Posted on 04/12/2007 9:53:40 AM PDT by Reaganesque
Durham, NC -- I join with everyone who cares about justice in welcoming the North Carolina State Attorney General’s announcement that the remaining charges have been dropped against David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann. This announcement comes at the end of an extraordinarily painful year for the young men and their families. They have carried themselves with dignity through an ordeal of deep unfairness.
Let’s be clear about what was said today. The Attorney General did not dismiss the allegations on narrow, equivocal or legalistic ground. He determined our students to be innocent of the charges and said they were “the tragic result of a rush to accuse.” In short, he used the strongest language of vindication.
From the outset, I have been careful to note that these students were entitled to the presumption of innocence and I looked to the legal system to determine the merit of the charges. Now, finally, that process has given us a decision based on a thorough and objective review of the evidence. This is what we have all needed from the start. I trust the State Bar’s review will be equally thorough so that we can understand the District Attorney’s conduct in this case. As for Duke, while not reliving the past year, we won’t be afraid to go back and learn what we can from this difficult experience.
During the past year, the world has known these young men, their teammates and a great university largely through the filter of unproven allegations. I trust that today’s decision will begin a new day for all involved.
I don’t blame you! I do that with requests from Okla State Univ. I graduated from there and they sure did not help me one penny when I was in school, paid my own way with jobs and loans! Paid my three kids way through college. OSU can kick sand.
GOOD POINT!
Carolyn
Those cases are similar. Johnny Sutton is another Mike Nifong.
“the presumption of innocence”
Once upon a time there was the presumption of innocence in the American judicial system. But one day, when everyone was happily singing “innocent until proven guilty”, the big bad feminazis slipped a note to the lawmakers, and from that day forward the the presumption of innocence was no longer given to males; instead the presumption of guilt was introduced: it was no longer necessary to have proof - the seriousness of the charges was all that mattered. Feminazis throughout the country were happy. Innocent men had to pay big legal fees and some went to jail.
I think Karla Holloway should have been ordered to write Mr. Broadhead's acceptance of AG Cooper's proclamation of "Innocent" address. An academic exercise.
Ya just gotta know ole Karla is off with some group nattering, while paranoically looking over her shoulder, about "see! See! More White racism! What we need is social justice law!"
Some people really can't be cured of their self-induced racism. It's possible the Gang of 88 may just be in that category.
Hey, Dick, how about the professor who FAILED the lacrosse players after the "incident". Are you going to give them the same treatment as you gave the coach?
Or do you only fire people for appearance sake - and let actual wrongdoing go unpunished if you can get away with it?
What a hypocrite.
Those who can do. Those who can’t teach. The infamous 88.
He has supported the boys at every turn, unlike Brodhead.
Good point.
Mike Pressler. He’s at Bryant University now.
If I had a child at Vanderbilt U, I'd be transferring him elsewhere pronto. Bad stuff happening follows these socialist, social justice academics from U to U, state to state. And when they are particularly eggregious and racist, they get gigs at Harvard, like Cornell West has. Perhaps Harvard intends to turn itself into a "History Museum". Pay huge tuition bucks just to witness the displays.
I think Duke may be in trouble for telling the students initially to not tell their parents, and having a University attorney represent them. They also allowed police into dorms to question students after they had lawyered up. There were also multiple comments made by multiple faculty members which might be considered libelous.
This will not be the last attempt by the media to parse the truth in this case. We will hear that Nifong acted appropriately, given the circumstances, That the gang of 88 was merely expressing concern for social justice and much talk about just because it didn't happen here, doesn't mean university students don't rape innocent women on a daily basis.
The road map has been laid out by Tawana Brawley who still has many supporter. Notice that Sharpton never apologised to anyone and it has not affected his ability to extort cash from corporations.
I DO realize that the 3 young men were innocent of the charges made by the stripper and promulgated against them by Nifong.
BUT
They WERE guilty of being underage and consuming alcohol, if we understand what was actually going on in that frat house. I don't think that they denied consuming alcohol and the schools rules concerning such behavior, by itself, COULD have prompted SOME of the actions of the university.
I DO however, concur with the overall view of the posters to this thread that Duke, and most especially the 'gang of 88' behaved VERY poorly where the unfounded allegations of the stripper were concerned.
Any bets that when the heat gets 'turned up' Brodhead switches to the 'it was the alcohol' defense for HIS actions?
Looks like she missed the presser. This is not what Roy said.
I-N-N-O-C-E-N-T
She needs to stop banging her pot & pay attention.
I too scanned the list looking for engineering, computer science, chemistry, biology---None!
The reply from Duke was:
“Thanks for your thoughtful response...some have not been nearly so thoughtful. I do think that you can count on Duke to look at the situation and its response in a very open and honest light. That has been one our hallmarks and I think you can count on more of the same.”
The question I have now is who will look at the situation? Do the Board and the President review their own behavior?
I bought a Duke Lcrosse T-shirt yesterday.
And if I were one of those students, once Duke starts scrambling to settle out of court, I would make damn sure that one of the things I get is a prominent building on campus named after me [in big gold letters]. Preferrable the one holding the majoriy of classes taught by the 88.
“I too scanned the list looking for engineering, computer science, chemistry, biology-—None!”
I have a daughter in the hard sciences and she laughed at that comment. Just as many political whack jobs, just generally more cautious about being public.
I prefer to think they recognize the need for documentation.
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