Top 32 Countdown, IV

As the blog winds down, I thought it might be worthwhile to recall the most outrageous quotes of the case.

The last three days’ posts featured #32 through #9; today’s takes the countdown from #8 through #1 on the list of most outrageous:

8) "I don’t think I’ve been proven wrong, because . . . I said, I think they’re probably guilty of everything but rape."

--“Journalist” John Feinstein, after the AG’s declaration of actual innocence, discussing Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty, and Dave Evans.

7) “By disclosing pieces of evidence favorable to the defendants, the defense has created an image of a case heading for the rocks. But an examination of the entire 1,850 pages of evidence gathered by the prosecution in the four months after the accusation yields a more ambiguous picture. It shows that while there are big weaknesses in Mr. Nifong’s case, there is also a body of evidence to support his decision to take the matter to a jury.

--Duff Wilson, New York Times, August 25, 2006. Attorney General Roy Cooper himself would later give the lie to these sentences, when he remarked that no credible evidence existed of any crime, much less sufficient evidence to take a case to a jury.

6) “DNA results can often be helpful, but, you know, I’ve been doing this for a long time, and most of the years I’ve been doing this, we didn’t have DNA. We had to deal with sexual assault cases the good old-fashioned way.”

--DA Mike Nifong, at the April 11, 2006 NCCU forum, dismissing the DNA results that his office a mere three weeks previously had promised would exonerate the innocent.

5) “Is this drive to register as putative, enfranchised citizens of the good city of Durham, this drive to impact the Durham political [process], driven by innocence, one wonders—the most widespread mobilization of the Duke campus since the campaign against Nike sweatshop labor. To vote against Mike Nifong. To make the oldest “X,” the sign of the white male franchise, itself overridden with the mark of privilege, oppression, slavery, racism, utter contempt for black and native bodies. [emphasis added] To make that sign in the history of this country, to extend into the presence the deeply troubled past, to make the “X”—whether it is acknowledged as such or not—against women and, more specifically, against black female bodies. All that, one presumes, all that written into the “X” to ensure that the secret is kept secret, that the secret is kept in-house, where it belongs.”

--Group of 88 stalwart Grant Farred, articulating the thesis of his Herald-Sun op-ed, in which he accused all Duke students who registered to vote in Durham of harboring a “secret racism.” Farred recently left Duke for a tenured, full professorship at Cornell. Stated English Department chair Molly Hite, author of Class Porn, “We are very enthusiastic about Professor Farred, whose work everyone in this department has long admired.”

4.) “I think something happened in that bathroom.”

--DA Mike Nifong, asked by Lane Williamson for his theory of the crime, June 2007

3.) “White innocence means black guilt. Men’s innocence means women’s guilt.”

--Group of 88 stalwart Karla Holloway, offering her insights on the lacrosse case. In the fall 2007 semester, Holloway is offering a class at Duke Law School.

2.) “If our students did what is alleged, it is appalling to the worst degree. If they didn’t do it, whatever they did is bad enough.”

--Richard Brodhead, April 20, 2006, to Durham Chamber of Commerce, in his first public appearance after the arrests of Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty. We know now “whatever” Finnerty and Seligmann did: they attended a party they played no role in organizing and they drank some beer.

1.) “I mean, if I were one of those [defense] attorneys, I wouldn’t really want to try a case against me either.”

--“Mike Nifong, following his primary victory, May 2006.

The statement speaks for itself.

Top 32 Countdown, III

As the blog winds down, I thought it might be worthwhile to recall the most outrageous quotes of the case. The countdown will culminate on Friday.

The last two days’ posts featured #32 through #17; today’s takes the countdown from #16 through #9 on the list of most outrageous:

16) “In the moment when the ad came out, I did not hear from one colleague that there was something wrong with the ad.”

-- Statement author Wahneema Lubiano, discussing the origins of the Group of 88’s ad—and unintentionally revealing the groupthink that plagues some quarters of the Duke campus.

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15) “I’m not going to allow Durham’s view in the minds of the world to be a bunch of lacrosse players at Duke raping a black girl from Durham.”

--Mike Nifong, at a candidate’s forum, April 12, 2006. At a similar forum, he added that people should vote for him because he’d rather do what’s right than what would get him elected.

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14) “We are eager for our students to be proved innocent . . . which is all the more reason why we require the legal system to proceed in a fair-minded, even-handed, and speedy fashion.”

--Duke president Richard Brodhead, response to Friends of Duke’s summer 2006 letter, inverting the American system of justice on its head.

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13) “The best course for all concerned is to continue down the current path to trial and, we hope, to justice . . . It would be better for the players to have an opportunity to prove their innocence at trial.”

--Bob Ashley’s Herald-Sun, editorial, Nov. 10, 2006, inverting the American system of justice on its head. After the case ended, Ashley claimed that his paper’s editorials always stressed the presumption of innocence.

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12) “There is no rush to judgment here about the crime—neither the violent racial epithets reported in a 911 call to Durham police, nor the harms to body and soul allegedly perpetrated by white males at 610 Buchanan Boulevard . . . How soon will confidence be restored to our university as a place where minds, souls, and bodies can feel safe from agents, perpetrators, and abettors of white privilege, irresponsibility, debauchery and violence? Surely the answer to the question must come in the form of immediate dismissals of those principally responsible for the horrors of this spring moment at Duke. Coaches of the lacrosse team, the team itself and its players, and any other agents who silenced or lied about the real nature of events at 610 Buchanan on the evening of March 13, 2006.”

--Houston Baker open letter, March 29, 2006. Baker subsequently would be welcomed by Vanderbilt University, which described him as “one of the most wide-ranging intellectuals in America.”

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11) “I bet one or more of the players was, you know, molested or something as a child.”

--Adjunct law professor Wendy Murphy, “CNN Live,” May 3, 2006. Murphy later explained that she viewed her role on cable talk shows not as presenting the truth. “You have to appreciate my role as a pundit is to draw inferences and make arguments on behalf of the side which I'm assigned," she stated. “So of course it's going to sound like I'm arguing in favor of 'guilty.'”

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10) “This episode has touched off angers, fears, resentments, and suspicions that range far beyond this immediate cause. It has done so because the episode has brought to glaring visibility underlying issues that have been of concern on this campus and in this town for some time—issues that are not unique to Duke or Durham but that have been brought to the fore in our midst. They include concerns of women about sexual coercion and assault. They include concerns about the culture of certain student groups that regularly abuse alcohol and the attitudes these groups promote. They include concerns about the survival of the legacy of racism, the most hateful feature American history has produced. Compounding and intensifying these issues of race and gender, they include concerns about the deep structures of inequality in our society—inequalities of wealth, privilege, and opportunity (including educational opportunity), and the attitudes of superiority those inequalities breed. And they include concerns that, whether they intend to or not, universities like Duke participate in this inequality and supply a home for a culture of privilege. The objection of our East Campus neighbors was a reaction to an attitude of arrogant inconsiderateness that reached its peak in the alleged event but that had long preceded it.”

--Richard Brodhead, April 5, 2006, “Letter to the Duke Community.” This document—the president’s last major public statement on the case before the first two arrests—could easily have served as a campaign flyer for Nifong’s primary campaign. In his 2,377 words, he never once mentioned the presumption of innocence; or that the lacrosse captains had voluntarily given statements, DNA, and their e-mail passwords; or that the team members and their attorneys wholly denied all allegations.

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9)

--Det. Ben Himan, recalling Mike Nifong’s reaction after the DA’s initial briefing on the case, when the officers involved relayed to the DA the myriad weaknesses of the case. A few minutes after this meeting, Nifong began the first of his 50-70 media appearances expressing his certainty that a heinous rape had occurred.

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Tomorrow: the countdown concludes, with quotes #8 through #1.

Top 32 Countdown, II

As the blog winds down, I thought it might be worthwhile to recall the most outrageous quotes of the case. The countdown will culminate on Friday.

Yesterday’s post featured #32 through #25; today’s takes the countdown from #24 through #17 on the list of most outrageous:

24) “The season is over, but the paradox lives on in Duke’s lacrosse team, a group of privileged players of fine pedigree entangled in a night that threatens to belie their social standing as human beings. Something happened March 13, when a woman, hired to dance at a private party, alleged that three lacrosse players sexually assaulted her in a bathroom for 30 minutes . . . Players have been forced to give up their DNA, but to the dismay of investigators, none have come forward to reveal an eyewitness account.”

--Selena Roberts’ guilt-presuming New York Times column, March 31, 2006. She has never apologized for, or even acknowledged, her rush to judgment.

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23) “The ad said that we faculty were listening to the anguish of students who felt demeaned by racist and sexist remarks swirling around in the media and on the campus quad in the aftermath of what happened on March 13 in the lacrosse house. The insults, at that time, were rampant. It was as if defending David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann necessitated reverting to pernicious stereotypes about African-Americans, especially poor black women.”

--Group of 88 member Cathy Davidson, January 5, 2007, imagining a world that never existed as she rationalized her decision to sign the rush-to-judgment statement.

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22) “Somebody had an arm around her like this [demonstrating a chokehold], which she then had to struggle with in order to be able to breathe, and it was in the course of that struggle that the fingernails—the artificial fingernails broke off. Now as you can see from my arm, if I were wearing a shirt, a long-sleeved shirt or a Jacket of some sort, even if there were enough force used to press down, to break my skin through the clothing, there might not be any way that anything from my arm could get on to those fingernails.”

--Mike Nifong, on MSNBC, March 31, 2006, with the accompanying visual demonstration.

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21) “I have a board in my office, it’s a, dry-erase board. And, for example, Investigator Himan would say, ‘I need to have someone look at different things, how we can get a hair analysis done.’ And I would put my name next to that. And then he’d say, ‘I need a background done for this person.’ I would assign someone to do that if he wasn’t going to do it. He’d say, ‘I need a court order to get e-mail records,’ put his name next to that, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I had asked him and was under the impression that he was taking photographs of the board, and when we finished that we would clear it. That wasn’t done. And I apologize for that."

--Sgt. Mark Gottlieb, April 19, 2007, explaining how he could have produced a 32-page typewritten report with contemporaneous notes for only one afternoon in late April 2006.

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20) “To suggest [the indicted players] were well-behaved: Hitler never beat his wife either. So what?”

--Adjunct law professor Wendy Murphy, MSNBC, June 5, 2006, dismissing the findings of the Coleman Committee report.

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19) “When police officers arrived at the house with a search warrant on March 16, none of the players would cooperate with the investigation [sic] . . . The allegations of rape bring the students’ arrogant frat-boy culture to a whole new, sickening level. ‘Get a conscience, not a lawyer,’ read [potbangers’] signs waved in front of the house on Sunday. We agree that the alleged crime isn’t the only outrage. It’s also outrageous that not a single person who was in the house felt compelled to step forward and tell the truth about what happened [sic].”

--Herald-Sun, editorial, March 28, 2006. Much like Selena Roberts, the Bob Ashley-led paper managed to get major facts wrong and to celebrate the potbangers’ protests. And much like Roberts, Ashley has not only never acknowledged his rush to judgment but preposterously asserted that the paper's editorials always upheld the presumption of innocence.

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18) One would wonder why one needs an attorney if one was not charged and had not done anything wrong.

--Mike Nifong, explaining his conception of due process to ESPN, March 31, 2006. It’s worth noting, for the record, that Nifong hired attorneys for both his ethics hearing and his criminal contempt trial.

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17) “You know, I don’t want to hear any ifs, and, or buts. These kids have acted disgracefully, just by the fact that not one of them—I don’t want to hear about the code, among buddies and among teams. A crime was committed. There were witnesses to the crime. They need to come forward and say what they saw . . . They won’t, and that’s why I’m saying the hell with them—strip their scholarships.”

--“Journalist” John Feinstein, imagining himself in the role of the Duke president, lecturing the players, March 30, 2006.

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Tomorrow: the countdown continues, with quotes #16 through #9.

Top 32 Countdown, I

As the blog winds down, I thought it might be worthwhile to recall the most outrageous quotes of the case. The countdown will culminate on Friday.

Today’s post features #32 through #25:

32) “Under my leadership, the District Attorney’s office is an institution of unquestioned integrity.”

--Mike Nifong, “Letter to Durham Voters,” fall 2006; in one of the many examples of doublespeak that emanated from the Nifong campaign.

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31) “Burn it down!”

--Nifong citizens committee co-chair Victoria Peterson, outside the lacrosse players’ house, during the New Black Panthers’ visit to Durham. Last week, Peterson was endorsed for City Council by the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People.

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30) “Mr. Rosenberg said he did so because he was concerned with the prevalence of alcohol on campus and bothered by ‘affluent kids violating the law to get exploited women to take their clothes off when they could get as much hookup as they wanted from rich and attractive Duke coeds.’”

--Group of 88 member Alex Rosenberg, explaining why he signed the Group’s statement, as quoted by Eliana Johnson in the New York Sun, October 27, 2006. Rosenberg is currently director of the A.B. Duke Scholarship Program—to which, presumably, some of those “rich and attractive Duke coeds” apply.

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29) “There was phone calls being made between the detective and Nifong to determine if they would want us to do the work and if the price was right and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, back and forth.”

--Dr. Brian Meehan, in his State Bar deposition, explaining how his lab was hired to work on the highest-profile case in Durham history.

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28) “If I publish something like this . . . my voice won’t count for much in my world.”

--Group of 88 member Susan Thorne, explaining why she could not fulfill her commitment to a lacrosse player to publish a statement of regret about signing the Group of 88’s ad—and instead signed the January 2007 “clarifying” statement, whose signatories expressly refused to apologize for the Group of 88’s ad.

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27) “We had to stop those pictures [of the players practicing]. It doesn’t mean that it’s fair, but we had to stop it. It doesn’t necessarily mean I think it was right—it just had to be done.”

--Board of Trustees chairman Bob Steel, explaining to the New Yorker why Duke canceled the 2006 men’s lacrosse season.

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26) “Regardless of what happened inside of 610 N. Buchanan Blvd, the young men were hoping to consume something that they felt that a black woman uniquely possessed. If these young men did in fact rape, sodomize, rob, and beat this young women [sic], it wasn’t simply because she was a women [sic], but because she was a black woman.”

--Group of 88 member Mark Anthony (“thugniggaintellectual”) Neal, “analyzing” the case, April 13, 2006.

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25) “I don’t feel I’m part of the problem. I feel that I have assisted in revealing the problem . . . Durham has some healing to do, and I need to be part of that healing process.”

--DA Mike Nifong, at his 2007 inauguration ceremony, January 2, 2007.

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Tomorrow’s post: #24 through #17.