Monday, June 09, 2014

Cohan: "Defense Attorneys" Want Nifong "Literally Dead in the Ground"

Author William D. Cohan recently departed a columnist’s position at Bloomberg View for one at Huffington Post (which generally does not pay its columnists). Cohan then used his first HuffPost piece to lash out at the free speech rights of his critics.

Huffington Post also provided what likely will be Cohan’s final promotional appearance for his book. As with each of his interviewers other than WUNC’s Frank Stasio, the HuffPost Live asked no meaningful questions about Cohan’s revisionist thesis. Cohan, even so, came across as noticeably more ill-tempered than in his initial interviews about the book; at times, he seemed almost unhinged when talking about his critics and (especially) the defense attorneys.

Cohan, Unhinged

Cohan was asked who had suffered the most in the case. The answer supplied by the passionate Nifong apologist would come as little surprise. But then the author seemed to lose touch with reality.

COHAN at 13.30: “So you ask who, who came out the worst in all of this, who suffered the most: I think, obviously, Mike Nifong, the prosecutor, suffered the most. He’s the only one who spent any time in jail, he spent a day in jail. He lost his job, he was disbarred as a lawyer. He filed for personal bankruptcy. I mean, there are—of course, the defense attorneys would say, ‘That’s not good enough for him, that’s too good for him, and he should be, you know . . .’ They won’t be happy until he’s literally dead in the ground. And they’re doing everything they can to try to put him there!”

Here is a link to the audio:

Incredibly, the HuffPost host made no comment, no request for substantiation, as her guest made this wild assertion.

Since the criminal contempt trial, the defense attorneys have had no dealings with Nifong. The idea that they’re “doing everything they can” now to place him “literally dead in the ground” is nothing short of bizarre.

It should go without saying that while Cohan offers such a crazy claim, he never even tried to interview any of the attorneys he now claims want Nifong “literally dead.” So how he reached this determination about their thoughts must remain a mystery.

Seligmann, Finnerty, and the Party

Early in the interview, Cohan offered what appears to be a new description of the party.

COHAN at 1.53: “In this situation, you had three students, accused of sexual assault, and rape, after all day of partying, and drinking, when they thought it would be a great idea to invite strippers to their house, off campus.” [emphases added]

By this point, it’s beyond clear that Cohan simply doesn’t know very much about the topic on which he wrote. But could he actually now have come to believe that Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty lived with the three captains? That they were at the house “all day” during the day of the party? That strippers were invited to “their” house? His statement makes no sense otherwise.

The Nifong Apologist

The host asked, without providing specifics, if Cohan had a response to criticisms that the book sought to rehabilitate Nifong:

COHAN at 3.06: “I really find it humorous [at this stage in the video, Cohan looks anything but amused] and counterintuitive . . . To be criticized for talking to one of the principal players in this drama, no pun intended, the prosecutor, Mike Nifong, who brought this action, [voice rising] to be criticized for actually giving him a chance to tell his story, by other journalists who criticize me—many other journalists [voice rising again] have criticized me for allowing Mike Nifong to have a microphone!”

Given that a bit later in the interview, Cohan would lament Nifong’s suffering, present him as the major victim in the case, and wildly claim that defense attorneys were trying to leave him “literally dead in the ground,” the denial about his status as a Nifong apologist rings a bit hollow.

In the event: to the best of my knowledge, no one has criticized Cohan for speaking to Nifong. I certainly haven’t. The criticism—made by the first person to publicly comment on the matter, Joe Neff, and echoed by me after I got to read the book—has been that Cohan uncritically accepted the version of events presented by a convicted liar, that instead of functioning as an “investigative journalist,” Cohan saw his role as a pro-Nifong propagandist.

Nothing Cohan has said or done at any point in his publicity tour has refuted this criticism.

Math Lessons from William D. Cohan

COHAN at 4.00: “So you’ve got a 620-page book, 600 pages of which are incredibly critical of everything Mike Nifong did along the way, and 20 pages of it are Mike Nifong explaining why he did what he did, and also to some extent admitting many of the things his critics ascribe to him, and basically saying if he could have done it differently, he probably would have, and yet also defending many of his actions!

I addressed this very strange argument previously. At this point, Cohan’s repeating the assertion suggests either that he hasn’t read his own book or he possesses an almost casual willingness to make demonstrably false statements.

Cohan and His Enemies

COHAN at 4.22: [increasingly passionate as he proceeds] To somehow ascribe to me motives, as if I were trying to rewrite this story [recoils, as if horrified], or to give Mike Nifong a platform he doesn’t deserve, to me is so ridiculous, and so absurd, that I was absolutely—I wasn’t shocked by it, but I couldn’t believe that people who consider themselves to be professional, responsible journalists today, and who have gotten space in some of our most well-respected publications like the New Republic [Stuart], and Commentary [me], and the Wall Street Journal [Dorothy Rabinowitz], to make their, you know, vitriolic cases against me. One of their main criticisms would be that I gave air time to Mike Nifong and Crystal Mangum, two of the principal uh, uh, actors in this drama, is patently absurd.

Cohan has already made clear that whether his critics deserve free-speech protections is an open question. The criticism that Cohan gave “air time” to Nifong and Mangum appeared nowhere in any of the reviews that Cohan mentioned.

Notice that amidst his self-professed horror, Cohan nowhere in the interview addresses the actual criticisms of his book. At this point, I think it’s fair to say that his silence regarding the substantive critiques speaks volumes.

Proper Procedures for Prosecutors

The host clearly knew very little about the case. But she did know that Nifong was disbarred, and six minutes into the interview, she tried to get Cohan to explain precisely what Nifong did. The guest wasn’t interested.

COHAN at 5.51: “[Nifong] was disbarred by the State Bar, . . . then he was found in contempt of court and spent that 24 hours in jail . . . all for doing what prosecutors are supposed to do: which is, if they believe a crime was committed . . . You know, and prosecutors can believe a crime is committed for any number of different reasons—they believe the witness, they believe the police investigation, they looked at, you know, the documentary evidence and the DNA evidence, they talked to the nurse that examined Crystal Mangum on the night this supposed, uh, felony was committed. For whatever reasons that he believed a crime was committed, his job as a prosecutor is to take that evidence . . . forth into a trial.”

It’s terrifying that Cohan believes that a prosecutor who lies to a judge, withholds exculpatory evidence, violates ethical guidelines regarding public statements amidst an election campaign, and orders the police to run a photo array that violates their own guidelines was just “doing what prosecutors are supposed to do.”

Beyond that point, take a look at the remainder of Cohan’s statements and apply it to this case. Nifong first made his public statements that he had come to “believe a crime was committed” early in the afternoon of 27 March 2006. At that point, he hadn’t spoken to the witness, the police investigation had uncovered nothing, he hadn’t looked at the documentary evidence, there was no DNA evidence, and he hadn’t talked to the nurse that examined Crystal Mangum on the night this supposed felony was committed.

But don’t take my word for it. Here’s Cohan’s protagonist, Mike Nifong, admitting as much during the ethics hearing.

 

So is it Cohan’s conclusion that a prosecutor can “believe” a crime occurred, and thus take a case to trial, for any reason at all?

The Nifong Record

COHAN at 6.58: “Well, this was a situation in which this prosecutor was not allowed to bring this evidence to a trial. By the way, this was a guy who had been in the Durham DA’s office for 28 years, and before this he was generally thoroughly well-regarded as a very strong prosecutor . . .”


At no point in a 15-minute interview did Cohan ever say that Mike Nifong made ethically improper public statements in the hopes of bolstering his election campaign, or that Mike Nifong improperly withheld exculpatory DNA evidence, or that Mike Nifong lied in open court to a judge. Instead, he said that Nifong made unspecified “mistakes.”

Enemies of the “Truth”

COHAN at 8.57: “I dug up as much as I could that raised some serious questions about what happened. Of course, any time you say this, there’s an established narrative out there—there’s an established narrative out there that the people are very, very wedded to (the parents of the kids, the kids themselves [he’s describing here people in their late 20s or early 30s], their attorneys, and their powerful allies in the media) who don’t want anybody bringing this up, and would go to whatever length they could—for them, this is a war. This is a war that began in 2006, and it’s going to continue until, uh, you know, until it can’t continue anymore. Until all the principal people are no longer alive! And by me taking an objective look at what happened, seven or eight years after it happened, it apparently, you know, something that they’re having a real trouble dealing with.”

Cohan might, at some point, want to consult a dictionary to determine the meaning of “objective.”

That said, consider the oddity of Cohan’s first sentence. With regards to the criminal case, the only thing that Cohan “dug up” was the revelation that as his ethical misdeeds were exposed, Nifong confined his reading to the New York Times. None of his lengthy interviews with Nifong brought any new facts about the criminal case. His shorter jailhouse chat with murderess Crystal Mangum did dig up two new items, but both (that medical personnel had to remove wooden shards from her, that Reade Seligmann carried her to the car) were demonstrably false.

Has Cohan now conceded that all that his book “dug up” about the criminal case was precisely . . . nothing?

Media Expert

COHAN at 3.20: “The job of the investigative reporter is to go back to Ground Zero of the story, accumulate all the information that he possibly can, all the documentary evidence, and talk to as many people as possible who would talk to him.”

Author Cohan fulfilled the task of seeking to “talk to as many people as possible who would talk to him” by not seeking to talk to (among many others): any of the defense attorneys, any of the senior prosecutors in the AG’s office, the Bar prosecutors, Nifong’s primary campaign manager, the DHC chair and members, Judge Smith, the criminal contempt prosecutor, and (it appears) 43 of the 44 unindicted members of the 2006 lacrosse team.

It would seem, therefore, that Cohan failed the “job of the investigative reporter,” at least as he defines it.

“Rush to Judgment”

The host—who at several points in the interview seemed a bit startled by the passion that Cohan brought both to his defense of Nifong and to his attack on the falsely accused players—noted that from the standpoint of the falsely accused, there was a rush to judgment. Cohan responded:

COHAN at 12.17: “Everybody rushed to judgment, including the prosecutor, Mike Nifong. But he did, you know, believe that a rape had occurred, and he was going to make it his duty to bring it to a court of law, which is his job, to either prove it or not prove it.

If it’s possible to get beyond Cohan’s claim that the defense attorneys want Nifong “literally dead,” this was clearly the oddest statement of the interview. If, as Cohan now admits, Nifong “rushed to judgment,” how, possibly, could it have been proper for him to have sought charges based on his rush to judgment? That question, unsurprisingly, was one that Cohan showed no interest in answering.

Contempt for the Falsely Accused

COHAN at 12.36: “Uh, you know, the kids, from their point of view—I mean, people are accused of crimes, you know, all the time. Uh, either they did them, or they didn’t do them. Either they could be proved in a court of law they did them, or they didn’t do them, and you know, there are plenty of cases where there are people who are wrongfully convicted [like Darryl Howard], who spend, you know, 18, 20 years in prison [like Darryl Howard], and get out based on new evidence, or new DNA evidence [like Darryl Howard], and they get, you know, whatever, $20,000 a year for their pain and suffering. I mean, these three kids didn’t spend a day in jail, there was no trial, and they ended up with $20 million each. [No, they didn’t.] This party cost Duke $100 million, all told, with legal fees and settlements, etc.” [No, it didn’t.]

The Attorney General

COHAN at 8.35: “There was a secret investigation done by the state attorney general [no criminal investigation in North Carolina is conducted in the open], who declared them innocent at the end of that 4-month investigation, and he won’t be interviewed about it [untrue: Roy Cooper did a press conference, and then was interviewed by Lesley Stahl], and he won’t allow his investigatory filed to be viewed [because it’s the law] . . .

COHAN at 14.01: “We’ll never know what really happened . . . The State AG won’t open his investigatory files. I have sued in North Carolina to force him to open those files. I’m sure I’ll lose, and he won’t have to.

I hope that representatives of the North Carolina attorney general’s office take notice of this comment, which essentially features plaintiff Cohan admitting that he has filed a frivolous lawsuit.

Cohan’s Publicity Tour Is (Literally) Cut Off

COHAN at 14.22: “This is just sort of one of those incredible anomalies of justice that’s occurred in our society, that if you even have the temerity to talk about it, you get, you know, eviscerated by—

At that point, the host appeared to have had enough with Cohan’s pity party, cut the author off, and ended the interview.

Due Process and False Charges                                                                   

Cohan also offered his typically bizarre interpretation of the legal system, suggesting that even though the prosecutors from the AG’s office and the defense attorneys both believed the players were innocent, they nonetheless should have faced a trial:

COHAN at  7.12: “In our system of jurisprudence, the prosecutor brings cases before the jury, the people decide whether he’s right or he’s wrong, the people are not guilty or guilty, and that’s the way the system works. Here was a case—whether these kids were not guilty or guilty, they were ultimately declared innocent by the state attorney general. Our justice system was subverted in this case. And I think that is the most profound uh, uh action to come out of this whole incident. That our system of justice was subverted by very clever, deep-pocketed defense attorneys who exploited every mistake that the prosecution made and that the principal witness made.

A good response to this basic misunderstanding of our legal system came from one of these “deep-pocketed defense attorneys,” Brad Bannon, during the Nifong ethics hearing:

  

Needless to say, this was another section of Bannon’s testimony that never found its way into Cohan’s book.

41 comments:

  1. KC, you deserve much credit for keeping a cool tone while describing what does indeed sound like the spoutings of an unhinged man.

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  2. Deja vue, all over again:

    The William D. Cohan saga takes us eerily back to Spring, 2006:

    1. Cohan writes a 650 page book that relies principally upon recreating the hysteria of the Spring of 2006.

    2. Virtually the same media who rushed to judgment at the time, rushed to heap praise on Cohan's book, ignoring all journalistic standards to the point, evidently, of not even reading it.

    3. Cohan then spoke for nearly two months to one credulous audience after another, becoming increasingly dissociated from facts and the reality of what happened during the rape hoax.

    4. Finally, in his most hysterical performance yet, Cohan apparently overloaded even such a sympathetic venue as the Huffington Post, and was finally cut off.

    As I say, we have seen this movie before. Too bad there is no one to call Mr. Cohan to account, as there eventually was for Mike Nifong.

    Jim Peterson

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  3. He's trying to 'save' Duke with one of the ways Duke uses to try to manipulate the people into believing their many lies, distortions, and innocence of their evil crimes against humanity. So what else is new?

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  4. Here is the transcript of 3/4 of the Next interview Cohan will be doing:

    Uh, Uh, Uh, You Know
    You Know, Uh, You Know
    Something Happened
    Uh, Uh, Uh, You Know
    You Know, Uh, You Know
    Uh, Uh, Uh

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  5. In spite of the initial positive reviews by writers who likely did not read the book, POS is failing because the views of the people sit there as a challenge on Amazon.com. Also, people watch law and order type TV shows and understand how the legal system is supposed to work, i.e. that prosecutors are not supposed to bring cases to trial because they believe it is a good idea, they have to have evidence to substantiate their claims. Potentially exculpatory evidence has to be shared with the defense.

    Long live Amazon and Hollywood (for folks who didn't learn this stuff in school).

    Now the other principle to get across: families have the right to expect that faculty will act in student's best interests, as far as possible.

    Maria

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  6. Mr. Cohan obviously has ended his writing career. That is, if this world were a just place. But I would encourage him to become a grave digger in his next career. He just can't stop digging, can he?

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  7. Now thst Cohan has proven Nifong innocent, perhaps Nifong should petition the Bar Association to have a re-hearing and restore his law license.

    In the meantime, let's all send a dollar or two to help him pay his unjust $7,000 fine/ costs or whatever. The State Bar needs the money.

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  8. On Friday "The price of Silence" was listed at # 33,806 on Kindle's Best Seller List. Not exactly the blockbuster success a best selling author endorsed by the "in crowd media community" might expect. Great work KC and thank you.

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  9. 'Whosoever saves a single life, it is as if he saved the world entire'. Whoever saves reputations saves lives---in my opinion. I was surprised to discover that Durham in Wonderland was still churning along, when Price of Silence was published. Here it is, still saving lives. Something very big is being accomplished here also, with DIW as an anecdote to deception, distortion and threats to ethical standards. They system 'got' the prosecutor but Duke still has the professors who tried to sink their own students and leadership that blows with the winds. But, who knows what the future will bring? 'The characteristic of heroism is persistency'.

    Maria

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  10. KC -- You have so thoroughly discredited Cohan in the last few weeks (as evidenced by his ghastly interview) that at this point it is like clubbing a baby seal -- where's the challenge?

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  11. Maria at 6:30 pm, Duke has learned nothing. I can assure you that if a situation unfolded identical to the false accusation of three students as played out in 2006, Duke would still be on the wrong side of the law and justice. When facts don't matter and only a narrative is trotted out in their place, the atmosphere is ripe for another Duke/Lacrosse fiasco.

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  12. Anonymous at 7:46, these problems must have to do with the nature of the people with power there. They must not think of defamation, bearing false witness, as all that bad if it meets some other purpose. What matters most is, the show must go on. In my view, the truth has to matter more than the show or we get corruptions of purpose, unreliability, distortion, systems that can be led astray. So when groups say "let's move on" without addressing core issues (such as professor's brutality towards their own students), I'm suspicious and cease to be a follower. As long as Duke doesn't address the professor's abandonment and assault on students, it remains a corrupt system, in my opinion. Wrong behavior can be understood and forgiven---haven't we all gone down a wrong path or two?--- but first they would have to stop pretending their betrayal of students wasn't wrong. Their denial and seeming self-approval stands now like a cancer, capable of infecting other schools. That is one of the real dangers here.

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  13. Anonymous at 7:46:

    We actually know that for a fact in light of the recent Lewis McLeod case. Duke did it again. Same characters. Same buffoonish positions.

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  14. Anonymous @ 7:00 PM, I wholeheartedly agree with the first half of your sentence. However, (1) Mr. Cohan is still out there "hawking" his book, (2) the "gushing reviews of TPOS in some major news outlets are still in place and un-retracted (3) even after the declaration of innocence, disbarment of Nifong, people(sometimes "name" people such as filmmaker Ken Burns in 2012) continue make public anti-Lacrosse case statements.

    You'd think the work of Johnson and Taylor, recent reviews by the likes of Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal, plus all the 1- and 2-star reviews in Amazon would shame Mr. Cohan and his supporters but apparently not. I mean, related to all this, the Gang of 88 of Duke faculty is mostly still in place, and some have even gone on to arguably better gigs.

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  15. Some seem to use shaming people and people being shamed as some sort of deterant to criminal, malicious, and harmful behavior by Duke and Duke people. Why is that? Isn't that really more like defamation, and libel, and being determined quilty before proven innocent without regard to the consequences of harm that can occur to others?

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  16. Anon 9:46, indeed the McLeod case is an example of the extreme side of the feminist movement. McLeod was never allowed to make his case to the disciplinary board now was he allowed to review all of the charges and evidence against him. There is a law against practicing law without a license. There should be one against holding kangaroo courts dispensing justice. I am not privy to all the facts in this case as Duke has not made it possible to know them. It's amazing how they hide behind FERPA laws they were so willing to disregard in the Lacrosse case.

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  17. Duke seems to take holding kangaroo courts to a whole 'nother level every time, don't they?

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  18. To Anonymous 5:24: Those are important questions. Could you explain a little further what you mean? We have concrete evidence that establishes how Duke administration and professors actively participated in the rush to judgment. There is no reliable evidence that the lacrosse players did what they were accused of doing. There is evidence that they did not do as accused. It is not defamation to point to what is true.

    Perpetrators throughout history have relied on slander to accomplish goals, such as WWII depicting Jews in a false light and blaming the Poles for igniting the war against them. It is not slander to point to the shameful, evil, deceptions by perpetrators as a deterrent to future vile behavior that threatens virtue and thus our survival. The fruit of principled behavior is generally good overall. The fruit of distortion and deception is downward slides.

    But I'm not sure that is what you were asking...

    Maria

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  19. Isn't is that the fruit of distortion and deception as a means to produce principled behavior is generally seen as detrimental to acquiring a goal that is good overall?

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  20. Actually, the 5:24 seems to be saying that you should never criticize anyone unless he has been found guilty in a court of law.

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  21. Is Cohan a Communist?

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  22. Not necessarily given the penchant for kangaroo courts that Duke displays - and isn't shaming or the implication of shaming rather kangerooish to begin with?

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  23. I'm pretty sure that kangaroos are being slandered here. Somehow. Perhaps Mr. Cohan can write a book about it. Maybe that would keep him away from important things.

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  24. Anonymous 9:40 That would be true.

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  25. Anonymous 10:22 :

    OF course not, silly. He's an asshole. All of us have assholes. Cohan is one. Like his buddy, Nifong.

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  26. from earlier comments:
    Anonymous Anonymous said...
    Maria at 6:30 pm, Duke has learned nothing. I can assure you that if a situation unfolded identical to the false accusation of three students as played out in 2006, Duke would still be on the wrong side of the law and justice. When facts don't matter and only a narrative is trotted out in their place, the atmosphere is ripe for another Duke/Lacrosse fiasco.

    6/9/14, 7:46 PM
    Anonymous Anonymous said...
    Anonymous at 7:46, these problems must have to do with the nature of the people with power there. They must not think of defamation, bearing false witness, as all that bad if it meets some other purpose.

    I WANT TO ADD TO AA'S COMMENT ON "THE NATURE OF THE PEOPLE WITH POWER" AT DUKE. ON 23 JUNE 2002 IN THE "NEW YORK TIMES" RICHARD H. BRODHEAD, THEN DEAN OF YALE COLLEGE, NOW PRESIDENT OF DUKE UNIVERSITY BORE FALSE WITNESS AGAINST ME IN A WAY THAT DEFAMED ME. HE LIED ABOUT MELVILLE'S LOST BOOK CALLED "POEMS"(1860), WHICH EVERYONE HAD KNOWN ABOUT SINCE 1922. BRODHEAD DECLARED TO ALL THE READERS OF THE "NEW YORK TIMES" THAT I WAS THE SORT OF RESEARCHER WHO MERELY "SURMISED" RATHER THAN MUSTERING DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE CONVINCINGLY. ONLY I IN MY "BLACK HOLE," HE SAID, HAD EVER HEARD OF MELVILLE'S BOOK CALLED "POEMS." I FELT DEFAMED, ESPECIALLY WHEN A CHAIRED PROFESSOR AT COLUMBIA, ANDREW DELBANCO, ECHOED BRODHEAD'S LIES. I SUFFERED IN SILENCE FOR FIVE YEARS BUT NOW I SPEAK OUT.

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  27. Good for you - you get 'em (him).

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  28. 7:46 Anonymous. That was me, Maria (pseudonym) who commented on this having to do with the nature of people in power at Duke. I am aware that this happened to you and we all know what the Duke players were subject to. There's something essentially wrong with leaders who would engage in and support the base, close to murderous act of defamation. It must feel horrible to be a victim of such careless disregard or cruel intent to harm, beneath the veils of casual smiles and Ivy League power. It is an assault and must feel like an assault. I do hope you find ways to make the public private. Safe ways. Ways that bring you peace. You are clearly an honorable person but as you now know the world is full of leaders without your integrity and good will towards people who impede their way. No wonder you have such strong feelings about what was done so cruelly to the innocent lacrosse players. But what was done says much about the perpetrators and almost nothing about the victims.

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  29. Was the book "Poems" by Melville ever found? Why would Broadhead disbelieve that Melville wrote a book called Poems?

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  30. Do you think if the Duke police failed to muster documentary evidence that was convincing, he would then also surmise that they too operated in a black hole?

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  31. I meant to write 'I do hope you find ways to make the private public'. It is hard to maintain eloquence on an iPad with its little keys. It sure is fun to say what I think under the cloak of anonymity, however. Though Hershel Parker is probably correct when he says the Amazon review system would be improved if reviewers were required to use their real names as he did.

    From what I have read and seen, it is hard for the wronged to get validation when the wrongdoers have power and position partially because people don't think past the position the person holds. It is a little different to evaluate people on the basis of what they actually do.

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  32. Is Hershel Parker a Communist?

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  33. I heartily recommend, to all those who have faithfully followed this case and this blog for seven years, to read the book review of "Price of Silence", on Amazon, by Mark Wylie, of Spokane Washington.

    It is the best review written of "Price", by anyone, and I have read them all.

    It is the review that should have been written by The New Yorker; if not, then The Economist; if not, then Salon, etc. See if you do not agree.

    Jim Peterson

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  34. Somewhat off topic but I have been thumbing through my DL books searching for something without success. I recall a woman from the same dorm as Reade and Collin saying that when she heard they had been indicted, she knew it was a farce. Does anyone have a citation for this? Thanks.

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  35. "Does anyone have a citation for this?"

    Is this it?

    "After Nifong had publicly stated that he was going to bring formal charges against some of the lacrosse players, everyone was waiting anxiously to see who the unlucky players would be. Emma and here friends at duke sat around musing about who would be the least likely member of the lacrosse team to commit such a crime. They joked that Nifong would probably indict someone as unlikely as Collin Finnerty because Collin was one of the nicest guys on the team and one of the least likely to hurt anyone. They were shocked and dismayed when they later found out that Finnerty was, in fact, indicted."

    "A Rush to Injustice", by Baydoun and Good, p. 156

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  36. Thank you; that is a good quote as well. Here is one from the NYT's Peter Applebome: "Nona Farahnik, who lived in the same dormitory as Mr. Finnerty and Mr. Seligmann, said, 'When they said it was Reade and Collin, everyone knew it didn’t happen.'" The story appeared on 15 April 2007 (After Duke Prosecution Began to Collapse, Demonizing Continued).

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  37. Jim In San Diego praised the Amazon review of "TPoS" by Mark Wylie of Spokane, WA as "the best review written of 'Price', by anyone. Here's a link to that review.
    Be sure to answer "Was this review helpful to you?"

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  38. So, when does author William D. Cohan get the Chair of (some department)Economics at Duke?
    Big Al

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  39. Mark Wylie's review is far, far better than what appeared in most mainstream news outlets. It makes one wonder what they are getting paid to do.

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  40. Wylie's review was extraordinarily thorough and outstanding. It's not the only review 2 X far better, but would seem to be the best one. I also second Chris Halkides' second sentence. I wonder if it's cluelessness, general incompetence, or agenda.

    I'm coming from a disadvantage, never having been a published author/critic (or even an unpublished one). I must, however, question the role of editors. Do they exist? Or are they limited to spell-checking and sentence structure? On some of the more flattering reviews of "The Price of Silence", did nobody ever say "hey, Mr./Ms. critic, you do know that there is a lot of "available", published data out there which totally contradicts what you're saying and you basically are ignoring it? Maybe naive here but, like I said, I don't know the business.

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  41. KC - time for you to open a Durham-in-Charlottesville blog.

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