Posted on 04/16/2007 9:08:44 PM PDT by jazusamo
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Just before the Attorney General of North Carolina appeared on television to announce his decision on the Duke University "rape" case, one of the many expert TV legal commentators said that Attorney General Roy Cooper would probably use the words "insufficient evidence" but not the word "innocent" in dismissing the case.
As it turned out, the Attorney General did use the word "innocent," saying that he and his staff considered the accused students innocent. It was the only decent thing to do.
Anything less would have let the ugly accusation follow them for life and, years from now, when all the details of this sordid story have long since been forgotten, hang over their heads with a suspicion that they got off on some legal technicality.
What a difference a year makes. A year ago, there was a lynch mob atmosphere against the accused students -- from the Duke University campus to the national media, and including the local NAACP and the ever-present Jesse Jackson.
These were affluent white male students and a poor black woman accusing them of rape. For those steeped in the new sacred trinity of "race, class, and gender," what more did you need to know, in order to know which side to come out on?
Duke University suspended the students when charges were filed, cancelled the entire remaining schedule of the lacrosse team for which they played, and got rid of the coach. Former Princeton University president William Bowen -- a critic of college athletics -- and the head of the local NAACP were called in to issue a report, which complained that Duke had not acted fast enough.
Meanwhile, 88 members of the Duke faculty took out an ad in the campus newspaper denouncing racism. Among other things, the ad said, "what is apparent everyday now is the anger and fear of many students who know themselves to be objects of racism and sexism."
As for the demonstrations and threats loudly voiced by some local blacks, in the wake of the accusations against the Duke lacrosse students, the ad said:
"We're turning up the volume in a moment when the most vulnerable among us are being asked to quiet down while we wait. To the students speaking individually and to the protesters making collective noise, thank you for not waiting and for making yourself heard."
This year, after all the charges have collapsed like a house of cards, the campus lynch mob -- including Duke University president Richard H. Brodhead -- are backpedalling swiftly and washing their hands like Pontius Pilate.
They deny ever saying that the students were guilty. Of course not. They merely acted as if that was a foregone conclusion, while leaving themselves an escape hatch.
It is bad enough to be part of a lynch mob. It is worse to deny that you are part of a lynch mob, while standing there holding the rope in your hands.
What is even more important than clearing the names of the three young men charged with a heinous crime is making sure that the man responsible for this travesty of justice -- District Attorney Michael Nifong -- pays the fullest price for what he did.
The state bar association investigating Nifong needs to understand that this case is much bigger than Nifong.
If prosecutors can drag people through the mud and keep felony charges hanging over their heads, long after all the evidence says the opposite of what they were charged with, then any of us, anywhere, can be put through a living hell whenever it suits the whim or the political agenda of a district attorney.
Much was made of the fact that these Duke students came from affluent families. Lucky for them -- and for all of us. Not everyone has an extra million dollars lying around to fight off false accusations. Their fight is our fight.
This case will send a message, one way or another, to prosecutors across the length and breadth of this country. Either you can get away with dragging people through hell without a speck of evidence -- and in defiance of other evidence -- or you can't.
This case has already sent a message about the kinds of gutless lemmings on our academic campuses, including our most prestigious institutions.
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy.
Dr. Sowell, as usual, is right on the mark. More than that, this is a call for conservatives everywhere to be a lot louder than usual. Louder about the kind of intemperate bigotry that comes with a campus largely made up of liberals. There is nothing: Not the administration, not the deans, not their colleagues who can act as a counterweight to the conformity of views that defines the modern American college or university. GroupThink = Premature Rush to Judgement.
ping
As always, Thomas cuts through the crap and spills the beans.
Are there any other kind of lynch mobs?
What if it had been me having to fight a false charge against a prosecutor bent on my imprisonment, for his own personal enrichment, either monetary or political, the evidence be damned?
God help me!
The Duke LaCrosse team is guilty.
The Haditha Marines are guilty.
Border Patrol Agents Ramos and Compean are guilty.
The innocent are Mike Nifong, the jihadists firing from behind human shields, and the drug smuggler Davila-Aldrete.
Sowell is never ruffled, nor in a hurry.
He operates at the inexorable pace of truth.
Dr. Sowell nails them good. Without the support of the president and the faculty I don't believe Nifong would have gotten the case off the ground.
Very well said, Phil.
If prosecutors can drag people through the mud and keep felony charges hanging over their heads, long after all the evidence says the opposite of what they were charged with, then any of us, anywhere, can be put through a living hell whenever it suits the whim or the political agenda of a district attorney.
Most important line for me...
Another outstanding article by Thomas Sowell. Thanks for posting.
Bump
Leftist liberals lawyers do such wonderful things with the law: Nifong, Jake Reno and the Clintons and Fitzpatrick like the attempted lynching of the Duke LAX team before they were even charge and then tried for something that didn’t happen.
Now, it is time for criminal and civil trials of Liefong, the Group of 88, $harpton, Je$$ie HiJack$on and the new Black Panthers.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1810510/posts
DURHAM, N.C. — — Sitting on the stoop of his small wood-sided home, on a parcel of scrub pines carved from a former tobacco plantation, William Ragland, 76, said he wanted to see justice, and soon, in the Duke lacrosse case.
That would mean putting on trial not the lacrosse players, but the district attorney who led the early prosecution of the case, said Ragland.
“I was shocked by how Mr. Nifong did the whole thing. It was a cover-up. He had evidence that these boys did not rape her,” and improperly kept it secret, said Ragland. “
The link below will take you to a picture of the druggie ho that the two black Raci$ts, Rev Un$harpton and Je$$e HyJack$on lied about to make headlines and bucks for Je$$e and $harpton.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/04122007/frontback.htm
It is time to debar LieFong, frog march him to criminal courts to be tried for conspiracy and malfeasance. Then frog march him over to civil trials by the players and their parents, the coaches and anyone, who came close to being lynched by the black racist and mediots of America.
Agreed, and much more.
I saw some of the bar hearing (I believe it was Friday) and there was a lady attorney that really ripped into him. I don't think there's much doubt but that he'll be disbarred.
Hopefully the families will sue to regain their legal fees, him, the county and the state.
He is so bad, that even Obama wants him investigated.
Call me an optimist, but I think Nifong will choose Retirement Option Number Three Fifty-Seven rather than face the music. He strikes me as a classic bully.
Simply Brilliant! This man is a gem in the coalbin!
Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters
bump
The brilliance of Tom Sowell shines through again.
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