ABC’s Law&Justice Unit yesterday interviewed Linda Fairstein, the former head of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Sex Crimes Unit.
Her evaluation of Mike Nifong’s performance was devastating:
1) The accuser’s ever-evolving tale: Changes occur “within a day or two of the attack,” said Fairstein. “Six to eight months later is not when the story begins to shake out. It’s in the days that follow.” Moreover, the accuser’s “reluctance at this stage isn’t a sign that she’s not sure what happened—it’s a red flag that there are things wrong with the story.”
2.) Nifong: “There’s no excuse for the way this prosecution has proceeded . . . The shocking aspect of that to me is that Nifong only met with her once or twice. He himself had not done a sit down interview once he learned that the initial allegations seemed to be inconsistent.”
3.) Law 101: “You have to take that story, prove it occurred, and prove that it’s these men who did it . . . [Instead,] it seems to me that she was embraced by the prosecutor and his team immediately. They coddled her and took her side in this.”
4.)
37 comments:
Hate to be picky but Fairstein says, "If there is a dismissal there will be many more people who encounter rape in the future with greater skepticism. It will reinforce the stereotype that many of these rapes are false reports."
There is no "if" about it. The rape charges were dismissed last December.
KC, I was looking for your response to the frontpage blurb on Drudge:
Fox reports all charges dismissed against lacrosse players as early as tomorrow.
What is your take on this, and what have you heard?
I have to point out that many on this board have said Farstein also stated that half of rape accusations are false.
Seems her old quote most have been taken FAR out of context since in today's story she says that false rape claims are less than ten percent of rape accusations.
"In the early morning of March 13, 1964, a woman named Catherine Genovese ... died on the street, near her house in Queens, stabbed to death... 38 people, by police count, heard her." February 12, 1987 BY A. M. ROSENTHAL
***AND THE 38 DID NOTHING TO HELP HER. THEY DID NOT WANT TO GET INVOLVED***
Thank you, KC Johnson, for publishing the condemnation of Nifong by honest upstanding officers of the court and the NC Bar.
But it appears that too many officers of the courts across our nation have decided not to get involved.
I think we have all been waiting a headline that includes the phrase "Indicts Nifong." But this one didn't deliver.
OUCH!
Was Fairstein interviewed in the early months of the Hoax regarding her Nifong observations? Her comments are well grounded and make perfect sense even to lay persons following this case. It seems so simple now looking back on it and it makes one wonder where all of the enablers came from in the initial months of the Hoax that would have fueled this travesty for one year. May it be over soon and peace and happiness restored to the lives of these innocent young men.
I have a prediction that there will be more trouble for Nifong.
When the AG drops the charges, as is now rumored to be imminent, he will simultaneously reveal more misconduct by Nifong.
There is still the political risk that some black voters could be angered by a dismissal. He will try to direct any such residual anger toward Nifong. The more sensational the new revelations about Nifong misconduct, the better.
And that's where the anger should be directed because Nifong is at fault for this mess. This is a rare case where the politically expedient thing to do is the same as the ethical thing to do; drop the charges and blame Nifong.
Nifong gets thrown under the bus by the AD in a very public and damning way.
Here's the deal. The MSM -- print and TV -- could have given us Fairstein's view from the get go. That they chose to stick their audience with the 3 stooges -- Murphy (Larry), Munson (Mo) and Goslee (Curly), with Irving Joyner playing the role of Shemp -- is only one of the reasons why I won't buy a newspaper and never watch TV news. What an universally POS product they foist on the American public.
I just wish it hadn't taken a year to get comments like these out into the open. Of course Fairstein's comments don't exactly promote the liberal meta-narrative, do they? Coincidence? I don't think so.
The FOX Report (saying charges likely to be dismissed tomorrow) is, I believe, premature.
Ah yes, Kitty Genovese.
You know why those 38 people didn't get involved?
Because they were 38 people.
The other 37 weren't doing anything, so obviously there was nothing really wrong going on.
--GF
Possibly off topic.
The world has changed too much. Corrupt DAs, corrupt university professors, corrupt priests, and now nurses, the most trusted group in the USA, have gone off the deep end. I seriously think our country is doomed.
Nurses create quack specialty.
http://www.quackwatch.org (health fraud and quackery)
The 2,500-member American Holistic Nurses Association (AHNA) has announced that the American Nurses Association (ANA) has officially recognized "holistic nursing" as a nursing specialty.
http://www.ahna.org/new/specialty.html
Sweetmick says when the case is dismissed, that will leave 99 other top universities in 99 cities, each with their own gang of 88,their own liberal-left administrations,and their own significant black community, 98% of whom will agree with Chan Hall, and who will believe forever that Tawanna Brawley and Precious were raped. It's getting harder to recognize the good old USA.
The accuser's story is a LIE (like is there anyone who doesn't already know this?)
An account of rape CANNOT change (it can be added onto). In otherwords, memories of rape can produce additional memories of that same rape, but ONE'S INITIAL ACCOUNT DOES NOT CHANGE.
These "additional" memories (after the shock period) supposedly occur within a short period of time.
Just wondering, what is your rationale for that, on what do you base that opinion? Not that I doubt you, I just consider you the pre-eminent commentator on this case and I'd like to hear your thoughts about why or why not this (the dismissals) will happen.
Thanks
When I read your headline, my heart leaped for joy. After a quick read, I realized that you did not mean "indict" in the legal sense.
However, I predict that this will not be the last time that Nifong is "indicted"
Mike in Nevada
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,260426,00.html
Amazing the energy and effort required simply to attain a little justice - to overcome the lynch-mob, in this case, led by Duke's own 88 "mentors."
Poor Catherine Genevose - Remember the incident well. I hope we have learned to call 911 at least. RIP
KC:
Not that I disagree with anything Fairstein has to say on this case, I am surprised you would cite her as any kind of authority. Surely you remember the huge rape hoax she was involved with back in the early 90's.
See: http://www.cybercase.org/das.html
Perhaps that case taught her a lesson or two?
Anonymous 7:36 said...
...Sweetmick says when the case is dismissed, that will leave 99 other top universities in 99 cities, each with their own gang of 88...
Its not over until it over...and Nifong is just one of the players.
Soon we will get to watch who Nifong pulls down into muck with himself.
The G88 will need to explain eventually how they knew to react so quickly to this 'crime' and their connection to the evidence or lack thereof.
In my view, the bigger crime is the lack of support teachers made available to their own students.
Hopefully, the other 99 universities will be listening to the G88 as they 'stutter' their way through this moral swamp of their own making.
Possibly off topic... 7:07pm
You are off your rocker by slamming nurses like that. Holistic nurses' no less!
i have been an avid twice daily reader of this blog for a long time. I have supported the Duke 3 since the beginning, I live in the neighborhood of the house where nothing criminal happened. I am kind of shocked by your corruption accusation.
I have been a nurse since 1976. I have been an American Holistic Nurses' Assn. supporter pretty much from the beginning in 81. Since the early 70's I was very involved in mind/body therapies, the power of spiritual meaning in people's lives, the benefits of good nutrition and exercise to improve quality of life and physical functioning. You get the picture. Kubler-Ross was a mentor for me in the study of death and dying, in the old days in nursing/hospitals we didn't talk about death. But death happened... Now we can talk about it through the efforts of Holistic Pioneers.
My feeling is the same for the ANA recognition of my nursing specialty and the long over due dumping of this fraud criminal case: "It's about time."
I think the Bible got this case right when it says, the love of money is the root of all evil. Nifong who instigated this social disaster appears to have been simply motivated to build a better pension for himself.
The way you call people corrupt, best you look in the mirror Grasshopper.
Re corruption:
Even the staid bankers who used to be pillars of the community are getting into the act by giving home loans to people with bad credit and no down payment. When college profesors and bankers have lost their way, things are looking bleak.
JLS says....
It is just outrageous that in discussing dismissing charges against obviously innocent men we have to listen to garbage about potential affects on real rape victims. Who cares. That has NOTHING to do with not railroading these guys. It is immoral to even consider such affects.
This just goes to show how politicized crime or at least this type of crime has become. It is as I started, just outrageos that not a single article can not be written solely in sympathy to these falsely accused men.
Eddie's revelation about Fairstein is depressing.
Are there so few people in positions of authority who don't bleed corruption when you scratch them deeply enough?
Or did I miss something that would change the picture, such as an apology from Fairstein to Jovanovic?
eddie, thanks for that link. Jeez, Fairstein was the prosecutor in the Jovanovic case in NY.
"If there is a dismissal there will be many more people who encounter rape in the future with greater skepticism. It will reinforce the stereotype that many of these rapes are false reports."
That is a strange comment given the rest of the article. I think she should have said "If there is a dismissal then it will be a credit to the American system of justice, proving that one man with an agenda can't railroad anyone for political reasons."
And, if the black community is angered, then so be it. They should be outraged if anyone is railroaded, not just when the alleged criminal is black.
If a politican like Nifong has to go railroad a few whiteys to get elected to a DA position, then perhaps they should reconsider if it is really a job worth having.
Interesting that Kitty Genovese is being mentioned here. This writer makes a good case that the outrage about her murder was a product of, yep, the MSM cooking the story:
http://www.oldkewgardens.com/ss-nytimes-3.html
11:17 What exactly are you implying? Are you being tasteless ?There was a great deal of outrage at the time. "Everyone who witnessed this murder or heard her screaming though someone else had call the police."
Fairstein is no better than Nifong. What she did to Jovanovic should have been a crime.
I'm really surprised anyone would listen to anything she has to say.
I am Possibly off topic @ 7:07pm
To 10:07 PM
I have been a practicing registered nurse for over 30 years. It is wrong for the American Nurses Association to grant specialty status to the American Holistic Nurses Association because the AHNA endorse quackery, practices unfounded by scientific method, practices possibly better classified as a belief system: "... to facilitate the healing process and achieve wholeness.."
Ancient history: At my school of nursing I was taught that patients are whole beings, for example, not just a diagnosis, and my responsibility was to facilitate wellness with practices proved to be therapeutic, not to reach into the ether and somehow "achieve wholeness." People are already whole beings and do not require the help of the AHNA to do that, thank you very much.
"Achieving wholeness" as the AHNA states it's goal for their patients is nothing more that a modern condescending position, that sounds like the g88 and their religion of race, gender, and class and their vision of "Achieving wholeness" for our society. In other words, quackery. Look it up.
I'm sure you are an honorable person 10:07, and you mention the respected pioneer in death and dying Kubler-Ross. Her work has been embraced by main stream nursing for over 30 years. But the AHNA goes beyond that to embrace and endorse and include quackery and that is death for a professional nursing organization. Nurses have been named as the most trusted group in the USA, I am afraid those days are over. The action by the American Nurses Organization in granting specialty status to AHNA is wrong. WRONG.
http://www.quackwatch.org
"...However, related textbooks and the American Holistic Nurses Association's online practitioner directory http://www.ahna.org/practitioners/index.html indicate that "holistic" practices can include applied kinesiology, astrology, aura cleansing, channeling, chelation therapy, colon therapy, cranial therapy, crystal therapy, iridology, psychic surgery, reflexology, reiki, therapeutic touch, and about 100 other disreputable methods. This appears to be the first time in modern history that a mainstream professional organization has embraced a broad array of quack theories and practices."
I am Possibly off Topic
Correction:
American Nurses Association, not American Nurses organization.
Excellent analysis. So much for the "victim rights advocates" who told us a whole pack of lies.
It seems weird to me that this blog has morphed from one about the Duke case and prosecutorial misconduct into one about slamming liberal academia.
The posts that are relevant to the case are getting signifiantly less action these days than those about the Gang of 88 or general criticisms of Duke.
Everything Linda Farstein said was 100% on target, and it isn't true that nobody was saying these things in the beginning. Dan Abrams and other commentators were questioning the woman's truthfulness as soon as the defense released her various and contradictory statements.
Given the fact that rape victims DO still face a huge stigma and are generally not believed and that Linda Farstein devoted a good part of her career to changing that, it should be no surprise that she's able to do two things at once: comment on the ridiculous nature of the accusations against the Duke 3 and simultaneously understand that this false accuser has hurt real rape victims.
Fox is not the most reliable of news sources, so I doubt they will announce the charges are dropped today, but most likely some time next week.
To the 9.33:
I actually began the blog because of my outrage at how the activist members of the Duke arts and sciences faculty responded to this case; analyzing the faculty's response has been a major component of the blog from the start.
The academy, in public, says it treasures due process and dispassionately evaluating evidence. Yet in this, the highest-profile case of prosecutorial misconduct in modern American history, dozens of Duke professors not only failed to stand up for due process but gleefully joined the rush to judgment.
I would disagree with any characterization of the Group of 88 as "liberal." It seems to me they are well to the left of most liberals in contemporary society.
"Fox is not the most reliable of news sources, so I doubt they will announce the charges are dropped today, but most likely some time next week."
Fox named their source; some guy from Inside Lacrosse Magazine, who himself had anonymous sources.
They also asked the AG, who said no. One can take these rumors for what they are worth, and it has nothing to do with the reliability of Fox.
I also take from this that it will come to an end soon.
Its not like when news organizations take a strong position based on "high officials" or "sources close the White House" or something like that.
The Jovanovic case that Fairstein handled is in someways even more troubling then the Duke LAX rape hoax.I'd advise anyone not familiar with this travesty of justice to look it up.
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