Posted on 10/15/2006 5:52:10 AM PDT by Locomotive Breath
(CBS) The three Duke lacrosse players indicted for a rape they say they didn't commit are indignant over the effect the charges are having on their lives and their families.
In their first interviews, they speak to Ed Bradley this Sunday, Oct. 15, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Off to bed. Thank You all for the wonderful thread! Special thanks to Neon for such excellent work. Freepers are the best!
I can't see Nifong dropping the charges either. He only knows how to go forward. I don't think he knows how to reverse. His ego is too big for him to admit he is wrong.
Also I think Nifong gets some kind of perverse pleasure from this. I think he really resents the players because they are young, intelligent, athletic Duke students who have wealthy backgrounds. That's why he is so obnoxious and smug in court even though his "case" is ridiculous.
I thought the 60 Minutes piece was excellent. This case has fascinated me ever since the story broke. Thanks to the coverage here on FR, it became clear very quickly that the whole thing was a farce. Nifong is beneath contempt. As for Brodhead, I hope Santa brings him a spine for Christmas.
WOW! That was some interview. There is NO way those boys are guilty. As to the head of the university, it seems to me the law professor would make a better president.
The old fashioned way made the alleged victim fair game.
He forgot to mention that.
Definitely! I loved how he flat out said "prosecutorial misconduct"....yep! Which is something Ms. Nancy Graceless knows a lot about, by the way.
I totally agree. In my dreams, though, a sensible judge (is there one in NC?) throws out the charges as absurd and the boys are allowed back in school for the spring semester. If we have to wait for a spring trial, the earliest they can hope to return is next fall. Very sad and pointless. I think at this point (and if the case was dismissed), the boys would recover their reputations. Civil suits against some of the key players in this hoax would also cement the notion that they are innocent in the public's mind. Remember, some people are not going to believe in their innocence no matter WHAT happens from here forward. Think about OJ. There are people that still think he is/was guiltless in the double murder. Conversely, there are those who believe he killed both of them and the jury's finding has no bearing on their opinion...
(bold mine)
heraldsun.com: '60 Minutes' interview draws lo...
'60 Minutes' interview draws local reaction
By Ray Gronberg : The Herald-Sun
gronberg@heraldsun.com
Oct 16, 2006 : 12:31 am ET
DURHAM -- Sunday's report by "60 Minutes" on the Duke University lacrosse case delivered a wounding blow to District Attorney Mike Nifong's image, but its impact on the course of the prosecution is more doubtful, participants in a Herald-Sun roundtable said afterward.
The report, a double-length segment that consumed about three-fifths of the program, highlighted inconsistencies between witness accounts of the now-infamous team party and doubts about the process Nifong and Durham police used to identify suspects in an alleged gang rape.
It gave the three indicted players -- David Evans, Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty -- a chance to proclaim their innocence, and featured video obtained by CBS News that purported to show the accuser dancing on stage at an area strip club two weeks after the March 13-14 incident.
But it nonetheless didn't establish that the prosecution should drop the case immediately, said Kevin Troy, a member and sometime spokesman for Duke Student Government who participated in the post-show roundtable.
"One could come away from watching this segment, view it in a vacuum and see it as clearly [saying] the state's case is incorrect," Troy said. "It shows us not that the players have been exonerated, it shows us that we need to let the judicial process play itself out. It shows us judgments early on were premature about guilt, but it would be premature to declare them innocent."
Troy attended the roundtable in place of Duke Student Government President Elliott Wolf. Also present were Duke senior Trisha Bailey, Durham minister Carl Kenney and NCCU law professor Irving Joyner.
Most criticized Nifong's conduct, particularly his public statements early on about the case and the conduct of the lacrosse team. Kenney, who's talked with the accuser's family and says he's heard "a lot of information that's not making sense," said the hit the program administered to the DA was "a big one."
Joyner -- who's been monitoring the case for the state NAACP -- said Nifong's early comments "went over the line." He said Durham police mishandled the investigation by being slow to search the team captains' house at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd., by not questioning witnesses more and by not looking harder at and for medical evidence.
But like Troy, Kenney was nonetheless unwilling to say Nifong should drop the case.
"It's important that we not minimize a claim of rape," he said. "It's important that when there's a claim of rape, the accuser has her day in court. I think it's up to the judicial process to determine whether or not those claims are accurate."
Bailey, a senior majoring in public policy and religion, said she thought Sunday's report will "agitate people" at a moment when the level of political activism among students at Duke is higher than it's ever been in her time there.
Kenney and Troy, however, said there are clear differences in how comments on the case are interpreted nationally, in Durham and on the Duke campus.
The minister said national media covering the case tend to miss the underlying context in Durham, a city that's had plenty of racially charged court cases and political squabbles over the past 15 years.
Kenney was less critical than Joyner of Nifong's early comments to the press, saying that at least part of what the prosecutor was responding to was the belief among local blacks that he would sweep the case under the rug rather than cross "the money and prestige" of Duke students.
Troy, however, said the same comments played badly on campus.
"The important thing to recognize is that there are serious divisions within Durham," he said. "There's a real divide between Duke and Durham, but it's not an absolute divide, it's not an impenetrable divide, and we need to resist the temptation to impute a certain character to all Duke students. That's why Nifong's comments were received so poorly by students at Duke, because it was felt he was demonizing not just the university, but the students who attend Duke University."
Sunday's "60 Minutes" segment also featured an interview with Kim Roberts Pittman, the second dancer at the March 13-14 party. She disputed the accuser's claim that the players began the assault by forcibly separating the two women. But correspondent Ed Bradley said there were two five- to 10-minute stretches when the women were apart.
Pittman said she saw no reason to believe her dance partner was attacked after the first time they were separated, and the accuser said nothing of having been attacked.
"She wasn't --- she obviously wasn't hurt or -- cuz she -- she was fine. She wouldn't have went back in the house if she was hurt. She was fine," Pittman told Bradley. The accuser wanted to return to the house to make more money, she told Pittman.
Pittman also acknowledged that she likely instigated the much-debated exchange of racial remarks outside the house by insulting shortcomings of one player's white male anatomy.
"It obviously provoked that remark," she said of the player's use of the N-word in return. She also told "60 Minutes" that none of the indicted lacrosse players used the racial epithets.
Pittman's comments appeared to carry little weight with roundtable participants. "She seemed very sincere, but just like everyone who is not one of the accused or the accuser, she has limited access to the truth," Troy said.
Exactly. Trial is not going to convince people set in their opinion otherwise. It's not going to be some magic bullet that will convince everybody of their innocence.
God help us.....these idiots are allowed to walk around free among sane people??
Lots of them are around, unfortunately. Well, HS selected them for a reason, did it not?
"I think it's up to the judicial process to determine whether or not those claims are accurate."
How about the part where SHE couldn't get her story together; isn't that why the city manager said they could not get over there for several days???
by not questioning witnesses more
More? How about ANY?
Astouding.
But remember, the Herald Sun is PART OF THE PROBLEM.
That sounds like a shot across bow, doesn't it?
The HS is really spinning like a top. They had these commentators up and ready to go. Frankly, the HS is part of the reason this case continues to go forward.
I am, too.
Absolutely deplorable.
Troy is a PC idiot... But Kim is still lying and still can't get her stories straight...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.