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These professors are persons who are authority figures in a presumed position to know more than then general public about the parties involved and the circumstances of the case.

Not really. Maybe you'd have a point if they were administrators, but these guys were just college professors making an intellectual point.

Read up on “false lights”

The elements required for a "false lights" claim are 1.) highhly offensive material, and 2.) malice. Let's assume the Duke 88 ad is highly offensive (which is a very tenuous assumption. Any reference to the defendants is oblique at best). Even so, there is no evidence that the Duke 88 acted with malice, that is, with a reckless disregard for the truth. Instead, they acted with reasonable reliance upon the facts as they were relayed in the media, which reported the facts as they were relayed by Nifong.

"False lights" doesn't rescue a libel prosecution here.

Even so, there is no evidence that the Duke 88 acted with malice, that is, with a reckless disregard for the truth. Instead, they acted with reasonable reliance upon the facts as they were relayed in the media, which reported the facts as they were relayed by Nifong.

Question of fact. There is sufficient evidence to survive a motion for judgment on the pleadings.

Eighty-eight professors makes the point, I think. They have a special standing even individually, moreso as a group.

What is the law about false lights in NC? It is not as clearly lined as you'd suggest, I guessed. It -- the ad, the ads and statements -- was reckless, it was premature, inflammatory, and by the premature call for prejudice in the public -- a reckless disregard of the truth.

As to malice? To some readers, the malice drips from the page -- but in the courtroom, if and when, there will be plenty of prior words and publications by most if not all of the 88 weighed up on the balance plate to show a mindset of malice against "privileged white men" as a class of people. So I would think.