Some time ago I found a comment about the Duke lacrosse case at a blog frequented by actuarial students. Everybody was talking about the DL case in 2006 (http://www.actuarialoutpost.com/actuarial_discussion_forum/showthread.php?t=78024&page=15). The comment from llcooljabe at 4-18-2006 read, “A bunch of my coworkers are hugely into local lacrosse (I live in Long Island). One of them said when this whole thing broke a few weeks ago, that if anyone on the duke team did it, it would be this collin kid from Garden City. Whether he's guilty or not, his life is effectively ruined because of the publicity.” It struck me as odd because Collin’s diversion in the Georgetown case was not revoked until after the arrest, which occurred on 4-18-06. Why would anyone have expected Collin to be involved in the rape case, given his unblemished disciplinary record at Chaminade High School?
Remembering something that Bill Anderson mentioned, I found an article by Juliet Macur and Viv Bernstein at the New York Times from 4-05-06 (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9502E4DB1030F936A35757C0A9609C8B63) that mainly discussed Collin’s DC assault case. I also found an article in the Raleigh News and Observer by Samiha Khanna on 4-06-09 (http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/425722.html) that dealt with the Georgetown case exclusively.
I find the timing of these two articles to be at least a strange coincidence. The N&O had already run one article that briefly discussed the fifteen incidents of lacrosse players getting into trouble with the law (http://www.newsobserver.com/front/story/422787.html), although the late March article had not mentioned the Georgetown incident. The N&O story could have appeared when it did because it was following the story in the Times that appeared on the previous day. However, 6 April 2006 was by no means a slow news day with respect to the DL case. On the same day as the N&O published an article on Georgetown, another article discussed Coach Pressler’s firing, and a third discussed Ryan McFayden’s email. And even if this were a case of copycatting, it would still not explain why the Times published an article when it did. The reporter at the Times might have been doing routine background checks on all of the players, or Jeffrey Bloxham, the man Collin allegedly assaulted, might have contacted them. However, a third explanation can be advanced.
The Durham police department (DPD) conducted the flawed lineup on 4 April 2006. I hypothesize that someone in the DPD or in the District Attorney’s office (possibly DA Michael Nifong himself) tipped these reporters right after the lineup that indictments were coming and that they should look into Collin’s record. Assuming that it was Mr. Nifong, I imagine that his motive was to create in Durham (and especially in the future jury) a response of “Aha, I knew it,” when Collin was arrested, much like the response from llcooljabe’s coworkers.
I attempted to contact the reporters involved to ask how they first learned about Collin’s arrest, but my repeated enquiries were not answered; therefore, the sequence of events I have presented remains speculative. Maybe the next time Michael Nifong gets on a witness stand, someone can ask him about his possibly leaking information to the press. New students of the DL case may wish to consult Taylor and Johnson’s “Until Proven Innocent,”, Michael Gaynor (http://www.webcommentary.com/php/ShowArticle.php?id=gaynorm&date=060712), or myself (http://viewfromwilmington.blogspot.com/2008/12/wolves-in-blazers-and-khakis-in-defense.html) which detail how the MSM and some blogs misunderstood and misrepresented the Georgetown incident.
(Part II of the series “In Defense of the Duke Lacrosse Teams)
Update (10 August 2009)
The NYT story referred to the Raleigh N&O late March story when it discussed the 15 incidents of lacrosse players running afoul of the law, suggesting that the NYT did not research all of the players itself. The key point, though, is that both of the news stories in early April appeared well before Collin Finnerty became national news.
Houston Baker said that Collin Finnerty beat up a gay man in Georgetown, implying that the incident was potentially a hate crime. Professor Baker was also involved in an early skirmish in the political correctness war, the water buffalo incident involving Eden Jacobowitz, a student at the University of Pennsylvania (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_buffalo_incident). In recognition of his disservice to the truth in these two cases, Professor Baker deserves a liar—liar-pants-on-fire award. Not only did Collin throw no punches, but no one in the incident was gay and the authorities never treated the Georgetown scuffle as a hate crime. Yet because of it, Collin’s character suffered far more reputational harm than Reade’s or David’s.
The Georgetown incident became one of several examples of supposed misbehavior by the players mentioned over-and-over in the MSM and on blogs. Others include Ryan McFayden’s ill-considered email and the racial slurs allegedly uttered on the night of the party. Many students of the DL case, including me, think that the MSM and the blogosphere often substantially misrepresented these incidents. However, their cumulative effect was to suggest that the lacrosse players were homophobic, misogynistic, and racist and possibly to dampen the resoluteness of those who would have spoken against a rush to judgment in the spring of 2006.
Update-2 (22 September 2009)
Newsday, a Long Island paper, also ran a story about the Georgetown incident on 6 April 2006 (http://www.newsday.com/news/duke-player-from-li-accused-in-05-case-1.606831), the same day as the Raleigh News and Observer did. The reporter, John Moreno Gonzales, mentioned having seen DC court records on the previous day. The Durham Herald Sun gave this incident four sentences in a 1500-word article on 7 April, and the reporter, Ray Gronberg, credits the New York Times article. The Hoya, the Georgetown campus paper, covered this incident on 27 January 2006 (http://www.thehoya.com/news/campus-assault-case-dropped/). Although any of the reporters covering the DL case might have come across the Hoya article, it is not easy to see why they would have been looking for it. On the other hand, if my speculation about Nifong were correct, one would have expected him to contact the Durham Herald Sun at the same time as the Raleigh News and Observer.
Update-3 (13 October 2009)
The NYT article caused at least two observers to draw the inference that Mr. Finnerty’s name was leaked prior to my writing this essay, Chris Lawrence (http://blog.lordsutch.com/related/3338) and sceptical (http://s1.zetaboards.com/Liestoppers_meeting/topic/1976244/1/). These authors did not cite the Raleigh News and Observer or Newsday’s articles, each of which appeared one day later as discussed above. The author of the N&O article, Samiha Khanna, may have also been the recipient of another leak, allowing her to contact Ms. Mangum in late March of 2006. Curiously, the New York Times public editor, Byron Calame questioned the appropriateness of devoting a 550-word article to the Georgetown incident (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/opinion/23pubed.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1), suggesting that one or two paragraphs within another story would have been more appropriate.
Showing posts with label Duke lacrosse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Duke lacrosse. Show all posts
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Devilish Discords, A Reply to Robert Zimmerman
(On 5/21/09 I revised the original essay. Most of the changes are minor editing to clarify some points that may have been confusing (http://forums.talkleft.com/index.php?topic=2008.0), but the final paragraph is entirely new.)
Professor Robert Zimmerman has written numerous times about the Duke lacrosse case and how the faculty responded. His praise of Professor Leitner’s article (the “sense” in the sense-and-nonsense post) indicates that he is sympathetic to the group of 88 faculty who signed the listening statement. Yet he has also written about the excesses of some in the Duke community (http://reharmonized.an-earful.com/2007/11/trouble-with-potbanging/). His assessment (http://reharmonized.an-earful.com/2007/12/sense-and-nonsense/) of Professor Steven Baldwin’s op-ed to the Duke Chronicle in October of 2006 is typically David Broderesque in its attempt to find some wrong on both sides (for example, http://reharmonized.an-earful.com/2007/11/lacrosse-racket-postscript).
Baldwin wrote (http://media.www.dukechronicle.com/media/storage/paper884/news/2006/10/24/Columns/The-Administrations.Mismanagement.Of.Lacrosse-2384801.shtml), “The faculty who publicly savaged the character and reputations of specific men’s lacrosse players last spring should be ashamed of themselves. They should be tarred and feathered, ridden out of town on a rail and removed from the academy.” Professor Robyn Wiegmann replied (http://media.www.dukechronicle.com/media/storage/paper884/news/2006/10/25/Letters/Cultivate.Community.Of.Critical.Thought-2400650.shtml), “Being tarred and feathered is the language of lynching, and the practice of lynching was rarely one that eventuated in a court case of any kind, let alone one in which the defendants claim 10 minutes on one of the most important television programs in the United States. My disappointment in Duke right now is that it wants to avoid the analysis of the language and history of race, instead of using this moment-in its broad social implications-to actually study it.” Baldwin then apologized by saying (http://media.www.dukechronicle.com/media/storage/paper884/news/2006/10/25/Letters/insensitive.Language.Unintentional-2400648.shtml?norewrite200610261312), In particular, in the next-to-last paragraph of the editorial I used some terms that I have now learned have racial connotations for some…I deeply regret that what for me is a totally non-racial issue has assumed that character.”
Zimmerman critcized Baldwin, writing, “I’m happy to grant that it was past time for faculty members to speak publicly and critically about the treatment of the lacrosse players on campus and by Nifong. I’m hard pressed to think of a way of making the point that’s more obnoxious and less constructive than Baldwin’s, though.” By failing to say what he would find constructive, Zimmerman took the easy way out: He cloaks himself in a mantle of moderation (indicating some wrong on both sides), but he doesn’t have to commit himself and take a stand against the group of 88 and their allies. In contrast, Zimmerman praised Wiegman’s reply as “well-modulated” and implied that her “language of lynching” statement has been blown out of proportion. Why didn’t he defend Baldwin by the same criterion? Most of Baldwin’s letter concerned the right and wrong ways that a university might treat its students; his tarring and feathering comment is no more the bulk of what he is saying than Wiegman’s language of lynching comment, perhaps less.
Zimmerman treated Baldwin’s comment that certain faculty “removed from the academy” literally. He also described “targeted” faculty as engaging in a “it-for-tat that strikes me as unwarranted” when they wrote to Broadhead to ask for his removal. This is a false equivalence. No one has ever said that Baldwin contacted President Broadhead to remove anyone. Moreover, because he coupled it with a clearly metaphorical call for tarring and feathering, the passage in his letter cannot be read as an actual call for anyone’s dismissal. However, some members of the Duke faculty had previously called for Coach Pressler’s removal (Pressler was forced to step down), and now some were literally calling for Baldwin’s.
Zimmerman conceded that tarring and feathering are not really the language of lynching, “but so what? It’s still the language of intolerance and vigilantism, directed indiscriminately at an unspecified group of colleagues who didn’t live up to the paternalistic standard Baldwin set for himself and the university.” Zimmerman thus set up a false alternative; a professor need not agree with Baldwin’s principle of in loco parentis to refrain from publicly shaming his or her students (not only is it wrong to do so, but it is also not a very effective teaching tool). Since Baldwin was not literally calling for tarring and feathering, one can ignore Zimmerman’s equating Baldwin’s comments with vigilantism, however given his post on the potbangers, he is probably sincere in reviling vigilante justice. More problematic is that he seems to be holding up tolerance as always and unquestionably a good thing. Yet, the Duke faculty should not tolerate mistreating students any more that it should tolerate racism.
Zimmerman’s cavalier “so what” is inadequate in two ways. First, accuracy of expression is among the central goals of the academy (I would put it close to the top). Baldwin was criticizing specific members of the faculty for what they did do, whereas Wiegman was calling Baldwin, a self-described liberal, to task for something that he did not do, that is making a remark with strong intimations of racism. Even if Wiegman, a professor of Women’s Studies and Literature, were merely ignorant of the origins of the phrase to tar and feather (which seems unlikely), it would still be a serious error. Furthermore, for Zimmerman to say that her false charge of racial insensitivity does not matter while at the same time praising those who raise issues of racial inequality (such as Wiegman and Leitner) is blatantly inconsistent.
If one is in any doubt that some Duke professors shamed their students in wildly inappropriate ways, the Liestoppers board has collected some examples (http://s1.zetaboards.com/Liestoppers_meeting/topic/1632939/1/). I will present only a sample. Grant Farred accused the Duke students who registered to vote with the intention of ousting Prosecutor Michael Nifong of racism and naked self-interest. As the case was unraveling, Houston Baker called the lacrosse players a “scummy bunch of white males.” If a Duke professor had called a black fraternity a scummy bunch of black males, I wonder what the public outcry would have been. Karla Holloway rebuked the women’s lacrosse team for wearing armbands in support of the men’s team, whose season had been cancelled (Until Proven Innocent, p. 234). Tim Tyson likened the team to “white supremacists” and said that the spirit of the lynch mob lived in that house on Buchanan Street (http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2008/05/tyson-reinvents-history.html). He also said that Duke students not talking to Sgt. Mark Gottlieb outside the presence of their attorneys “may be illegal” and constituted a “terrible moral miscalculation.” Perhaps most disappointingly Father Vetter and Reverend Wells, both of whom minister to the Duke community, independently gave sanctimonious, guilt-presuming sermons. Most astonishing, though, is Kim Curtis’ interpretation of the players’ confidence that the DNA results would exonerate them. She implied that the lacrosse players knew that someone else had perpetrated a rape and that the players were accomplices by not naming him.
To paraphrase the NYT’s Peter Applebome, some in the media had declared open season on the Duke lacrosse team in general and the three indicted players in particular. One wonders why more in the faculty did not rebuke the media for doing so, instead of painting bull’s-eyes on the players’ backs. Zimmerman does not understand what makes the Baldwin-Wiegman exchange “unbearably sad” to Harvey Silverglate (co-founder of FIRE). Perhaps it was that the discussion about the inexcusable way that the “feckless” faculty were treating their own students was interrupted by a claim that these faculty were victims, an eerily similar claim to one found in the clarifying statement made the following January (http://www.concerneddukefaculty.org/) by the Group of 89.
Here are some questions to which I would like to hear Professor Zimmerman’s answers. Is it his contention that a discussion of the language and history of race was more urgent than a discussion of how Duke should treat its students in legal peril? What did this “moment” actually have to do with the “language and history of race” in the first place? If Wiegman knew that tarring and feathering was not associated with lynching but made this charge anyway, would Zimmerman still say, “so what?”
No one has ever claimed that the three indicted players used racial epithets on the night in question. Therefore, long before October of 2006, there was no reason to believe that the alleged rape had anything to do with race. Yet Wiegman and the Group of 89 still wanted to speak of nothing else: They played the accusation of racism as though it were an ace that could never be trumped. When I first encountered this case, I believed that the members of the Group of 88 were sincere in their concern about racism at Duke, despite being overzealous about the accusation of rape. After Wiegman’s spurious charge of racism against Baldwin, Huston Baker’s racist attack on the players, and the Group of 89’s showing more concern over unspecified racism and sexism than for its students being denied due process, I can no longer take their claims seriously.
Full disclosure: I am the reporter who originally solicited Harvey Silverglate’s comments (http://web.duke.edu/~kcl10/DSFEDuke/Duke_Taylor11.pdf).Thursday, April 23, 2009
A report in Vincent Clark's appearance at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
The publicity agent for Crystal Gail Mangum, Vincent “Ed” Clark, spoke and answered questions on Wednesday 22 April 2009 at the Sonja Haynes Stone Center on the campus of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The program was called
"Cracks in the Justice System: Victims of Money, Media and Misconduct, " and it was sponsored by chapters of certain campus sororities or fraternities (http://www.unc.edu/student/orgs/onetnx/events.html
). The presentation included readings from the writings of several wrongly convicted minority individuals, including Ronald Cotton, Lesly Jean, and Hector Gonzalez. In response to a question after the presentation was over, Mr. Clark implied that he was working on a case in which two retarded boys are being held on the basis of signed confessions, in spite of both individuals being illiterate.
Mr. Clark, who represents Crystal Gail Mangum, the accuser in the Duke lacrosse case, is an affable and voluble individual. Ms. Mangum has published her memoir, “Last Dance for Grace” with Mr. Clark’s assistance, and the two have attempted to tell her life story to the media for some time. He discussed having conversations with Inside Edition and HBO, among others. He says that after initial enthusiasm among creators, their bosses or their boss’s bosses quash the project. The producers say something close to “Vince, they won’t let me do it.” Mr. Clark puts at least some of the blame for this on the families of the Duke three, who have dinner with Sumner Redstone. Mr. Clark says that Ms. Mangum wants to talk about herself and the mistakes she has made. She disappoints some in the media, who would like to have her confront Mr. Cheshire or the Duke three on camera. He attributed to 60 Minutes senior producer Michael Radutzky a statement to the effect that he would put a bullet into prosecutor Michael Nifong’s head so that no one would believe Ms. Mangum.
Mr. Clark spoke about the many hours he spent interviewing Ms. Mangum and also the time he spent going to church and listening to her speak with her pastor. “My job was to listen to Crystal.” Mr. Clark said that there are blogs that have criticized Ms. Mangum every day for three years: “That is why I have an affinity for her. What if she is lying, shouldn’t she be allowed to finish college?” Mr. Clark asked rhetorically whether the members of the audience had ever done anything with which they were uncomfortable. A member of the audience asked if she were lying, should she be prosecuted. Mr. Clark said that if one accepts the Attorney General’s conclusion that the three are innocent, they have to accept his decision not to prosecute. Earlier he noted that the AG said that she believes her story.
Mr. Clark implied that attorney Joseph Cheshire didn’t want most prosecutors who were guilty of misconduct put in prison, only Mr. Nifong, who made the mistake of going up against the wrong people. He also quoted professor Angela J. Davis, professor of law at American University, as telling Mr. Cheshire “Joe, you know this is not right, what you did to her.” Professor Davis has written extensively on prosecutorial power.
He also took issue with the idea that the lacrosse case was the worst case of prosecutorial misconduct ever. He said that Mr. Nifong never should have been talking in public. He also said that the Durham police department has “some problems with other investigations.” About the Duke three, Mr. Clark contrasted their experience with those of Mr. Gonzalez and the other individuals discussed in the program, saying, “They were shown on television.” When later asked about the Newsweek cover featuring mug shots of two of the accused players, Mr. Clark said that he and Crystal both thought that it “never should have been done.” Much earlier, Mr. Clark had characterized a discussion on Nancy Grace’s show as a scream fest.
With respect to Crystal and her family, he said that some in the media doubted that Crystal was a student at North Carolina Central University, but that when they saw professors greet her, the cameras shut off. Mr. Clark asked what was wrong with photos of Crystal sitting in class or with her diploma, which he said does not occur. Mr. Clark said that Ms. Mangum’s father tried to hold the family together, but that her mother had psychological problems. The media latched on to Ms. Mangum’s cousin Jakki, to whom Crystal had not spoken in six years, because of the desire within the media to portray Crystal’s family in a freakish light. Jakki, who is a transsexual, was treated as a family spokesperson.
After the presentation an observer characterized Ms. Mangum’s comments earlier that evening by quoting Ms. Mangum, “I want to tell my story.” However the observer indicated that Ms. Mangum spoke only about her experiences with the media, not about the case itself. When this remark was overheard by a presumed event organizer, this individual said that a discussion of the case itself was not the point of the evening.
). The presentation included readings from the writings of several wrongly convicted minority individuals, including Ronald Cotton, Lesly Jean, and Hector Gonzalez. In response to a question after the presentation was over, Mr. Clark implied that he was working on a case in which two retarded boys are being held on the basis of signed confessions, in spite of both individuals being illiterate.
Mr. Clark, who represents Crystal Gail Mangum, the accuser in the Duke lacrosse case, is an affable and voluble individual. Ms. Mangum has published her memoir, “Last Dance for Grace” with Mr. Clark’s assistance, and the two have attempted to tell her life story to the media for some time. He discussed having conversations with Inside Edition and HBO, among others. He says that after initial enthusiasm among creators, their bosses or their boss’s bosses quash the project. The producers say something close to “Vince, they won’t let me do it.” Mr. Clark puts at least some of the blame for this on the families of the Duke three, who have dinner with Sumner Redstone. Mr. Clark says that Ms. Mangum wants to talk about herself and the mistakes she has made. She disappoints some in the media, who would like to have her confront Mr. Cheshire or the Duke three on camera. He attributed to 60 Minutes senior producer Michael Radutzky a statement to the effect that he would put a bullet into prosecutor Michael Nifong’s head so that no one would believe Ms. Mangum.
Mr. Clark spoke about the many hours he spent interviewing Ms. Mangum and also the time he spent going to church and listening to her speak with her pastor. “My job was to listen to Crystal.” Mr. Clark said that there are blogs that have criticized Ms. Mangum every day for three years: “That is why I have an affinity for her. What if she is lying, shouldn’t she be allowed to finish college?” Mr. Clark asked rhetorically whether the members of the audience had ever done anything with which they were uncomfortable. A member of the audience asked if she were lying, should she be prosecuted. Mr. Clark said that if one accepts the Attorney General’s conclusion that the three are innocent, they have to accept his decision not to prosecute. Earlier he noted that the AG said that she believes her story.
Mr. Clark implied that attorney Joseph Cheshire didn’t want most prosecutors who were guilty of misconduct put in prison, only Mr. Nifong, who made the mistake of going up against the wrong people. He also quoted professor Angela J. Davis, professor of law at American University, as telling Mr. Cheshire “Joe, you know this is not right, what you did to her.” Professor Davis has written extensively on prosecutorial power.
He also took issue with the idea that the lacrosse case was the worst case of prosecutorial misconduct ever. He said that Mr. Nifong never should have been talking in public. He also said that the Durham police department has “some problems with other investigations.” About the Duke three, Mr. Clark contrasted their experience with those of Mr. Gonzalez and the other individuals discussed in the program, saying, “They were shown on television.” When later asked about the Newsweek cover featuring mug shots of two of the accused players, Mr. Clark said that he and Crystal both thought that it “never should have been done.” Much earlier, Mr. Clark had characterized a discussion on Nancy Grace’s show as a scream fest.
With respect to Crystal and her family, he said that some in the media doubted that Crystal was a student at North Carolina Central University, but that when they saw professors greet her, the cameras shut off. Mr. Clark asked what was wrong with photos of Crystal sitting in class or with her diploma, which he said does not occur. Mr. Clark said that Ms. Mangum’s father tried to hold the family together, but that her mother had psychological problems. The media latched on to Ms. Mangum’s cousin Jakki, to whom Crystal had not spoken in six years, because of the desire within the media to portray Crystal’s family in a freakish light. Jakki, who is a transsexual, was treated as a family spokesperson.
After the presentation an observer characterized Ms. Mangum’s comments earlier that evening by quoting Ms. Mangum, “I want to tell my story.” However the observer indicated that Ms. Mangum spoke only about her experiences with the media, not about the case itself. When this remark was overheard by a presumed event organizer, this individual said that a discussion of the case itself was not the point of the evening.
Monday, April 6, 2009
O’Neil’s Analysis of Duke’s Group of 88: Casuistry Triumphs Over Common Sense
Robert M. O’Neil authored the chapter “Faculty Reactions, Contentious Debate, and Academic Freedom,” in the book Race to Injustice. KC Johnson has already reviewed this article (http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2009/01/review-race-to-injustice.html). I would go further than Professor Johnson does, however, who writes “In a few other areas, however, O’Neil seems excessively willing to give the Group the benefit of the doubt.” The chapter is solicitous about the woes of the Group of 88 and nearly silent about its faults to the point that its objectivity is hopelessly compromised. The problems with his article are as often sins of omission as sins of commission.
O’Neil’s article is weakest in its analysis of chemistry professor Steven Baldwin’s interactions with the Group of 88. O’Neil has nothing to say about Baldwin’s main point, that a university and its faculty should use the principle of in loco parentis to guide its actions toward students (http://media.www.dukechronicle.com/media/storage/paper884/news/2006/10/24/Columns/The-Administrations.Mismanagement.Of.Lacrosse-2384801.shtml?sourcedomain=www.dukechronicle.com&MIIHost=media.collegepublisher.com). Indeed, O’Neil spends little if any time on the fact that the Group of 88 and its allies upbraided the lacrosse players and their families in public.
Baldwin closed:
“On the other hand I do not believe that a faculty member publicly describing any student in pejorative terms is ever justified. To do so is mean-spirited, petty and unprofessional, at the very least. The faculty who publicly savaged the character and reputations of specific men’s lacrosse players last spring should be ashamed of themselves.
They should be tarred and feathered, ridden out of town on a rail and removed from the academy. Their comments were despicable.”
I discussed the Duke lacrosse case with a very highly esteemed professor at Wabash College, my alma mater. He said that he did not think that Wabash would treat its students this way. He thought and hoped that they would be defended against the outside world and raked over the coals in private (presumably for the boorish behavior of some of the players). Baldwin made clear that acting in loco parentis did not mean forswearing accountability. Yet he also indicated that the Group of 88 and/or the faculty had dispensed with the presumption of innocence. Those casually following the case in the spring of 2006 might have concluded that the lacrosse players were a rotten bunch, given that their professors’ comments seemed to buttress those of District Attorney Michael Nifong.
However, it is Baldwin’s pentultimate comment that draws O’Neil’s fire. Baldwin’s desire to remove the offending faculty is “starkly uncollegial (p. 46). In ascending order of seriousness, there are a number of problems with O’Neil’s analysis. First, Baldwin was not literally calling for their removal any more than he was planning to buy feathers and warm up a vat of tar. Second, Robyn Wiegman claimed that tarring and feathering was the language of lynching (something that she and the rest of the group must have known was untrue), implying that Baldwin was a racist. As Johnson remarked, this is hardly collegial. At least Baldwin’s essay was based in what the Group of 88 and its allies had actually done. Third, members of the Group of 88 met with President Broadhead and asked him to fire Baldwin, literally to remove him from the academy. O’Neil does not even mention the latter two points, which seem far more uncollegial. It was Baldwin who defused the situation (with the encouragement of the provost) by apologizing for saying that the errant faculty should be “tarred and feathered,” though Harvey Silverglate opined that Baldwin surrendered the moral high ground by doing so. Fourth, Houston Baker called for Duke to fire Coach Pressler and to dismiss the players (http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/mmedia/features/lacrosse_incident/lange_baker.html). O’Neil fails to address any of these behaviors.
It is pertinent that Karla Holloway publicly criticized the women’s lacrosse team (Until Proven Innocent, p. 234) for “the team-inspired and morally slender protestations of loyalty that brought the ethic from the field of play onto the field of legal and cultural and gendered battle as well.” The women’s lacrosse team had worn armbands in support of the three indicted players. The hypocrisy of criticizing women (including at least one woman of mixed racial heritage) for speaking out when the Group of 88 had thanked protestors for their demonstrations against the supposed racism and sexism of the men’s team is obvious. It also makes risible the Group of 88’s opening claim that “We are listening to our students.”
O’Neil quotes the policy of the American Association of University Professors, which states that professors “should show respect for the opinions of others,” but he points out that this policy was modified in 1970. Even in diluted form, the AAUP’s policy would seem contrary to Houston Baker’s December 2006 response to a polite email from a lacrosse parent. The parent had asked Baker to reconsider his views in the light of recent evidence. Baker called the players “farm animals,” among other obnoxious comments.
It is legitimate to ask whether criticism of students falls within a faculty member’s academic freedom or does it constitute a violation of the university’s or the AAUP’s code of faculty conduct. Yet, one has to look at all the facts, not select only the criticisms of the Group of 88 that one thinks one can rebut. Moreover, if we conclude that the faculty had the right to shame the student-athletes and even to ask that they be kicked out, but fail to ask should they have done so, we are missing the more critical issue. Baldwin said that the impact of the ad was devastating, swinging the pendulum against the players (http://www.diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_7059.shtml). O’Neil gives little consideration to this viewpoint, just as he ignores Wiegman’s, Holloway’s, and Baker’s incivility, preferring casuistry to common sense.
O’Neil’s article is weakest in its analysis of chemistry professor Steven Baldwin’s interactions with the Group of 88. O’Neil has nothing to say about Baldwin’s main point, that a university and its faculty should use the principle of in loco parentis to guide its actions toward students (http://media.www.dukechronicle.com/media/storage/paper884/news/2006/10/24/Columns/The-Administrations.Mismanagement.Of.Lacrosse-2384801.shtml?sourcedomain=www.dukechronicle.com&MIIHost=media.collegepublisher.com). Indeed, O’Neil spends little if any time on the fact that the Group of 88 and its allies upbraided the lacrosse players and their families in public.
Baldwin closed:
“On the other hand I do not believe that a faculty member publicly describing any student in pejorative terms is ever justified. To do so is mean-spirited, petty and unprofessional, at the very least. The faculty who publicly savaged the character and reputations of specific men’s lacrosse players last spring should be ashamed of themselves.
They should be tarred and feathered, ridden out of town on a rail and removed from the academy. Their comments were despicable.”
I discussed the Duke lacrosse case with a very highly esteemed professor at Wabash College, my alma mater. He said that he did not think that Wabash would treat its students this way. He thought and hoped that they would be defended against the outside world and raked over the coals in private (presumably for the boorish behavior of some of the players). Baldwin made clear that acting in loco parentis did not mean forswearing accountability. Yet he also indicated that the Group of 88 and/or the faculty had dispensed with the presumption of innocence. Those casually following the case in the spring of 2006 might have concluded that the lacrosse players were a rotten bunch, given that their professors’ comments seemed to buttress those of District Attorney Michael Nifong.
However, it is Baldwin’s pentultimate comment that draws O’Neil’s fire. Baldwin’s desire to remove the offending faculty is “starkly uncollegial (p. 46). In ascending order of seriousness, there are a number of problems with O’Neil’s analysis. First, Baldwin was not literally calling for their removal any more than he was planning to buy feathers and warm up a vat of tar. Second, Robyn Wiegman claimed that tarring and feathering was the language of lynching (something that she and the rest of the group must have known was untrue), implying that Baldwin was a racist. As Johnson remarked, this is hardly collegial. At least Baldwin’s essay was based in what the Group of 88 and its allies had actually done. Third, members of the Group of 88 met with President Broadhead and asked him to fire Baldwin, literally to remove him from the academy. O’Neil does not even mention the latter two points, which seem far more uncollegial. It was Baldwin who defused the situation (with the encouragement of the provost) by apologizing for saying that the errant faculty should be “tarred and feathered,” though Harvey Silverglate opined that Baldwin surrendered the moral high ground by doing so. Fourth, Houston Baker called for Duke to fire Coach Pressler and to dismiss the players (http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/mmedia/features/lacrosse_incident/lange_baker.html). O’Neil fails to address any of these behaviors.
It is pertinent that Karla Holloway publicly criticized the women’s lacrosse team (Until Proven Innocent, p. 234) for “the team-inspired and morally slender protestations of loyalty that brought the ethic from the field of play onto the field of legal and cultural and gendered battle as well.” The women’s lacrosse team had worn armbands in support of the three indicted players. The hypocrisy of criticizing women (including at least one woman of mixed racial heritage) for speaking out when the Group of 88 had thanked protestors for their demonstrations against the supposed racism and sexism of the men’s team is obvious. It also makes risible the Group of 88’s opening claim that “We are listening to our students.”
O’Neil quotes the policy of the American Association of University Professors, which states that professors “should show respect for the opinions of others,” but he points out that this policy was modified in 1970. Even in diluted form, the AAUP’s policy would seem contrary to Houston Baker’s December 2006 response to a polite email from a lacrosse parent. The parent had asked Baker to reconsider his views in the light of recent evidence. Baker called the players “farm animals,” among other obnoxious comments.
It is legitimate to ask whether criticism of students falls within a faculty member’s academic freedom or does it constitute a violation of the university’s or the AAUP’s code of faculty conduct. Yet, one has to look at all the facts, not select only the criticisms of the Group of 88 that one thinks one can rebut. Moreover, if we conclude that the faculty had the right to shame the student-athletes and even to ask that they be kicked out, but fail to ask should they have done so, we are missing the more critical issue. Baldwin said that the impact of the ad was devastating, swinging the pendulum against the players (http://www.diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_7059.shtml). O’Neil gives little consideration to this viewpoint, just as he ignores Wiegman’s, Holloway’s, and Baker’s incivility, preferring casuistry to common sense.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
A new tune for Gideon's trumpet: indigent criminal defendants need more than a lawyer
I have been reading about a number of cases over the last several years, and I see a common thread through many of them. Patricia Stallings was convicted of killing her infant son, yet the boy died of a genetic disease that was misdiagnosed as ethylene glycol poisoning (http://www.justicedenied.org/patriciastallings.htm). Laboratory tests that were unethically and incorrectly performed were the basis of her conviction, though the wrongdoing was later uncovered and she was released. Cameron Todd Willingham was executed for killing his children on the basis of since-discredited beliefs about the forensics of arson (http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-0412090169dec09,0,4934450.story). John Grisham’s nonfiction work, “The Innocent Man,” tells of a man on death row for a number of years when he should not even have been the prime suspect, partly due to errors made by his court-appointed lawyer, and partly due to faulty forensics. A list such as this could go on for a long time—too long.
In a number of ways, the Duke lacrosse case, a frequent subject of this blog, is different. The defendants faced an unethical prosecutor and a police force that repeatedly broke the rules. However, the defendants’ lawyers unmasked the prosecution’s attempt to bury exculpatory DNA evidence. Sadly, both the miscarriages of justice mentioned above and the Duke case illustrate a point made in Mr. Grisham’s book that I am paraphrasing: “In this country, you are innocent until proven broke.” There has been much ado over the wealth of these particular defendants’ families, but it is too infrequently noticed that these lawyers earned their paychecks the right way, by uncovering exculpatory evidence that the DA wished to hide. The shame is not that the Duke three came from wealthy families; rather, it is that we have tolerated a judicial system that sometimes cannot function unless the defendant is able to pay to play.
The sixth amendment to the constitution gives an accused the right to counsel. Given the great weight juries sometimes give forensic evidence, I liken putting a public defender in front of a jury without a meaningful ability to challenge possibly faulty evidence to sending a lacrosse player onto the field without gloves or a helmet. Therefore, I propose that for crimes that carry a sufficiently large maximum penalty, perhaps ten years in prison, that the public defender’s office should have available a sum of money. This money could be used to pay for DNA tests, clinical laboratory or other forensic tests, or a licensed private investigator. I propose a sum of $5,000 for most cases and $10,000 for capital cases.
It is vital to the success of this proposal that the judge trying the case be given as little authority as possible in directing the use of this money, possibly none at all. As indicated in “The Innocent Man,” a judge who approved public money on forensic tests could be tarred as being soft on crime. Voters might well punish someone who spent money on supposed criminals. However, I think that if we assent to the need of a public defender, we should also recognize the need to level the playing field between the prosecution and defense.
I have a strong hunch that this proposal could be considerably sharpened via amendments, particularly from those with more real-world exposure to the criminal justice system than I have. To that end, when I receive constructive comments, I will modify it accordingly. Therefore, comments are even more welcome than usual.
Update-1 (13 October 2009)
The 2009 Duke lacrosse book “Race to Injustice” has a chapter on the defense teams in that case. This author of this chapter, Rodney Uphoff, included a discussion of indigent defendants as the final section of his essay. His essay supports the general notion that indigent defendants often receive inadequate representation. I recommend his and a number of the other chapters. In the latter half of 2009, the case of Cameron Todd Willingham became national news, and I blogged twice in succession on this case (http://viewfromwilmington.blogspot.com/2009/09/more-on-willingham-case.html). I changed the word “stipend” to “sum” in the third paragraph.
In a number of ways, the Duke lacrosse case, a frequent subject of this blog, is different. The defendants faced an unethical prosecutor and a police force that repeatedly broke the rules. However, the defendants’ lawyers unmasked the prosecution’s attempt to bury exculpatory DNA evidence. Sadly, both the miscarriages of justice mentioned above and the Duke case illustrate a point made in Mr. Grisham’s book that I am paraphrasing: “In this country, you are innocent until proven broke.” There has been much ado over the wealth of these particular defendants’ families, but it is too infrequently noticed that these lawyers earned their paychecks the right way, by uncovering exculpatory evidence that the DA wished to hide. The shame is not that the Duke three came from wealthy families; rather, it is that we have tolerated a judicial system that sometimes cannot function unless the defendant is able to pay to play.
The sixth amendment to the constitution gives an accused the right to counsel. Given the great weight juries sometimes give forensic evidence, I liken putting a public defender in front of a jury without a meaningful ability to challenge possibly faulty evidence to sending a lacrosse player onto the field without gloves or a helmet. Therefore, I propose that for crimes that carry a sufficiently large maximum penalty, perhaps ten years in prison, that the public defender’s office should have available a sum of money. This money could be used to pay for DNA tests, clinical laboratory or other forensic tests, or a licensed private investigator. I propose a sum of $5,000 for most cases and $10,000 for capital cases.
It is vital to the success of this proposal that the judge trying the case be given as little authority as possible in directing the use of this money, possibly none at all. As indicated in “The Innocent Man,” a judge who approved public money on forensic tests could be tarred as being soft on crime. Voters might well punish someone who spent money on supposed criminals. However, I think that if we assent to the need of a public defender, we should also recognize the need to level the playing field between the prosecution and defense.
I have a strong hunch that this proposal could be considerably sharpened via amendments, particularly from those with more real-world exposure to the criminal justice system than I have. To that end, when I receive constructive comments, I will modify it accordingly. Therefore, comments are even more welcome than usual.
Update-1 (13 October 2009)
The 2009 Duke lacrosse book “Race to Injustice” has a chapter on the defense teams in that case. This author of this chapter, Rodney Uphoff, included a discussion of indigent defendants as the final section of his essay. His essay supports the general notion that indigent defendants often receive inadequate representation. I recommend his and a number of the other chapters. In the latter half of 2009, the case of Cameron Todd Willingham became national news, and I blogged twice in succession on this case (http://viewfromwilmington.blogspot.com/2009/09/more-on-willingham-case.html). I changed the word “stipend” to “sum” in the third paragraph.
Friday, January 2, 2009
A summary of “Last Dance for Grace The Crystal Mangum Story”
Crystal Mangum was the accuser in the Duke lacrosse case. In March 2006 her allegation of gang rape was the grounds for three Duke lacrosse players being indicted. In April 2007 North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper declared the three men innocent. Ms. Mangum’s autobiography appeared in the fall of 2008. My summary will not attempt to compare her account with any other, and this approach should not be construed to mean that I accept or dispute her account. Warning: This review reports on strong language and events that may be unsuitable for some individuals, particularly the young.
Part I, the alleged assault
Ms. Mangum, an exotic dancer, discusses the events of March 13, 2006 in two places in her book, pp. 33-56 and pp. 189-208. Ms. Mangum claims that she has always given a consistent account of the alleged rape (p. 189). She claims never to have taken illegal drugs, and she says that she was surprised at reports that she was on a strong cocktail of drugs for bipolar disorder that night. She says that she had two beers prior to arriving at 610 North Buchanan, the house rented by several of the lacrosse co-captains. This was less than she would usually drink before a performance (p. 48). She says that she took a few sips of the drink that “Dan Flanagan” gave her before spilling it and declined Nikki’s offer of her drink. She says that she was aware of the dangers of taking the medication she had been prescribed along with alcohol and that she did have prescriptions for “a number of drugs” on p. 47. She says that there is no proof and no toxicology reports that she took prescription drugs on March 13. She does not give the names of the drugs for which she had prescriptions or discuss why she stopped taking them as she implies. She assumes that information about her prescriptions came from release of her medical records or doctors and is outraged that her medical records were made public. She also reports that one of her doctors withdrew from treating her because of a conflict of interest stemming from his connections with Duke University.
While Ms. Mangum and Kim Roberts (Nikki, the other dancer) prepared in the bathroom, she heard the partygoers repeatedly refer to them as “black bitches.” After she and Nikki started to dance, she was surprised to see Nikki naked (she says that she had not planned on being completely naked). This surprise caused her to fall almost on top of Nikki, which she says was not intentional. As she and Nikki got up, she believes someone yelled that they were going to stick a broomstick up their anuses. Nikki said that they needed to get out of there. A person she believes was David Evans, one of the three indicted players, coaxed them back inside the house.
Shortly thereafter, she was forced into the bathroom and grabbed by the throat. Despite her screams, no one helped her. Ms. Mangum does not describe the physical appearance of her attackers, nor does she name them. That is odd, given that she seems to know what David Evans looks like. She does say that she is not good at remembering “minute details” about her surroundings (p. 56). She writes (p. 190), “I know people want me to name names and point fingers, but that would just be opening up a whole can of worms.” The first attacker penetrated her vagina and anus. The second attacker penetrated her vagina. Her pulling at his shirt caused her glued fingernails to pop loose. The third attacker at first demurred, on the grounds of having a fiancée, but then also assaulted her. She does not say where he penetrated her, but she does think that she may have been penetrated by a foreign object. The second attacker then penetrated her anally but ejaculated onto the floor. She suggests that a DNA sample near the sink in the bathroom was from a partygoer, presumably her second attacker. She implies that the alleged attack took ten minutes (p. 194) and that she was in the house for thirty minutes (p. 197).
After Ms. Mangum and Nikki left, she told Nikki about the attack. She received a mild sedative at Duke Medical Center before 3 AM. She had a pelvic exam that was so “excruciating” that it took a long time to complete (p. 193). She says that the hospital staff reported truthfully on the injuries they described but that the injuries were more extensive than reported in the media though it is not clear what she means. She claims bruising of her neck and knee. She claims (p. 225) that the videotape showing her dancing about ten days later was actually filmed several months earlier.
Part II, The investigation
Ms. Mangum says that the police did not try to coach her, yet they did tell her that the pictures were more than likely to be people at the party. She also says that she never danced at the Platinum Pleasures Club again. She denies that DNA evidence exists of her having multiple sex partners prior to the events at 610 Buchanan, and she says that there was no semen found in her orifices. She also denies being a prostitute but acknowledges masturbating for customers. She hints at the existence of other DNA evidence in her case file and calls for the file to be released. She implies that the use of racial slurs by itself is a hate crime (p. 203).
About the investigation she says (p. 197), “The notion that the Durham Police Department somehow decided that my case was about framing people for no reason seems so crazy.” She makes one puzzling statement about the DNA tests (p. 202): “If the DNA confirms that none of the people charged left DNA on me, then the test performed their function.”
During the second meeting with the Coman/Winstead team that took over from Durham DA Michael Nifong, Ms. Mangum felt frustrated by the rapidity of the questions. Near the end of the meeting, she said, “They are going to get away with it because Duke has paid everyone to be silent.”
Part III, Ms. Mangum’s adolescence
Ms. Mangum wished to be a ballerina when she was young. She also spent hours studying dance moves in music videos on television. Ms. Mangum’s parents loved her, however they favored her sister. Her portrait of her sister is particularly unflattering. Her father was quite willing to use corporal punishment. Her mother seems to have been hospitalized for mental illness at least one time (p. 83). She implies that she is estranged from her family but is not specific on the reasons. She accuses her cousin Jackie of trying to sell her story and believes that someone paid her to talk (p. 68).
By far the most horrific story within this portion of the book is Ms. Mangum’s account of a gang rape when she was fourteen. One of her abusers was her boyfriend Frederick and the other two were friends of his. Frederick was also physically and psychologically abusive. Her relationship with Frederick sent her into a depression, requiring hospitalization and treatment. She swallowed sixty aspirin tablets when she was a teenager and again was hospitalized.
Ms. Mangum describes herself as being religious and fearing God. She says that in the last year she gravitated back to the church for solace (p. 70).
Part IV, Ms. Mangum’s adult life prior to the alleged attack
Ms. Mangum’s husband was fourteen years older than she, and after they married, she joined the navy. She says that she was more concerned about him than herself. She writes (pp. 150-151), “Being kindhearted and a caring person is a character flaw I suffer from.” Ultimately, Kenneth was verbally and physically abusive. After the breakup of her marriage, she started dating Ryan, the father of her two older children.
Ms. Mangum gives the following account of her arrest in 2002: She says that she was drunk, and an equally drunk man gave her the keys to his car, which turned out to be a taxicab. Her motive for wanting to go home was to check on her children. She stopped after police pursued her but then backed up, hitting a police cruiser. She was charged with two felonies and five misdemeanors (p. 174).
In 2004 Ms. Mangum took a job as a medical technician in an adult care facility for about a year but had a conflict with her manager and was fired. As in other interpersonal situations, she lays the majority of the blame for the problem on the other person (p. 176). She acknowledges that she abused alcohol and had a mental heath issue in 2005 that was diagnosed as bipolar disorder by one mental health professional and recurring depression by another.
Part I, the alleged assault
Ms. Mangum, an exotic dancer, discusses the events of March 13, 2006 in two places in her book, pp. 33-56 and pp. 189-208. Ms. Mangum claims that she has always given a consistent account of the alleged rape (p. 189). She claims never to have taken illegal drugs, and she says that she was surprised at reports that she was on a strong cocktail of drugs for bipolar disorder that night. She says that she had two beers prior to arriving at 610 North Buchanan, the house rented by several of the lacrosse co-captains. This was less than she would usually drink before a performance (p. 48). She says that she took a few sips of the drink that “Dan Flanagan” gave her before spilling it and declined Nikki’s offer of her drink. She says that she was aware of the dangers of taking the medication she had been prescribed along with alcohol and that she did have prescriptions for “a number of drugs” on p. 47. She says that there is no proof and no toxicology reports that she took prescription drugs on March 13. She does not give the names of the drugs for which she had prescriptions or discuss why she stopped taking them as she implies. She assumes that information about her prescriptions came from release of her medical records or doctors and is outraged that her medical records were made public. She also reports that one of her doctors withdrew from treating her because of a conflict of interest stemming from his connections with Duke University.
While Ms. Mangum and Kim Roberts (Nikki, the other dancer) prepared in the bathroom, she heard the partygoers repeatedly refer to them as “black bitches.” After she and Nikki started to dance, she was surprised to see Nikki naked (she says that she had not planned on being completely naked). This surprise caused her to fall almost on top of Nikki, which she says was not intentional. As she and Nikki got up, she believes someone yelled that they were going to stick a broomstick up their anuses. Nikki said that they needed to get out of there. A person she believes was David Evans, one of the three indicted players, coaxed them back inside the house.
Shortly thereafter, she was forced into the bathroom and grabbed by the throat. Despite her screams, no one helped her. Ms. Mangum does not describe the physical appearance of her attackers, nor does she name them. That is odd, given that she seems to know what David Evans looks like. She does say that she is not good at remembering “minute details” about her surroundings (p. 56). She writes (p. 190), “I know people want me to name names and point fingers, but that would just be opening up a whole can of worms.” The first attacker penetrated her vagina and anus. The second attacker penetrated her vagina. Her pulling at his shirt caused her glued fingernails to pop loose. The third attacker at first demurred, on the grounds of having a fiancée, but then also assaulted her. She does not say where he penetrated her, but she does think that she may have been penetrated by a foreign object. The second attacker then penetrated her anally but ejaculated onto the floor. She suggests that a DNA sample near the sink in the bathroom was from a partygoer, presumably her second attacker. She implies that the alleged attack took ten minutes (p. 194) and that she was in the house for thirty minutes (p. 197).
After Ms. Mangum and Nikki left, she told Nikki about the attack. She received a mild sedative at Duke Medical Center before 3 AM. She had a pelvic exam that was so “excruciating” that it took a long time to complete (p. 193). She says that the hospital staff reported truthfully on the injuries they described but that the injuries were more extensive than reported in the media though it is not clear what she means. She claims bruising of her neck and knee. She claims (p. 225) that the videotape showing her dancing about ten days later was actually filmed several months earlier.
Part II, The investigation
Ms. Mangum says that the police did not try to coach her, yet they did tell her that the pictures were more than likely to be people at the party. She also says that she never danced at the Platinum Pleasures Club again. She denies that DNA evidence exists of her having multiple sex partners prior to the events at 610 Buchanan, and she says that there was no semen found in her orifices. She also denies being a prostitute but acknowledges masturbating for customers. She hints at the existence of other DNA evidence in her case file and calls for the file to be released. She implies that the use of racial slurs by itself is a hate crime (p. 203).
About the investigation she says (p. 197), “The notion that the Durham Police Department somehow decided that my case was about framing people for no reason seems so crazy.” She makes one puzzling statement about the DNA tests (p. 202): “If the DNA confirms that none of the people charged left DNA on me, then the test performed their function.”
During the second meeting with the Coman/Winstead team that took over from Durham DA Michael Nifong, Ms. Mangum felt frustrated by the rapidity of the questions. Near the end of the meeting, she said, “They are going to get away with it because Duke has paid everyone to be silent.”
Part III, Ms. Mangum’s adolescence
Ms. Mangum wished to be a ballerina when she was young. She also spent hours studying dance moves in music videos on television. Ms. Mangum’s parents loved her, however they favored her sister. Her portrait of her sister is particularly unflattering. Her father was quite willing to use corporal punishment. Her mother seems to have been hospitalized for mental illness at least one time (p. 83). She implies that she is estranged from her family but is not specific on the reasons. She accuses her cousin Jackie of trying to sell her story and believes that someone paid her to talk (p. 68).
By far the most horrific story within this portion of the book is Ms. Mangum’s account of a gang rape when she was fourteen. One of her abusers was her boyfriend Frederick and the other two were friends of his. Frederick was also physically and psychologically abusive. Her relationship with Frederick sent her into a depression, requiring hospitalization and treatment. She swallowed sixty aspirin tablets when she was a teenager and again was hospitalized.
Ms. Mangum describes herself as being religious and fearing God. She says that in the last year she gravitated back to the church for solace (p. 70).
Part IV, Ms. Mangum’s adult life prior to the alleged attack
Ms. Mangum’s husband was fourteen years older than she, and after they married, she joined the navy. She says that she was more concerned about him than herself. She writes (pp. 150-151), “Being kindhearted and a caring person is a character flaw I suffer from.” Ultimately, Kenneth was verbally and physically abusive. After the breakup of her marriage, she started dating Ryan, the father of her two older children.
Ms. Mangum gives the following account of her arrest in 2002: She says that she was drunk, and an equally drunk man gave her the keys to his car, which turned out to be a taxicab. Her motive for wanting to go home was to check on her children. She stopped after police pursued her but then backed up, hitting a police cruiser. She was charged with two felonies and five misdemeanors (p. 174).
In 2004 Ms. Mangum took a job as a medical technician in an adult care facility for about a year but had a conflict with her manager and was fired. As in other interpersonal situations, she lays the majority of the blame for the problem on the other person (p. 176). She acknowledges that she abused alcohol and had a mental heath issue in 2005 that was diagnosed as bipolar disorder by one mental health professional and recurring depression by another.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Wolves in Blazers and Khakis? In defense of the Duke lacrosse teams, I
In the spring and summer of 2006 many journalists wrote pieces that were heavily critical of the Duke lacrosse teams. Few managed the level of disdain that Marc Fisher did in his column “Wolves in Blazers and Khakis” (13 July 2006) in the Washington Post
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/12/AR2006071201911.html). My impressions of the case are based on a number of news articles that appeared at the time, and the book, "Until Proven Innocent."
Mr. Fisher covered Collin Finnerty’s trial over an incident in Georgetown the previous November between a group of athletes including Collin versus Scott Herndon and Jeffrey Bloxham. Collin was convicted of assault: throwing fake punches and directing possibly homophobic insults at Jeffrey Bloxham. On the other hand, he never threw real punches and his friends indicated that he was the first person to get punched, an assertion that is consistent with a photograph shown by one of his lawyers.
We are all agreed that even assault should be illegal, though it is less serious than assault and battery. Likewise, using vulgar taunts is unacceptable behavior, yet it seems far-fetched that Collin and his friends were doing so in the absence of in-kind behavior from Scott and Jeffrey. Collin and his friends were probably drinking underage. I doubt that the incident was anyone’s finest hour. However, Mr. Fisher goes much, much further in his analysis of an incident that he says is common in Georgetown.
Mr. Fisher concludes that the complaining witnesses were entirely truthful in their testimony and implies that Collin’s friends perjured themselves in theirs. Claims of Collin’s excellent character are “proud, even arrogant,” but Mr. Fisher does not say that the priest (also family friend) and Michael Hannan, the father of Collin’s girlfriend, lied, only that they fail to apprehend Collin’s true nature.
Marc Fisher claims that Collin Finnerty and his friends behave decently while sober but appallingly while drunk. In the Georgetown incident, there is evidence that is superficially consistent with his hypothesis but not nearly enough to demand it. We don’t know how much the members of either of the two groups of friends had been drinking. Moreover, based his own testimony about an unrelated incident, Scott Herndon may be aggressive when he has been drinking. And Scott and Jeffrey might have perjured themselves, as discussed by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson in “Until Proven Innocent.” Scott’s and Jeffrey’s accounts, in which they portray themselves as peace-loving victims, are not worth the trouble of laughing at. Why Mr. Fisher swallows them hook, line, and sinker in the absence of disinterested witnesses is beyond me, especially when the authorities implied that both parties were yelling at each other. It seems much more reasonable to assign blame for this minor scuffle equally to both parties.
But Mr. Fisher goes a step further than saying that Collin gets out of control when drunk. Mr. Fisher implies that he and his friends are putting on an act for their elders then showing their true selves only to one another. And that is the connection to the Duke rape case: “a raucous party at which a bunch of drunken kids verbally abused a hired performer,” an incident that was “entirely within character for these kids and the friend they tried to talk out of trouble.” He offers not one scintilla of evidence for his conjecture about Collin and his friends putting on an act. Moreover, his characterization of the party serves his thesis more than it resembles reality: the party was not raucus, and there was only one racial epithet uttered by a lacrosse player (not Collin) after being provoked by an in-kind remark by the stripper who was not the accuser, Kim Roberts.
Mr Fisher’s position leads him to discount what I see as compelling character testimony. Surely there is no tougher critic than the father of one’s girlfriend even in the best of times. After being indicted for rape, Collin was suspended and then put on academic leave at Duke, on top of being tried for the Georgetown incident. If Mr. Hannan had any doubts whatsoever about Collin’s character, Mr. Hannan would surely have forbidden his daughter from seeing him. Instead, Mr. Hannan took time off from his other responsibilities to defend the young man under oath.
Mr. Fisher is contemptuous of the lawyers and their yellow pads arrayed in Collin’s defense, as well as Collin’s blazers and khakis, and his and his friends’ “Yes, Sir’s.” This ignores two points. First, anyone with a modicum of common sense going to court will present himself well. Second, if I were in the shoes of Kevin Finnerty, Collin’s father, I would be looking at the Georgetown case through the lens of a possible thirty-year prison sentence for rape; therefore, my strategy in the former case would be governed by the need not to lose the latter one. Perhaps this explains the lawyers and the character witnesses, as well as the fact that Collin did not testify himself.
His classmates and a teacher have spoken up for Collin, as found in “Until Proven Innocent” (pp. 12-14). Nader Baydoun and R. Stephanie Good’s “A Rush to Injustice” recounts Duke student Emma Stevenson and her friends discussing the rape case just prior to indictments (pp. 155-156). “They joked that Nifong would probably indict someone as unlikely as Collin Finnerty because Collin was one of the nicest guys on the team and one of the least likely to hurt anyone.” Reporting several months later, Peter Applebome wrote about the time immediately after the names of the first two indicted players were announced (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D07E2D9103FF936A25757C0A9619C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1), “Nona Farahnik, who lived in the same dormitory as Mr. Finnerty and Mr. Seligmann, said, ‘When they said it was Reade and Collin, everyone knew it didn't happen.’” Since these testimonials come mainly from his male and female classmates, they undercut Mr. Fisher’s thesis.
Articles by Sharon Swanson (http://www.metronc.com/article/?id=1258) and Joan Collins (http://friendsofdukeuniversity.blogspot.com/2006/05/letters-from-friends-2.html#c116353966571190418) consistently describe Collin as mild-mannered. Collin’s parents stood by him unreservedly (http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/1267263/); his father said, "In some ways, I'd say Collin is a much better man than I could ever hope to be." Although one might argue that the support of one’s parents should be treated with gentle skepticism, it surely should not be ignored entirely. Collin’s neighbors asked him to baby-sit prior to his indictment and indicated they would be happy if he did so again (http://www.webcommentary.com/asp/ShowArticle.asp?id=gaynorm&date=060723). His coach at Chaminade High School made Collin an assistant during the time the rape charge was still pending and later praised his performance in that capacity (http://www.metronc.com/article/?id=1403). If one reads Collin’s freshman essay on cloning (http://www.duke.edu/~chf2/10%20steps%20page.html), he or she may begin to doubt and ultimately to reject Mr. Fisher’s portrait of Collin as a wolf. Finally, along with this ample evidence to his good character, doesn’t Collin’s empathetic reaction to the case of Eric Volz (http://www.newsobserver.com/news/crime_safety/duke_lacrosse/story/572485.html), speaks more clearly and forcefully about who he really is than the insignificant incident in Georgetown?
Mr. Fisher does not seem to think so. His response to my bringing up the Volz case and the interest that the Duke Three have shown in Innocence Project (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/04/12/2008-04-12_cleared_duke_lacrosse_player_works_to_he-1.html) was, “I'm glad to hear that the indicted students are taking an interest in the rights of the accused, and as I've said from the very beginning of this matter, the appalling rush to judgment in the phony rape case reveals a mindset that deserves far more rigorous attention, especially on college campuses. But in the case of the Georgetown incident, I covered that trial and there was very little that was unclear--it seemed plain that the accused behaved deplorably. To my mind both then and now, they deserved a far more serious punishment than they received.”
The judge must have felt otherwise, since he set aside Collin’s conviction near the end of 2006. One could dismiss Mr. Fisher as one of many superficial, self-impressed journalists, who, lacking heart or brain, declared a “free-fire zone” (Peter Applebome’s apt phrase) on the lacrosse players. Yet, the puzzle deepened for me when I started reading Mr. Fisher’s other columns: a compassionate interview with Alan Keyes’ daughter, a lamentation about an inner city youth choir program that was in jeopardy, a bittersweet retrospective on Leonard Slatkin’s tenure as music director in Washington, DC. Mr. Fisher wrote “one incident often does make a gentleman's character.” But I would like to give Mr. Fisher the benefit of the doubt that he did not give Collin. One sour piece of fruit does not condemn the whole tree.
Update (August 10, 2009): I added another link, this one in the third paragraph from the end.
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/12/AR2006071201911.html). My impressions of the case are based on a number of news articles that appeared at the time, and the book, "Until Proven Innocent."
Mr. Fisher covered Collin Finnerty’s trial over an incident in Georgetown the previous November between a group of athletes including Collin versus Scott Herndon and Jeffrey Bloxham. Collin was convicted of assault: throwing fake punches and directing possibly homophobic insults at Jeffrey Bloxham. On the other hand, he never threw real punches and his friends indicated that he was the first person to get punched, an assertion that is consistent with a photograph shown by one of his lawyers.
We are all agreed that even assault should be illegal, though it is less serious than assault and battery. Likewise, using vulgar taunts is unacceptable behavior, yet it seems far-fetched that Collin and his friends were doing so in the absence of in-kind behavior from Scott and Jeffrey. Collin and his friends were probably drinking underage. I doubt that the incident was anyone’s finest hour. However, Mr. Fisher goes much, much further in his analysis of an incident that he says is common in Georgetown.
Mr. Fisher concludes that the complaining witnesses were entirely truthful in their testimony and implies that Collin’s friends perjured themselves in theirs. Claims of Collin’s excellent character are “proud, even arrogant,” but Mr. Fisher does not say that the priest (also family friend) and Michael Hannan, the father of Collin’s girlfriend, lied, only that they fail to apprehend Collin’s true nature.
Marc Fisher claims that Collin Finnerty and his friends behave decently while sober but appallingly while drunk. In the Georgetown incident, there is evidence that is superficially consistent with his hypothesis but not nearly enough to demand it. We don’t know how much the members of either of the two groups of friends had been drinking. Moreover, based his own testimony about an unrelated incident, Scott Herndon may be aggressive when he has been drinking. And Scott and Jeffrey might have perjured themselves, as discussed by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson in “Until Proven Innocent.” Scott’s and Jeffrey’s accounts, in which they portray themselves as peace-loving victims, are not worth the trouble of laughing at. Why Mr. Fisher swallows them hook, line, and sinker in the absence of disinterested witnesses is beyond me, especially when the authorities implied that both parties were yelling at each other. It seems much more reasonable to assign blame for this minor scuffle equally to both parties.
But Mr. Fisher goes a step further than saying that Collin gets out of control when drunk. Mr. Fisher implies that he and his friends are putting on an act for their elders then showing their true selves only to one another. And that is the connection to the Duke rape case: “a raucous party at which a bunch of drunken kids verbally abused a hired performer,” an incident that was “entirely within character for these kids and the friend they tried to talk out of trouble.” He offers not one scintilla of evidence for his conjecture about Collin and his friends putting on an act. Moreover, his characterization of the party serves his thesis more than it resembles reality: the party was not raucus, and there was only one racial epithet uttered by a lacrosse player (not Collin) after being provoked by an in-kind remark by the stripper who was not the accuser, Kim Roberts.
Mr Fisher’s position leads him to discount what I see as compelling character testimony. Surely there is no tougher critic than the father of one’s girlfriend even in the best of times. After being indicted for rape, Collin was suspended and then put on academic leave at Duke, on top of being tried for the Georgetown incident. If Mr. Hannan had any doubts whatsoever about Collin’s character, Mr. Hannan would surely have forbidden his daughter from seeing him. Instead, Mr. Hannan took time off from his other responsibilities to defend the young man under oath.
Mr. Fisher is contemptuous of the lawyers and their yellow pads arrayed in Collin’s defense, as well as Collin’s blazers and khakis, and his and his friends’ “Yes, Sir’s.” This ignores two points. First, anyone with a modicum of common sense going to court will present himself well. Second, if I were in the shoes of Kevin Finnerty, Collin’s father, I would be looking at the Georgetown case through the lens of a possible thirty-year prison sentence for rape; therefore, my strategy in the former case would be governed by the need not to lose the latter one. Perhaps this explains the lawyers and the character witnesses, as well as the fact that Collin did not testify himself.
His classmates and a teacher have spoken up for Collin, as found in “Until Proven Innocent” (pp. 12-14). Nader Baydoun and R. Stephanie Good’s “A Rush to Injustice” recounts Duke student Emma Stevenson and her friends discussing the rape case just prior to indictments (pp. 155-156). “They joked that Nifong would probably indict someone as unlikely as Collin Finnerty because Collin was one of the nicest guys on the team and one of the least likely to hurt anyone.” Reporting several months later, Peter Applebome wrote about the time immediately after the names of the first two indicted players were announced (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D07E2D9103FF936A25757C0A9619C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1), “Nona Farahnik, who lived in the same dormitory as Mr. Finnerty and Mr. Seligmann, said, ‘When they said it was Reade and Collin, everyone knew it didn't happen.’” Since these testimonials come mainly from his male and female classmates, they undercut Mr. Fisher’s thesis.
Articles by Sharon Swanson (http://www.metronc.com/article/?id=1258) and Joan Collins (http://friendsofdukeuniversity.blogspot.com/2006/05/letters-from-friends-2.html#c116353966571190418) consistently describe Collin as mild-mannered. Collin’s parents stood by him unreservedly (http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/1267263/); his father said, "In some ways, I'd say Collin is a much better man than I could ever hope to be." Although one might argue that the support of one’s parents should be treated with gentle skepticism, it surely should not be ignored entirely. Collin’s neighbors asked him to baby-sit prior to his indictment and indicated they would be happy if he did so again (http://www.webcommentary.com/asp/ShowArticle.asp?id=gaynorm&date=060723). His coach at Chaminade High School made Collin an assistant during the time the rape charge was still pending and later praised his performance in that capacity (http://www.metronc.com/article/?id=1403). If one reads Collin’s freshman essay on cloning (http://www.duke.edu/~chf2/10%20steps%20page.html), he or she may begin to doubt and ultimately to reject Mr. Fisher’s portrait of Collin as a wolf. Finally, along with this ample evidence to his good character, doesn’t Collin’s empathetic reaction to the case of Eric Volz (http://www.newsobserver.com/news/crime_safety/duke_lacrosse/story/572485.html), speaks more clearly and forcefully about who he really is than the insignificant incident in Georgetown?
Mr. Fisher does not seem to think so. His response to my bringing up the Volz case and the interest that the Duke Three have shown in Innocence Project (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/04/12/2008-04-12_cleared_duke_lacrosse_player_works_to_he-1.html) was, “I'm glad to hear that the indicted students are taking an interest in the rights of the accused, and as I've said from the very beginning of this matter, the appalling rush to judgment in the phony rape case reveals a mindset that deserves far more rigorous attention, especially on college campuses. But in the case of the Georgetown incident, I covered that trial and there was very little that was unclear--it seemed plain that the accused behaved deplorably. To my mind both then and now, they deserved a far more serious punishment than they received.”
The judge must have felt otherwise, since he set aside Collin’s conviction near the end of 2006. One could dismiss Mr. Fisher as one of many superficial, self-impressed journalists, who, lacking heart or brain, declared a “free-fire zone” (Peter Applebome’s apt phrase) on the lacrosse players. Yet, the puzzle deepened for me when I started reading Mr. Fisher’s other columns: a compassionate interview with Alan Keyes’ daughter, a lamentation about an inner city youth choir program that was in jeopardy, a bittersweet retrospective on Leonard Slatkin’s tenure as music director in Washington, DC. Mr. Fisher wrote “one incident often does make a gentleman's character.” But I would like to give Mr. Fisher the benefit of the doubt that he did not give Collin. One sour piece of fruit does not condemn the whole tree.
Update (August 10, 2009): I added another link, this one in the third paragraph from the end.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
An open letter to the editor of the Wilmington Journal
Your editorial on 30 October 2008 urged your readers not to vote for Attorney General Roy Cooper, citing his handling of the Duke lacrosse case as the reason to support Cooper’s challenger, Robert Crumley:
"In our opinion, Mr. Cooper lost our vote, and our respect, when he refused to allow a trial to go forth in the Duke Lacrosse rape case, and then declared the three white suspects who allegedly raped a young black female '''innocent.'''
It is difficult to square this editorial with two of the Journal’s previous articles, a January 2007 editorial, and its review of “Until Proven Innocent” from September 2007.
The editorial on 18 January 2007 had what appears on the surface to be plain wisdom, in the format of an open letter to Cooper from “North Carolina’s African-American community, and anyone else who believes true justice comes from the gavel of a judge, not the demands of a mob; or slick, race-baiting defense attorneys.” Elsewhere, the editorial said, “The African-American community wants truth by the law, not trial by the media.” Had the Wilmington Journal voiced the latter sentiments nine months earlier, it would have been timely and refreshing. One mob in March was asking for castration of the putative rapists, and some articles took the rape as a given. But by January of 2007 it was clear that there simply was no case. There was no inculpatory DNA evidence; there was at least one unassailable alibi; and the alleged victim had made errors in the identification process.
However, your January 2007 editorial created at least one straw man. To what race-baiting were you referring? Nothing said by the attorneys or families of the Duke three even comes close; to the contrary, the parents of the players have been uncommonly forgiving toward the accuser, saying that she had had a hard life.
Your editorial also generated unfounded fears. Why you gave any credence at all to the idea that Mr. Cooper wanted to “dump this case” is beyond my ken; anyone familiar with the record of James Coman (one of the attorneys appointed to reinvestigate the case, along with Mary Winstead) would have had the opposite fear, that they would force the case to go the full fifteen rounds unnecessarily. When you asked for the interview of more witnesses, you never made clear what new information you hoped to obtain. Mr. Coman and Ms. Winstead conducted many interviews and weighed and sifted the evidence for months. They found nothing except prosecutorial overreach, and Attorney General Cooper wisely and compassionately ended the matter.
But the key point I want to address is the editorial’s warning to Attorney General Cooper. It said “After all, as a Democrat, just like Mike Nifong, you need the Black vote for any future political aspirations.” Cash Michaels’ review (6 September 2007) of “Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Case” claimed that January, 2007 editorial in the Wilmington Journal was not making a threat of political retaliation against Attorney General Roy Cooper. Mr. Michaels noted that authors Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson seemed to ignore the following sentence from the January 2007 editorial: “Darn it, we get blamed for everything, don’t we?” Mr. Michaels then chided the authors for not realizing that this sentence showed that the Wilmington Journal was merely restating “some of what was being alleged about Cooper online,” as opposed to making a threat itself.
The rest of the review is filled with poorly reasoned arguments, yet Mr. Michaels never attempts to refute one of Mr. Taylor and Professor Johnson’s key points: By withholding support of the Duke three, some leaders in the African-American community missed an opportunity to make allies with the defendants’ families and their allies: earnest, if newly minted, civil libertarians. The Duke three themselves clearly understood that their relative affluence gave them access to, not “race-baiting,” but hard-working attorneys, who had the ability to uncover wrongdoing with respect to the DNA evidence, and that not every defendant is so fortunate. Moreover, they have taken a persistent and genuine interest in the plights of others wrongly accused or convicted. This interest tells me that the three young men learned something.
That is more than we can say of the Wilmington Journal. Your editorial endorsing Mr. Crumley gives no clue what your paper found insufficient in Mr. Coman and Ms. Winstead’s investigation. But more importantly, it made good on the threat of political payback implied in the editorial of January 2007, the threat that Cash Michaels denied was present. As of September of 2007, Mr. Michaels already knew of the outcome of Attorney General Cooper’s investigation, and you had ample time to come to a conclusion about his thoroughness and fairness in this matter. Either you and Mr. Michaels had no idea what each other were thinking (which is implausible), or Mr. Michaels’ review was disingenuous.
The Duke case made me suspect how inadequate our system must be at representing the indigent and near indigent when they are defendants. The more I read and hear, the more I see that my suspicions are well founded (Tulia, Texas comes immediately to mind). As long as African-Americans lag behind the mean in income and wealth, they will suffer disproportionately, due to poor representation. Nothing would have delighted me more than to see the Wilmington Journal pick this issue up. Instead, the Duke lacrosse case stands as a missed opportunity.
"In our opinion, Mr. Cooper lost our vote, and our respect, when he refused to allow a trial to go forth in the Duke Lacrosse rape case, and then declared the three white suspects who allegedly raped a young black female '''innocent.'''
It is difficult to square this editorial with two of the Journal’s previous articles, a January 2007 editorial, and its review of “Until Proven Innocent” from September 2007.
The editorial on 18 January 2007 had what appears on the surface to be plain wisdom, in the format of an open letter to Cooper from “North Carolina’s African-American community, and anyone else who believes true justice comes from the gavel of a judge, not the demands of a mob; or slick, race-baiting defense attorneys.” Elsewhere, the editorial said, “The African-American community wants truth by the law, not trial by the media.” Had the Wilmington Journal voiced the latter sentiments nine months earlier, it would have been timely and refreshing. One mob in March was asking for castration of the putative rapists, and some articles took the rape as a given. But by January of 2007 it was clear that there simply was no case. There was no inculpatory DNA evidence; there was at least one unassailable alibi; and the alleged victim had made errors in the identification process.
However, your January 2007 editorial created at least one straw man. To what race-baiting were you referring? Nothing said by the attorneys or families of the Duke three even comes close; to the contrary, the parents of the players have been uncommonly forgiving toward the accuser, saying that she had had a hard life.
Your editorial also generated unfounded fears. Why you gave any credence at all to the idea that Mr. Cooper wanted to “dump this case” is beyond my ken; anyone familiar with the record of James Coman (one of the attorneys appointed to reinvestigate the case, along with Mary Winstead) would have had the opposite fear, that they would force the case to go the full fifteen rounds unnecessarily. When you asked for the interview of more witnesses, you never made clear what new information you hoped to obtain. Mr. Coman and Ms. Winstead conducted many interviews and weighed and sifted the evidence for months. They found nothing except prosecutorial overreach, and Attorney General Cooper wisely and compassionately ended the matter.
But the key point I want to address is the editorial’s warning to Attorney General Cooper. It said “After all, as a Democrat, just like Mike Nifong, you need the Black vote for any future political aspirations.” Cash Michaels’ review (6 September 2007) of “Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Case” claimed that January, 2007 editorial in the Wilmington Journal was not making a threat of political retaliation against Attorney General Roy Cooper. Mr. Michaels noted that authors Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson seemed to ignore the following sentence from the January 2007 editorial: “Darn it, we get blamed for everything, don’t we?” Mr. Michaels then chided the authors for not realizing that this sentence showed that the Wilmington Journal was merely restating “some of what was being alleged about Cooper online,” as opposed to making a threat itself.
The rest of the review is filled with poorly reasoned arguments, yet Mr. Michaels never attempts to refute one of Mr. Taylor and Professor Johnson’s key points: By withholding support of the Duke three, some leaders in the African-American community missed an opportunity to make allies with the defendants’ families and their allies: earnest, if newly minted, civil libertarians. The Duke three themselves clearly understood that their relative affluence gave them access to, not “race-baiting,” but hard-working attorneys, who had the ability to uncover wrongdoing with respect to the DNA evidence, and that not every defendant is so fortunate. Moreover, they have taken a persistent and genuine interest in the plights of others wrongly accused or convicted. This interest tells me that the three young men learned something.
That is more than we can say of the Wilmington Journal. Your editorial endorsing Mr. Crumley gives no clue what your paper found insufficient in Mr. Coman and Ms. Winstead’s investigation. But more importantly, it made good on the threat of political payback implied in the editorial of January 2007, the threat that Cash Michaels denied was present. As of September of 2007, Mr. Michaels already knew of the outcome of Attorney General Cooper’s investigation, and you had ample time to come to a conclusion about his thoroughness and fairness in this matter. Either you and Mr. Michaels had no idea what each other were thinking (which is implausible), or Mr. Michaels’ review was disingenuous.
The Duke case made me suspect how inadequate our system must be at representing the indigent and near indigent when they are defendants. The more I read and hear, the more I see that my suspicions are well founded (Tulia, Texas comes immediately to mind). As long as African-Americans lag behind the mean in income and wealth, they will suffer disproportionately, due to poor representation. Nothing would have delighted me more than to see the Wilmington Journal pick this issue up. Instead, the Duke lacrosse case stands as a missed opportunity.
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