That Night At Duke

Newsweek by MSNBC ^ | April 15, 2007

[Howlin]

April 23, 2007 issue - The room went dead silent as the North Carolina attorney general, Roy Cooper, began to speak. The three Duke lacrosse players and their families were gathered in front of a TV at the Raleigh Sheraton Hotel to learn how the state would proceed in a criminal investigation that had appalled and titillated the nation for more than a year. Reade Seligmann was praying, and so was Collin Finnerty, heads bent down, bobbing slightly as the attorney general spoke slowly. The families were pretty sure, based on signals from the attorney general's office, that the case would be dropped. But when the families heard the word "innocent," they erupted. "I was hysterically crying," recalls Seligmann, a strapping 21-year-old. "Everybody was hysterically crying. People were swarmed. It was like a pile-on."

----

The night didn't go well from the start. After an afternoon and evening of desultory drinking games such as Beer Pong, about 30 players were sprawled on the floor or sitting on a ring of couches arranged around the stage—a ratty, tan carpet. Evans explained to his teammates that he and the other captains had requested white dancers, but that a black woman and a Hispanic woman had shown up. No one seemed to care, according to the statement given to police by Zash. One of the strippers appeared to be intoxicated and had trouble standing up, much less dancing. Halfheartedly, she began kissing the other dancer, Kim Roberts.

---

[zarf]

Nonsense. They are degenerates.

You can't be that cloistered.

They were participating in a time honored college craziness.

[ccmay]

They are degenerates.

Yes. So what?

-ccm

[Bouchart]

I certainly do not believe they are criminals, or that they were “deserving of a year of hell.”

[Bouchart]

It's not the popular opinion here, but I agree. That said, they should have not been accused of rape and totured for a year.

Agreed.

[JLS]

I don’t read them regularly either. But this is their second major story from the point of view of the players.

They had the awful mug shot cover of Seligmann and Finnerty. Doing two major features is a good step towards making ammends in my view. You could search at Newweek.com I guess.

[JLS]

Nonsense. They are degenerates.

Ironically they were trying to be the opposite. The team tradition was to go to a strip club. This group did not want their younger teammates breaking the law and going to a strip club on a fake id. So they legally engaged strippers to come to their house.

In addition, two of the three former defendants left about as soon as these stripper showed up.

So who are the THEY in your statement? The captain Evans that tried to change how this outing was done so that his teammates would not be breaking the law using fake IDs? [I realize that legality and degeneracy are not 100% the same thing, but do you less law breaking to more?] And as someone pointed out on the last thread, we now know Finnerty and Seligman who left when the stripper arrived. Are they degenerates in your mind?

[Bouchart]

The team tradition was to go to a strip club.

Degeneracy.

[fabriclady]

On the same afternoon that attorney general, Roy Cooper was speaking, declaring these young men innocent, Nifong was here in Winston Salem, meeting with David Freedman. He was hoping, I am sure, to cook up a scheme to get cleared of the charges against him.

Didn’t work.

I know that had to be a dreadful drive from Winston back to Durham. He had a couple of hours to think of his future.
And the future of his family.
And he did it all for greed.

[woofie]

Roberts yelled, "That's a racial slur, a hate crime," as she drove off with the other dancer slumped inside.

Where have we seen this kind of thing before?

[woofie]

Degeneracy.

These are College kids for Gods sake...Thats ridiculous

[JLS]

Degeneracy.

Well that is nonresponsive. Are you a member of the Mainstream Media or something?

Are you willing then to admit that you were wrong to call Seligmann and Finnerty who left when the strippers began their show degenerates?

Are you calling Evans a degerate because this was at his house?

Was the lacrosse player who Mangum picked out but who was in Raleigh that night a degerate or not?

Or do you just like to mindlessly name call?

[Bouchart]

I’m a college student myself. I’ve never done any of these “college antics” and I expect better from others.

[woofie]

Good luck with all that....

[JLS]

The Sunday N&O part two of the series article is up:

http://www.newsobserver.com/100/story/564477.html

“Behind the bold words, a case starts to unravel

District Attorney Mike Nifong brusquely rejects defense lawyers’ overtures and an offer to share information. The
emerging evidence does not support his certainty

Joseph Neff, Staff Writer

During the first half of April 2006, lawyers for Duke lacrosse players often sat around a large table in Bill Thomas’ second-floor conference room, a stone’s throw from the Durham County courthouse. Conversation invariably turned to which players would be indicted. “We guessed it would be the three residents of the house,” Thomas said. “But we really had no clue. None.”
The lawyers thought District Attorney Mike Nifong was unpredictable. Stunned by his public statements, which grew more strident, defense lawyer Joseph B. Cheshire V tried to talk with the prosecutor.Cheshire didn’t know that Nifong harbored a visceral dislike for him; all four of Cheshire’s namesakes were lawyers, and Nifong often referred to Cheshire sneeringly as “Joseph Blount Cheshire the Fifth.”

Cheshire wasn’t prepared for the prosecutor’s response to his request to talk, which Nifong’s paralegal dictated to Cheshire’s paralegal: Nifong “is not going to talk with any attorneys while there have been no charges filed, and ... if Joe Cheshire feels that his client should be charged, then he should tell the police department.””

[JLS]

There is a pretty big bombshell in the Sunday N&O article.

Thomas said Nifong wouldn't listen: "He said that he had personally interviewed her and had spoke with her at length about this case, and that he fully believed every word she said about this incident, and that he knew a lot more about this case than I did, and that he was going to proceed as he saw fit."

....

But Nifong later told a judge that Mangum was too traumatized to speak: "No statements were made by Crystal Mangum, and no questions were asked of her regarding this case, which is a fact."

Nifong later told a judge that he had never discussed the case with her at all, flatly contradicting Thomas' account of their April 4 meeting.

[Gondring]

These boys have been seriously victimized by the state of north carolina.

How do you figure that? The state of North Carolina cleared them!

[jim35]

Three cheers for the Duke boys! And down with the sissy-boys who are too prissy to appreciate drinking and strippers. What’s wrong, don’t like girls?

[JLS]

How do you figure that? The state of North Carolina cleared them!

The charges read NC v. Evans, NC v. Finnerty and NC v. Seligmann. For almost a year The People of NC or really their agent violated the rules of ethics and the law trying to put these former defendants in jail when no crime had been committed.

The AG ultimately did clear them. While Nifong was the agent of The People of NC, it was in fact North Carolina that victimized them for almost a year. This was done in their name.

[jim35]

I don’t know what a sneaker joke is, but I sure as heck would have applauded too.

[Inquisitive1]

Thank God American males haven't completely lost all their testosterone.

Exceptions being the ones with and (R) after their name...