Monday, November 30, 2009

Updates

Posting will be light until there are new developments in the civil case; or if there is significant movement on one or two other case-related fronts.

In the meantime, even as the Group of 88 clings to its favored position at Duke, it's worth remembering the legacy of the case for society as a whole. From two recent items:

Radley Balko, in an interview with the Economist: "One real disservice the Duke lacrosse case did for the criminal-justice system is it put in the public consciousness the idea that bad actors like Mike Nifong are regularly disciplined for misconduct. In truth, that case was really exceptional."

Note that for all but the handful of true believers in the deeper recesses of Durham, Mike Nifong is now the national symbol of prosecutorial misconduct.

(By the way, I'd disagree, at least in part, with Balko's point: the high-profile nature of Nifong's humiliation provides at least some deterrence to future prosecutors intent on cheating and breaking rules--lest their last name, too, become a verb meaning "to use the law to destroy innocent people.")

2.) Gary VanSickle, in golf.com: "Even legitimate news organizations have joined in past rushes to judgment that went very wrong, notably the Olympic bombing in Atlanta and the Duke lacrosse rape story."

Note that for all but the handful of true believers in the deeper recesses of Durham and in certain quarters of the Duke faculty, the media's coverage of the lacrosse case is a handy reference points for the shamefulness of rushing to judgment.

While this blog will go dark till future developments, I continue to blog at Minding the Campus and at Cliopatria.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

nice ... to ...know ...you, ......and ...glad ..to ...find.... such... a.......

Anonymous said...

Is this a typical wait for rulings or movement on a civil case? Is there anything peculiar about the setting of the case, the court or the Judge which would preclude progress? This almost seems Byzantium to me.

Jim in the boro said...

Thought you might find this interesting, KC. After 3 years, the NC Innocence Project hasn't freed anyone.

Anonymous said...

Woman Who Made False Rape Charge Is Guilty of Perjury
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/nyregion/08freed.html?em

A woman who in 2005 falsely accused a man of rape, leading to his wrongful conviction and imprisonment, pleaded guilty on Monday to two counts of perjury.

++++++++++++++++++++

Anonymous said...

lookee lookee here:

Karla FC Holloway, the James B. Duke Professor of English and professor of law at Duke University, has been elected a fellow of the Hastings Center. The center, based in New York, is a leading research institution in the field of bioethics.

Anonymous said...

Nifong wasn't humiliated enough, as far as I'm concerned. He should be imprisoned for malicious prosecution and serve out the sentence his potential prosecution victims were faced with, preferably bunking with one of those dusky constituents he was trying to pander to.

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