And, BTW, Robert Zelnick is the same Bob Zelnick formerly of ABC News...
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/robert_zelnick/profile.html
"He does not ruin lives with charges that will die in any courtroom in which they are tried."
Alas, the sad state of American jurisprudence is that judges who ought to intervene to prevent this kind of abuse fear the community reaction more than they care about justice; and so they permit the case to drag on and on, like the Energizer bunny.
And juries can be stacked; they can convict because they want to convict, regardless of any evidence.
And legal minds (such as those at the Duke Law faculty) imagine they can escape becoming involved by remaining aloof, not realizing that they are involved already; and that their silence speaks more loudly about them and their values than anything else.
(Welcome to Scottsboro 2006. Judge Horton, where are you?)