[Update, 5.13pm: Race-baiter Jackie Wagstaff was sentenced to 10 days in jail for contempt. The Mangum jury deadlocked, 9-3, on the felony arson charge (the charge for which the jury was shown a video of Mangum describing how she started the fire). A mistrial resulted; a retrial seems highly unlikely. It would be interesting to know the backgrounds of the jurors who found Mangum not guilty.]
[Update, 3.30pm, Friday: Durham resident race-baiter Jackie Wagstaff is facing the possibility of contempt charges for muttering "this is ridiculous" as the judge gave additional instructions to the Mangum jury.]
[Update, 1.25pm, Friday: Via the Milliken twitter feed: the jury is on a lunch break. It has decided on four of the counts, but remains divided, 8-4, on the arson charge, despite having witnessed a video in which Mangum admitted she set clothes on fire in her bathroom.]
The New York Post reports that Tom Jolly, the Times sports editor who oversaw the paper's disgraced early coverage of the lacrosse case--for which he subsequently apologized--has been reassigned. The Times did not name a replacement. Fittingly, the Post lists the paper's mishandling of the lacrosse case as item number one in Jolly's legacy.
And, as I noted below, one of my classes has an exam this afternoon, and so I will be off-line most of the afternoon; Matthew Milliken is back in court covering the Mangum trial, and you can follow his twitter feed.
7 comments:
FYI:
-Duke U. False Rape Accuser Now on Trial for Domestic Violence-
Thursday, December 16, 2010 5:06:59
Durham News Observer ^ | December 15, 2010 | JESSE JAMES DECONTO
Officer Testifies at Mangum Trial DURHAM -- When Cpl. John Tyler got to the small Lincoln Street apartment just after midnight in February he was responding to a 911 call placed by a scared 9-year-old girl, he testified Thursday. "Once the telecommunicator heard the screaming, the complainant appeared to be scared and hung up," Tyler said describing the information he had as he entered Crystal Mangum's apartment. Tyler was the second witness to testify Thursday in Mangum's trial, in which she faces multiple felony charges related to the Feb. 17 domestic violence call. The charges include arson, injury to personal...
Is Jolly a Communist?
From Milliken's article on yesterday's trial events:
"The element of malice requires either a specific intent to cause destruction or substantial damage to the dwelling - comma - first thought - or - or an act done in wanton and willful disregard of the plain and strong likelihood of such harm."
Jones was trying to emphasize that disregard for the likelihood of devastation would satisfy the malice requirement. That is, disregard alone would make the case even if jurors felt Mangum did not really mean for her and her children's home to burn when she set her boyfriend's clothing on fire in a bathtub there after a fight on the night of Feb. 17.
Malicious intent is the last of the five elements of first degree arson. The others are that the defendant burned a residence; that it was a place where people lived; that someone other than the defendant lived there; and that it was occupied at the time of the fire.
A videotaped confession from a police interview, which Jones let jurors see over defense attorney Mani Dexter's objection, and testimony by police and fire workers may have firmly established the first four elements the state needs for the arson conviction.
Jolly -- sounds more like a comedian than a communist.
So, another Chattanooga celebrity loses his high-profile media job. (Jon Meacham lost his job after running Newsweek into the ground.)
Jolly is an old schoolmate of mine from Baylor School. Yes, the Baylor PR machine always played up real big that one our own was sports editor of the NYT. Can't say I am surprised. A guy with judgment as bad as what we saw in the Duke case really has no business being in such an important position.
There needs to be some good reporting done on what the Judge did with Mangum's children. I have seen it reported that the Judge called Mangum a "good mother" and returned the children to her.
What about psychosis, starting a fire in her house with the children in the next room and not warning anybody, destroying her boyfriend's property, getting 5 recent criminal convictions, lying numerous times for financial and personal gain about rapes and attempted murder, an addiction to painkillers, streetwalking, not keeping a job, handing off her children to others to watch (others that include pimps, drivers and people she calls crazy like Milton), an other than honorable discharge from the service, the continual gaming of the welfare system, stealing cars, attempting to run over police officers, multiple stints in mental institutions, stripping, costing Durham millions of dollars, bipolar disorder, the constant fraud on the Durham medical establishment, and violating visitation arrangements set by child welfare officials for the welfare of the chilren makes her a good mother?
A couple of minutes after a jury convicts a defendant of 3 counts of child abuse and the judge gives back the children to the defendant calling her a good mother? "Wonderland" is selling this place short. Is the judge insane?
If the prosecuting attorney doesn't file felony charges against Mangum on Monday for the destruction of her boyfriend's personal property AND arson, we know the fix was in. Then, we can add "convicted" felon to the list above.
To Prof. William Anderson and whom it may concern:
I will restate my earlier ('way-b ack-when) contention -- this was never a sports story. It originated as a crime type story, and became -- or should have become -- an investigative type story. True, Tom Jolly botched it. But a question remains: Why did the New York Times not assign a digging-type reporter to this incident in the first place? It seems to me that Tom Jolly was in over his head.
Gus W.
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