http://www.blackathlete.net/artman/publish/article_02444.shtml
Re-visiting Two More Higher Profile Cases In Collegiate Sports
by Gregory Moore, gmoore@blackathlete.net
published on Oct 12, 2006
The next story that hasn’t received much attention is the Duke lacrosse story. This story has been a firestorm in the beginning but the embers are barely burning since the story first broke.
The latest news lines of this story are the following: Suspects not getting due process, DA says attack took ten minutes, Witness sentenced in unrelated case.
So what do we know about this case since it was last visited? Exactly what I put in those headline blurbs. According to various op/eds, the suspects in the case may not be getting due process in this case.
On Fox.com, one commentator wrote: The Duke Lacrosse case, in which three white male students are accused of raping a black woman last March, is also a case about race, class conflict and political ambition. For me, the case has become a litmus test for the American justice system.
I believe the accused are blatantly innocent and that the prosecuting District Attorney Mike Nifong is acting with willful disregard for both the evidence in the case and the Constitutional rights of the accused. In this case, I believe the legal system is the enemy of justice...and nakedly so.
How naked? Consider one of the suspects, Reade Seligmann. He is scheduled to be tried on three felony charges despite overwhelming evidence of his innocence: exculpatory DNA tests, a corroborated alibi, a string of contradictory statements by his accuser and an irredeemably tainted I.D.
The assumption that a defendant is 'innocent until proven guilty' has been reversed. Seligmann is assumed to be guilty. But more than this. It is as though Seligmann is not allowed to prove his innocence no matter how much evidence he produces.
Those words were written by Wendy McElroy, the editor of ifeminists.com and a research fellow for The Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. That is the words from one person but Ms. McElroy may be echoing the voice of many others in the Durham area.
In another story, the District Attorney says that the attack took all of ten minutes. District Attorney Mike Nifong is being quoted by the Associated Press saying, “When something happens to you that is really awful, it can seem like it takes place longer than it actually takes.”
Here is more of the AP story as reported by CBS News’s website: Kirk Osborn, who represents Seligmann, said the defense needed the "bill of particulars" because the accuser has told several different versions of the alleged assault, and his client has a right to know which version prosecutors will present at trial.
In search and arrest warrants issued early in the investigation, police stated the accuser told investigators she was assaulted for 30 minutes.
Nifong said he is not required to state the exact time of the alleged attack, but offered that authorities believe it took place between 11:30 p.m. on March 13, when the accuser arrived at the party, and 12:55 a.m. on March 14, when police arrived and found no one at the house.
Friday's hearing was the first since Smith was appointed to take over the case.
Before the hearing began, Nifong gave defense lawyers 615 pages of evidence, a compact disc and a cassette tape. He said it included much of what was requested by defense lawyers, who had asked for handwritten notes from police officers involved with the case, reports outlining procedures used at the labs that tested the DNA of the players and notes from a mental health facility where police took the accuser after the party.
The defense has said those DNA tests failed to find a conclusive match between the three players and the accuser.
Defense attorneys also provided the judge with a description of the procedures used by a polling company they hired to survey Durham residents about the case. Nifong has asked the court to stop the polling, but the defense insists it is harmless.
"It's like taking a teaspoon and dipping it into the swimming pool. We just want to see what the teaspoon will reveal," said Wade Smith, an attorney for Colin Finnerty.
So what can we make of this story and the feelings down in Durham? How about it’s a mess that isn’t going to be fixed anytime soon?
I got an e-mail from a defense lawyer when the story first broke out and he told me that as things went along, I would probably be singing a different tune as to whether a crime was committed or not. Well as far as I’m concerned, something inappropriate went on in that house and at least three Duke players knew what happened.
Now whether they want to fess up and tell the world, that’s a different story. I’m not going to say that the victim is some angel because she isn’t but I’m not going to portray her as just another piece of human trash that had to use her body to make money either. People do things for different reasons.
But this case has been dragging for quite some time and it is quite interesting to read the bits and pieces of an embattled DA trying to win a case that may not be very winnable in the end.
This story will continue to be watched as well as there are some social implications that will probably come forth and need to be addressed. Stay tuned folks. It’s going to be very interesting indeed.
http://www.newsobserver.com/138/story/497620.html
Durham's no-choice election
Ruth Sheehan, Staff Writer
There's an old Soviet Union joke that goes like this: Former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev approaches a man carrying a watermelon and asks for the melon.
"Which one?" the man replies.
"How can I choose if you have only one?" Brezhnev asks.
"The same way I chose you," the man says.
Ba dum bum!
I know, I know. Those Russkies aren't exactly causing Jon Stewart to lose any sleep.
But the old Soviet predicament of having few real choices is one that Durham voters might relate to these days.
Next month, Durham voters choose between the following:
* The sitting district attorney, Mike Nifong, who won a tight primary in a Democratic town just as criticism of his handling of the Duke lacrosse mess was starting to heat up.
* County Commissioner Lewis Cheek, a fellow Democrat whose supporters gathered a mountain of petitions to get him on the ballot -- but who later announced that, if elected, he would not serve. Cheek is endorsed by the Anybody But Nifong and Recall Nifong-Vote Cheek campaigns, which recommend electing Cheek and letting the governor pick his stand-in.
* Write-in candidate and local Republican Party Chairman Steve Monks, who would do everyone a favor by quitting his campaign, which is destined to further muddle an already murky situation. Sure to siphon off some of the "anybody-but" vote, Monks' biggest secret supporter might be Nifong.
What a choice. Or should I say, nonchoice?
No doubt all of us have had moments of holding our nose while voting for a candidate, or boycotting a particular race on principle.
But Durham's quandary illustrates why "none of the above" has become increasingly attractive in electoral politics in recent years.
In Oregon, "none of the above" actually made it onto the ballot as a referendum item for judicial elections. (It was ultimately defeated.)
And in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet states, "none of the above" has become a force unto itself -- coming in second or third in several races. In fact, it has become such a force that the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, voted this year to remove it.
But Durham's quandary is different. It's one thing to elect "none of the above," requiring a whole new election in six months (which is the way the proposed system for judicial elections in Oregon would have worked).
It is quite another to vote for Anybody But Nifong and trust Gov. Mike Easley to read the tea leaves and appoint just the right person to fill Nifong's shoes and "do the right thing" with regard to the lacrosse case.
And, oh yeah, to also take care of the thousands of other cases that the Durham DA's office handles each year.
It is easy to forget about those when you live in Raleigh or New York or California.
Ironically, a goodly number of the people who have been critical of Nifong, including me, don't live -- or vote -- in the People's Republic of Durham.
This election is in the hands of voters whose town has been sorely misrepresented in the national media.
The question is: Which watermelon will they choose?
Ruth Sheehan can be reached at 829-4828 or rsheehan@newsobserver.com.