“The case made international news and the charges against the Duke students were eventually dismissed.”
What a passive way of relaying this information. Almost like they want to leave a nagging bit of doubt in the reader’s mind. How about:
“The trumped-up charges were dropped by the state and the corrupt race-baiting political hack who brought them was fired.”
“And who can forget when, in 2006, three members of the Duke University lacrosse team were indicted on charges of rape, sexual assault, and kidnapping by district attorney Michael Nifong? In the first week of his investigation, Nifong made inflammatory remarks to the press, claiming he was certain a rape had occurred and calling the lacrosse players “hooligans” who were hiding behind a “wall of silence.”
When he discovered that evidence didn’t quite match up, Nifong deliberately withheld exculpatory DNA evidence from the defense and misled the court as to its existence, at a time when he was up for reelection in a hotly contested race. Fifteen months later the students were exonerated and Nifong was removed from his post and disbarred for his misconduct.”
http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ee98474b-0541-45a3-8443-5fa29c2a06c7