Posted on 01/11/2007 3:37:41 AM PST by aculeus
The Duke rape hoax is redolent of past decades' phony child-abuse cases.
No one could have imagined, when the story began last March, how soon and completely that bit of shorthand--"the Duke University scandal"--would be transformed.
Scarcely 10 months after, the term is now almost universally understood as a reference to the operations of Michael Nifong, the Durham County district attorney (pictured nearby), whose abandonment of all semblance of concern about the merits of the rape and assault accusations against three Duke University students was obvious from the first. So was his abundant confidence while broadcasting comments on the guilt of the accused. He seemed a man immune to concerns for appearances as he raced about expounding on the case against the accused lacrosse players and calling them hooligans. He would hear nothing by way of concern from Duke administrators (seven months into this affair, the university president did find an opportunity to mention the accused students' right to a presumption of innocence)--and certainly none from the politically progressive quarters of the Duke faculty who lent their names to an impassioned ad thanking everyone who had come out to march in protest against the rape and assault of the exotic dancer; 88 faculty members signed it, among them such Duke luminaries as Alice Kaplan, author and student of fascism, and Frank Lentricchia, literary critic.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Motified ??
Under any rule of law you would think that the state AG would step in and investigate Nifong's illegal behavior, and if not him, the Justice Department.
Five years! Are you nuts?! They should get exactly what the true victims, the accused would have gotten: 30 years. It's time to stop runaway prosecutors.
How couold he be anything but a Dim? And that is what he is.
His family and friends never doubted him.
If you mean Gerald Amirault, read this for what his fate outside prison turned out to be. "Ruined" sounds about right:
[snip] He was almost immediately classified by Massachusetts's Sex Offenders Registry Board as a Level 3 offender. The kind, that is, deemed the most dangerous and most likely to re-offend. This bizarre classification, the board made clear, had to do with the number of counts of sex abuse charged to him--and the fact, too, that he continued to deny guilt. He now has to wear a large tracking device around his ankle, and obey a curfew confining him to the house from 11:30 p.m. to 6 a.m. every day. He has, not surprisingly, been unable to find a job. He is sustained, as ever, by the unstinting devotion of his family, and he grieves now mainly for the loss of the chance he had dreamed of in prison--of earning a salary and finally lightening the burden his wife had carried, uncomplaining and alone, during his years in prison. (He has recently been advised of pending legislation that will require him to pay $10 a day for the global positioning tag on his leg, that tracks him.)
They want to charge him $3650 for being convicted while innocent, and being rendered incapable of finding a job by the vindictive actions of the SRO-their spiteful reaction to the Board of Pardons "virtually declaring him innocent", IMO.
Under any rule of law, the state AG would step in and investigate Nifong's illegal behavior as well as the do-nothing, corrupt Justice Department.
Leni
I forget the details of when and so forth, but when Gerald Amirault's appeal went to the Supreme Judicial Court (the same ones who gave us "gay marriage"), their decision seemed to say that he was innocent, and said that they wouldn't overturn his conviction because that would interfere with "closure." Incidentally, Martha Coakley, assistant DA under Harshbarger and now DA, still insists he's guilty but won't respond to any actual questions about the holes in the evidence.
And if the case goes to trial, even with a change of venue, he just needs one or two "OJ jurors", or jurors who are afraid of what might happen if the Duke 3 are found not guilty of all charges (ie are afraid of riots or becoming targets themselves when their identity as jurors becomes known) , or jurors who believe "no woman lies about rape"....All of which would probably mean a "compromise verdict", in which the Duke 3 are found guilty of SOMETHING they're charged with, though not on all charges.
I hope all charges are dropped so this case does not go to court-I do not trust the jury system and haven't for many years. Read Judge Burton Katz' Justice Overruled for a good overview of what's gone wrong with our legal system. I highly recommend this book, and I hope when the Duke case is finally over he'll release an updated version of the book with this case included and analyzed.
Ashley Cannon, who was a District Court prosecutor, said she made the complaint verbally to the Administrative Office of the Courts in Raleigh on Friday. She made the complaint on her last day with Nifong's office after resigning to accept a new job as a prosecutor in Orange and Chatham counties.
Verbally! and she is a lawyer, I no fan of the DA, but to make a verbal complaint, is tantamount to gossip....
Bingo!
"Whatever happens will happen for whatever reason it happens," Nifong said.
A brand new Nifongism.
"On the paternity question, Smith gave oral orders last month -- before the accuser gave birth -- for tests to determine if any of three sexual-offense case suspects was responsible for the woman's pregnancy.
But those orders were not put into writing, so the tests were not done.
The written orders issued Wednesday should get the ball rolling soon, lawyers said."
-----This is why all these proceedings need to be videotaped, twice. A lie-detector should be attached to the DA for the entirety.
Can't be repeated enough.
Then Fong thought he had the winning numbers of the election lottery. And this nightmare began.
"Let's not forget that the Amiraults were never 'made whole'"
The government doesn't have the money to make them whole. They are too busy saving it to pay slavery reparations.
Cue Doris Day.
This begs the question...does Mr. Brodhead sanction underage drinking by students not on the Lacrosse team?
I loved the Glass Bottom Boat! lol
It was a Contingent Order, maggie.
You seen this?
http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/531253.html
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