Supreme Court declines second Duke lacrosse appeal

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Durham, North Carolina, Herald-Sun

Supreme Court declines second Duke lacrosse appeal
Nov. 12, 2013 @ 10:04 AM
Ray Gronberg

DURHAM —For the second time in about a month, the U.S. Supreme Court has turned down a request that it review a lower-court ruling in the Duke lacrosse case.

On Tuesday morning the justices announced that they'd rejected an appeal from a trio of former Duke University men's lacrosse players represented by Durham lawyer Bob Ekstrand.

The three -- Ryan McFadyen, Breck Archer, and Matt Wilson -- wanted the justices to overturn part of a North Carolina law that allows judges to order people to give DNA samples.
....

Police obtained DNA from most members or the team after securing a court order requiring the sampling. Ekstrand and his clients say the state improperly allows testing without forcing authorities to show there's probable cause to believe each target of a test may have committed a crime.

Read more: http://www.heraldsun.com/news/x1866989853/Supreme-Court-declines-second-Duke-lacrosse-appeal

---

Ryan McFadyen, Breck Archer, and Matt Wilson were teammates of the three players who were subjected to a false accusation of rape at a team party in 2006. {Edited from the original wording to note that the accusation was false.}

As for Crystal Mangum, the stripper who filed the claim:

Jury selection begins in Mangum's murder trial
http://www.heraldsun.com/news/x1866989875/Jury-selection-begins-in-Mangums-murder-trial

Jury selection begins in Mangum's murder trial
Nov. 12, 2013 @ 11:59 AM
Keith Upchurch

DURHAM —Jury selection began Tuesday in the murder trial of Crystal Mangum, charged in the 2011 stabbing death of her boyfriend, Reginald Daye.

Durham County Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway denied a defense motion to delay the trial.

More:

Duke lacrosse case
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_lacrosse_case

[Ranchemp.]

1. Disappointed with the SCOTUS decision not to review this law.

I think you meant alleged rape, as it turns out, there was no rape.

[Ikonoklast]

14. The USSC has routinely upheld the collection of DNA ans other personal biological information

from people not only never accused of a crime, but people never even remotely connected to criminal activity.

Conservatives that hate the surveillance state my ass.

[Ranchemp.]

2. Wow.

Didn't know that she had been charged with the stabbing death of her boyfriend.
Thanks for the update and link.

[Blue_Tires]

3. I remember when those boys were exonerated

and they had some big presser promising to start a foundation to fight for justice nonstop for anyone wrongly accused or convicted of a crime...Was that just PR bullshit, or what??

I don't really understand their appeal, since it's pretty clear there was enough probable cause (on the night in question) to demand a DNA test...

[mahatmakanejeeves]

7. Where are they now?

David Evans was from Bethesda, Maryland. He played lacrosse at Landon before going to Duke. In 2007, a year after the incident, he was hired by Morgan Stanley as an investment banking analyst.

Reade Seligmann, from Delbarton School in New Jersey, was another accused player. After being graduated from Brown, he enrolled at Emory University's law school. He is now a law clerk at the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.


That leaves Collin Finnerty, from Long Island's Chaminade High School.

Collin Finnerty, once falsely accused, graduates from college
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/collin-finnerty-once-falsely-accused-graduates-from-college-1.1937697

His new awareness that lives can be destroyed in a moment, that power can be abused and that the system doesn't always work led Finnerty to the Innocence Project, a national organization dedicated to helping the wrongly convicted. He has met falsely convicted men from far different backgrounds than his own who spent decades in prison. Some were on death row. He said he and the other accused players have discussed doing their own work to help the falsely accused.

He works as an analyst at Deutsche Bank.

[Blue_Tires]

11. I see nothing mentioned about the foundation...

Isn't that newsday piece a little *too* maudlin? It's not like any of them had to deal with Brian Banks' ordeal...

The funny part is I was on DU when the case was ongoing and there was all this crying and gnashing of teeth that those Duke boys would NEVER, EVER have a chance at success or happiness with the publicity of this case hanging over them...I'd said at the time they would be taken care of by the network and never have to worry about a thing, and have undoubtedly been proven right...

Edit: Just an example -- http://metamorphosis.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x274404

[pnwmom]

27. They and their families went through hell for almost a year,

facing the real possibility of more than twenty years in prison and spending millions of dollars to defend themselves against blatantly false charges put up by a now disbarred prosecutor and thuggish police.

You didn't know when all this was going on -- because no one could -- that the eventual outcome of this case would be that they would be declared officially innocent by the Attorney General of the State. That's why they were all able to put their lives back together at the end of that terrible year.

"Maudlin?" You are very wrong to minimize what they went through. For an innocent person to go through an extended criminal prosecution, facing extremely serious charges and the possibility of decades in prison, is a terrible thing. And Colin Finnerty, the young man in the Newsweek article, did not come from a wealthy family. His parents were no doubt overwhelmed by the financial aspects of defending their innocent son.

It's beyond terrible what happened to Brian Banks, but that doesn't mitigate what the Duke students went through. And the citizens of Durham are all better off that, thanks to the ability of some of the students parents' to pay the millions for their defense, Mike Nifong lost his job and his ability to railroad any other people in Durham.

Why are you so eager to criticize them for not setting up a foundation? I don't recall the promise that you do, but it seems strange that you are still eager for them to be condemned in some way. You can't call them rapists anymore, so now you want to blame them for not setting up a foundation.

[Blue_Tires]

30. Like I said...

The Duke boys didn't go to trial and didn't see a day in jail (I'm not sure where the 'millions' in legal defense were needed in this case)...They settled out of court with the university and almost all of them went on to have successful careers...The lives of both the prosecutor and the accuser are effectively over...

I'd just as soon see other injustices in the legal system given a piece of the spotlight...You know, the ones without millionaire parents....

And forgive me for holding the Duke boys to their word when they said they would do something to fight injustice and make sure what happened to them would never happen to anyone else...

EDIT: I had to go to the archives to see if I'd remembered the 'foundation' correctly -- I'm pretty sure it was a part of the "reforms/demands" in their proposed $30 million settlement against the city (I haven't been able to find the full text of that original suit, but since the city rejected the demands and has since been stalling the lawsuit in court, obviously there wouldn't be any foundation set up yet)....As an aside, re-reading some of the threads while the case was ongoing was really eye-opening -- It's evident that no matter which side DUers were on, absolutely no one was capable of discussing the case without sounding like a smug asshole

[pnwmom]

33. They needed to spend millions because that's what the best defense lawyers

charge -- and they needed the best defense lawyers to unearth the exculpatory evidence that the prosecution was deliberately hiding -- which was against the law of the state and caused the prosecutor to be disbarred.

They did a favor to all future defendants in Durham by being able to spend the money necessary to defend themselves instead of taking a plea bargain, as many other falsely accused people have done. That's why the vast majority of criminal cases never go to trial.

Because of the "spotlight" of these young men with wealthy parents, Mike Nifong never will be able to prosecute any other innocent people again.

[Blue_Tires]

34. They were *NEVER* going to plea

They were getting off either way -- No jury in NC would have convicted them

[pnwmom]

36. If they thought that they wouldn't have had to put on such a serious defense.

Durham, North Carolina, the home of major universities, is not the same as the rest of North Carolina. There was even a large group of faculty at Duke who got swept up in the witch-hunt and initially signed a petition condemning the students. There easily could have been found a jury to convict them, and Mike Nifong was playing to that jury.

[Blue_Tires]

40. An all-white jury convicting upper-class white, student-athlete defendants

of sexually assaulting middle-class black women (working that night as strippers, no less?)

I want to live on whichever planet you're on...

[pnwmom]

41. Why on earth would you expect an all-white jury in Durham, North Carolina?

Durham is only 42% white (only 38% if you exclude hispanic whites) , and many of them are liberals, like you and the rest of the DUers who were prejudging these students.

(Only two of the accused came from wealthy families, by the way. Finnerty, the subject of the "maudlin" Newsweek piece, did not.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durham,_North_Carolina#Demographics

The racial composition of the city was: 42.45% White, 40.96% Black or African American, 5.07% Asian American, 0.51% Native American, 0.07% Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, 8.28% some other race, and 2.66% two or more races. 14.22% were Hispanic or Latino of any race. 37.9% of the population were Non-Hispanic White.

[Blue_Tires]

43. Because THAT is what proper defense attorneys do

1. If the law allows it, you argue that Durham is too charged an atmosphere and get the venue moved to a place where the demographics work in your favor..

AND/OR

2. You challenge to remove any people of color (and some women) during jury selection

Unless I'm wrong and the laws governing trials in NC are very different than what I'm thinking...

[pnwmom]

45. Wrong. Defense attorneys can't turn down more than a handful of jurors

without cause, and someone's race isn't cause. Given the Durham jury pool they would have been very unlikely to have constructed an all-white jury.

OTOH, Mike Nifong won his office by appealing to African American voters and Democrats. He wouldn't have gotten their votes if he allowed defense people to create all white juries, and neither would the judges elected by Durham voters.

[Blue_Tires]

47. They couldn't have gotten the venue moved??

I think you're playing cheap the skills and abilities of multi-million-dollar lawyers...

And you can quote racial demographics all you want, but once you cross-check it against the people who actually SHOW for jury duty, I'm betting it's a very different story...You're acting like the deck was heavily stacked in Nifong's favor had the case gone to trial, when in reality Nifong was behind the 8-ball AND painted into a corner (probably *one* of the many reasons why he resorted to 'extra-legal' methods before the house of cards came falling down)

Of course the concept of prosecuting attorney being an elected office in some jurisdictions opens itself to the potential of abuse...I know there was some talk of changing that after Nifong, but I don't remember if any real action came of it...

[pnwmom]

48. Well, considering that the whole case was a railroad job,

with a prosecuting attorney playing for African American votes, I guess maybe they should have tried for a change in venue.

And they would have deserved one.

I disagree about Nifong being "behind the 8 ball and painted into a corner." HE CHOSE THIS CASE TO PROSECUTE. He knew from almost the very outset of this case that the students were likely innocent and chose to prosecute anyway. By a month in, when the DNA results came back, he knew for sure. But his election was coming up in six months and he didn't want to drop the case. So he hid the DNA tests for most of a year.

It's one thing to take "extra-legal" methods when you firmly believe in the guilt of the person you're going after, but are just having trouble proving it; quite another to take these same methods when you KNOW they aren't guilty, but are personally benefiting from the publicity.

I do agree with you about prosecutors and judges being elected to their positions -- it leads to all kinds of bad outcomes.

[Blue_Tires]

50. So you agree they would have likely gotten a change in venue

And now you have your all-white jury...Just cast doubt on the accuser's story and the trial lasts 3 days at the maximum...It's not hard to map out the defense team's strategy...

Like I said, no matter how overly dramatic they want to make it sound about being *this* close to facing a life sentence plus 40 years; they were never in any real danger of conviction, and I'd rather see more attention paid to those fighting the system who don't have wealthy, politically connected parents...

[pnwmom]

51. No, I don't think the parents would have spent their millions on the defense

if they thought it would be that simple or possible to simply change their venue and get an all-white, conservative, jury.

These families had very real concerns about the possibility of their innocent sons being convicted.

[Blue_Tires]

52. Either way their sons got off, the parents recouped their millions in the settlements

and they all went on to lead happy, successful lives...Case closed, end of story....

Troy Davis (among others) could have used a fraction of the media spotlight and discussion the Duke boys continue to get....

[LisaL]

59. Why exactly shouldn't they lead happy, successful lives?

[Blue_Tires]

61. I'm not faulting them for anything

more power to them -- As they like to say, "living well is the best revenge..." I just got tired of the whole "Their lives are permanently shattered and their families face financial ruin and they'll never interview for a job without this topic coming up" - bullshit when they all got six-figure jobs the moment they left school..

But since the Duke case is LONG closed, why did the media (and DUers to a certain extent) stop giving a shit about OTHER injustices and inequities in the legal system?? You know, the ones happening right now as we speak??

[snooper2]

53. It's almost like you are pissed off that they didn't do it

Kind of an odd perspective isn't it?

[Blue_Tires]

54. I dunno...

If they DID do it, I'd have been about ten levels past "pissed off", since they would have walked...

I do personally believe something happened that night (and no, I'm not saying the 'something' was necessarily rape or even illegal), which got lost/misunderstood/distorted in the subsequent shitstorm of publicity/trial by media/politics/incompetence and corruption of the cops and DA...

Either way the case has been closed for six years, and all the parties involved have moved on, so it's neither here nor there...

[pnwmom]

26. Thank you for the info!

[pnwmom]

15. There was no probable cause for demanding DNA

of almost the entire team. Two of those who sued were not chosen from the photo montage by either false victim.

Do you really think that if a woman says she is raped at a party, then every man there -- even the ones who don't fit a physical description or get picked from a photo montage -- should have to submit DNA?

[Blue_Tires]

22. If there's a murder at a party

does everyone get fingerprinted, including the "not a chance in hell" -suspects?

(maybe I watch too many murder mysteries)

[Ranchemp.]

24. No, not everyone gets fingerprinted,

fingerprints are lifted off the crime scene and then run thru AFIS for a match.

[pnwmom]

25. Entirely different. If there is a murder at a party, there is no victim

available to identify her attackers.

Right?

But this woman did choose three attackers from photos, and yet they took DNA from the entire team, including some who had unimpeachable alibis. (Like bank machine photos proving they weren't there at the time of the false rape.)

[Paolo123]

44. no, they don't.

[Jesus Malverde]

85. Do we stop at a small party.

Maybe DNA test everyone who went to a concert. DNA test everyone who was in a town on a particular night. Search warrants that are overly broad and intrusive, are just that.

[pnwmom]

19. Two of the young men who sued were NOT ever charged in this case.

They were caught up in a dragnet-type sweep of almost the whole team.

Only Ryan McFadyn was one of those ever charged.

[pnwmom]

87. self-delete

[FreakinDJ]

4. Very Sad - that woman needed a rehab and people

Used her for political gain

[cpwm17]

5. This case shows the flaw in a system where an anonymous accuser

can not-so-anonymously accuse others of criminal activities. The details of the accusations against these innocent men were well publicized. They had no real ability to defend themselves while this played out. Innocent until proven guilty was thrown out.

To add insult to injury, the false accuser was never charged with any crime which then gave her an opportunity to murder her boyfriend.

Without any evidence whatsoever, many accused the men of a hate crime for the alleged rape. That is what happens when ideologues get involved in such cases.

[Blue_Tires]

6. The real tragedy is how many of these 'college team' rapes continue to get covered up

and how no accuser can ever step forward now without "Duke Lacrosse" derpitude thrown in her face (De Anza college among others)...

[cpwm17]

8. This case shows that the best system has to maintain innocent until proven guilty

and all cases have to stand on their own merits.

Once someone claims that all accused parties of a particular type of crime are automatically guilty or innocent they lose the claim that they support a just legal system. The system the Duke students went through was totally unfair.

[Blue_Tires]

16. It wasn't "totally unfair", since they're all free

The case didn't even make it to trial..."Totally unfair" would have meant the Duke boys were tried, convicted and sentenced despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary...

Yeah, the Duke boys' case was a high-profile fiasco all-around, but let's keep some perspective on the *really* flagrant injustices and inequities in the legal system...

[pnwmom]

31. It was totally unfair. The prosecution was deliberately withholding

exculpatory evidence that they had had within weeks of the false accusations.

If not for the fact that two of these students had parents wealthy enough to pay millions for their defense, they might have been like many other people who are falsely accused -- accepting a plea bargain and doing reduced time because the alternative, decades in prison, was too awful to contemplate.

The fact that they are free is due to luck and good lawyers -- not fairness.

[Blue_Tires]

32. That's the point -- The money and high-power legal defense

would have gotten them off either way...

You really thought there was a chance they would serve time for the sexual assault of a black woman?? (even if for the sake of argument the rape accusation was legit)??

[pnwmom]

35. I absolutely thought there was a strong chance that they would serve time,

even though reasonable doubt was obviously present from the very beginning. The prosecution and the media were on a witch-hunt against them, and I was worried that they'd succeed.

And so were the families. That's why their parents were spending the millions to defend them. They weren't doing it just for fun.

[Blue_Tires]

38. If the accuser was white, then maybe

especially if she was from the same socio-economic class...

Guilty or not, sons of power and privilege don't go to prison for rape or crimes committed against people of perceived "lower" classes (ESPECIALLY in the south), and it's pure naiveté to think this story ends any way other than the Duke boys riding happily into the sunset (regardless of what may or may not have happened on the night in question) ...You'll have to dig deep into the legal archives to find some proper examples of convictions...

[pnwmom]

39. There are plenty of people in Durham who share your attitudes

and that is why the students faced a real risk of being convicted despite their innocence.

All too many people, including you and 88 members of the Duke faculty, instantly pre-judged them as guilty.

[Blue_Tires]

42. I'm black, so I'd never have been chosen for the jury in the first place

and my personal views of their collective guilt or innocence doesn't change the reality that they would have gotten off no matter what the evidence showed...

Why do you refuse to admit that IF (for the sake of argument) the DA was on the level and the accusers' case legit with proper IDs the Duke boys still would have gotten off nine times out of ten? It's a generally easy case to win, given the resources available....

[pnwmom]

46. Do you understand that each side only gets to turn away a certain

number of jurors except for cause? So I disagree that you would never have been chosen for the jury in the first place. Durham is a very liberal city in North Carolina -- it's not some little place out in the sticks.

As to your second question, you have never asked it before so how could I have answered it? The DA wasn't on the level and the accuser's case was a pack of lies. It's hard to answer about a completely hypothetical situation because if the accuser's case was legit there would be an entirely different set of evidence that jurors would be looking at to determine guilt or innocence. So that would affect my opinion about what the final outcome would be.

[Blue_Tires]

49. I hesitate to call Durham "very" liberal, but that's just me

and my earlier point still stands: The Duke boys would have gotten off easily no matter what the evidence showed -- unless there was something completely irrefutable like a videotape; but juries in the past have ignored those, too (Rodney King, Oscar Grant)...

Can you cite any high-profile case where young, privileged defendants with influential parents didn't get off? (or at the most, got away with the proverbial slap on the wrist?)

[LisaL]

58. Lots of cases with young privileged defendants not getting off.

I have no clue what this has to do with Duke's case, however.
Considering they were falsely accused.

[BronxBoy]

68. This one's a hopeless case....

Our folks spend decades in jail behind some bullshit but this is what their dander up. Betcha they didn't piss such a fit and talk about the breakdown in a system when a prosecutor was sent to jail for sending a Black man to jail for 25 fucking years. Nope.......Lost Cause

[pnwmom]

74. If there are particular cases you want attention to,

why not bring them up in a separate OP? Or even here, but they'd get more attention in their own OP.

[BronxBoy]

76. Jeez.....

There are other OPs that bring attention to just these sort of cases. I know there were recent posts about both the Central Park 5 and Ryan Ferguson. In both cases, the defendants were CONVICTED and spent many years in prison. But they pretty much sank like a stone because I guess they didn't have the great human gravitas of the Duke Lacrosse team.

Certainly didn't see you beating the drum for judicial fairness in either one of them

[Ranchemp.]

9. The biggest criminal, IMO, in this whole tragic affair

was the prosecutor, Mike Nifong, who, despite the overwhelming evidence that she lied and kept on lying, plus the forensics evidence that indisputably exonerated these 3 men, kept on trying to convict the men, also withholding evidence from defense lawyers.
He got off easy with just a disbarring, he should have been in prison.

[Blue_Tires]

13. Sadly, I know of much worse cases of prosecutorial "hijinks"

and many, if not most of them continued to work without so much as a reprimand...

[Ranchemp.]

18. I can't argue that,

I've seen far too many criminals, and I mean true criminals walk because of prosecutor misconduct, and on the other side, I've seen too many innocent people falsely convicted because of, again, prosecutor misconduct.

Maybe if prosecutors had to face stiff, robust penalties, things like prison time, huge fines, disbarment with no chance of ever getting their law license re-instated, these incidents would dramatically decrease.

[pnwmom]

37. Then you should be thanking the Duke students for getting

a bad prosecutor out of office.

[Dr. Strange]

65. +1

[pnwmom]

21. You should blame the false accuser for making it harder for other women.

Last edited Tue Nov 12, 2013, 03:28 PM - Edit history (1)

The falsely accused and falsely convicted suffer their own "real" tragedies.

[Blue_Tires]

55. She definitely made it harder for black women, at least

and that I can't ever forgive....

[pnwmom]

57. Although she is mentally ill, so there's that.

Mike Nifong and his helpers were just plain evil. And you have to wonder how many innocent people they did manage to railroad before this case came along.

[Blue_Tires]

60. Yeah, if only the Duke boys

had the money and political clout to start some kind of organization to review all of Nifong's previous convictions and fight for new trials for them....A shame none of the Duke players went on to have careers in the legal field...

[pnwmom]

62. They are only 26 years old. No one knows how they will spend their lives.

But why should their whole lives have to be determined by the crime that was done to them?

Why don't you review Nifong's convictions and fight for new trials, if it's so important to you? Why do their position as victims give them any more obligation than you or any of us would have?

Do you also ask other crime victims to go to law school and set up foundations?

You prejudged them as guilty from the very beginning, and you're still trying to blame them for something, anything, rather than just admit you shouldn't have so quickly swallowed Nifong's lies.

[Blue_Tires]

63. Trayvon Martin is more important to me than Nifong at the moment

that's what I'm trying to get the ball rolling on...

I personally just thought the Duke boys would have a slightly bigger obligation given their vast political and financial resources...

[pnwmom]

70. Finnerty didn't come from a wealthy family. He's the one you accused

of being the focus of a "maudlin" article. He attended a Catholic high school on a scholarship.

And I don't think he owes anyone anything. And neither do the other two falsely accused young men, or their families.

But the people of Durham owe them a debt of gratitude for getting that slimeball prosecutor out of their city.

[Blue_Tires]

72. I'm pretty sure the people's "debt of gratitude"

will be paid off by local taxes once Finnerty's suit finally cashes in...Luckily Durham isn't some backwater (for the most part) so he'll get a better payout than the defendants framed by those rednecked pieces of shit in Tulia, for example...

And you are of course correct in that the defendants don't owe anybody anything (if you want to get technical, nobody ever really owes anyone anything in life)... After the ordeal I'm guessing Finnerty would just as soon tell the locals to go piss up a rope (and who could blame him?)

[BronxBoy]

64. This has been happening to Black men for decades.....

I mean why is the Duke Lacrosse team held up as the poster case for prosecutor misconduct? This shouldn't have happened to them and I'm glad they landed on their feet. But they really spent NO significant time in jail and were somewhat compensated for the misjudgement they suffered.

I seen other threads on DU where Black men where released from prison after DECADES of time sink like a stone. Yet when it comes to the Duke case, the flames appear as if this was some grand awakening. Hell, there is even a thread where a WHITE guy was just released after serving 10 years due to some obvious misdoings by the prosecution.

What happened to the Duke Lacrosse team was wrong but in the scheme of things they got off extremely lucky considering what would have happened if the skin colors of the participants were reversed. Stop acting like this was the greatest episode of prosecutorial misconduct gone berserk and shine a brighter light on those who have really, really suffered

[cpwm17]

66. I'm not acting like this was the greatest injustice

This case was made famous by the pro-prosecution side, apparently pushing an agenda. Otherwise it probably would have been mostly ignored.

This case is a good example of some things wrong with our justice system, including the fact that the presumption of innocence is sometimes ignored in some types of legal cases.

[BronxBoy]

67. Well as a Black man, I'm taking it that way....

There are plenty of other more famous and more egregious examples of the legal system going wrong. This case was made famous because it happened not to Black or Brown men but to some "nice" middle class White boys. Don't get it twisted. Unequal applications of the law too often happens when you are Black or Brown or have very little money.

Like I said, this was a miscarriage of justice and I hope some long term good comes from it. But let's shine a bright a light on those who have been truly fucked by the system. A black man was released from jail the other day after serving 40 FUCKING YEARS based upon a lie by a White woman. Get back to me when the angst about those types of cases recieve the same public airing as the Duke Lacrosse team.

Until them....Glad they got off and were somewhat made whole......But they would have been fucked if they were Black

[cpwm17]

69. Don't change history

Supporters of the falsely accused didn't make this case well known. It was promoted by the pro-prosecution side, and more importantly, as I should have written above, it was promoted by the media (which was mostly pro-prosecution) which seems to like these types of stories where they can promote racial conflict. I think it sells, and they can then pat themselves on the back for being such great liberals while they are promoting horrible wars against brown people on the other side of the world.

That might be a little simplistic and conspiratorial on my part, but it's probably close to correct.

[BronxBoy]

71. And how the fuck is this different from....

the hundreds of cases where Black men were treated far, far worse than these gentlemen were? Why should I feel more for them than I should for say, the Central Park Five, who were railroaded, spent a lot of time in jail and are STILL waiting for some of the justice the the Duke Lacrosse players have already received. Their case was pimped and primed by the media even more than this story. Remember "Wilding" and the nights of black thugs running amok through Central Park? But they were Black so let's not get all worked up about it right?

Nothing you are saying is wrong. I'm just saying why does it seem to rise to a fever pitch because the wrongly accused in this case were White and fairly well off compared to defendants who usually face unfair prosecution. That's my point and one which too many White people seem all too ready to dismiss

[pnwmom]

75. Who is asking YOU to feel more for them? But why are you trying

to turn this into a popularity contest? If there are cases that you don't think the media is paying enough attention to, or too much attention to, why not write your own OP? Or write about them here, but they'd get more attention in their own OP.

[BronxBoy]

77. Yada Yada Yada

You're just another White person who gets all hot and bothered when something that happens routinely to Black men happens to some nice middle class White Kids. It's not about a popularity contest. It's about given the appropriate attention to ALL miscarriages of justice especially if when it happens to kids who aren't "all-american"

[pnwmom]

79. I was just as disturbed when prosecutors were dropping the case

against Trayvon Martin's killer as I was when Nifong was railroading the Duke students.

But I had a lot more company here on DU with the Martin case, because most DUers, for a long time, bought Nifong's trial-by-media hook, line, and sinker. In fact I believed Mangum's claims for a couple months, too -- until my mother happened to ask me about the case and I started to read the actual evidence.

[BronxBoy]

80. Yep.....

Look, I mean no disrespect. At least several Black folks have tried to express some opinions about this story from a Black perspective and quite frankly they have been talked down to by people like yourself. I really believe that this is one of those issue where a lot of White folks won't understand where we are coming from because their life experiences are totally different than ours. Actually, my recollection of the atmosphere here on DU when this story broke was that opinions were all over the place.

I want to make this perfectly clear. I'm not saying that these guys got away with anything or that they deserved in any way, shape or form what they went through. I am saying that, from my viewpoint at least, it's a little grating to see people prop this up as the ultimate case study for prosecutorial misconduct and a damning indictment on the justice system when several times a month you read stories about people, many of them Black or Brown, who are finally released after sometimes DECADES in jail based on trumped up charges and they are not given the road to absolution that these gentlemen were.

Can you understand how some of us would be annoyed at that?

[pnwmom]

73. In the case you cited, what the woman did was just as heinous

as any other false claim -- and maybe worse than Mangum's false claim, since she was mentally ill.

However, did the case mentioned also include a prosecutor who withheld exculpatory evidence that was available almost from the beginning? Or was the main problem a lying non-victim?

Don't you think any defendant in Durham, including black defendants, are better off now without Nifong in charge?

Why aren't people allowed to express strong opinions about one case without being lectured to that there are other cases, too? Don't you realize that most of the people here who were upset about the Duke case while it was going on, because of the obvious trumped-up case, were also inflamed about the Trayvon Martin's death, for the opposite reason -- because the police were at first ignoring it?

If there are cases that you want attention brought to, why not write your own OP?

[BronxBoy]

81. Go read up on the Central Park 5

That woman was a victim and was in no way mentally ill. She was a professional and she was indeed brutally raped and savaged. Only problem was that the boys who were subsequently convicted of the crime had nothing to do with it and another person subsequently confessed to the crime. The case did include some very questionable actions by both the NYPD and the prosecutors.

So after 10 years in jail, their convictions were vacated. They sued the state of NY and won their case and are still waiting to be paid.

And stop telling me to go write my own OP when I challenge your opinions in this thread. No one is saying you can't post your opinions. You want me to sit at the back of the bus and only use water fountains that you deem suitable as well?

[pnwmom]

82. What is the point of comparing one wrongful prosecution

against another on some kind of injustice scale?

Why not just agree that the system is too often messed up?

[BronxBoy]

83. Because.....

too often, even in injustice there is an inherent inequality in how that injustice is rectified

[pnwmom]

84. And that inequality actually worked against the Duke students

among most of the national media, in Durham, and here on DU, for most of that year. I can't tell you how many people here insisted they were guilty because two of their fathers had money and therefore they could and did get away with anything.

The common assumption was that these were privileged white males -- true, for two of them -- and that they exercised "feudal privilege" over the young women. False.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

12. Then you need to read more.

Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case

[Ranchemp.]

20. No, it wasn't.

She lied and the prosecutor, Mike Nifong, lied also.

[pnwmom]

23. What are you talking about? Rape was non-existent in this case.

The State Attorney General, after a year of investigation, officially declared all three students "innocent" -- not "not guilty," but innocent. There was a mountain of evidence proving that the young men hadn't raped her; and that the police and prosecutors had cooperated to withhold exculpatory evidence.

Eventually, the false accuser was revealed to be a seriously mentally ill liar.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

28. "The State Attorney General ...officially declared all three students 'innocent....' "

[pnwmom]

29. Thank you. It's so frustrating that even after that, even all these years later,

the fog of possible guilt still hangs over these young men.

[Codeine]

56. You're full of it. nt

[pnwmom]

17. Well, this is discouraging --not a good ruling for those

who care about civil liberties. Why should the police have been able to sweep everyone up in their DNA search, even if they don't match the description provided by the (fake) victims?

Thanks for the update, though!

[bluestateguy]

78. The whole thing was a travesty of justice

And a handful of DUers defended Nifong and Mangum to the bloody end and continued to bash the lacrosse players even after they were found innocent.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

86. "As for Crystal Mangum, the stripper who filed the claim:"

Last edited Tue Dec 3, 2013, 09:36 AM - Edit history (1)

From the original post:

As for Crystal Mangum, the stripper who filed the claim:

Jury selection begins in Mangum's murder trial

Jury selection begins in Mangum's murder trial
Nov. 12, 2013 @ 11:59 AM
Keith Upchurch

DURHAM —Jury selection began Tuesday in the murder trial of Crystal Mangum, charged in the 2011 stabbing death of her boyfriend, Reginald Daye.

Durham County Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway denied a defense motion to delay the trial.

== == == == ==

In 2010, Duke lacrosse accuser Crystal Mangum was charged with attempting to set her boyfriend on fire. The following year, she was charged with the stabbing death of her boyfriend (a different one, I hope). That trial has now come to a conclusion.

Mangum convicted of murder

Mangum convicted of murder
Sentenced to 14-18 years in prison
Nov. 22, 2013 @ 06:37 PM
Keith Upchurch

DURHAM — Crystal Mangum was convicted Friday of second-degree murder in the death of boyfriend Reginald Daye and sentenced to 14-18 years in prison.

After the verdict, members of Daye’s family wept, but most said they were satisfied.

Mangum was charged with first-degree murder in the April 2011 stabbing death of Daye, and could have drawn a life sentence if convicted of that charge.

The jury of five women and seven men also could have convicted her of manslaughter.

ETA, on December 3: See this thread:

Crystal Mangum found guilty of 2nd-degree murder
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014655192