PrairiePundit

AP /Fox News: More than three dozen current and former Duke lacrosse players plan to file a federal lawsuit against the university, the city of Durham and others involved in the case. A spokesman for Washington-based attorney Charles J. Cooper said the civil lawsuit will be filed Thursday on behalf of 38 players who were not charged in the notorious case. Spokesman Robert Bork Jr. declined Wednesday night to release the specific allegations made in the 30-count, 100-page lawsuit. "It covers a whole lot of things, including violation of privacy," Bork said. "It's not just emotional distress." ... It is too bad that the Gang of 88 is not subject to suit. They fostered an atmosphere of a symbolic lynching of the lacrosse players. The University's treatment of these players is a disgrace.

Thomas Sowell: Some of the most depressing e-mails received over the past year and a half have been those that asked why I was worrying myself about three rich white guys at Duke University. Neither those three students accused of rape nor the District Attorney who accused them are the ultimate issue. If all District Attorneys in this country were like Michael Nifong, the United States of America would become the world's largest banana republic. Such levels of corruption in the law itself would make the American standard of living impossible. A steady diet of the racial polarization that Nifong promoted would make it only a matter of time before we would see in America the kind of violence seen between Sunnis and Shiites in Baghdad. The "rule of law" is not just a pat phrase. It is the foundation on which everything else is built. Nor is "innocent until proven guilty" just a throwaway line. The opposite notion -- guilty until p...

Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson: One night in jail: So concludes the Duke lacrosse rape case -- rape fraud, as it turned out. The legacy of this incident should include hard thinking about the deep pathologies underlying the media sensationalism and the perversion of academic ideals that this fraud inspired. The 24-hour sentence was imposed on Mike Nifong , the disbarred former district attorney of Durham , after a contempt-of-court trial last week for repeatedly lying to hide DNA evidence of innocence. His prosecution of three demonstrably innocent defendants, based on an emotionally disturbed stripper's ever-changing account, may be the worst prosecutorial misconduct ever exposed while it was happening. Durham police officers and other officials aided Nifong, and the city and county face the threat of a massive lawsuit by the falsely accused former students seeking criminal justice reforms and compensation. All this shows how the criminal justice process can oppress the innocent ...

Abigail Thernstrom: Privileged, rowdy white jocks at an elite, Southern college, a poor, young black stripper, and an alleged rape: It was a juicy, made-for-the-media story of race, class and sex, and it was told and retold for months with a ferocious, moralistic intensity. Reporters and pundits ripped into Duke University, the white race and the young lacrosse players at the center of the episode, and the local justice system quickly handed up indictments. But as Stuart Taylor Jr. and KC Johnson show in "Until Proven Innocent"--and as the facts themselves would show when they finally came to light--it was a false story, a toxic controversy built on lies and bad faith. There was plenty of wrongdoing, of course, but it had very little to do with Duke's lacrosse players. It was perpetrated instead by a rogue district attorney determined to win re-election in a racially divided, town-gown city; ideologically driven reporters and their pseudo-expert sources; censorious facul...

Dorthy Rabinowitz: ... The story about the Duke athletes and District Attorney Nifong was not simply a riveting drama. It was in its searing way an educational event, not just about prosecutorial ambition run amok, but about a university world--reflective of many others--where faculty ideologues pursued their agendas unchecked and unabashed. Here was a nearly successful legal lynching, applauded by a significant chunk of the Duke faculty, proud to display their indifference to questions of guilt or innocence. ... For Mr. Fitzgerald, whose prosecutorial zeal and moral certitude are in no small way reminiscent of Mr. Nifong's, the victory was complete with those two final judgments: the severe sentence for Mr. Libby, and the judge's refusal, last week, to allow its postponement pending appeal. The prosecutor's argument for a heavy sentence emphasized Mr. Libby's alleged serious obstruction of justice--a complicated effort, considering that there was no underlying crime, o...

John Steele Gordon writes about the parallels between the Duke rape case and a case in 1929 where several blacks were charged on dubious evidence of raping a white woman of dubious character. However, the politics of race has also been turned on its head and again it is Democrats who are practicing the new racism. Instead of race baiting against blacks and the Republican party, they now race bait on behalf of blacks against the Republican party. Its the same act of demagoguery. They are still using blacks as a way to get votes, it is just the black voters they are trying to scare this time.

Kathleen Parker: Mike Nifong, the Durham County, N.C., district attorney made infamous by his own hand, has been shamed, disbarred and let out the back door for his unethical conduct of the so-called Duke University lacrosse team rape case. It couldn't have happened to a more-deserving fellow, but the case doesn't end here. Nifong's legacy, which ultimately may hurt women more than the falsely accused men, will be long-lived. And the politically correct culture that allowed his charade to persist remains securely in place, while those who enabled Nifong walk scot-free. Which is to say, before we applaud the tragedy's finale, we might ask Lady Macbeth if she can recommend a good soap. It is tempting to convince oneself that Nifong's banishment means that all is right in the Dukedom. Doubtless, many among Duke's faculty and administration, as well as random race-baiters, campus feminists, various reporters, commentators and assorted armchair prosecutors ...

David Limbaugh: I believe the culpability of "rogue" prosecutor and bully-extraordinaire Mike Nifong in the Duke LaCross "fiasco" has been grossly understated. His premeditated actions and apparently unrepentant heart merit a special ranking on the outrage meter and it should be a very long time before we apply to this case the adage that time heals all wounds. Even in his mostly condemnatory statement explaining the North Carolina Disciplinary Commission's decision to disbar Nifong, commission chairman F. Lane Williamson seemed to bend over backward to give Nifong the benefit of the doubt -- a benefit the wrongfully accused Duke Lacrosse defendants never received. Williamson said that Nifong's action appeared to the commission "to be out of self-interest and self deception, not necessarily out of an evil motive, but that his judgment was so clouded by his own self-interest that he lost sight of it and wandered off the path of justice and had to be put ...

Thomas Sowell: ... This is one of the few times when Jesse Jackson is speechless, even though he was loudly supporting the bogus "rape" charges last year. A local civil rights activist even had the gall to accost the mother of one of the accused students at Nifong's disbarment hearings to say that she still believes they were guilty. The sad and tragic fact is that the civil rights movement, despite its honorable and courageous past, has over the years degenerated into a demagogic hustle, promoting the mindless racism they once fought against. Although the committee that disbarred Michael Nifong said many things that needed to be said, they muddied the waters by saying that Nifong may have deceived himself before he deceived others. Nothing that District Attorney Nifong did suggests that he ever thought these players were guilty or that he ever intended to bring them to trial. The photo lineup presented to the stripper was so completely different from stan...

NY Post Editorial: ... But what about the other members of the lynch mob? Like the Durham City Council, whose members charged that the Duke lacrosse team "has been a ticking time bomb that has not been dismantled." Or the area residents who picketed with "wanted" posters of all 46 team members and signs that read, "Don't be a fan of rapists." And what's to be done about the most outrageous perpetrators of all? Namely Duke's Gang of 88 - the faculty members (more than 10 percent of the entire staff) who signed a contemptible public statement that not only assumed the players' guilt but hailed the "collective noise" that led Nifong to file his dubious legal charges? "What Does a Social Disaster Sound Like?" asked their manifesto, citing the purported attack as proof of the "racism, sexism, sexual violence and homophobia" on Duke's campus. Even after the charges had been proven false, many of the signer...

News & Observer: Duke University has reached a settlement with each of the three former lacrosse players and their families. The university made the announcement this afternoon. According to a press release issued by Duke, the terms of the settlement will not be disclosed. In a statement, Duke officials said the board of trustees and Duke President Richard Brodhead had determined that it was in the best interests of the Duke community to eliminate the possibility of future litigation and move forward ... No kidding. The school treated the player badly and little good would have come out of a suit from the schools perspective. Duke badly needed to settle this matter. I guess this should count as the school's apology. Yet to be heard from are the faculty and the Gang of 88 lynch mob. The longer they wait to explain their rush to judgment, the more their silence will continue to hurt Duke.

Dinesh D'Souza: ... ... Now what about the mau-mau artists at Duke, influential figures on the faculty, who whipped the campus up into a racial hysteria? What happens to the people who helped to create a mob mentality against students, rendering their lives miserable for more than a year, when their guilt was never established, never even probable, and now they have been shown to be innocent? From the time the first reports of sexual assault at Duke University surfaced, these intellectual vigilantes went to work. Houston Baker, a professor of English and Afro-American Studies, issued a public letter condemning the "abhorrent sexual assault, verbal racial violence and drunken white male privilege loosed among us." He seems to have simply presumed the students guilty. Shortly after that, 88 members of the Duke arts and science faculty--the so-called Gang of 88--signed a public statement praising campus demonstrators who had distributed a "WANTED" poster that br...

NY Times: A disciplinary hearing panel found Michael B. Nifong , the Durham County district attorney, guilty today of ethical violations arising from his pretrial statements and handling of DNA evidence while pressing a false accusation of sexual assault against three former Duke University lacrosse players. Six of the charges involved “dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation,” the most serious of the accusations against Mr. Nifong. The three-member panel now enters a penalty phase in the five-day ethics trial, which could result in Mr. Nifong’s suspension or disbarment later today. ... In closing arguments, Doug Brock, attorney for the North Carolina State Bar, the state agency bringing the case, said, “From his very first involvement in this case, Mr. Nifong weaved a web of deception, which continued up to this hearing.” Mr. Brock called the prosecutor “a minister of injustice” who had hurt the Duke lacrosse players, their families, real victims of sexual assault, and the ...

Durham-in-Wonderland: ... Q: Were you reluctant to give DNA? A: No--was told that this would be the best way to prove innocence. As he was leaving the police station following his giving of DNA, Gottlieb told him that the police would take care of everything, and clear the case up; that everything would be just fine. "Don't you worry." After story broke with Nifong's statements, statements "turned our world upside down." Affected how professors viewed the players. ... Was taking an African-American history class (taught by Group of 88 member Raymond Gavins)--his study partner drops him, publishes a piece in the Chronicle comparing the Duke lacrosse team to the Jim Crow south. Notes effect of Nifong's false claim of wall of silence by students. Everyone on team assumed that it was going to be the three guys who lived in the house--"never thought in a million years that I would ever be a suspect." His father is there; he sat to the ground, and sa...

NY Times: Two months after the North Carolina attorney general dismissed sexual assault charges against three former Duke University lacrosse players, the prosecutor who brought the case found himself in a crowded courtroom Tuesday, facing charges that could lead to his own disbarment. ... The ethics charges were filed by the North Carolina State Bar, a state agency, asserting that Mr. Nifong hid and lied about DNA evidence and that his pretrial comments inflamed the community and prejudiced the defendants. While the ethics charges are limited to certain areas, the witness list shows it will be putting the whole case on trial, at least to try to show Mr. Nifong knew some of his public comments were false. For instance, he repeatedly said he was certain a rape had occurred. Benjamin W. Himan, the Durham detective who was lead investigator on the case, said in testimony for the ethics prosecutors on Tuesday that Mr. Nifong had acknowledged to him that the case was weak and relied on the ...

Washington Times: In a powerful demonstration of the way the Internet has opened up the mainstream press to intensive second-guessing, bloggers are charging that news outlets have ignored the rape and murder of a young Knoxville couple because of the racial implications of the story. The two victims were white; the five defendants are black. The critics include mainstream conservatives, such as the National Review. They have drawn comparisons to the Duke lacrosse rape case and wondered why the killings of Channon Christian, 21, a University of Tennessee student, and her boyfriend, Christopher Newsom, 23, are not getting the same attention from what the bloggers regard sneeringly as the liberal press. "Oh, that's right, the victims were WHITE!" several conservative blogs have observed. Or as National Review columnist Jack Dunphy commented online: "Uh oh, we're not supposed to talk about such things, are we." It was bloggers who undermined CBS a...

AP /Fox News: The woman who accused three Duke lacrosse players of rape gave contradictory statements to investigators, and there was no credible evidence a crime occurred, the state attorney general's office said Friday. In a 21-page report outlining the findings of its three-month review of the case, the office said additional evidence uncovered during its investigation backed its determination that the accused players were innocent. "The state's cases rested primarily on a witness whose recollection of the facts of the allegations was imprecise and contradictory," the report said, adding that the accuser's changing accounts of what happened lead to "insurmountable credibility issues." The report comes more than two weeks after Attorney General Roy Cooper dropped all remaining charges against former players Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans. Cooper declared the men innocent, saying they were victims of a "tragic rush to accuse"...

Thomas Sowell: ... A real lineup, conducted according to well-established rules, could have revealed early on that the stripper who accused Duke lacrosse players of rape didn't have a clue who they were. That would have killed the case and destroyed Nifong's trump card -- the race card -- for winning the black vote. The district attorney's failure to interview either the accuser or the accused for months likewise suggests someone who was more concerned with avoiding the premature collapse of his case before election time than with finding out what really happened. Ironically, it was a black taxi driver who provided the first evidence that the charge was false. He said that one of the accused was in his cab, going to a bank, at the time the rape was supposed to have occurred. That taxi driver was subsequently brought in for police interrogation on a wholly unrelated matter and grilled for hours before being released, without being charged with anything. Little, if anything, ...

John Leo: Newsrooms tend to follow a conventional story line on social issues. As the late commentator and editor Michael Kelly wrote, "most journalists learn to see the world through a set of standard templates into which they plug each day's events." The most obvious templates concern race — whites are oppressing blacks, gender — men are oppressing women, and class — the privileged are oppressing the poor. Since all three of these templates were in play during the Duke race case, how surprising is it that this triple high tide resulted in some of the worst journalism of the decade? Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post, the best of our press critics, wrote that almost everybody wrote that the Rutgers women's basketball team had been unfairly maligned by Don Imus, but in the case of the Duke lacrosse players "very few have talked about how the media slimed them." Much of the reporting, perhaps most of it, committed early to the truth of the rape accusation an...

Cathy Young: IN MAY 2006, the women's lacrosse team at Duke University announced their intention to wear sweatbands with the word "innocent" for a Final Four game at Boston University's Nickerson Field. This gesture was a clear statement of support for the three Duke lacrosse players accused of sexually assaulting an exotic dancer at a team party. In response, New York Times sports columnist Harvey Araton suggested that "cross-team friendship" had overridden the women's common sense. In the online magazine Salon , writer Kevin Sweeney chided them for lack of solidarity with rape victims. Now, it looks like the women's lacrosse team had it right.... ... As writer Charlotte Allen has documented in The Weekly Standard, academics were quick to tailor the still-unfolding case to a narrative of sexual abuse of a downtrodden black woman at the hands of privileged white males -- males who, in the words of Duke literature professor Wahneema Lubiano, represe...