Silence: One Way Truth Loses
The Duke Case Continues
What can be said about a criminal case in which the mainstream media became a lynch mob, the district attorney’s maneuvering led to disbarment, the left screamed “racism!,” political candidates ran on the promise of justice, and dozens of faculty members at an elite college publicly demanded the conviction of its own students before trial?
In 2006 three Duke University students and lacrosse players were accused of rape by a black stripper named Crystal Mangum. Even though two of the students had rock-solid alibis for when the assault supposedly occurred, they were all indicted. After months of travesty, the accusations were revealed as outrageous lies. What then did the lynch-itchy crowd say? Next to nothing.
Lawsuits have surrounded the Duke lacrosse rape case since 2007. Three of them, taken collectively, constitute one of the most significant political and legal battles of our time. What have you heard of them? Next to nothing.
The Original Duke Case
Three young men were pitted against the entrenched corruption of a court system, an ambitious district attorney, a police department, and the left-biased academia to whom they had entrusted their futures. While DA Michael Nifong hid evidence and Duke University paid for an ad in which 88 faculty members denounced the accused, self-proclaimed civil rights leaders such as Jesse Jackson played the race card whenever Mangum’s shifting story was questioned.
All the students had on their side was truth, the support of family and friends, and the unflagging analysis of a handful of bloggers. Truth won.
But the win is being reversed by silence. Despite the three-ring circus that has ensued since charges were dropped, the normally scandal-hungry media remains mute. Those who cried, “Hang them now; try them later!” have moved on without apology.
If the current struggle to procure justice were allotted one-tenth the attention given to the false charges, the Duke case would shine a badly needed spotlight on some of the worst institutional wrongs in our society.
When the criminal case crumbled spectacularly, most people assumed the matter was over; after all, there was little in the media to suggest otherwise. Those few who still followed the case probably assumed that Nifong’s disbarment was the final chapter.
But from the moment all charges were dropped on April 11, 2007, those victimized by Duke University and the Durham police department have been seeking remedies for the burlesque of justice they endured. The victims include more than the three indicted students. For example, in 2010 ex-lacrosse coach Mike Presser settled a slander suit against Duke. Presser, who led the Duke team to national renown, was pushed out by the administration shortly after the accusations arose.
The media silence continued, even regarding the slow-motion train wreck that became Crystal Mangum’s life. She has been arrested on charges ranging from arson to child abuse, but the coverage generally has been either brief and matter-of-fact or sympathetic.
Now the silence may be breaking. Mangum’s current indictment on a murder charge has caused some commentators to revisit the parody of justice called the “Duke case.” The Atlantic, for example, is to be applauded for leading the discussion.
As for the rest of the media and the left, they have another chance to act with decency.
Law Suits Proceed
As for the three lawsuits wending their way through the courts since 2007, last month a federal judge gave them the green light. Two were brought by most members of the 2006 Duke lacrosse team, who seek redress from Duke and the city of Durham. Among the charges: Police violated their constitutional rights by requiring the submission of DNA evidence based on false information provided by Duke.
The remaining suit was brought by the three indicted players. Because they settled with Duke earlier, the suit focuses on the misconduct of specific police officers in the department. For example, Sgt. Mark Gottlieb is being sued for violating Fourth Amendment rights, obstructing justice, and making false public statements.
The suits are a rare opportunity to lift the veils that protect academic, police, and court misconduct from public view. Any media outlet that considers police corruption and the ability of ambitious district attorneys to destroy the innocent to be newsworthy will follow the suits closely.
Or will journalism be left to the bloggers again?
Comment by Dan Hudgins on 26 April 2011:
Of course journalism will be left to bloggers. When was the last decade whan anyone could believe the mass media? They twist and distort anything for a bump in the numbers. No apologies will ever be made and the faculty at Duke should be ashamed to show their faces on campus again. To condemn anyone before a trial or even before any facts have been presented should be charged since the publically printed a demand of guilt before due process. This si not America or American. It is as if we live in a fascist state ruled by the academic and media elite. Shame on them and on anyone who judged those boys guilty. And what will Brother Jesse lose? Nothing. He is untouchable and the most blatant racist in America. Shame on them all. Now, who will hire these young men? They will be whispered about at any company the work. They will pay a price that lasts a life time and Brother Jesse will just move on to the next “victim”. Please let us all know when justice happens. It should be on the cover of time. What about all of the AIG and Goldman Sachs felons that will never even see the inside of a courtroom. If only they had been minorities, they would have been absolved and made heads in the Department of the Treasury.
Comment by Norm on 26 April 2011:
Whatever became of the 88 faculty members who bought that ad? Did any of them ever recant, or acknowledge that they were wrong, or even apologize to the students? Or do they still stand by their published statement?
Comment by Chavez on 26 April 2011:
“Three of them, taken collectively, constitute one of the most significant political and legal battles of our time.”
Indeed. I would hope the presiding judge will turn out to be a Horton (of Scottsboro fame) and be dedicated to helping reform a system which could so easily almost convict innocent persons for a crime which never happened.
Thus far, however (by his stalling and most recent decision limiting the plaintiffs’
suits) he has, IMHO, suggested that he too is more interested in protecting
the prominent politicians in Durham than he is in demonstrating outrage at injustice.
The rot in North Carolina runs deep. (And without a watchdog media, the muck is never going to be cleaned up.)
Comment by gdp on 26 April 2011:
It seems that, in this current “Politically Correct” age, virtually any excess will be excused by activists and the members of the “Postmodern Mainstream Media” as long as it can be construed to be a consequence of policies based on “Good Intentions” — especially if the “Good Intentions” were directed toward some officially-recognized “victim class.”
It seems to have become widely accepted that “Good Intentions” can somehow `justify’ unjust ways and means, and the “Good” of some official “Many” not merely outweighs the “Good of a few,” but even justifies active injustice toward a few, as long as said `few’ are not members of an officially-recognized “victim class.”
That these policies based on “Good Intentions” often have unintended consequences, and that some who are not,/i> motivated by “Good Intentions” may take advantage of these policies for personal gain seem to be topics that are “Off Limits” within the “Mainstream” media.
Wendy — Do you see evidence that the swing toward “class-based” legal thinking and selective media silence about reports perceived as “damaging to `victim class’ interests” or contrary to the “official narrative” may perhaps be reversing back toward respect for the individual, or has “class-based” thinking and reporting become so deeply entrenched in the legal system and the “Postmodern Mainstream Media” that it is unlikely to be reversed within the next decade or more?
Comment by Wendy McElroy on 26 April 2011:
Hi Dan. Thanks for the comment. My ending question was a rhetorical one as I do not expect the MSM either to ‘work for a living’ (that is, do investigative and analytic journalism) or to care about anything other than their careers. Truly, having worked in the MSM, I have become *that* cynical. To my mind, the true journalistic hero of this saga is the blogger at Durham in Wonderland, KC Johnson, who has been a crusader and tireless exposer of documents on this case since the beginning. http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/
Hi Norm. Again, thanks for posting. Shamefully, no member of the “Duke 88″ — the faculty members who signed an ad denouncing the accused students prior to their trial — has had the decency to publicly apologize. Indeed, many have expressed pride in their stance. Of course, there has been no disciplinary action taken by Duke either. Moreover, signing the petition/ad seems to have helped the career of some signatories. There is a wikipedia entry on the Group of 88, as they are known, that provides more detail on their subsequent careers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_of_88#Duke_faculty_groups
Comment by bruce on 26 April 2011:
This is more proof that we must all, as individual citizens, personally embrace virtue and remake our culture!
Comment by Bill Anderson on 26 April 2011:
I was involved in that case and can tell you that not only was there no apology from the Gang of 88, but many of them were honored with promotions, while at least two of them received endowed professorships at Cornell and Vanderbilt. You have to understand that “elite” higher education institutions, including Duke, fully endorsed what these people did.
Furthermore, other than Prof. James Coleman, not one person on the Duke Law faculty even made a peep about “due process.” Here was a case in which a Duke employee (a SANE nurse at Duke University Medical Center named Tara Levicy) FABRICATED information that was used to indict these young men. She went to Dartmouth Medical Center in New Hampshire as a SANE with a sterling recommendation from DUMC. (The other SANEs at Dartmouth refused to work with her and she was removed.)
And there is much, much more.
Comment by Wendy McElroy on 26 April 2011:
Hello Chavez: I don’t have confidence in the judge either. As Johnson commented, “Thanks to Judge Beaty’s ruling—Duke doesn’t have to deny or shift blame [on] the university’s failure to enforce its own written policies regarding treatment of the lacrosse players. On this question, the university can breathe a sigh of relief that it’s not located 247 miles to the southwest—since, if it were so located, it would fall within the jurisdiction of the 11th Circuit. And, as this recent filing from FIRE points out, in the 11th Circuit, universities are legally obligated to enforce their own student bulletins and faculty handbooks, rather than treat them as mere scraps of paper.” I fear this case (the 3 lawsuits) will grind on and eventually reach SCOTUS, either collectively or independently. A favorable SCOTUS ruling would be excellent…but how much are these families expected to endure to secure a sliver of justice?
Hi gdp: Good see you commenting again. Re: class-based legal thinking. That has been the marked trend within law for the last few decades. Indeed, whole categories of law (e.g. hate crimes) are now based on special treatment of categories of people rather than the law addressing all individuals equally. It began with women…if you are/were a woman, then you receive preferential treatment in family court or a rape accuser, etc. Even women accused of murder have special defenses available to them (battered woman syndrome, post-partum depression, etc.) If I could change one procedural thing about the law (and I was limited to one thing only), then it would be to establish the equality of all before the law. No privilege. No category but “individual.”
I may disagree with you about the “good intentions” that you see underlying many policies like the ones at Duke. I think that a substantial number of advocates for those polices understand very well the damage they do to innocent lives and to freedom…but they don’t care. They want their position and careers to prosper…and damn anything else. After all, if we were dealing with people of good will, don’t think 1 of the 88 would have publicly apologized? Just one.
Comment by gdp on 26 April 2011:
Hi, Wendy! — Thanks for your answer!
Point of clarification RE: “Good Intentions” — I would certainly consider Nifong and quite probably most of the 88 faculty members at Duke as being instances of persons whom I referred to as “not having `Good Intentions’, [but who instead] take advantage of these policies for personal gain.”
By “Good Intentions,” I am thinking more of those who sincerely (but wrongly) believe that these “class based” laws will `help’ the “class” in question, but who fail to anticipate or even recognize that their actions will have unintended consequence — or even worse, feel that the “collateral damages” from the unintended consequences are “acceptable losses” in the name of the “Greater Good.” (An example of the former that immediately comes to mind is that of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who in interviews seemed quite personally appalled at the negative consequences to individuals of the Welfare State that he himself had helped create — saying “We meant well; how could it have gone so wrong?” An example of the latter would be those who believe that a period of “positive discrimination” (e.g., “Affirmative Action”) is “necessary” to “redress past injustices” — even if the `cure’ is as unjust as the `disease’ they are trying to remedy.)
But you are entirely right: There certainly are career politicians and functionaries (such as Nifong or many if not most of the 88 Duke faculty members), and scammers (such as perhaps Crystal Magnum) who just don’t give a fig how many lives they destroy in the process of advancing their own interests.
Comment by Wendy McElroy on 26 April 2011:
Hello Bill: You say “This is more proof that we must all, as individual citizens, personally embrace virtue and remake our culture!” It is more proof of the urgency of individual responsibility but I think that individuals — and their moral actions — are all that *ever* change society and create virtue. In saying this, I do not mean to imply that we disagree. I think we are probably in absolute accord. I just feel so very badly for those boys and their families. I can’t imagine the depths of anger and despair they have experienced.
Hey Bill! You’ve been a staunch onthe Duke issue — or Dook, as you like to call it. Thanks for the extra info. Thanks for the unending good will. What a guy!
Comment by R Middleton on 27 April 2011:
Not unlike the hysteria following the 1996 Dunblane tragedy in Britain and subsequent passage of the ‘Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997′ which banned handguns. The Left’s penchant to abuse power belies their touchy feely rhetoric.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” — C. S. Lewis
Britain, turning the Enlightenment into a social and moral anomaly one step at a time since JULY 4, 1776.