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At center of Duke lacrosse case, a stormy DA who likes to fight (DukeLax)
Raleigh News & Observer ^ | October 1, 2006 | Benjamin Niolet

Posted on 10/01/2006 1:40:53 AM PDT by abb

DURHAM - Anyone who asks why Mike Nifong won't drop the Duke University lacrosse rape case doesn't know Mike Nifong.

In his long career, Nifong has earned a reputation as a prosecutor who charges hard at his opposition and relishes going to trial. Although his unpredictable behavior might puzzle some observers of the lacrosse case, it is vintage Nifong.

For six months, Nifong has been the public face of -- and the driving force behind -- the case against three Duke lacrosse players who are accused of raping a woman hired to dance at a team party. Even after DNA tests came back negative or inconclusive, and evidence emerged that contradicts the state's case, Nifong pressed ahead.

He was so confident in the accuser's story and his case that he refused to meet with lawyers who said they could prove players' innocence. He bickered with the lawyers in the media and needled them in court. The faith in his case was a familiar posture for a man who, with talent and the resources of the state on his side for nearly 30 years, is accustomed to having the upper hand.

In more than 300 felony trials and countless pleas, Nifong's confidence and bluster have served him and Durham County well. For most of his career, he has been sending to prison people who belonged there.

But Duke lacrosse is not just any Durham case. The defense team is well-funded and includes some of the most highly regarded lawyers in the state. In filings and the media, they have counterattacked in an effort to dismantle Nifong's case against David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann.

The case has drawn national media attention, and Nifong's saber-rattling has been on display for the world.

Nifong, 56, is a prosecutor, not a politician. The lacrosse case was the first time he had to be both -- the investigation began a year after the governor appointed him district attorney. And when Nifong's early assurances that lacrosse players raped a dancer didn't jibe with the evidence that became public, his critics accused him of using the case for political gain. The weaknesses in the case have led to an election challenge from a write-in candidate and an organized effort to have voters pick anyone but Nifong on Nov. 7.

If Nifong wins the election, he will face the fight of his professional life when the case goes to trial next year. "He's staked his reputation and probably to a larger extent his career on this case," said Jim Cooney, a Charlotte criminal defense lawyer who is not involved in the lacrosse case but has been involved in many high-profile criminal cases.

Nifong declined to answer questions for this story. The News & Observer interviewed nearly two dozen people, reviewed court files and listened to recordings of him in court. The interviews and documents help shed light on why, when saddled with a case that another prosecutor might have dropped, Nifong has chosen to continue.

Faith in key witness

At the trial, Nifong's key witness will be the accuser, who will presumably testify that she was raped by Evans, Finnerty and Seligmann. Under North Carolina law, her accusation is enough evidence to take the case to a jury.

From the start, lawyers for team members have said her story is a lie. They have highlighted every inconsistency in her account as evidence that she is a "false accuser," as one of Evans' attorneys, Joseph B. Cheshire V, calls her. When the time comes for her to testify, she will be under fire. She can expect questions about a history of bipolar disorder and her career as an exotic dancer, performing for private parties or couples in hotel rooms.

Although Nifong has never heard the woman tell her story, he believes her. He said in court last month that he met with her and detectives April 11 to discuss the judicial process. Nifong said she was too traumatized to speak about the incident. The day after that meeting, Nifong told a judge he was planning to seek indictments.

Even though an accusation is enough, it does not require a prosecutor to pursue a rape case. In general, part of a prosecutor's job is to use judgment, said Robert L. Farb, professor of public law and government at UNC-Chapel Hill's School of Government.

"Prosecutors evaluate cases all the time," Farb said. "They decide whether to go forward or not, offer a plea or dismiss or whatever."

Echoes of '94 case

Twelve years ago, Nifong prosecuted a man in a rape case that bore some similarity to the one he is focused on now.

As in the Duke lacrosse case, Nifong had on his side the word of the woman. And the defense said it had plenty of evidence that no rape happened.

Even before the case made it to trial, Nifong taunted the defense attorneys.

"Poultry," Nifong said when a defense attorney asked a judge to delay the trial date.

"They're a bunch of chickens," he told the Herald-Sun of Durham to explain his comment. "I have the impression sometimes they are afraid to try cases."

The case was State v. Timothy Malloy, and the defendant was a prison guard and convenience store clerk accused of raping a woman at gunpoint. The testimony was preserved on a court reporter's audiotape.

In 1992, the accuser told authorities that after a night of heavy drinking, two friends, who each thought the other had driven her home, left her at a bar. The woman walked to a convenience store where Malloy was on duty.

After the woman used the store phone several times to try to reach friends, Malloy propositioned her. He said that she agreed and they had sex in a storeroom. She said he pulled a gun from his waistband and raped her.

The defense was aggressive. The woman said she was anally raped, but the medical report introduced by the defense showed that there was no physical evidence of injury and that the accuser had not complained of pain during the exam.

Police never found a gun, despite a thorough search of the store and Malloy's car. A newspaper delivery man testified that just after the incident, he saw Malloy and the woman talking and thought they were friends.

If Malloy had a gun that night, the defense asked, how would it have been held up by the flimsy elastic of the sweat pants he was wearing? And after being raped, why would the woman tell Malloy to come see her at the topless bar where she served drinks?

"The one thing this case really boils down to is whether or not this lady's telling you the truth," defense attorney Bob Brown told a Durham County jury Aug. 3, 1994. "There's no other evidence that backs her up."

The accuser had waited a long time for her chance to tell her story. She said in a recent interview that until Nifong got involved, she had thought about dropping the case.

"He believed in me, and until that time, I didn't feel anybody else believed in me," she said. "I felt like the system let me down until Mike took the case."

The News & Observer generally does not identify complainants in sexual assault cases.

She faced a grueling cross-examination. Brown, the defense attorney, found at least half a dozen false statements the woman had made on job and credit applications. He also asked her about written statements given to police that contained inconsistencies.

"That was a false statement?" Brown asked each time. "That was a story," he said.

Brown's questioning lasted several hours. Nifong took just one minute to question her again.

"What you've told the jury yesterday and today has been after you've taken an oath on the Bible to tell the truth?" Nifong asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Have you told the jury the truth, both yesterday and today, in everything that you've said?"

"Yes, I have."

Nifong had no further questions.

After a five-day trial, the jury deliberated two hours and 40 minutes before reaching a verdict: not guilty.

In a recent interview, Malloy, the defendant, said, "I guess once he sets his mind that he's going to prosecute, there's nothing you can really do. What could you do?"

Starting his career

Nifong, a native of Wilmington and the son of a federal Treasury agent, graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill law school in 1978. He interviewed for prosecutor's jobs in Raleigh, Durham and Greensboro but couldn't get a job. Eager for experience, he told Durham's then-district attorney, Dan Edwards, that he would work for free.

Edwards agreed, and two weeks later he placed Nifong on the payroll. Within two years, Nifong was trying cases in Superior Court, where felonies are resolved.

He liked the courtroom. "When you got in there, it was about winning," he said in a 2005 interview with a News & Observer reporter just before he was sworn in as district attorney.

Defense lawyers trying to squeeze a plea out of a prosecutor often threaten to go to trial. Nifong would happily call their bluff.

"How is that a threat?" Nifong said in the 2005 interview.

It took a lot of preparation and sometimes a little luck to beat Nifong in court, said Lisa Williams, a Durham criminal defense lawyer and former Durham prosecutor.

"If I walked into a courtroom and there has to be a DA in there, I would want to see anyone but Mike Nifong," she said. "His expectation is always that he's going to win."

Norman Williams, who is not related to Lisa Williams, started practicing law in 1965. Over the years, he has fought some tough cases against Nifong.

"He has some equals in Durham, but he has no betters," Williams said. "If you had to pick a DA to run this courthouse, you couldn't find a better person."

By the mid-1990s, Nifong was getting assigned to the county's most serious felonies. In the courtroom, he showed not just a command of the law but a certain art about trial lawyering.

In 1995, he prosecuted Walter Goldston, who was accused of killing a convenience store owner. Nifong sought the death penalty.

Brian Aus was one of Goldston's attorneys. He remembers that in closing arguments, Nifong started talking to the jury about the angles of bullets -- the state thought that Goldston fired as he lay on the floor. Nifong said, "I hate to do this in a suit," Aus recalled. Nifong flopped on the floor to describe the shooting.

"It was something," Aus said.

Goldston was convicted and sentenced to life.

"He's always very polished," said Aus, who has known Nifong for 22 years. "He doesn't rely a lot on notes or stuff. He just gets out there, gets to his point and moves on."

In his prosecutions, Nifong opened up his entire file to defense lawyers -- something the law didn't require until 2004. It was a matter of fairness, he said in the 2005 interview, but it also added to the intimidation factor. He would tell a lawyer what he had and what he was going to do, and then in court he would do it.

"I was very good at what I did, but I was kind of cocky," he said.

In 1999, Nifong was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He endured surgery, radiation and a year of hormone therapy.

After missing months of work, he said in the 2005 interview, he returned less convinced that things were black and white. His illness changed the way he thought about the courtroom.

"What you may lose sight of when all you're worried about is winning ... that's not really what the DA's office is here for," Nifong said. "This is really supposed to be about justice."

At the time, the District Attorney's Office was reeling from a scandal in traffic court. A judge, two prosecutors and a defense lawyer were implicated in a back-hall deal to clear a drunken-driving charge against a dentist.

Then-District Attorney Jim Hardin assigned Nifong to negotiate cases in the troubled court -- an important, if unheralded, assignment. Nifong was regarded as highly ethical, and he seemed a good choice to clean up traffic court.

Moody, demanding

On busy days, lawyers would wait outside Nifong's closed door to negotiate speeding tickets or revoked licenses. At times, those gatherings had the feel of schoolchildren waiting outside the principal's office. Behind the door, Nifong always had the power.

"Working with Mike, you never knew from one day or the other who you'd be dealing with," said Glenn Gray, a lawyer who handled a high volume of traffic cases. "He would curse you, scream at you, call you names over nothing."

Nifong's moods became just part of dealing with him.

"He cannot stand unprepared people," said Aus, the veteran lawyer who has known Nifong for two decades. "He'll go off on you like that. He's the first one to tell you, too, 'Don't bother me right now, I'm not in a good mood.' "

Durham lawyer C. Scott Holmes said Nifong's behavior stemmed from his passion about his cases.

"I have seen him lose his temper and berate attorneys in an unprofessional manner," Holmes said. "But I also have seen him dedicate years of service to the Durham public."

Gray remembers asking Nifong to offer his client a plea that would allow him to get his license back so he could drive to work. Nifong asked Gray, who at the time did a volume business of hundreds of clients, where the client worked. Gray didn't know.

"You don't know what he does? He's your client and you don't know?" Gray remembers Nifong asking, loudly.

Gray knew that lawyers on the other side of the door could hear the tirade. He had heard similar outbursts, sometimes profanity-laced, when other lawyers were in Nifong's office.

When asked in 2005 about traffic court, Nifong said he expects lawyers to be prepared.

"I expect them to be able to answer questions about the case," he said.

In 2005, District Attorney Jim Hardin was made a judge by Gov. Mike Easley, who then picked Nifong to fill the job until the 2006 election. For many at the courthouse, the choice made sense; Nifong had devoted his entire professional life to the office and had been chief assistant for years.

At the ceremony where Hardin and Nifong took their oaths, Hardin jokingly warned the new district attorney that his new job was often thankless. He gave Nifong a gift: a white T-shirt with a bull's-eye on it.

The lacrosse case

On March 13, 2006, members of the Duke lacrosse team gathered at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd., a home just across the street from the university's East Campus. By early the next morning, one of two women hired to dance there was saying she had been gang-raped.

Ten days after the party, Nifong's chief assistant got a court order that required 46 members of the team to submit to DNA testing and other identification procedures -- and Duke lacrosse became national news.

Four days after the team gave DNA samples, Nifong granted his first of many on-the-record interviews about the case. He told a News & Observer reporter that he planned to prosecute the case himself. He said he would consider charges against bystanders at the party who did nothing to stop a brutal assault. The interview began a week during which Nifong, by his own accounts, gave more than 50 interviews and spent 40 hours responding to media requests.

In those interviews, Nifong said that when the DNA tests came back, the state would have proof of who raped the woman. The interviews were unusual for Durham prosecutors, who normally avoid talking to reporters on the record out of court.

When asked about his frequent interviews in those early days, Nifong said he has always tried to answer reporters' questions because he believes the public should understand how the courts work.

But the media interest in the lacrosse case was different.

"Back in the days when I started and he was going full tilt, before he got cancer, we didn't have the Court TV coverage," Aus said. "I chalk it up to it was a learning experience for him. ... He was trying to be accommodating, and it just got out of hand. It's not his style to do that."

It was not just his media presence that was new. Behind the scenes, Nifong had staked out an unusual role as the leader of an investigation that had yet to even identify suspects. Typically, police investigate cases and turn them over to prosecutors.

On March 31, Nifong sat with the two main Durham police detectives on the case. The accuser was having trouble identifying her attackers. According to notes taken by Sgt. Mark Gottlieb, Nifong suggested that the officers have the accuser look at pictures of 46 team members to see whether she remembered seeing them at the party.

The lineup procedure Nifong suggested violated the police department's guidelines, which call for photo lineups to include at least five nonsuspects for every suspect. The guidelines also call for an independent administrator to conduct the lineup, not an investigator in the case.

It was during this lineup, criticized by a defense lawyer as a "multiple choice test," that the accuser picked out Evans, Finnerty, Seligmann and an unindicted fourth player as her attackers.

By early April, Nifong had stopped granting interviews about the case, although he still made occasional offhand, newsworthy comments. Reporters followed him wherever he went through much of April.

Nifong refused to hunker down. Several times, he walked out of the courthouse to a restaurant across the street, braving the gantlet of camera crews that had framed the courthouse in the backdrop of their live shots.

Lawyers for the players also had a hard time getting time with Nifong. Just after Seligmann was indicted April 17, his attorneys tried to show Nifong that they had phone records, sworn statements and photographs that would prove that the player had an alibi. Nifong refused to see them.

Defense on offensive

If the reporters now had to struggle to get a quote out of Nifong, it was much easier with the defense. Lawyers representing the lacrosse players took the offensive. They declared that no rape or sexual assault occurred and marveled at the statements Nifong had made on national television.

Nifong bickered and squabbled with the lawyers.

After lawyer Kirk Osborn asked a judge to remove Nifong from the case, Nifong said, "If I were him, I wouldn't want to be trying the case against me either. ... The best comment I ever heard about Kirk was he was the best-dressed public defender in North Carolina."

At one court hearing, Nifong suggested that attorneys for unindicted team members had put their careers ahead of their clients:

"It looked sometimes over the course of the last few months that some of these attorneys were almost disappointed that their clients didn't get indicted so they could be a part of this spectacle."

The tensions between Nifong and the defense boiled over May 15, a Monday, the day Evans was indicted.

Late on the previous Friday -- after Nifong had left town for the weekend -- defense attorneys called a news conference to denounce a second batch of DNA tests that the prosecutor had ordered. The lawyers said Nifong was persecuting innocents on the word of a liar.

That Monday, Nifong stormed out of his office, blowing past the reporters in the hallway. He marched to the judges' chambers, where he bumped into one of Evans' attorneys. He lit into the lawyer, his voice carrying across the sixth floor. He made liberal use of profanity, including the word "mother[expletive]."

By the end of the day, the defense had stolen the story line. Just after Evans was charged with rape, he stood before dozens of reporters and declared on national television that he and his teammates were innocent.

"You have all been told some fantastic lies," Evans said.

On defense: talent

Nifong's opposition in the case is formidable. Rick Gammon, a prominent Raleigh defense lawyer, said the defense includes some of the best legal talent anywhere.

"Joe [Cheshire] and Wade [Smith] are probably two of the best trial lawyers in the state and probably in this country," Gammon said.

Cooney, the Charlotte defense lawyer, predicted that the case will involve more research by lawyers and investigators than many capital murder cases.

"There's a heck of a lot of preparation," he said. "You're going to say something, and somebody is going to be able to pull out ... something that shows it's not true. The first liar loses, and you don't want to be the first liar."

If Nifong is elected district attorney next month, what the people of Durham and the nation think about him -- his media statements, his angry outbursts, his wisecracks in court and his seemingly unwavering belief in the accuser -- will not matter in the Duke lacrosse case.

"The only people I have to persuade will be the 12 sitting on the jury, and if you want to know how I am going to do that, you will need to attend the trial," he told a Newsweek reporter in an e-mail message.

If Nifong's statements and actions in the lacrosse case, and indeed his actions over his 28-year career, are an indication, he is not likely to drop the case.

Lisa Williams, the defense lawyer, said Nifong is sometimes slow to come to decisions -- but then rarely wavers.

"No matter what the tide of public opinion says, if he's made a decision, he's going to stand by it," she said. "People either like him very much or hate him very much, and the other thing about him is he doesn't really care which one you are."

(Staff writer Joseph Neff and news researchers Brooke Cain and David Raynor contributed to this report.) Staff writer Benjamin Niolet can be reached at 956-2404 or bniolet@newsobserver.com. Staff writer Joseph Neff and news researchers Brooke Cain and David Raynor contributed to this report.

MICHAEL BYRON NIFONG

Age: 56

Family: Married to Cy Gurney, a regional administrator of the state's Guardian Ad Litem program, a state advocacy program for abused and neglected children. They have a teenage son, and Nifong has an adult daughter from a previous marriage.

The name Nifong (NYE-fong), often mispronounced by national television reporters, is of German and Swiss origin.

Nifong was born in Wilmington. Both of his parents went to Duke University. He got his undergraduate and law degrees from UNC-Chapel Hill. THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY ELECTION

Nifong is the Democratic nominee for district attorney. He faces a challenge in November from write-in candidate Steve Monks and County Commissioner Lewis Cheek.

What's at stake: In 2003, his salary was $87,082. When Gov. Mike Easley appointed him district attorney, he began earning $133,082.

Lacrosse -- and specifically Nifong's handling of the case -- dominated the Democratic primary for district attorney. Nifong faced Keith Bishop, a lawyer, and Freda Black, a former prosecutor. Throughout the campaign, Black and Bishop hammered Nifong on his statements about the case and questioned whether his statements in national news media brought unfavorable attention to Durham.

Nifong won the race with 45 percent of the vote, and with no Republican opponents, it appeared he had won the job. He vowed to move forward with the case.

After the primary, more of the state's case became public, either through defense motions or news reports, and opposition to Nifong grew.

Some who were unhappy with Nifong banded together, circulated a petition and collected thousands of signatures to place Cheek on the ballot.

Cheek announced that if he were elected, he would not serve. A political action committee has been collecting money to have Cheek elected anyway. If Cheek wins but declines to serve, the governor would appoint a district attorney. What that would mean for the lacrosse case is impossible to predict. ON THE DUKE LACROSSE CASE

Nifong believes the accuser's story and believes the indicted players are guilty. He wrote in an April statement to reporters that he had a duty to pursue the case.

"If the prosecutor personally believes in a defendant's guilt, it would be a violation of his moral responsibility to the victim and to his community not to prosecute a case because doing so was not popular, or because he was worried that he might not win at trial," he said in an April news release.


TOPICS: Chit/Chat
KEYWORDS: duke; dukelax; durham; lacrosse; nifong
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To: CondorFlight

Do you know where we can get the wristbands? THe link provided does not work. I am interested in passing them out (and perhaps a flyer) at the Duke alum event featuring Reichsmarshal von Brodhead.


81 posted on 10/02/2006 5:28:54 PM PDT by RecallMoran (Recall Brodhead)
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To: RecallMoran

"Do you know where we can get the wristbands?"


http://dukelacrossewristbands.blogspot.com/

(this one worked when I tried it)


82 posted on 10/02/2006 6:40:15 PM PDT by CondorFlight
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To: darbymcgill

I have no idea what Mr. Evans would say. Why don't you ask him?


83 posted on 10/02/2006 8:06:12 PM PDT by Dukie07
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To: Dukie07

He'd probably say something like... "hey, don't worry about who holds political office while you're in Durham, just worry about your 6 figure salary at a billion dollar per year company and everything will work out fine... what could happen in 4 years?"


84 posted on 10/02/2006 8:23:28 PM PDT by darbymcgill
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To: JLS

Your entire statement is subjective. There are other places better than Duke "to you." Your Duke hate is no secret to anyone here. I do have to wonder why you go on and on so, though? It's weird to me. Whatever.

I don't think one can make a blanket statement that one university is better than another. It depends on the individual and what is being studied. The perfect fit for one student may not be the perfect fit for another. Believe it or not, someone who cares a little less about "prestige" and a little more about being in the right school could actually pick Duke over Harvard. And, yes, I do still think Duke can be the right school for many reasons.

So, prestige aside, what should one consider? Yale may have a department that is better than Harvard in a particular discipline. Cornell may have a school that's better than Princeton, Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Duke and just about anyone else. Certainly, what you plan to major in and how a particular school ranks in that discipline is key in making your choice. My student applied to schools with a great reputation in the discipline being pursued. Student was accepted at 12 very fine universities - some of them even on your "good list."

Living conditions plays a part. On campus or off? Cold winters or mild? Near the ocean or near the mountains?

Student body plays a part. My student did not want to go to a school where the students were competitive to the point of being cut-throat.

I totally disagree with your statement that Stanford academics outshine Duke academics. I went to Stanford, I did not want my student to go there as an undergrad. Heavy on prestige; light on learning. (Sorry fellow Cards.) As I've noted before, and as the parent of a current Stanford student has acknowledged - lots of TA's, some of whom can barely speak English. You know how they say that Cornell is "Easy to get into, hard to get out of?" With Stanford, it's the opposite.

Sports was not a factor for my student in making a choice.

Money? Costs me less to send my student to Duke than it would have to send my student to Cal. (But, gee, William Hung would have been a classmate at Cal!) Schools with great endowments can be a plus.

And whether you like it or not, Duke does have prestige. Again, maybe not to you, but to enough so that your opinion does not matter.

I am not going to comment on voter registration at Duke because I have no idea how many students will or will not register to vote in Durham. I will say that I don't think it's right to expect the student body to do the work that the citizens of Durham should be doing. Can we and they do what we can to help educate Durham voters? As long as it's not done in an "in your face" or "how stupid can you be?" manner, absolutely. And I will concede that your statement that the time to work behind the scenes is after the election is idealistically appropriate - although I believe most political maneuvers take place behind the scenes period.




85 posted on 10/02/2006 9:48:04 PM PDT by Dukie07
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To: darbymcgill; Dukie07
I can certainly understand the view of those that have a hopefully 07 grad saying that we would like to get our child out of that cesspool but we feel locked in. What I don't understand is the view that Duke is so wonderful and so faultless.

What has become clear in this is that if your child is a white male a significant portion of the Duke faculty hate them and the administration is indifferent to them. In addition, the Durham Police/DA consider ALL Duke students pests that from time to time bother there real constituents, the rest of the citizens of Durham, and as a result these pests need to be slapped down harder than others from time to time.

Why anyone would think it would be good to send their child into that is beyond me. If Duke is the "ideal" school that matches your child's academic preparation for college, then send them to Vandy or Wash U. or Tulane or Chicago or Johns Hopkins or Amherst or Emory or Rice or etc. Each of those institutions are good private institutions in the same basic academic league as Duke. Some have D1A sports and some don't. If your child was going to slum it and go to Duke even though they got into Harvard or Princeton or Yale or Stanford or etc., tell them they either go to the Ivy or slum it at one another Duke level school.

Personally, I think anyone at the FreeRepublic website should really eliminate all PC institutions from their list of where to send their kid. That would eliminate most on the lists I have mentioned except maybe UND. But there are some conservative private schools. They are new. They don't have the reputation, but they do exist.
86 posted on 10/02/2006 9:51:18 PM PDT by JLS
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To: Dukie07

First, I replied in the post after yours before I saw this one. [I wrote, went away for awhile, came back, finished may post and posted.]

So on to your post:

1. Of course selection of college is subjective. But having the law after Duke students in general trumps all the rest to me.

2. I don't hate Duke. One Duke rah-rah has accused me of that. I have a neutral to positive view of Duke. I just recognize the Duke faculty and administration is greatly at fault here and should be sanctioned.

3. You went to Stanford, but not to Duke. You know that TODAY Duke is better than Stanford despite the general perception how? Your child may tell you that Duke classes are hard while you remember Stanford classes as easy, but I have news to you children don't tell their parents the truth all the time and you are in no position to make that comparison about classes at the two schools today. BTW, I doubt the 88 have tough classes. I suspect they are very political and pretty easy, if you go in there an say the approved things.

4. I lived in Durham after college with a good friend who went to Duke. My antedotal stories are that some cut-throat Duke students would not talk to dorm-mates about classes because they did not want to give away an idea they might use to impress a prof and the library had a problem with students taking wet string in the library to quietly take pages out of journals. That said, I have no idea if the current Duke student body is more or less cut-throat than those days.

5. Not being a Duke rah-rah, I don't buy all the hype. I have never argued that Duke is not a good school. It is not an Ivy/Stanford. Some would say it is not as good as Chicago and Wash U. I was conservative in my view on Duke since the Duke rah-rahs are here crying that I hate Duke for not buying into the Duke Alumni Association scrip on how Duke really is better than any of the Ivies and was actually founded before Oxford.


87 posted on 10/02/2006 10:53:57 PM PDT by JLS
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To: JLS

I cannot extrapolate from what has happened that "a significant portion of the Duke faculty" hate white males. I wouldn't be surprised to find that the majority of Duke faculty are, in fact, white males. That statement does not make sense and needs to be supported if it is to be made. Also, please define "signifcant portion." It is rather vague as stated.

My student made the choice of what schools to apply to, and which school to attend. I would not have tried to pigeon-hole those choices. I had the choice to pay for it or not.

You do seem to be caught up in labels. I prefer Ferragamo shoes, but I don't feel I'm "slumming it" if I happen to wear a pair of Burberry's, or even Old Navy flip-flops. I thought you were an academic? I can't imagine any academic denigrating a university in that manner. (Your hatred is showing again and serves only to negate everything you say.) As far as your obvious disdain for my student (slumming indeed), get over yourself.

The education one receives in college is felt on many different levels. For many, it's the first taste of true independence. There are the "life lessons." For most, it's the first time they have ever had to live with and either get along with or tolerate (depending upon whether or not you got the roommate from hell) someone from outside their family. It may be the most culturally diverse environment they have experienced. For someone from a conservative community and/or background, it may be the first time they've been exposed to all that is blatant liberalism. I can't help but think that all this is good. It gives us a real, working point-of-reference by which we can make future decisions. I think that by this point in time a person's basic political belief structure is probably not going to be radically changed. In some cases, it may even be intensified. To push a young adult into a strictly conservative environment smacks of distrust of that person's ability to make the right choices. If the student wants to go to a conservative school, that's a whole different story.


88 posted on 10/02/2006 10:58:00 PM PDT by Dukie07
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To: JLS

Like you, I posted my reply before reading your last.

1. I suppose I am not convinced that all Durham law is after Duke students. As with everything "newsworthy", we see the worst part of the picture, not the whole picture. I can believe that there are some Duke students who can and have po'd some folks. If I'm honest, I have seen the "attitude" with my own eyes. Is it a small group creating a bad name for the whole? Yep. For the most part, the students I have come in contact with are terrific.

2. I agree that the administration is beyond disappointing. I'm not ready to throw in the towel on the faculty just yet, though. Again, I'm not sure that we see everything that is happening or has happened on that front.

3. My student and I spoke with current Stanford students during the decision-making process. They confirmed what I had recalled about Stanford. Additionally, my student has a couple of friends from high school that attend Stanford. Kids talk. My student is a Pratt student, not Trinity, so all I can speak to is that curricula.

4. In the spirit of your #3: Duke students were cut-throat when your friend was there - what about now? All I can say is that my student has not found this to be the case in the least. Everyone is more than willing to help one another.

5. Again, each school has it's strenghs and it's weaknesses.

6. And I really was offended by your references to slumming. You know nothing about my student.


89 posted on 10/02/2006 11:18:30 PM PDT by Dukie07
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To: Dukie07

Let's see:

1. Ok if you think it is a small group of lacrosse players who caused this to happen to themselves by prior bad behavior even though they did not rape Mangum, then you are among a pretty small minority here. No prior bad behavior is an excuse for what is going on in Durham now. I personally am not big in to conspiracy theories and have pretty much tried to ignor the sub-threads on how corrupt Durham is etc. I don't care that much as that is the Durhmites' problem. But when I read stories about intentionally giving college kids with a future an arrest record when you would let other go with a citation, I see a problem.

2. As for the faculty, have I missed it and some of the 88 backed off their statement in that ad they ran? BTW, Duke has about 800 faculty members if you take away medicine which has nothing to do with the undergraduate program. Thus the 88 make up over 10% of the regular faculty. If you remove the untenured who might have shared the views, but have been reluctant to let their views be known, it is getting closer to 15%. [Maybe some of the 88 are adjuncts, ie not regular facutly. I am not sure.] But this seems like a significant fraction to me unless some have publically backed off their statements.

3. By slumming I meant, if your child was one who claimed to have gotten into MIT, but chose Duke instead. A few people do that, ie slum academically, but more such claims are hogwash. Most people at that level of academics go to the best place they are admitted. BTW, this is a conservative site and not that politically correct. No one is much concerned that you are "really offended" with my use of the term slumming.


90 posted on 10/02/2006 11:40:47 PM PDT by JLS
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To: JLS; Dukie07

Is not the primary issue the silence the Duke faculty and the overall problem of political correctness at colleges? I can imagine the same "silence" at almost every university and college in the country. How do we get the more objective members of the faculty to voice their concerns and support their students?


91 posted on 10/03/2006 5:04:49 AM PDT by bjc (Check the data!!)
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To: All

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-liduke034916430oct03,0,3652835.story?coll=ny-linews-headlines
Rape case crawls through court


92 posted on 10/03/2006 5:28:12 AM PDT by abb (The Dinosaur Media: A One-Way Medium in a Two-Way World)
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To: Dukie07
My student will come out of Duke earning 6 figures with a 3 billion $/year company.

Then obviously its in your interest to talk the place up.

OTOH, my son's played lacrosse in Md for one of those schools that sends their best kids to Duke fairly regularly, and Duke has been crossed off of most of his friend's lists (anecdotal..but still..) If I was a student athlete male, I'd jump over that particular "name" school, unless the scholarship was too good to ignore. As a matter of fact, if I was a male student I'd think twice. Durham is no great shakes of a place, which is only acceptable if the locals and the cops arent too,too hostile (Yale and UPenn come to mind as similar in that way. And many a good student has avoided the latter because of it)

One last comment..Many of my friends in academia that I have talked to think DUKE's appeal is going to sour, even if its only a relative decline. And that aint gonna make the alumni happy, for sure.

93 posted on 10/03/2006 9:42:50 AM PDT by Nonstatist
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To: Dukie07

"Duke has long been considered an elite university. In 1984, The New York Times Magazine ran a story about "hot colleges" that featured Duke on the cover, and the following year, in the second edition of its Best Colleges guide, U.S. News & World Report ranked Duke sixth among national universities. (This year, Duke was ranked fifth.) Every year, admissions staff members tell the incoming class that it is the smartest and most accomplished yet; and alumni are often heard to say, if partly in jest, that they doubt they would be admitted to Duke today. "

http://www.dukemagazine.duke.edu/dukemag/issues/010206/crop1.html

Rah! Rah! Rah! Go Duke!


94 posted on 10/03/2006 11:08:34 AM PDT by xoxoxox
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To: JLS; Dukie07

I have a story.

I have a relative who is a very impressive guy. He was on the President's Council of Economic Advisors. He wrote President Reagan's energy policy address. He was up for Secretary of Energy but didn't want it. His recommendation to Reagan was that the entire department be abolished. He believes in small government.

He has taught at many schools - CalTech, Graduate School of Business at Michigan, Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. He has worked at numerous "think tanks" - RAND Corporation, AEI.

He's in Who's Who in America with a lengthy list of impressive achievements. And where did he get his undergraduate degree? Harvard? No. Yale? No. He went to Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Yep, good ol' BGSU. He did graduate first in his class, summa cum laude. He had been thinking of becoming an accountant when a professor recommended he go to graduate school. He did a tour of graduate schools and had alot of interviews which brings me to the point of this story.

At one of these schools the professors were very unfriendly towards him. They clearly looked down on him and the reason became obvious when one of them made this comment - "If you're so great, why did you go to Bowling Green?" The words "Bowling Green" were said as if it were a disease or something. Needless to say he did not go to graduate school there. He went to Penn and also did post-graduate work at Nuffield College, Oxford.

I should say that the unfriendly school was NOT Duke but it was one of the schools that has been mentioned in your discussion.

He got his PhD at Penn and his classmates all went to schools like Harvard, Yale, Princeton. He got the highest grades of anyone in his classes there though. Larry Klein, a Nobel Prize winning professor said he was the best student he ever had. He has always been proud of having attended Bowling Green.


95 posted on 10/03/2006 1:18:38 PM PDT by SarahUSC
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To: SarahUSC

I firmly that believe that an excellent student will excel regardless of where he or she is. I, too, have seen it ~ although not to the level of your relative! Good for him!


96 posted on 10/03/2006 1:28:51 PM PDT by Dukie07
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To: xoxoxox

Putting up their Dukes
Ex-Hofstra lacrosse coach leads Duke after scandal, returns home for match, vows no backing down

BY ERIK BOLAND
Newsday Staff Writer

October 3, 2006

Duke lacrosse.

Since March, the words have consistently fueled often incendiary dialogue across the media spectrum.

John Danowski, the former Hofstra men's lacrosse coach, took over the Duke program July 21 and that day he answered variations of the same question.

Questions that probed backward, mostly relating to a night last March 13 that resulted in rape allegations against members of the Duke lacrosse team, and then April 17 when the first two players - of the eventual three - were indicted.

"Duke Lacrosse" became a synonym for scandal and disrepute, transitioning into discussions about student-athlete privilege and larger issues surrounding collegiate athletics. Danowski, who accrued a 192-123 record at Hofstra in 21 seasons free of scandal, stepped into this maelstrom in July. It continues still.

When lacrosse's version of spring training - fallball - began Sept. 4, nearly two dozen media members turned out. Neither Danowski nor his team, however, have ducked the spotlight.

"Our attitude is we've embraced the media and we're going to continue to embrace this and take it as a positive experience," Danowski said yesterday from his Durham office. "Our attitude has been we're not going to shrink or hide from anything."

Duke travels to Long Island this Saturday as participants in the eight-team Long Island Fall Lacrosse Tournament, a charity event hosted by Molloy College at the Dean G. Skelos Sports Complex in Rockville Centre. Admission is $5. Duke plays Towson at 11 a.m. and NYIT at 5 p.m. Sandwiched between, at 2 p.m., is a matchup with Danowski's former team, Hofstra.

Danowski said arrangements to bring Duke to Long Island were made last spring with Kevin Cassese, who was named Duke's interim coach to replace Mike Pressler, who resigned after the rape charges and the season's cancellation. At that point Danowski, 52, had not yet considered applying for the Duke position. He was busy with Hofstra, which was ranked No. 2 in the country.

Danowski was in the midst of a 17-2 season that would end with an overtime loss to UMass in the NCAA quarterfinals. He said yesterday that balancing the coaching of a nationally ranked team and dealing with the Duke case was more difficult than he originally let on. That was because his son, Matt, now a senior All-American attack, played for Duke.

"In retrospect, it was really painful and on a bunch of different levels," Danowski said. "Number one, I knew how important lacrosse was to Matt, how much energy he put into it. On a team level, that team last year was built to return to the Final Four. But your reputation and your character are more important than both of those things, and there's a hurt you feel because people are challenging your son's character. That was difficult and it was out there for everyone to see."

Danowski knows everyone's focus will be on his program in the spring, with wins and losses being secondary. One slip-up, one night of hijinks could sink the program for good. Danowski knows Duke will be judged on how it does off the field.

He has not instituted a paper list of rules, but said he did meet with his 12 seniors.

"I told them the one thing tying everything together is your decision making," Danowski said. "The one thing you have control over is the decisions you make."

http://www.newsday.com/sports/lacrosse/ny-spduke034916429oct03,0,5025652.story?coll=ny-top-headlines


97 posted on 10/03/2006 1:44:26 PM PDT by xoxoxox
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To: Dukie07

Thanks Dukie. My relative - it's my Dad actually, was quite nervous when he got to Penn and realized he'd be competing against students from Harvard, Yale etc. But he figured out fairly quickly that he really wasn't at a disadvantage. He always felt he got a very good education at Bowling Green.

The point is, there are excellent students at all universities, not just those that are considered "top drawer". I doubt BGSU is on anyone's top ten list. I don't really think about a school's "reputation", I just look at the individual student.


98 posted on 10/03/2006 1:47:37 PM PDT by SarahUSC
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To: All

Following up on my letter to the USDOJ yesterday, I had a conversation today with an AUSA in North Carolina.

Mr. Ben White
Assistant US Attorney
Middle District of North Carolina
P. O. Box 1858
Greensboro, NC 27402

Dear Sir:

This letter is to document our conversation of today, October 3, 2006 in re: Duke University student voter registration efforts (see attached letter).

Your response was, “Duke is private property, so they (Duke) can do what they want,” and “No one is preventing the students from going downtown and registering.” You said that you had not heard any complaints from the students themselves and would like to hear from them directly. You also questioned whether or not Duke students would be eligible to vote.

Please advise if my recollection is faulty or that you remember the conversation differently.

Sincerely,



Cc: John K. Tanner, Chief
Voting Section, USDOJ

Anna Mills S. Wagoner
US Attorney, Middle District of NC


99 posted on 10/03/2006 1:55:37 PM PDT by abb (The Dinosaur Media: A One-Way Medium in a Two-Way World)
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To: darbymcgill

Well, that is what darbymcgill says; but we still don't know what Mr. Evans would say, do we?


100 posted on 10/03/2006 2:00:01 PM PDT by Dukie07
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