Monday, January 01, 2007

Estrich Pulls No Punches

Susan Estrich, USC law professor, former campaign manager for Mike Dukakis, and one of the nation’s leading experts on rape law, is blunt:

The woman is a liar. That is the English translation of the latest round of maneuvers, in which the prosecution dismissed the rape charges because the woman could no longer say, as she once did, that she had intercourse with three men at the party. In other words, she lied when she said she did.

In some ways, Estrich contends, the accuser is a fourth victim of “Nifong’s twisted tactics”—not to the extent of the three lacrosse players, “who never would have been charged with anything had Nifong adhered to the standard practices in his own office,” but nonetheless a figure who “will be destroyed by this case,” since defense attorneys have no choice but to expose her as a liar. Indeed, “she will be an admitted liar of the worst sort the moment she opens her mouth. She lied about rape. Dropping the rape charge does not remove the statements she made claiming rape from the case. Rape shield laws do not protect her when other contemporaneous sexual acts might explain the physical evidence of sexual contact and of bruising.” So much for Irving Joyner’s analysis of the brilliance of Nifong’s latest tactic.

Nifong, Estrich notes, has failed at a fundamental job of a prosecutor, which, “especially because of the special stigma that comes simply with the charge of rape, is to screen out those cases that should not, or cannot, be won, and not bring them in the first place.”

What could Nifong have been thinking? Estrich concludes that maybe all he “ever cared about was getting elected, no matter how many victims he created.” There’s certainly little reason to believe he wanted to stand up for the accuser. His tactics, according to Estrich, have “given her the one-way ticket to hell which this prosecution is certain to be. With friends like Mike Nifong, who needs enemies?”

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rove, you magnificent bastard!

Anonymous said...

Liar, a direct simple word has been awol from the MSN's vernacular. Isn't it much easier on the eye than "the woman can no longer testify with certainty that she was raped?

Anonymous said...

K.C., You are supposed to be watching football, instead of doing like me and watching computers. (But I did read to the kids tonight.)

We don't have TV reception, so New Year's Day is not football day. But now, I have new entertainment: Durham-in-Wonderland! Except, Nifong isn't entertainment.

It is too bad that Nifong and the NAACP will not admit to what everyone else knows. I am afraid that they believe that if they just wish hard enough, every lie they have told suddenly will come true. Doesn't work that way, does it?

Anonymous said...

Estrich should replace Murphy.

Anonymous said...

There have been few issues which have united liberals and conservatives like the Duke case. Today we have had liberals such as Estrich and conservatives such as Sowell come out with strongly worded articles on the case. This may be an interesting topic for analysis.

sceptical

Anonymous said...

JLS says...

I don't often agree with Estrich, but I do here. I expect more from DAs than I do hookers. I am not suprised that a hooker would lie to get out of involuntary commitment. I think anyone that would use such a lie to win an election deserves to do a number of years in prison.

Anonymous said...

JLS says...

PS. Bill Anderson it is half time.

Anonymous said...

"Precious a victim"
--Susan Estrich

Collin, Dave, Reade:

What do you think?

RP

Anonymous said...

this woman's name and picture should be shown in all the places that the REAL victims' were shown. and if possible she should go to jail -- there is no excuse for her lies and destruction of reputation and pain that she has caused.

Anonymous said...

Finally!! Someone used the "L" word. This kid must be mortally terrified at the prospect of facing the defense attorneys on the stand. At this day and time, you have got to ask what in God's name she and the d.a. were thinking when this thing started. My guess: they had no idea that a K.C., Bill Anderson, et al were out there and would get involved. In the p.c. world of Duke and Durham, they were confident that the msm would bury the facts in a snowstorm of race and class. It almost happened. Thank God for you'all.

Trinity60

Anonymous said...

Check out this Jon Ham piece on local journalism:
http://carolinajournal.com/
mediamangle/display_story.html?id=3798

Flash Gordon said...

I also seldom agree with Susan Estrich but I applaud her on this. I understand she is a rape victim herself, so she has apparently not allowed that to cloud her judgment. Hooray for her.

Anonymous said...

Framing Precious as a victim is just what is expected from someone like Estrich. If the AV indeed did lie and placed these three young men in serious jeopardy and certain prolonged trauma then she needs to be held accountable for her actions and go to jail. She is not a victim, she is a perpetrator. False accusations are lethal to the target and to their friends and families. If you have never had the experience thank your lucky stars.

Anonymous said...

JLS says....

re Don't: Mangum cried raped because twice before she had cried crime, rape once and attempted murder the other time, and nothing happened. She believed she would stay out of the nut house this time but the police would have the good sense to not believe her.

She was right. The early actions of DPD show they did not believe her. It was Nifong that caused this problem.

Also I believe her relatives through Gretta that twice Mangum tried to back out of this. I am sure Nifong would not let her as long as the general election was pending.

As someone once said on FreeRepublic, Nifong would have cut Mangum's index finder off and pointed it at three Duke lacrosee players himself, if that is what it had taken to get an ID so he could get his indictments to win this election.

Anonymous said...

Nifong did not make the woman to come up with the allegations. Nifong did not make the woman to give an interview to N&O on March 25th, where shy dancer "gave details of ordeal."

Anonymous said...

Has anybody seen the AV lately? There are very few things that could make this case any more ludicrous than it already is, and reading up at Forensic Talk about the effects of the drugs she was seeking, I've got this weird sense of foreboding.

Mixing alcohol with Flexeril or Percocet in sufficient quantity will shut down your nervous system.

Can you imagine how _that_ would go over?

--GF

Anonymous said...

The accuser is said to be pregnant, and is expecting her third child soon.

Anonymous said...

I'm not willing to be too harshly judgmental of this accuser -- yet. I have no problem with Estrich calling her a liar, because there is certainly abundant evidence of that. But I also think she may well be a victim too. We know that she has serious mental health problems, serious enough that she spent a week in a mental health facility last year. It's been reported that she has bi-polar disorder, which can cause delusional thinking. It's also apparent that she has a drug/alcohol problem, and we know that the combination she was taking the night of the party (beer/flexeril) can also cause delusional thinking. Until we know for sure, I'm not willing to discount the possibility that, at some point in this fiasco, this woman actually did believe that she had been assaulted. Of course, none of this in any way excuses Nifong's conduct. He had every reason to know, very early on, that this woman's claims were not credible.

Anonymous said...

I would pay good money to watch Susan Estrich and Wendy Murphy discuss the lax case. The complete and utter humiliation of Murphy would be glorious.