Duke lacrosse case may not come to trial until next spring

while Nifong dithers, looking for a 3rd one to indict.

this is nifong's ace in the whole. who ever was at the party who testifys that nothing happened, will be the next to be indicted.

The alleged victim is a mother of two who moonlighted for an escort service while attending North Carolina Central

Frankly, I think a more accurate description would be "The alleged victim is a mother of two who moonlighted as a student for North Carolina Central while working for an escort service."

Escort Services

This from wikipedia:

Escort agencies in theory exist to supply attractive and well-mannered escorts. The escort is sent to an address (house or hotel).

In other cases, so-called "escort agencies" are booking agencies for prostitution. The reason for making the distinction is a legal one; since prostitution laws often forbid taking payment for sex, the escort seeks to avoid this by having the client pay for his or her company and then claiming that any sex which happens was simply a spontaneous reaction to a client they happened to find attractive - a relationship which would legally be no different from a secretary who sleeps with her boss.

(snip)

Escort agencies are very aware of the legal issues behind the services they offer. Agencies claiming to be legitimate generally operate like customer service businesses, taking great care not to intimidate a new customer, who may feel apprehensive about using the service

I'm ready to call her what she is. She's a prostitute imo. She does one-on ones by her own admission.

Norm Early.

Norm Early, National Black Prosecutors Association.--

100 Black prosecutors gathered in Chicago in 1983, with States Attorney Richard Daley serving as host. It was both eerie and refreshing to see so many people of color who performed the same responsibilities and had the same kinds of concerns regarding recruitment, retention and respect. Those assembled readily agreed to form an organization. A committee comprised of the late Judge Loretta Hall Morgan, Glenn Carr, Art Hill, Sterling Johnson and Norm Early commenced their work on formalizing the will of the group. These individuals, who met repeatedly in Chicago to deal with name, incorporation, bylaws and other communications, are considered to be the Founders of our organization. Those Black prosecutors around the nation who responded to the communications and invitation for membership are the Founding Members of the newly formed National Black Prosecutors Association.---

Norm Early's spin on the Lineup photos per Abrams Report:--

NORM EARLY, FORMER DENVER DISTRICT ATTORNEY: In this instance, Dan, that may not be suggestive. The issue is whether the lineup and the photos that she is shown suggests to her who the culprit is, and one issue would be, did they tell her that there were only lacrosse players, so she‘s expecting the person to be there. That wasn‘t clear from what Michelle said.

But nonetheless, they‘re all white males, it‘s not as if though you‘re looking for an African American and you have 26 white guys and one African American guy because that would be clearly a suggestive lineup, so we‘re talking about all white males. You can‘t see their height probably, so that‘s not suggestive and if their hair colors are similar, you know, you don‘t—you may not have a suggestive lineup. Showing them for a minute apiece and showing them in that fashion where they‘re up on the wall, maybe that is something that has been cleared with their police department on other occasions where judges have said that that procedure is OK.

ABRAMS: Norm, real quick.

EARLY: Yes, I think that‘s an excellent point because appearances do change, and as has been pointed out, if they told them they‘re Duke lacrosse players or there‘s some other way they can be identified as Duke lacrosse players by the shirts that they‘re wearing or something that makes...

ABRAMS: Yes, yes...

EARLY: ... them stand out as Duke lacrosse players...

ABRAMS: Right.

EARLY: ... that in and of itself is suggestive.

ABRAMS: So you‘re agreeing Norm...

(CROSSTALK)

ABRAMS: Norm, you‘re agreeing that if they showed them the lineup from the lacrosse team photo, you would agree even as a tough former prosecutor that that was a suggestive and inappropriate way to show her pictures?

EARLY: Two things, Dan. One is suggestive. The issue is whether it‘s unduly suggestive.

(LAUGHTER) ---

Norm Early, 1998---

"We had some really important lessons to learn," says Walker, "including the fact that leaving doesn't stop the violence. Our success isn't when a women leaves; it is when she lives violence-free."

And so they decided to take on Denver police chief Art Dill. St. Joan had collected half a dozen cases in which the police had failed to protect a woman from a violent spouse, and JAWS moved to file a class-action lawsuit against Denver for its failure to protect battered women.

In 1982, members of JAWs met with Denver District Attorney Dale Tooley and his deputy, Norm Early, as well as Mayor Bill McNichols's city attorney and Chief Dill's representative--a group of women facing a line of men. "We were saying we needed statistics," Walker recalls. The police representative "turned red in the face and said, 'If you think I'm going to give you statistics so you can sue this department, you can just hold on to your jockstraps.'"

Tooley [my note: Denver DA and his deputy, Norm Early], however, promised to deliver the stats from the DA's office, which had already set up a special system for dealing with domestic-violence cases: "vertical prosecution," in which one person followed a case all the way through the system so that it wouldn't get lost. (The only other such program was in Los Angeles, where it was headed by a young prosecutor named Johnnie Cochran.)

Tooley vowed that if he were elected mayor in 1983, there would be no need to sue the city. But though Tooley lost, Federico Pena's surprise victory signaled an end to the old-boy system. The new mayor promised to give JAWs what it wanted. And Pena delivered.

Shortly after his election, he set up the Denver Domestic Violence Task Force, chaired by St. Joan and a representative of the district attorney's office; its membership included representatives from the police and city attorney's office, as well as activist Barbara Shaw, who would soon head Project Safeguard. One of the task force's main charges was to establish a comprehensive written protocol for the handling of domestic-violence cases, from police to prosecution to probation.

Co-authored by Shaw and federally funded as a national demonstration project, the Denver Domestic Violence Task Force protocol was adopted in late 1984. The main points of the landmark document included mandatory arrest if probable cause was established that a crime had been committed; a "no drop" and "no plea bargains" policy for prosecutors; court-ordered domestic-violence counseling for perpetrators; and the establishment of victim advocates specifically trained for domestic violence.

Denver had woken up.

The Denver demonstration project was soon being emulated all over the country. But adoption of the program's objectives proved slow in much of Colorado.

Some jurisdictions--El Paso County, Jefferson County, Aurora and, in particular, Boulder--were faster to adopt practices similar to Denver's or to develop their own. Others picked up bits and pieces, such as mandatory arrest or making it easier to obtain restraining orders. Some officials, however, particularly those in rural areas, ignored the issue or complained that they didn't have the resources to handle it.

In 1988, the state legislature enacted a law defining domestic violence, mandating treatment for offenders, adopting guidelines and standards for domestic-violence therapists, establishing certification boards for therapists in each of the state's 22 judicial districts, and creating a state commission to oversee those boards. That same year, lawmakers removed exemptions from sexual-assault statutes that had prevented husbands and live-in boyfriends from being prosecuted for raping their wives or girlfriends.

Six years later, in 1994, the legislature went further still. Then-state lawmaker Diana DeGette sponsored the first omnibus domestic-violence bill in the country, one that provided a statewide "template" of the protocols that had been adopted in Denver ten years earlier. "They were the most progressive in the country," says DeGette. "But once I was elected, I realized that the rest of the state was far behind." Getting that legislation through wasn't easy. DeGette remembers one of the male members of the House Appropriations Committee mumbling, "What are you going to do next--put cameras in our bedrooms?" ---

National Black Prosecutors Assocation--

" Norm Early, then Chief Deputy in the Denver District Attorney’s Office, was one of the pioneers of the Association. While the NBPA’s first official meeting in Orlando, Florida, drew only about 30 participants, the Association soon built up steam and is now stronger than ever."

Hmmm... Is this same Norm Early, media darling of Denver, or a relation?

In the letter below, authored by Norm S Early -- his complaint is about pushing for "Justice". I've not spotted anywhere Mr. Early talking about "how the Duke Boys" should be given the same "rights" as those he's "pushing for" in the below letter. Mr. Early, then, has got to be a racialist -- in that he'd only fight for justice for those who are "non-whites". I've read his comments on the Duke Case. He has not a care for the rights of the Duke Boys.

What a creep.

Mr. Early -- you write below that "victims" should have the same rights as their accusers. The "accuser" in the Duke Case has been given absolute PREFERENTIAL treatment. The "victims" in this case, as you word it, are obviously the Duke LAX players. What say you?

Racial Minorities for Victim Justice c/o National Organization for Victim Assistance

1757 Park Road, N.W.
Washington, DC 20010
(202) 232-6682
Fax: (202) 462-2255

April 17, 2000

The Honorable Jon Kyl The Honorable Dianne Feinstein

Dear Senators Kyl and Feinstein,

The undersigned are founding members of Racial Minorities for Victim Justice which strongly supports Senate Joint Resolution 3, the Crime Victims’ Rights Constitutional Amendment. We are aware that some groups that seek conscientiously to speak for the interests of racial minorities have expressed opposition to your proposed amendment. We claim some understanding of the fundamental concerns that guide their position – concerns we share – but we also believe that they have reached the wrong conclusion on this issue.

To put it in the simplest terms, no one in our society stands to benefit more from adoption of the Victim Rights’ Amendment than people of color – for it is our people who suffer the highest rates of victimization in the Nation.

Let us start with some common ground on which the great majority of racial minorities stand in this country. Historically, we have had deep suspicions of the agencies of criminal justice. Speaking specifically on the African-American experience, it was the agents of criminal justice who were the enforcers of the Fugitive Slave Act and all the Jim Crow laws – often with lawless brutality.

While we are proud of recent progress to end this pattern of bigotry in the administration of justice – proud because African-Americans and other minorities have led the way in reforming these practices – we are not so naïve as to believe that our criminal justice system has grown altogether color-blind.

Like most other people of color, we are deeply troubled that so many young men of our racial heritage are under correctional supervision in one form or another – indicating, at the very least, that suspected wrongdoing among Blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans, among others, gets far closer scrutiny than among others in society.

Like other people of color, we are deeply troubled by a fairly recent pattern of incarcerating, often for excessively long periods, non-violent drug offenders – a harsh law enforcement policy that falls especially hard on people of color.

Perhaps some of these patterns are simply the result of the fair application of the criminal law on poor people, whose rates of criminal conduct have historically been higher among all ethnic groups who suffer from high rates of poverty. (The fact that so many racial minorities stay trapped in poverty raises separate grievances we will not address here).

But personal and institutional racism also still plays a part – a significant part, we believe – in how people of color are treated by criminal justice officials. For many of us, bitter personal experience has taught us that Driving While Black remains a serious crime in too many parts in our country today.

African-Americans hold no monopoly on maltreatment by the justice system. Non-Caucasians of every description – in the inner city, in rural America, in the barrio, in Indian Country – have faced virtually all the injustices their Black brothers and sisters have endured. So Americans of color come by their common suspicions of the intentions and performance of criminal justice agencies with ample justification. Even those of us who have devoted our lives to making law enforcement, prosecution, the courts, and corrections worthy of the trust of all our fellow citizens retain a certain unease over their treatment of minorities. More than most Americans, we believe criminal justice has become too fearful of people of color, too punitive toward minority offenders, with too few opportunities for their treatment and rehabilitation.

This is where we share common ground with most members of minority communities in America. What we cannot understand, however, is why some in those communities have concluded that one way to bring justice agencies into harmony with our higher ideals is to deny the victims of crime any effective and enforceable rights. To us, that makes no sense. We do nothing to improve the fair treatment of minority defendants by impeding the fair treatment of minority victims.

We well understand that a passion to protect the rights of criminal defendants arises almost instinctually among our brothers and sisters whenever systemic change is proposed in the criminal justice system. But the notion that the fair implementation of victims rights comes at the expense of defendants’ rights is only that – a notion.

Leaders of America’s criminal defense bar have testified frequently and heatedly against passage of the Crime Victims’ Rights Amendment, citing amorphous dangers to defendants’ rights and liberties. And how many cases did they cite where their millions of clients had run afoul of some overzealous, unfair, and harmful interpretation of a crime victim’s rights already provided in state constitutions? Two hundred? Twenty? Two?

Not even one!

It is important to understand that victims’ rights statutes echoing those in the proposed Amendment are to be found on the books of every state – buttressed by constitutional amendments in 32 of them. While compliance with those laws is woefully spotty (more on that below), it is fair to estimate that in hundreds of thousands of cases, the victims’ rights were fully implemented – giving rise to not one single appeal as to the fairness of the application of those laws.

In truth, granting victims some of the rights long accorded defendants does not diminish in any way the rights of the accused – this is not a zero sum game, where to honor the humanity of the accuser somehow dilutes the humanity of the accused. Nor does it significantly affect the bottom line, from the defendant’s perspective. In countless studies on the use of “victim impact statements” in sentencing hearings, the findings show that this right has given a measure of gratification to the victims who use it – and to the judges who consider the statements – but it has led to marginal, if any, differences in sentences imposed compared to ones where no impact statement was submitted.

It especially distresses us to hear those who share our heritage and views when they sing the same refrain as other opponents, “I’m all for victim rights, but . . .” That is a sentiment that, we believe, needs a cold-water shower of facts.

First, we need to examine the ordinary way opponents complete that sentence: “I’m all for victim rights, but Congress can do that with a statute.” True – but for the one or two percent who are victims of crime in the Federal court system – and then only if the Federal authorities do a better job of obeying victims’ rights laws than their counterparts in the states.

The only major research undertaken to track compliance with victims’ rights laws in the states (National Institute of Justice, “Statutory and Constitutional Protection of Victims’ Rights: Implementation and Impact on Crime Victims,” 1996) found that states with relatively weak victims’ rights laws enforced them at lower rates than states with stronger laws, buttressed by a state constitutional amendment. Here are some of the key findings:

Measures of rights granted by, or of satisfaction with, the justice system

To all of us who “believe in victims’ rights” – from whatever part of our society we come – the survey results tell us that our beliefs will be recognized less than half the time if they are expressed only in statutes, that they will gain greater force if they’re backed up with a state amendment, but that all of them are likely to be capriciously enforced until they are written as a uniform, national platform in the U.S. Constitution. Second, we need to examine how minority victims fare under our current victims’ rights efforts. Obviously, from the NIJ research findings, whenever there is a failure of full compliance (which is always), someone in the justice system is deciding not to do something in “Case C” that the same person did in Cases A and B. Most likely, those are unconscious decisions. But whatever the motives behind a particular action or inaction, the results put minority victims at a disadvantage. Here are some race-based tabulations from the same survey:

---

Few of these rates of compliance should be satisfactory to any racial group of victims. At the same time, the fact that, whenever racial disparities crop up, nonwhites always lag behind whites – in figures that almost reach a gap of 40 percentage points – is to us repugnant and unacceptable.

In our opinion, people of color should be especially outraged at these disproportionate deprivations of our legal and human rights. For it is our minority communities who disproportionately suffer the pains of criminal victimization.

The media have used victimization data to portray the prototypical felon as a relatively young black male. Many of us take offense at that stereotype and its harmful, sometimes deadly, effects on a whole generation of African-American youth. At the same time, none of us would deny that the prototypical victim of violent crime fits a very similar demographic pattern.

According to the 1998 National Crime Victimization Survey, the comparative violent crime victimization rates are 36 for every 1,000 white Americans and 42 for every 1,000 Black Americans, a very significant increase in the vulnerability of African-Americans to criminal attack. However you run the math on those figures, for those of us who seek to protect the special, legitimate interests of people of color, we need to develop a heightened interest in protecting their rights as victims of crime.

We confess that, up to now, we have done a poor job in enlisting our civil rights leaders to the cause of victims’ rights. To both them and their supporters in the United States Senate, we say, restore to all Americans certain basic rights that were the ordinary prerogatives of our citizens when the Bill of Rights was adopted. For as you know, before the widespread use of paid law enforcement and prosecution, crime victims had to serve as their own police officers and prosecutors, or hire them – a practice that lasted about a century after the Nation’s founding.

So what we seek is the restoration of certain, fundamental rights – such as the victim’s right to be informed of, to be present, and to be heard at every critical stage of the criminal justice process.

In a larger context, this issue is not just about subgroups of crime victims in our country alone. Though born in the USA, the victims’ rights movement now belongs to all the nations of the world.

A major impetus in the globalization of the victims’ movement was the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption of the “Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims for Crime and Abuse of Power.” It is noteworthy that the 1985 Declaration, strongly backed by the U.S. delegation, speaks not only to just aspirations of the victims of crime but also to victims of the abuse of power. That is a dimension of our movement that speaks to just claims of persecuted minorities everywhere. It is a worldview we embrace.

The principles embodied in the U.N. Declaration and the proposed Constitutional amendment are now legally recognized in much of Europe, and are struggling for recognition, often with success, in such disparate societies as those of Mexico, South Africa (notably through its Truth and Reconciliation Commission), Japan, and Nigeria. That movement speaks to a basic human plea from everyone who has been marginalized in their society, a plea that the Reverend Jesse Jackson has eloquently captured in just three words: “I am somebody!”

It is important to recognize that crime victims in all cultures throughout history have found themselves marginalized. For there is a human instinct to end communication with our neighbor who has become a victim, even to shun or ostracize that person. “Blaming the victim” appears to be as old as humankind itself. The worldwide victims’ movement is battling, with remarkable success, to defeat those uncharitable human instincts. Those of us who are called to a special duty to speak for people who already face social stigma in our societies have an added duty, we believe, to speak for the crime victims among our already-stigmatized brothers and sisters.

That is precisely why the proposed Crime Victims’ Rights Amendment has the unqualified, enthusiastic support of the founding members of Racial Minorities for Victim Justice.

Sincerely,

Norman S. Early, Jr.

Convenor Teresa Baker Clementine Barfield Aurelia Sands Belle, M.Ed Ralph H. Hubbard Sarah Fletcher Azim N. Khamisa Christine Lopez Joseph A. Myers, Esq. Steven Njemanze David Osborne Oliver W. Smith, Sr. Norman Early is the President of the Board of Directors of the National Organization for Victim Assistance, which has agreed to serve as the secretariat for Racial Minorities for Victim Justice. He is also the former District Attorney of Denver, Colorado, and the founding President of the National Black Prosecutors’ Association. Teresa Baker is a member of the Stephanie Roper Foundation’s Support Group for Homicide Survivors in Maryland. Her only son was murdered on May 8, 1991, in St. Mary’s County. She supports the Amendment because the justice system did not work for her. Clementine Barfield – “organizer, consultant, lecturer, trainer” – is the founder and President of Save Our Sons And Daughters (SOSAD), started in 1987 in the aftermath of her two teenage sons being shot the year before in Detroit – a year when 363 other children children under 16 were also shot. In addition to assisting victims, SOSAD also helps reintegrate ex-convicts into community life. Aurelia Sands Belle served for twelve years as the founding Director of the Victim-Witness Assistance Program in Atlanta, during which time she also served as President of Georgians for Victim Justice and was the first victim advocate to serve on the Governor’s Criminal Justice Coordinating Council. After a family move to North Carolina, she served as Executive Director of the Rape Crisis Volunteers of Cumberland County, where, among other accomplishments, she increased minority participation and inclusion. Sarah Fletcher – joined by her children, Kenneth and LaKeesha Larry – are members of the Stephanie Roper Foundation’s Support Group for Homicide Survivors in Maryland. Her husband Reginald was murdered on June 20, 1987. Her son Ricky was murdered on June 20, 1998. Her daughter Crystal and Crystal’s unborn son were murdered on February 11, 1999. She supports the Amendment because , without it, she fears she will not receive equal justice. Ralph Hubbard, a victim advocate, is a member of Parents of Murdered Children (national) and a Board Member of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence. A retired New York City Police Officer, he is also Second Vice President of the 24th Infantry Regional Association, Northest Division – the last all-Negro Army unit, which was disbanded in Korea in 1951. Azim Khamisa – a naturalized citizen whose family came “out of India, out of Africa, out of Canada, into America” is a successful investment banker. He is also the founding President of the Tariq Khamisa Foundation, dedicated to reduce the kind of youth violence that claimed the life of his son, Tariq. His mission in support of “restorative justice” models have generated much national media attention and an award of the National Crime Victim Service Award from Attorney General Janet Reno and President Bill Clinton. Christine Lopez is a Senior Victim Advocate who has been nationally recognized (a National Crime Victim Service Award from Attorney General Janet Reno) for her expertise in assisting Hispanic victims and witnesses of gang violence. She was also the recipient of the first annual “Doris Tate Award” for exceptional service to victims in California. Joseph Myers, a member of the Pomo Tribe of northern California, is Executive Director of the National Indian Justice Center, a nonprofit institution he helped create in 1983 to help improve tribal court systems and the administration of justice in Indian Country. In 1993, his work to bring victim assistance into reservation life led to his receiving the National Crime Victim Service Award from Attorney General Janet Reno. Steven Njemanze, a victim advocate, manages Federal grants for victim assistance programs in Mississippi. He is a member of the Board of the National Organization for Victim Assistance and a member of the Mississippi Coalition for Crime Victims. He is also the survivor or many relatives killed in civil wars in his native Nigeria. David Osborne is the Assistant Secretary of State and Consumer Services Agency in California, which oversees civil rights enforcement through the Department of Fair Employment and Housing. Mr. Osborne formerly served as a White House appointee in the Office for Victims of Crime at the U.S. Department of Justice during the first term of the Clinton Administration. A Japanese-American, Mr. Osborne was a member of the advance team of crisis counselors who responded to the 1995 Kobe Earthquake. Oliver Smith is Vice President of the Washington, DC, Chapter of Concerns of Police Survivors (COPS). In February, 1997, three police officers were killed in the line of duty, including his only son, Oliver W. Smith, Jr. One of his vivid memories of the trial was just how few rights the victims have – and that victims should be given the same rights as the accused.

http://www.wral.com/news/9174248/detail.html

Durham DA Wants To Reinstate Charges Against Duke Lacrosse Player

Mike Nifong Claims David Evans Hosted Party With Underage Drinking

POSTED: 6:19 am EDT May 8, 2006

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/14526513.htm

Posted on Mon, May. 08, 2006

At N.C. Central, rape case seen as symbol
A poor accuser, privileged defendants, and a gulf between

ANNE HULL
Washington Post

Duke Lacrosse: news on a silver platter

David Epstein

An uncommon convergence of themes turned a rape accusation against college lacrosse players into one of the year's biggest stories.

Sure Iran and Iraq are important, but nothing seems to have captivated the American public lately quite like ... drumroll, please ... the Duke university lacrosse team.

For anyone who has been in a cave deprived of US media: a black exotic dancer from a historically black university, said in March that white members of the Duke lacrosse team raped her at a party.

DNA was taken from the lacrosse players present at the party, and most people insisted that the controversy would die down if none of the samples matched DNA found on the woman.

Well, none of the DNA matched, but the controversy remained alive and well. That's because, as domestic news stories go, this one's a gourmet feast.

The ingredients: sex, violence against women, sports, racial tension, and the relationship of a rich, elite university to the less than well-to-do surrounding community.

On any given day, each of these ingredients alone garners headlines; put just a dash of two together and it's a pungent concoction: sports and sex, sports and violence, violence and racial tension, sex and the rich university ... Duke got the whole shebang, the deluxe news hook omelette with a side order of politics (the prosecutor in the case is up for election). Still, the further the case has progressed - two lacrosse players have been indicted - the more flimsy it seems.

But this story isn't about what a few Duke lacrosse players did or didn't do at their party. If it were, the DNA evidence would have calmed passions at least momentarily. After all, it isn't exactly uncommon for college athletes to be accused of rape. This story is about a country that has been bursting at the seams to talk about sports, sex, violence, race, and elitism in all their various combinations and permutations.

For Nelson Williams, a Duke undergraduate and co-director of the Center for Race Relations, the lacrosse story is about everything from "Duke-Durham relationships and racism, to privilege and power, and gender disparities," he said, calling the conversations "much needed".

Paul H Haagen, a Duke law professor, said that Duke's campus has become the "backdrop" for expressing "deep concerns about the future of the United States, the role of education, the role of athletics, race, gender, and violence against women".

The question now becomes: given the news peg for these discussions, will we learn anything from it?

Haagen said that the lacrosse debacle seems to conjure one of two ideas in most people: 1) that political correctness has run amok, and people are convicting the lacrosse players in the court of public opinion because they are rich, white, and athletes. Or: 2) this is another example that rich and powerful people and institutions can always run and/or hide from their misdeeds.

For people who believe this case is about "how poor black women can never get justice," as Haagen put it, acquittals will only confirm their suspicions. For those on the other side of the aisle, "guilty" verdicts will enforce their idea that the court of public opinion skews justice when race comes in to play.

The only sure lesson to be learned is the recipe for the headline omelette.

So, while any closure for deeply rooted tensions is unlikely as a result of the Duke lacrosse case, closure, or at least lapsed attention span, for news organizations will certainly come. As J Douglas Toma, an associate professor of higher education at the University of Georgia, put it, all we need is "the next white student in Aruba who gets abducted".

I predict Greensboro for the COV

Men, Women Differ in Views of Duke Lacrosse Case

Public more inclined to believe charges are true

by Joseph Carroll

GALLUP NEWS SERVICE

PRINCETON, NJ -- Women are significantly more likely than men to say the charges that two Duke University lacrosse players sexually assaulted a woman at a March 13 team party are true; women are less likely than men to believe that their accuser is being treated fairly. Overall, Americans are more likely to say the charges are true rather than not true, according to a recent USA Today/Gallup poll, though a substantial percentage do not offer an opinion. More than half of Americans say that both the players and the woman are being treated fairly in this case. Six in 10 Americans say they are closely following the case, which represents a mid-range level of interest compared with other news stories measured over the last decade or so.

Americans Paying Attention to Duke Story Divided on Truth of Charges

The poll, conducted April 28-30, finds that Americans, by a 44% to 34% margin, believe the charges that two Duke lacrosse players sexually assaulted a woman at a team party are true rather than untrue. One in five adults does not have an opinion.

Americans who report that they are following the case at least somewhat closely are much more divided in their views of the charges than those who are not following it closely. Forty-five percent of those closely following the case say the charges are true, while 41% say they are not. Among those not following the case closely, 43% say the charges are true, 24% say they are not true, and 33% do not have an opinion.

There is a significant gender gap in views of this case. Women (52%) are more likely than men (36%) to say the charges are true. More men believe the charges are untrue than believe they are true. Younger women, those in the 18 to 49 age range, are especially likely to believe the charges are true -- nearly 6 in 10 (57%) say they are true, compared with 46% of women aged 50 and older. Men view the case similarly regardless of their age.

Americans Say Players, Accuser Being Treated Fairly More than half of Americans say that both the players who have been charged with sexual assault (52%) and the woman accusing the players (51%) are being treated fairly

Fifty-seven percent of those following the case closely say both the players and the accuser are being treated fairly, while roughly a third say they are not. Among those not following the case, a higher percentage say both the players and the accuser are being treated fairly than unfairly, but nearly 4 in 10 offer no opinion.

More...

The Great Campus Divide

The dangers of separating the athlete from the student

By Alex Kingsbury

Much remains unclear about the alleged rape incident implicating members of the Duke University lacrosse team. But the episode last month at the Durham, N.C., campus has cast fresh light on the schism that often exists between college athletics and the wider academic community. Student athletes have long inhabited a world often less focused on learning than on winning. But what is becoming more apparent today is that the divide is widening--and that it can lead to destructive behavior. Although the Duke lacrosse players appear to be better students than most, a pair of faculty reports issued last week noted the team's "clannish" or "pack" culture, both on and off the playing field, and its connection to a rash of disciplinary incidents.

College campuses are often bastions of balkanization. Academic departments can be isolated from one another and the outside world, dormitory and Greek life is frequently cliquish, and administrators often lack any meaningful interaction with students. But, historically, it has been athletics that have caused the greatest conflicts with the true mission of higher education. As far back as 1929, the Carnegie Foundation published a report on collegiate athletics bemoaning lax oversight, high coaching salaries, and low academic standards. Sixty-two years later, reports by the Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics came to the same conclusions.

Reforms. Today, as Duke conducts a rigorous examination of how it "educates students in the values of personal responsibility," other schools are looking at ways to bring athletics back into the mainstream of campus life.

Nearly three years ago, for instance, Vanderbilt University in Nashville took the radical step of abolishing its entire athletic department and placing all sports under the auspices of the vice chancellor for student life and university affairs. "Athletics has become disassociated, arrogantly so, from the university," says Gordon Gee, Vanderbilt's chancellor and architect of the reorganization. "The reforms were partly about who was in charge--the university president or a coach." Despite dire warnings to the contrary, the Division I school has continued to field competitive teams. Likewise, the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., recently reassigned the head of athletics so that he now reports to the commandant of cadets. The University of Colorado-Boulder and Ohio State University-Columbus are among other schools looking at ways to bring their athletic departments back into the fold.

The reorganizations have coincided with increased oversight by the National Collegiate Athletic Association. In the past decade, sports have become one of the most regulated sectors on campus, as players are subjected to random drug tests, higher academic standards aimed at boosting graduation rates and team GPAs, restrictions on recruiting and endorsements, and codes of conduct that often hold them to a higher standard than other students.

Tim Curley, president of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics, points to a 500-page rulebook that the NCAA gives to athletic departments. "We have our problems like any other segments of the campus community," he says, "but there is also far more regulation and scrutiny than your average academic department."

A separate place. There are many reasons why athletic departments are worlds unto themselves. But perhaps the most important is that they are often entirely separate organizations--nonprofits that do their own fundraising, marketing, and recruiting and pay their own salaries. "Over the past 20 years, athletics have established separate departments with separate missions: win and raise money, which isn't supposed to be the mission of a school," says Peter Roby, director of Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society. That isn't to say sports aren't valuable and compatible with academics, he says; rather, that athletics need to be reintegrated into the modern campus.

While the two reports from Duke have chronicled problems with the lacrosse team--three players were disciplined in 2001 for engaging in a drinking game while entertaining a potential high school recruit--an investigation into administrative shortcomings is expected soon. In the classic 2001 book The Game of Life: College Sports and Educational Values, researcher William Bowen highlighted the dangers to colleges that overemphasize competitive athletics. Later this month, on behalf of Duke, Bowen will weigh in on the subject again. The topic: the administrative response to the alleged assault and recommended changes in the treatment of student scholars.

Public more inclined to believe charges are true

I find this mind boggling.

Given the initial rash of publicity and the credibility given to Mangum, I'm not surprised that people who haven't dug as deeply as we Freepers think that they are guilty.

Ironically, even back in the bad old days when things were even more corrupt and less regulated, Duke's athletic teams were never separated out from the rest of the campus. They were in the same dorms/housing as the rest of the students, they were in the same dining halls, they took the same classes. I know first hand - I was there.

There are a very small number of "gut" classes that those seeking to shirk work can take. All the majors are "real" majors. The graduation success rate (GSR) for Duke athletes is very high. Up until the players from the 1997 recruiting class defected to the pros, Duke had graduated 100% of its basketball players (lifetime) and was one of the last programs to start losing players to the pros. The current GSR for lax is 100%.

Duke has its problems, but this article is far more descriptive of any number of other places I can think of.

You're right..I'm a little obsessed. i guess folks believe Nancy Grace et al

To be honest with you, I have never tracked down the source of the rule in my jurisdiction. We are in a state adjacent to North Carolina, and the rule here is change of venue goes first to an adjacent county, unless the taint of the original county extends to that county as well. It is almost always the case with publicity that the taint will cover the adjacent county (as the newspapers, radio stations, and television stations are bound to be the same between adjacent counties). When the adjacent county is eliminated, the venue next goes to a county similar in size and demographics (demographics can include income, age distribution, etc., but seems always to be interpreted by the court as racial makeup). The county may be 10 or 200 miles away, so long as it is demographically similar. I asked around our office and no one ever had a change of venue granted (because it is rare, not because we lack experience). One of our most experienced lawyers thought court administration in the state capitol sent a list of similar counties to the trial judge and the judge made the call among those. As the ruling you cited says, it is always left to the sound discretion of the trial judge. That means a judges decision to grant or deny a change of venue will be reviewed on an abuse of discretion standard. As long as the judge cites some reason for his or her action, abuse of discretion will almost never be found (an example of abuse of discretion would be saying I will not transfer the case despite the prejudice because I do not like driving that far to go to work - in other words, the judge would really have to screw up). Thus, the change of venue issue, if denied, will seldom be reversed on appeal.

That said, I think a judge would have to be willfully blind to deny a change of venue here. It could happen, though, and if it does, the appellate courts are unlikely to reverse it (note in the decision you cited that the court said, essentially, "we do not believe the court should have granted change of venue, but we do not think it was abuse of discretion to do so")

The only thing Guilelford (her) and Grace could have done better was to bring Winnie Mandela on for interviewing. "Execution First, Trial Later". But that would have left the US lefties out of the "loop" for the talking circuits.

I find this mind boggling.

RE:poll.

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The defense needs to keep young women off the jury, anyone under 40.
I think older white men, and women(over 45) would be the best jurist, because they would see the two indicted as their own sons.

I can believe the poll considering this is a country that believes most people charged are guilty. Frankly, considering the media hype over this story the first few weeks, I am surprised it is not more you think they are guilty.

you think they are guilty.

meant WHO think they are guilty.

I can't believe the lack of DNA didn't swing the case the other way...three men in a little bathroom for a half an hour--Should have been DNA all over the place. With a poll like this I think Bennett should give the folks their money back.

can't believe the lack of DNA didn't swing the case the other way...three men in a little bathroom for a half an hour--Should have been DNA all over the place. With a poll like this I think Bennett should give the folks their money back.
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Lets remember that the broadcast news only covered the initial weeks of this case, they did not follow up on the case.
I did not hear anything about "no DNA" or Reade's alibi on NBC, CBS, ABD nightly news, but I sure heard about the white players accused of raping a black girl in the first couple of weeks of the case.