Mike Easley named Nifong interim DA in April 2005, after elevating his elected predecessor, Jim Hardin, to the bench. Easley later said that Nifong had pledged not to seek election in 2006 for a full four-year term. If so, Nifong violated the pledge. He declared his candidacy a few months later, apparently because his pension was at stake.
His pension? Yes: In his first day as DA, Nifong had fired a longtime rival, Freda Black. She quickly made clear her intent to run in 2006. Well-known from her work in a high-profile murder trial, Black soon became the front-runner. Nifong knew that Black would fire him, as he had fired her, the first chance she got. His concern, he told his initial campaign manager, Jackie Brown, was not that he cared about being DA; he needed another three years in the Durham DA’s office for his pension to fully vest. Nifong proved an inept candidate. By mid-March, 2006, he was way behind Black and out of money. Even after lending his campaign $30,000 of his own modest savings, he still seemed doomed to defeat.
Enter Crystal Mangum and her fantastic claim of being brutally gang-raped, beaten, kicked, and strangled by three white, out-of-state, supposedly rich Duke lacrosse players. For Nifong, this was a lifeline. And he would define his career by his subsequent actions.
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Of course that would be a vast improvement over the situation fifty years ago in Durham, where a black man simply looking at a white woman the wrong way was a potential death sentence.
Your suggestion that Nifong ran defensively in 2006 echoes how a fraternity brother of mine found himself in politics. In his case, the DA was retiring and the friend, an attorney in the DA's office, knew he would be fired if another attorney there won, so he ran against his enemy in the DA's office, won, but was spared firing his opponent because the opponent resigned first.
So, I must ask those of you who have worked in this environment, why is it so vicious? In the private sector, I wouldn't have fired most of the attorneys I have worked with if I got promoted, and most of them wouldn't (IMHO) have fired me if they had gotten promoted.
From what I know of the case (at least heard) is that these kids where not rich. I believe two of the families were upper middle class, but the other family would be considered middle to lower middle class. Is that information correct? I just would like to know.
There's another Duke rape case. The accused rapist was Michael Jermaine Burch, and black. The accuser was white. That should be enough for you to Google it. There hasn't been much nationwide press attention, but then, he hasn't had dozens of professors take out an ad telling him to turn himself in, Nifong isn't using him as a political football, and in general the fact that the guy is black and his accuser is white means that the forces of political correctness that went after accused white rapists left this guy alone.
In law school, Nifong wasn't on law review and did not get the Order of the Coif, UNC's top law student honor. Upon graduation, he applied for jobs in the DA's offices in several cities and was turned down.
Our comments about his academic performance were also based on on and off the record discussions with several of Nifong's law school classmates. (Nifong, obviously, did not release his records to us.)
To the 9.54:
"Do you really think that if Crystal were white and the alleged rapists were a bunch of poor black guys from the slums of Durham that they would not be doing serious time right now?"
I doubt very much they would "be doing serious time right now." Nifong would have had no political rationale to have taken such a case, nor would the Durham police have had any particular rationale to have kept such a case alive without any evidence. The book discusses five recent cases in which white women--with, except for one case, scant or no evidence--had made rape charges against black or Hispanic college athletes. None of these cases became media firestorms; and in all but one (a Richmond case where the complainant was at least credible) no charges were pursued.
Well I'd argue that the difference is that a large part of the media and academia helped enable the hoax and made it a national story, and we were able to see the hoax from the beginning. Most victims of prosecutorial misconduct aren't "lucky" enough to have their prosecutor so emboldened as to commit repeated violations publicly for us all to see.
" Do you really think that if Crystal were white and the alleged rapists were a bunch of poor black guys from the slums of Durham that they would not be doing serious time right now and that the case would have never received any press attention at all, except for local press attention decrying the black thugs who raped the poor white girl who was trying to work her way through college. "
Do you think if that were the case that the prosecutor would state publicly that he didn't want "Durham to be known as a city where black thugs rape poor, white college girls"? Even you're not politically blinded to believe that.
The fact is these guys didn't get off, and Nifong likewise isn't being punished, because they are rich and white. The fact is they were prosecuted EXACTLY BECAUSE they were rich and white, and the prosecution was allowed to go on for over a year EXACTLY BECAUSE they were rich and white as the narrative of rich, white defendants over a poor, black girl was just too good of a story for hypocritical "liberals."
And months later people like J.F. Thomas are willfully blind to this, who needs facts when the facts are counter to your own politics? BTW, do people even realize that since the lacrosse rape hoax there's been another alleged rape at Duke where the races are reversed? Notice the different treatment by the media and the Duke faculty?
I took anon678's objection to be that Nifong's bio suggests that, having graduated Phi Beta Kappa, he cannot accurately be called an "undistinguished" student in undergrad, not in law school. That seems a fair point.
If you don't think that the criminal justice system in this country is still biased against poor, minority defendants and there aren't reams of data to support that contention, then there is nothing I can do or any statistics I can point to that will convince you otherwise.
That this case is so unusual in its facts and circumstances and that it got so much media attention actually supports, rather than undermines my point. Upper middle class white kids (calling them rich was probably stretching it) just aren't being railroaded by overzealous prosecutors all over the country. When it does happen, the Sean Hannitys, Rush Limbaughs, and K.C. Johnsons of the world jump all over it like it proof of a justice system and PC gone amuck. If they really are concerned about miscarriages of justice, then they should pick any city they want in the south and check out the case files of the public defenders office, I'm sure they will find dozens, if not hundreds of cases, where people were convicted on evidence much flimsier than Nifong had.
Great work on DiW. I may have English issues, but I find the pronoun reference in the bold section to be ambiguous. Is the Law school referenced with enmity UNC or Duke. The world wonders :)
Just speculating, but after his past conduct has been gone over with a magnifying glass, the key word may turn out to be, "not previously known".
So in other words, when presented with instances, facts and evidence (particulary that completely refute the initial post) Thomas just ignores it and sticks to the party line.
"That this case is so unusual in its facts and circumstances and that it got so much media attention actually supports, rather than undermines my point."
No it doesn't, the media attention was initially OVERWHELMING NEGATIVE towards the defendants. How many times does Newsweek, the NYT and other media outlets overtly villainize black defendants when there is so much evidence to the contrary? Certainly not in Georgia where Jimmy Carter and the NYT have bent over backwards defending a young black man.
I think you missed the entire point of his post. JF was not commenting that this wasn't unfair. Simply that many, many more unfair things happy on a daily basis that manage not to arouse the wrath of the populace. It would seem that individuals such as yourself can imagine the horror (the horror!) of some run amok prosecutor forcing you to mortgage your house.
But you overlook the daily injustice that is our criminal justice system. Whether it be 'walking while black' (pretext searches for drugs) or the unfortunate crime of 'being black' (being a black visitor to a southern town when a white woman gets killed, where the only evidence is an eyewitness who identifies the assailant as a white men, until an 8 hour ride with the police followed by a standup- as opposed to a lineup*)...
well, that couldn't happen to you, right? Nifong is an aberration, so we can pillory him and get back to business as usual.
If this is "the worst prosecutorial misconduct ever exposed while it was happening" it is because we aren't looking very hard. Or, because we don't want to look. Prosecutorial misconduct? I am shocked there is prosecutorial misconduct in our system!
*Final result: 1st degree murder by jury.
10-2 vote for the DP.
I take no pleasure at prosecutorial misconduct or pursuing cases for political purposes. In no way do I defend Nifong's actions.
What does disgust me is the raving right wing media taking this case as an indictment of the justice system, the media, as somehow biased against poor little spoiled white kids. The criminal justice system in this country is seriously deficient. But the vast majority of innocent people who suffer because of its deficiencies are not privileged middle and upper class white kids.
"Duke" isn't a noun in the sentence, so "its" can only refer to UNC-Chapel Hill. The world can stop wondering now.
(Nifong is a UNC/UNC, not UNC/Duke alum, isn't he, if that matters here?)
Did you read the NYT's coverage on the case. Selena Roberts' columns. Duff Wilson's articles? The raving right wing media more or less sat this case out. The raving mainstream media practically crucified these guys BECAUSE they were rich and white.
Do you just ignore facts and reality when its counter to your political beliefs? Stop digging your hole.
Welcome to the VC. You did all of us who are interested in American universities and American justice a great service by taking on this case. Your blogging on the Duke rape hoax is one of the most impressive bodies of sustained journalism I've ever seen and represents one of the great successes of the blogosphere so far.
If you needed any justification for your blogging efforts and for co-writing your book, JF Thomas in his comment above unwittingly gave it to you. Many people who think they know something about the case, especially academics, still cling tenaciously to a version of the race/gender/class meta-narrative, even after the basis for it has been exploded. If the racial and class aspects of the Duke hoax had been reversed, it is extraordinarily unlikely that any charges would have been brought, as you (and several VC commenters) have made clear. Nonetheless, if in another case prosecutors were to try to frame another group of young men for a serious crime that didn't happen (an injustice that does rarely occur), it is true that the defendants with better lawyers would be more likely to be acquitted.
Jim Lindgren
Because we are a highly mobile society, one in which few people stay with one employer throughout their entire working lives, I do think pension benefits should vest quickly and they should always be portable. Nifong may serve as an illustrative, though quirky or singular, example of why they should vest quickly and be portable.
Usually, in politically responsive environments, political appointees will get rid of people they feel to be barriers to their potential to be politically responsive to the people whom appointed them. It is my understanding that in the private sector the issue of responsiveness is not viewed with the same importance.
"A mind is a terrible thing to waste.:
What JFT says about less privileged members of our society not infrequently getting screwed unfairly when prosecuted for crimes is undoubtedly true; what others are saying about the Nifong outrage in the instant case of the Duke lacrosse players is clearly true too. And both the Left and the Right do jump on those cases which best support their respective viewpoints. This Duke lacrosse case, though, incriminates (convicts?) some who are not the usual suspects in criminal cases, that is the Leftist academic claque who jumped on this with both feet, showing little or no concern for the facts of the matter.
(Speaking of the academics involved, Duke's prez Brodhead deserves special commendation as a spineless enabler of that Leftist claque. He proved himself before the Duke lacrosse came along.)
If you really know the lawyer well, ask if they ever used the once-a-year oportunity to donate to Nifongs favorite charity, youth baseball, for a case settlement...
The guy has been rotten for years.
Given my sense that his specialty was petty venality, I don't think he anticipated that the case would go so far. I think that he though he would send it to the Grnad Jury before the primary, and fail to get an indictment after the primary. The Grand Jury was unusually attentive and delivered, IIRC, the indictment a week earlier than expected. Clearly over his head, he ran with it and kept digging himself a deeper hole. The adulation he received from the academics may have encourged him to keep going.
The lacrosse team were actually better Duke citizens than most. When the Athletic Department asked for some support for Duke's hapless football team, exactly one group agreed to show up en masse for every game - the LAX team.
The assumption that Duke and Carolina are only rivals in Basketball is incorrect. Although both programs have been on hard times recently, either can ill up a stadium for their annual football game. Recently it might be the only game with many more than the LAX team in attendance. The football series history includes years when one team was nationally prominent, and the other stank up the place. When the final game of the season arrived, the down-and-out team pulled itself together to knock the other out of a bowl. THis has happened both ways. That sort of dynamic only happens in serious rivalries. In all sports, these two love to beat each other. What makes Basketball special, is that they are likely to be two top-10 teams meeting three times a year...
The other thing to keep in mind is that to a very great extent, the type of mind and personality that will get you on law review or the Order of the Coif is not the type of mind and personality that will make you a top notch litigator, esp. for normal criminal trials. Now, when you get into very complex cases, appellate work, etc., being at the top of your class can be advantageous. It really comes down to what is more important in a case, handling the complexity of a case and understanding complex legal issues, or being good with judges, juries, and evidence and being able to think well on their feet. The former is likely to do better in the six month anti-trust or patent infringement case, but the later is likely to do better in a DAs office.
Note, I am not defending Nifong here, but rather the 90% of any law school's graduates who aren't considered distinguished by the august posters here.
In what years did either NC or Duke have "nationally prominent" football teams? (For basketball the question would have to be turned around, "In what years did either NC or Duke not have 'nationally prominent' basketball teams?"
Any reason for Nifong to have a special hard on for Duke lacrosse? And does anyone think that a sports rivalry would be much a motivation for a prosecutor to pursue a bogus rape prosecution, risking his career to do so? (Yes, I understand that Nifong didn't anticipate what this would bring him in the end. I am just questioning the significance of a I-hate-Duke sentiment, even if present.)
(BTW, why couldn't all the children of Lake Woebegone be "above average"? The average could be for all children in America and it is possible that the children of LW could all outperform that national average, couldn't they?)
(And how about that old wisdom about the A, B, C, and D students in law school, with the C students later making the most money working for those D students, while the A and B ones go on to be law school professors, judges, etc.)
In most states, a governmental employee vests in the Public Employee Retirement System (usually referred to as PERS) after a five-year period--and the pension is fully transferable as long as the employee works for a state, county, or local governmental entitity within that state.
If a person serves less than five years, the pension does not vest but the employee gets any PERS contributions he made which can be rolled into an IRA.
Since Nifong worked in the DA office from 1979 upward, then it is fairly clear that he has 27 years in the North Carolina PERS.
However, two common components in PERS programs may have prompted Nifong to run for election:
1) Most PERS are defined benefit programs--and the salary is based on the average of the last 3 years. The standard calculation is a loadstar percentage (typically 2.5% or so) multiplied by number of years of service multiplied by the average of the best 3 years salary. Thus a higher paycheck as District Attorney might have been a motivator when he was considering pension options.
2) Many PERS programs have a cap. That is, if a person has 30 years of service the average salary might increase but the retiree won't get a higher percentage of their annual pay in retirement.
The PERS programs that have a cap typically also have a tradeoff--that a person can retire at any if they have 30 years of service.
What this means is that had Nifong served his full term, he could have retired just after his 60th birthday.
On the other hand, if he only had 27 years of service, he might have had to wait until he was older (62 or 65) before collecting his pension.
I know this Post was long, but I hope my explanation helps you understand state retirement systems.
And it isn't really a question of discrimination against the poor, but rather, against the 90% of us who aren't rich. The guy who is probably the top criminal defense atty. in my area taught my criminal law class, and even back then, he was requiring a $100k retainer up front to defend a 1st degree murder case. I am sure that it has probably doubled by now. He cautioned us that the biggest problem with criminal defense work was getting paid. The type of criminal defense that can overcome the average prosecution isn't cheap, even for much of the middle class. Remember, prosecutors have most of the advantages on their side, ranging from the stacking of charges through free investigators.
I really don't know the answer, except maybe cutting back on the War on Drugs in order to reduce the volume pressure on DAs and court systems.
But the place where I differ from J.F. is that I don't believe that this is racial in most jurisdictions, or not directly racial, but rather socio-economic. It just happens that there is a link between race and socio-economic status in our society.
I don't find these questions quite as puzzling as the authors seem to, nor do I think the issues are unique to the Duke case, or even exceptionally rare. I doubt "political correctness" had much to do with Nifong's actions. He was motivated by politics, not race or ideology.
Prosecutors' incentive is to prosecute. They don't get re-elected by dropping cases, and too many are unable to admit that they were wrong regardless of the evidence that comes up later. Look at the resistance to admitting DNA evidence, and even the insistence, by some prosecutors, on the guilt of defendants exonerated by DNA.
This is not universal, of course, but I think it is a mistake to regard Nifong as a rarity.
I certainly didn't drool over this case. I barely followed it. Some of the traditionally liberal MSM shows (e.g., the much maligned 60 minutes) were among the first to present the students' stories in a truly "fair and balanced" way. Nancy Grace, hardly a soft on crime liberal and a former prosecutor herself, was probably the most vocal in her condemnation of the lacrosse players from the beginning. I still don't think she has apologized for her despicable statements about the case.
One of the most prominent people who kept this issue
You can't ignore violations of due process against one part of the population because they are better able to defend themselves. The violations will not stop. I've never seen a prosecutor who would refuse to hear evidence from a PD that a client was not present at the crime and they have documentation. These defendants were targets because of their race and class. They had the ability to resist this but at a great and unecessary cost. You can't excuse this becasue you don't like the defendants .
K.C. didn't write he wasn't good. He wrote he was "competent, if undistinguished."
<i>"I barely followed it."
Apparently.
I never did excuse any such thing. Frankly, I have no personal opinion of the defendants.
I've never seen a prosecutor who would refuse to hear evidence from a PD that a client was not present at the crime and they have documentation.
Do you work in an urban setting?
These defendants were targets because of their race and class.
This statement is probably true. But my point is that defendants are targeted because of their race and class every day in this country. The MSM barely bats an eye and rightwing legal experts certainly don't complain much.
Look at the Gina, Louisiana, case. Those six young men were certainly targeted because of their race, yet the same people who have raised such a fuss about Nifong have had almost nothing to say about the prosecutor in that case, or even supported him. I will grant you that some of the same black leaders who unfairly criticized the Duke defendants have indeed rushed to the defense of the Gina defendants who were charged with attempted murder for an incident that was nothing more than a schoolyard brawl.
In your post, you stated that “ Nifong was an undistinguished student at the state university in Chapel Hill, . . . .”
In the comments, anon678 took issue with your claim, giving a link to Nifong’s bio, which indicated that Nifong graduated Phi Betta Kappa from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with an A.B. degree in Political Science. Moreover, he was a recipient of the Herbert W. Jackson scholarship. This is decisive evidence that your claim about Nifong’s undergraduate record being indistinguished is false.
You then responded to anon678 by stating that
“In law school, Nifong wasn't on law review and did not get the Order of the Coif, UNC's top law student honor. Upon graduation, he applied for jobs in the DA's offices in several cities and was turned down.
Our comments about his academic performance were also based on on and off the record discussions with several of Nifong's law school classmates. (Nifong, obviously, did not release his records to us.)”
Professor Johnson, the part of your post that anon678 was refuting was your claim that Nifong was an “undistinguished student at the state university in Chapel Hill, . . . .”
Your response that Nifong was undistinguished in law school, even if it were true, is not relevant to whether or not he was an undistinguished student in undergrad.
Anon678 decisively proved that your claim about Nifong’s undergraduate record being undistinguished was completely false. For you to not acknowledge your error and instead try to shift the topic to his law school record indicates that you underestimate the intelligence of the readers of this blog.
Moreover, since you have gotten such an easily verifiable fact completely wrong and refuse to retract it when corrected, it leads me to wonder what other factual errors your book contains.
I’m no defender of Nifong: his conduct in the Duke case warrants prison, in my opinion.
However, that doesn’t give license to anyone, let alone a historian, to maintain such an obvious falsehood about him.
By contrast, the Duke faculty were completely silent in defense of the players, until much, much later. Even the law school faculty at Duke (with the exception of Prof. Coleman) did not utter a peep in defense of the players despite the obviously unconstitutional procedures to which they were subjected.
Thus, K.C. Johnson is not just another critic of the prosecution of the players: he stood by his view when it was risky to do so. And although K.C. is not an attorney, I think he does have something to teach attorneys.
This scholarship shows that he was an excellent high school student, it says nothing about his studies in college.
The Phi Beta Kappa item is more persuasive, though.
1) Nifong went to UNC Law School; sorry for the (understandable) confusion. It was poor wording on our part. During the campaign, he claimed to have turned down a scholarship to attend Duke, but there was never any independent verification of this assertion.
2) The pension issue. The NC public employees' pension system vests after 30 years; Nifong had 27 at the time of his bid for DA. After 30 years, employees can retire and get their full pension at age 55. Otherwise, they have to wait to age 62.
3.) Nifong as prosecutor. This, too, was a clarity issue: the point here is that Nifong was such a mediocre law student that, upon graduation from a first-rate law school, he couldn't get a paying job as an ADA anyplace he applied in North Carolina.
His overall record as a prosecutor was competent. He was assigned to around 300 felony cases, though how much this resulted from seniority or how much resulted from talent isn't clear. (Different defense attorneys to whom I spoke gave different answers.) Here's a review of Nifong's career from the Raleigh paper.
4) Corroboration questions. The book has more than 1000 sourcenotes, available here.
How do you acquire a dislike for lacrosse players?
(I understand that lacrosse is growing in popularity, but I never understood there to be a jock mentality among lacrosse players like there is in the football team or hockey or rugby, nor the testosterone issues of wrestlers, power lifters and heavy crew, nor the snob issues of golf or racquet sports, nor the stereotype popularity of soccer [or little league for us old farts.])
By the way, defendant Finnerty lost out on his diversion program for an earlier simple assault in a Washington case. I blogged about that here. Now that they've been cleared, did he get it back? (He had been required to "stay out of trouble" -- does getting falsely accused and pilloried by the faculty of your college count as "getting into trouble"?)
Yes, Fox was at fault! This incident was handled much better by the New York Times.
Huh? The only comment I have ever heard about soccer is "so many people play it so they don't have to watch it."
(Outside of the US, it's not just a stereotype.)
If you could somehow keep everything the going the same way, then of course they would be in jail.
While Nifong's sins are obvious in retrospect, they were not so going into this. Catching the prosecution in their conspiracy to withhold evidence is what broke the case open, and that only happened because of a few lucky circumstances happening all at the same time, one of them involving an expensive defense lawyer doing crunch time on DNA evidence. It was definitely not inevitable that this case would end up dismissed.
Furthermore, commentors about "poor spoiled white kids" are obviously missing what two of these "kids" themselves have said: they fully acknowledge that their parents' ability to spend significant resources defending them were critical to their defense. Remember, the three lacrosse players that were charged were essentially picked at random (from the white players). If the accuser had picked out three middle-class students, they probably couldn't have helped themselves.
I can understand the umbrage that some people feel about "you guys only care about the victims because they're white," but if you have the decency and self-respect to get over yourself, then instead of trying to act like the outrage over this mis-prosecution is misplaced, call upon it the next time someone of a color you tolerate is falsely accused. Say "we have another rogue prosecutor here" when a DA goes after a poor black person. Say "remember Nifong? Prosectors can and do make stuff up for personal gain."
What you definitely should not do is say "well, I don't care this time because of the victim's race/class." You should say "I care this time, regardless of the victim's race/class."
Sorry, I do care about prosecutorial misconduct regardless of the victim's race/class. You are getting overly sensitive because I am accusing you of caring about prosecutorial misconduct only because of the victim's race/class.
It gives the false impression that white middle class college students are targeted and harassed by the justice system
I would suggest he examine the rate of harrassment of Duke students by the Durham PD as compared to the general population. I would assume that the DPD's prior documented actions will be part of the LAX players federal suit against the city, if it goes to trial.
How come nobody mentions that the whole lacrosse team's season was suspended, in no small part due to the 88 profs who signed a public letter condemning the lot of them? Why do they(the 88) get off scot free of controversy?
The Iowa Hawkeye's had a basketball player convicted of rape and didn't lose their season.
Right, KC Johnson is just like the other two people because... wait, what?
Oh, it must be the way Sean and Rush support Barack Obama's presidential campaign.
Oh gee, local cops don't like smart ass college students and hassle them. What a revelation! Petty harrassment by the police, which being a former college student at a major college in a relatively small town I am all too famaliar with, is not the same as being arrested and charged with crimes.
Oh, I missed where you were accusing me.
But that's okay, because I'm long past the age where I care about bullies calling me names.
Anyway, if you really want to speak for the victim's of prosecutorial abuse, then this case is an excellent one to add to your casebook. Because lots of people don't think DA abuse could really happen to them.
If you should them "hey, look, it can happen to someone almost just like you," then they'll probably be more receptive to what you have to say. It makes the danger much more personal to them, and you will win allies to your cause.
Yeah well, lacrosse isn't a revenue generating sport. I doubt if the accused were on the basketball team at Duke, it would have lost its season either. Remember all the crap the Oklahoma football team got away with back in the Barry Switzer era.
Well if there are leftists like me who join the witch hunt out there I would hope they would. But I have nothing to apologize for because I never joined the "witch hunt". I didn't follow the case that closely at the beginning and the first time I saw a detailed presentation of the facts of the case was the initial 60 Minutes story where it was obvious that Nifong was completely out of control (the ATM receipt and camera photo was enough to convince me that at least the one defendant was completely innocent).
And I do wish that this would be taken as a wider lesson about the widespread flaws in our justice system. But that is not the lesson being gleaned. No, it is all about a the justice system, the media, and academia not serving the needs of good upstanding middle class people but instead playing to minorities in a cynical attempt to, well, I don't know what exactly.
they are white males who are deemed privileged.
You wrote:
You and JF Thomas are likely correct, that in the Duke case if the races had been reversed, Nifong would have had an incentive to downplay the case and not make it personal flag to increase his chance at election time.
I take issue with your determination that framing of innocent men "does rarely occur". My anecdotal evidence says that it occurs in the more typical cases where white prosecutors are courting white voters who demand law and order or clean streets free from the "other" minority or immigrant criminals. While you are correct that better lawyers would aid in correcting prosecutors that bend the rules and justice as Nifong did, such lawyering is not what many wrongfully convicted or over charged defendants get. The results from wrongful conviction centers like those at my alma mater and your law school, Northwestern, seems to show that the poor (of all races), minorities, immigrants and mentally disabled tend to be the parties wrongfully convicted and of course, wrongfully charged.
In the Duke case, the race baiting was driven by a courting of black voters by Nifong. The narrative as I see it is that the race of the accused and lying victim were important and useful to Nifong. I guess the questions is not what would have happened if the races were reversed but what happens if the races were the same. What happens if the races are the same and "class" is removed? That question seems far more interesting in uncovering the motivations and narrative that speaks to a broader issue. Is the result the same if both victim and accused were white or hispanic and the class distinctions were he same?
In my view, the reverse situation against poor black or hispanic kids where the prosecution is courting white voters could produce the same result we saw in Nifong's Duke travesty. It need not be a serious crime, just a sufficiently public one to grab press attention and send the signal to the racially charged voting public.
What JF Thomas in his earlier post may have been trying to highlight is that this reverse tale (white prosecutor courting white voters by overcharging or harshly punishing black defendants) is not unusual. It typically gets heavy coverage when the minority criminal is later released after the charges of wrongdoing are proven to be a sham, see the Tulia, or when the parties are overcharged or over punished for wrongful behavior, see Georgia conviction of teens engaging in oral sex story.
In my view the narrative holds. Perhaps the white upper-middle class and upper class now see how this narrative can be used to undermine their sense of Justice and fairness. But I think that minorities across class spectrums are keenly aware (and perhaps Prof. Lindgren's social science data shows this point) that the prosecution system can be used to send signals to voters based on race and tend to distrust the system. The large outpouring of condemnation for Nifong and the overly zealous press (and for most VC readers this means mainstream liberal press) seems to miss that this narrative is usually told with the races reversed (regardless of class and gender) after a conviction or over charge (see Jenna 6 story).
how about win elections? that has been a fairly obvious one from the local perspective. of course, you know that and, for some reason, are ignoring it. on the national level, this is a perfect case for the fine leftists in the media and academia-evil white males, poor downtrodden victims, in the South no less. you, of course, also are aware of that. why can't you face these simple facts-it is not particularly complex. instead, you throw in some class warfare nonsense to misdirect.
Well ten years ago, when UNC finished the season #3 may have been one time. he time that the Rose Bowl was held in Durham because the west coast was under a black out (1942) was one time (http://library.duke.edu/uarchives/exhibits/rosebowl/)...as was Duke in the Rose Bowl in the usual location (1939)..
Until the 57 season, Football was always king at UNC. Until the Bubas/Smith wars the rivalry was always football oriented.
As pitiful as Duke football is today,they were a power after hiring Walalce Wade away from 'Bama. Duke football went unbeaten and un-scored upon in 1938. Duke football was good in the 50's (ever hear of Sonny Jurgensen?) and good in the early 60s (remeber Sonny Jurgensen?), and good in the 80's before Spurrier was hired away by Florida. Carolina was solid in the 40's, prernial top 20 in the 70's, and the early 1980's teams team with Kelvin Bryant and Lawrence Taylor were powerhouses.
That's fair. Try reading about this case. If the facts are as stated then it appears to be an example of both injustice and incompetance, with the added interest that there may be a multiple child murderer on the loose as a result.
And don't even get JFT started on 'the widespread flaws in our justice system,' concerning Ronnie Earle's galavanting all over the state of Texas from his Austin venue in order to get someone he views as a political enemy.
No doubt JFT is equally up in arms over that corrupt corporate shakedown artist, Elliott Spitzer...
ny daily news
This prosecution handled the case better than Nifong because he voluntarily admitted he was wrong; but it's still a good examination of the damage that false accusations can have.
I don't think the astounding reversal of fortune in this case would have gotten much play at all in the media -- including the right-wing media -- if it hadn't gotten so much play in the first place precisely because the players were white and (according to some) rich. If they hadn't been made the poster boys for white racism and entitlement in the first place, the reversal would have come with little fanfare. It seems more than a little disingenuous for the Left to complain about the press their exoneration is getting when the Left fanned the flames in the first place.
It's as if CNN, having rushed to judgment about Richard Jewel and having all but concluded he was the Olympic Park bomber, after his vindication whined that people were only ragging on CNN's coverage because Jewel was white. It's pathetic.
Imagine if the races were reversed. A young black man is accused of abducting and hiding a pretty white girl. The media is all over it, particularly in the region where it happened -- let's say somewhere in the deep South for the sake of argument. Lots of media attention, lots of shots of the suspect's dark face contrasted with the pretty white girl and all her pretty white sorrority sisters. The right wing pundits are having a field day, because the case feeds into every racist sterotype that they trade on and their audience loves.
Suddenly, it turns out that the entire case is bogus. Some of the media begins to explore how this could have happened and whose misconduct caused it.
Some of the right-wing pundits start to whine that this is all about PC; the liberal media is only focusing on this because the guy who was exonerated is black.
Well, no shit, Sherlock. That's why you lynched him in the first place.
Would we react to those whines with anything but unmitigaged contempt? Why is this situation any different?
Not a red herring. Just a very smelly one who, like Nifong, apparently was not above cutting some corners.
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1115111123854
Not in this case. But before she became a Talking Head she was a prosecutor in Georgia, who on three separate occasions was censured by the Georgia Supreme Court for prosecutorial misconduct (prejudicial statements, withholding evidence, etc.) It's not surprising she was such a big fan of Nifong early on; they seem to be kindred spirits.
But special mention should also be given to the public cowards. These include much of the Duke faculty, the president of the university, and the board of trustees.
Some liberals seized on this case to further their personal agendas before all the evidence came in. Nifong used this case to further his own personal agenda. Both of these are wrong. But anyone who thinks that conservatives are completely blame free are completely delusional. Some conservatives rushed to defend the lacrosse players before it became clear that they were innocent. Some undoubtedly did this because the people being railroaded were relatively wealthy and white and others did it to "get" the liberals (this can be clearly seen in the above comments). I have no doubt that if the accused had been black instead of white some liberals would still be outraged but most conservatives would not be and conservative pundits would definitely not have latched onto the case. Just look at the OJ simpsons case, how many conservative pundits were saying the white cop is racist therefore OJ is innocent? none, they were too busy calling for the chair.
"I have no doubt that if the accused had been black instead of white some liberals would still be outraged but most conservatives would not be and conservative pundits would definitely not have latched onto the case."
Yes, it's quite clear that you and JF Thomas believe this. But where is your evidence that your belief is correct?
Guilty until proven innocent?
They don't need evidence. I think Kobe Bryant got hosed as well and that the prosecutor behaved poorly in that ordeal (not as bad as Nifong, but poorly regardless), but in Brian/JF's world I don't because Kobe is black.
Since when did being right (not right in a political sense) become a political issue.
It was obvious to a lot of people back in April '06 that this was a sham prosecution, not sure why the johnny come lately's think this is anything more than a justified outrage over egregious (and more importantly public) prosecutial misconduct.
If you're going to fault liberals for rushing to judgment without knowing the evidence, it's only fair to fault conservatives for doing likewise. (unless of course those same conservatives always presumed innocence, which is obviously not true...look at any political scandal for proof, e.g. william jefferson, by your logic since he hasn't been proven guilty yet, conservatives should be claiming he's innocent and not saying that he is guilty, right?)
Yes, it's quite clear that you and JF Thomas believe this. But where is your evidence that your belief is correct?
Where are the calls from conservatives to end and/or not engage in racial profiling? The races listed that should be profiled never include white. Where is the general outrage everyone time the innocence project clears the name of a black person who has been wrongly convicted? Where are the calls that the prosecutors in these cases should be jailed? The stunning silence on the part of the conservative media is proof.
I don't necessarily expect the NAACP to be organizing rallies to free rich white kids -- but I don't expect them to defend prosecutorial abuse, as they did here. Michael Vick got more support from black groups than the Duke 3 did. You would think that a normal narrative from the NAACP would be, "If Nifong could do this to the relatively privileged, think what he has probably been doing to poor black defendants. We need to investigate him thoroughly." Instead, they stood up for him.
We had left-wing university professors (as well as MSM figures) arguing that the facts didn't matter, that "something" must have happened, even a few arguing that if they were innocent, it was okay because the same thing had happened to blacks in the past.
It's pretty perverse to take a group of people who were targeted by the left for being white, made into household names as perpetrators of evil white male hegemony, and then criticize the backlash against that for glomming onto the case. Fox News didn't search around the country for some white people who were being victimized and then promote them as a national story; those who hated them for being white males did.
There aren't any. When the vast majority of bombers are of Middle Eastern Muslim origin, it's common sense to profile them. It's simple probability.
Examples?
You might also have a quite different concept of just when "it became clear that they were innocent" than some other people. It was readily apparent that Nifong was playing dirty in April 2006.
"Imagine if the races were reversed. A young black man is accused of abducting and hiding a pretty white girl. The media is all over it, particularly in the region where it happened -- let's say somewhere in the deep South for the sake of argument. Lots of media attention, lots of shots of the suspect's dark face contrasted with the pretty white girl and all her pretty white sorrority sisters. The right wing pundits are having a field day, because the case feeds into every racist sterotype that they trade on and their audience loves."
In my part of the south (Houston) Quanelle X would show up early on if some black dude was getting railroaded for raping some what girl. It could even be the combination of the New Black Panther Party, Quanelle, and the NAACP. They would raise such a pretty big stink that would probably get the prosecutors attention.
Maybe BrianK believes this, but since I don't, a reputable citation would clear this up. Just make sure the citation timeline is prior to the release of exculpatory evidence.
Or perhaps the Nifong apologists around here agree instead with the Newsweek cover story, which quoted an African-American North Carolina Central student: ''Whether it happened or not, it would be justice for things that happened in the past.''
Yeah, well it took an attempted murder conviction and a twenty year sentence and the prospect of five more trials in Jena, LA, before that case even registered in the national media (and even now it is just a blip), and I still don't see conservatives screaming about the prosecutorial misconduct there. In fact, mostly I hear statements of support for the prosecutor from the right wing.
Wow! A comment posted through a wormhole from 1970! I'm impressed!
At a minimum, a case this weak with the colors reversed would have certainly resulted in the NAACP raising a stink about it--and the ACLU would have shown up to defend them.
Oh J.F., guess what? There was a similar case back in 1931. A bunch black teenagers were charged with raping a white woman. Fortunately, a Supreme Court dominated by those evil white males conservatives that you hate so much ordered a new trial wiht a 7-2 decision, and prevented what would otherwise have been quick executions.
It wasn't pretty, but even back in the 1930s, as bad as things were, justice was eventually served.
I'm curious: do you think that the vast majority of those charged with crimes in the U.S. are innocent? Now, I don't think the system works perfectly. I do not doubt that innocent people get honestly prosecuted who did nothing wrong. I do not doubt that innocent people get railroaded, like the Duke case. But I do not believe for a second that most people who are prosecuted for felonies in the U.S. are innocent. You are going to have to present something more than, "I'm a spoiled rich white kid and I feel terrible about it" as a reason to make this claim.
It is the case that Nifong picked on these three white men because he needed some white defendants--rather like The Great White Defendant in Bonfire of the Vanities. Unfortunately, racial politics is very, very important in some parts of America--and having white villains to hiss and boo is a big part of how you get elected in Durham County.
Let me guess. Was he black? The left regards a black athlete accused of rape as "meets industry standards," because the left regards blacks as animals. But a white athlete must be punished! Even if he didn't do anything except behave boorishly.
before it became clear that they were innocent.
</blockquote>
Can someone explain something to me?
Where did this idea, this "we should wait for the judicial system to run its course before pointing out injustices" concept, come from?
I saw this several times during the lacrosse case: 1) folks were saying that those agitating for justice ought to just sit back and wait while the system ran its course; 2) that Magnum "deserved her day in court"; 3) that the players "deserved a chance to be proved innocent in court."
Waiting after an injustice occurs to try to correct it is insane; surely the Innocence Project doesn't wait until a man has been found guilty and run through all of his appeals and the governor has decided not to pardon him before doing anything, does it?
The concept of Magnum deserving a day in court seriously misunderstands our judicial system; in fact, it sounds like the thing that would come out of "victim's rights" groups, and is a bastion of a sometimes ugly side of conservatism.
And "proving innocence at a trial" is hopefully stupid enough on its face for everyone to see the problems it has.
Parties that traditionally work <i>for</i> the falsely accused worked <i>against</i> the accused here. Why?
Why did <i>The New York Times</i> say that there was a "body of evidence" to prosecute them, when we now know it's clear that the <i>only</i> thing was Magnum's testimony. (And the NYT has refused to correct that.)
Why did the state chapter of the NAACP <i>go out of its way</i> to make stuff up about the case?
I mean, they're for justice all the time... right?
Except if they are young male Arabs (who are definitely white) getting on an airliner. Then not only do conservatives, but even many black Americans, support profiling.
I've got bad news for you: when the police go looking for a rapist/murderer, with very, very few exceptions--they start by "profiling" males. I mean, it could be that there's a woman out there, murdering other women, then using a turkey baster to insert semen into their vaginas. And to just look for male rapists is profiling--more prejudice!
I don't dispute that there is inappropriate profiling going on. A neighbor who looked Hispanic when I lived in San Jose had a very nice new car, and was constantly being pulled over by San Jose P.D. for no apparent reason. It took a while to figure out that she was Driving While Brown. I agree that something needs to be done to get police officers to narrow their use of profiling to situations where they have a bit finer focus than race alone. But this insistence that white and black grandmothers boarding an airliner deserve the same level of searching as young Arab males is liberalism par excellence.
In most of the cases that I have read, the prosecutors did nothing wrong. I can recall one in particular where the eyewitness to the rape was mistaken, but there was no evidence of intentional wrongdoing by anyone.
I do not dispute that such wrongdoing takes place, and when it does, those guilty need to be prosecuted. But the justice system isn't perfect. Even if everyone is doing their job, it fails. (Part of why I am an opponent of the death penalty--there's no Undo button.)
And since I know you guys aren't good at reading i'll reiterate. i said some conservatives. not most. not all. (unlike the conservative hacks on this post, i try to avoid implicating every member of a group for the actions of some members of that group.)