I do not know whether or not the woman at the Duke lacrosse party was raped. I tend to think like Ampersand on the issue.
I also believe that until our society does a better job of convicting rapists and preventing rape from occurring, it’s okay to be very sympathetic to any alleged victim by default. I’m not saying the Duke players should be discriminated against or found prematurely guilty, but they sure don’t need any favors.
Curious, then, that an ESPN SportsCenter host would go out on a weird limb in a broadcast this evening.
After a piece on Duke’s graduation day in which they showed students attempting to put the scandal behind them for a day, broadcaster Dave Revsine ended the segment by adding that defense attorneys were upset by the tactics of DA Mike Nifong, who has revealed little in the way of evidence during the grand jury process, “leaving them to wonder what evidence he actually has against their clients.”
Cut to commercial. And my jaw dropping.
That right there’s one thinly veiled editorial statment, one designed to sway the sports sheep even further to the side they already want to believe.
Assclowns.
Comparing LAX case to that of Scottsboro Nine
I am a college instructor who teaches criminal justice and a criminal defense attorney. In my entire career I have never seen such a bizarre and unfair case as the one against three Duke lacrosse players.
I teach a class about a similar case in American history, the Scottsboro Nine. In March 1931, a group of nine black teen-agers was charged with rape on incredibly flimsy evidence in Scottsboro, Ala. The nine were originally charged with the rape of two white women. Even after one woman testified that she lied about the rape, the nine teens continued to face rape charges and the threat of death by execution.
In the Scottsboro case, the two women were part-time prostitutes, but that didn’t matter, nor did it matter that at least one of the boys was known to be physically unable to have sex, and two of the boys were only 13. Like Durham, the real issue was race.
In Scottsboro, nine young men were wrongly charged and condemned because they were black, and today the Duke lacrosse players have, in my opinion, been wrongly charged and condemned because they are white and the alleged victim is black.
The one constant with respect to the two cases is racism. I often ask my students if it possible for blacks to discriminate against whites in the same type of mindless ignorance as the KKK or the way the mob went after the Scottsboro Nine. The answer I receive is yes, and my students point to Durham as proof.
JOSEPH R. GUTHEINZ JR
Houston
May 20, 2006
Evidence in the records released by the DA:
When investigators questioned the stripper after DNA tests on the semen found inside her vagina and rectum didn’t match any of the Duke players, the stripper admitted to having had sex with at least three men around the time of the alleged rape. The stripper named her boyfriend and two men who drove her to Duke.
Shocking new information from Sean Hannity and Megyn Kendall
Today on Sean Hannity’s radio program, he spoke with attorney and Foxnews reporter Megyn Kendall.
• First Kendall mentioned that the accuser gave conflicting stories on whether or not she was raped. The stripper accuser told a doctor she was raped, but when a rape exam was about to be performed she denied it.
• Again there are reports of her varying the number of people she claims raped her. There are others saying they also heard she mentioned 20 men raped her.
• The accuser initially claimed stripper #2 – Kim Roberts was in the bathroom and Kim Roberts denied that.
• When the accuser was asked who she had sex with recently, she mentioned her “boyfriend” and 2 “drivers”.
• When questioned, the “drivers” said they would drop her off at several places, including hotel rooms.
(Like I said, this woman took more visitors than a motel.) I figured she probably did “other” kinds of work for that escort service and it’s looking more as if I may be correct. Remember, defense attorneys are still trying to get more information about her work history in the sex business.
• Efforts to have North Carolina’s Attorney General charge DA Nifong with prosecutorial abuse are under way. This will not go anywhere. Despite this case being on a foundation of quick sand, he used grand juries to make the indictments, which he did not have to do. Also he did have some information that indicated a rape occured. He just neglected to consider other information that would show she was not raped. It shows Nifong played the game, but he’s not going to be found to have committed prosecutorial abuse. Plus I think Nifong will dump this case before it gets to trial.
Hear Hannity and Kendall discussing the details using the audio link below:
Sean Hannity and Megyn Kendall on Duke Lacrosse Rape Case – WMA Audio
(For the sake of bandwidth there will be no other formats made.)