Lol, well, all those "plusses" are some of the elements of the perfect storm I was talking about, plus Mangum and her situation, spring break and the boys' situation, this being Duke, a prestigious university in a town overloaded with poor blacks and a lot of black criminals, and a black town leadership, on and on. It's uncanny how it all came together to create this masterpiece of a disaster.
I think the problems with the view of the courts in this case almost all fall at the feet of Stephens.
1. He was flat lied to to get warrants. When motions were made pointing that out, he did not seem to care.
2. He had Nifong smirking and acting out in his courtroom and did nothing about it.
3. He allowed a defendant to be implicitly threatened in his courtroom admittedly before he arrived without doing a thing about it.
4. He knew nothing about the case but far far too much about that cell phone.
I am not sure if he is honest, cares about his public image or not, but what he accomplished was making himself look like a judge who is at best intimidated by the DA and at worst corrupt. Titus did nothing to change this with is unwillingness to do anything and his quasi-gag order, but it was not as personal as it should have been with Stephens who personally signed those orders based on lies and the negotiations to declare this case exceptional might have been going on the whole time he was handling the case.