Updates

Stuart and I have a response to the recent Chronicle letter here.

The letter generated an extraordinarily revealing reply from "clarifying" professor Kerry Haynie:

As a member of the Lacrosse ad hoc Review Committee, I join with Professors Coleman and Kasibhatla in their criticism of the way in which KC Johnson has mischaracterized our committee's report. I have not read the Taylor and Johnson book . . . Our report cannot and should not be seen as a commentary on anything that happened on that now infamous and tragic evening. We neither exonerated nor condemned anybody for anything that was alleged to have happened that night . . . KC and Stuart, as usual, I will not respond to you either.

Haynie suggested that he had read (unidentified) posts on the blog, as well as seen "assertions" by either Stuart or me "in the newspapers" (again unidentified).

Had Prof. Haynie read the book before penning his letter, he would have realized that Stuart and I never even remotely claimed anywhere in the book that the report either "exonerated nor condemned anybody for anything that was alleged to have happened" on "that now infamous and tragic evening." (I have never made such a claim in the blog, nor am I aware of any "newspaper" that has featured anything resembling an "assertion" from either Stuart or me suggesting such a claim.) It's troubling to see Prof. Haynie, a tenured faculty member at one of the nation's leading universities, admit his closed-mindedness: he will not read his critics' work, nor will he respond to them, but he feels safe in publicly condemning them.

Duke alum Caroline Dooley has a strong letter in today's Chronicle as well.

Whoopi Goldberg urges Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to apologize for their presumption of guilt in the case.

Finally, the latest in a long string of great Chronicle editorials, on the civil suit against Durham.

Sun-Times on UPI

"The most compelling true crime book of the year." Read the entire review here.

Reflections on the Civil Suit

[This post is the first of several in the epilogue to the blog, which will appear weekly through the end of the month or November, tying up loose ends related to the case.]

The civil suit motion—more than 160 pages—makes for gripping reading. Since much of it summarizes the misconduct committed by Mike Nifong and his enablers in the Durham Police Department and at DNA Security, Inc., many portions should be familiar to readers of DIW. But the motion also makes several new points that are worth highlighting.

1) Dr. Brian Meehan has a boss, and his name is Richard Clark.

Depositions and testimony from the State Bar’s ethics hearing highlighted the previously obscure fact that Meehan was not the only DSI employee who attended the April 10, April 21, and May 12 meetings. On each occasion, Richard Clark, Meehan’s supervisor and owner of the lab, accompanied the doctor.

The civil suit filing makes clear that Clark is as complicit as Meehan in the lab director’s decision to enter into an intentional agreement with Mike Nifong to withhold exculpatory evidence, by producing a report that did not list all test results, in violation both of North Carolina law and of DSI’s internal protocols.

Even if Meehan were willing to sacrifice his integrity by joining Nifong’s scheme, why did Clark fail to exercise adequate supervision over his employee? Did Clark tell Meehan that he had to follow DSI protocols in producing the May 12 report? Why did Clark—who attended the May 12 meeting, and thus knew that Meehan produced an incomplete report—allow the report to be submitted in the first place? Why did Clark not order Meehan to produce a complete report when defense attorneys raised the issue in their December 13 motion?

Clark’s decision to purchase DSI from Meehan shortly before the lacrosse case erupted looks as if it will go down as a terribly costly investment.

2.) Last week’s “only-in-Durham” award went to . . . Beverly Thompson.

In the N&O, Matt Dees and Joe Neff quoted Thompson giving the city’s spin on the filing: “We understand that the complaint asserts claims against the city and its employees that appear to be based on untested and unproven legal theories.” Dees and Neff dryly continued that the spokesperson added “that she couldn't elaborate on what theories those might be.” [emphasis added]

Only in Durham could a city spokesperson contend that the City Council rejected a settlement on grounds that the city itself either couldn’t or wouldn’t publicly explain. This unwillingness to offer a public explanation for the government’s decision renders hollow a few of the councilors’ recent demagoguery about their great concerns for the interests of Durham taxpayers.

Moreover, Thompson’s assertion is absurd on its face. Many things might be said about the civil suit motion, but it clearly isn’t based on untested or unproved legal theories. Section 1983 filings are the norm in civil suits dealing with police misconduct.

3.) Early failures of leadership are proving costly now.

An astute observer of the case has described the response to events of Durham’s police and political leadership as “La, la, la, la—I can’t hear you.”

Over and over again, when faced with evidence of wrongdoing by Durham police officers or by Mike Nifong, the city’s political and police leadership either looked the other way or (in the case of comments by Patrick Baker, Steve Chalmers, and Lt. Mike Ripberger with the April 4, 2006 lineup) rationalized the wrongdoing.

This behavior was the easiest short-term course—it allowed the DPD and the Durham political leadership to avoid confronting Nifong. Such reticence also ensured that the DPD wouldn’t be a target of the “take-it-to-trial” mantra of Bob Ashley, the NAACP, and anti-lacrosse extremists such as Orin Starn.

But the city’s decision to allow wrongdoers to go unpunished (and, indeed, to go after the one officer who got the case right from the start, Sgt. John Shelton) has exposed it to the civil suit claim that Police Department officials failed to exercise effective supervision.

The lesson: short-term benefits can often lead to long-term harm.

4.) How did Gottlieb get the case?

The civil suit motion focuses on one unexplained aspect of the case: how and under what circumstances did Sgt. Mark Gottlieb—a figure that DPD officials knew had an animus against Duke students—assume control of the investigation? And, having assumed control of the inquiry, why wasn’t Gottlieb effectively supervised, to prevent his known biases from coloring the investigation?

5.) Which of the proposed remedies does the Durham leadership oppose . . . and why?

For instance, given the acknowledged conduct in the lacrosse case, can the city credibly oppose the demand for a court order to ensure that “all eyewitness identification arrays, lineups, and similar procedures conducted by the Durham Police Department, whether formal or informal, and/or of suspects or ‘witnesses,’ conform to the provisions of General Order No. 4077 and be recorded by videotape”?

Or, given the acknowledged conduct in the lacrosse case, can the city credibly oppose the demand for a court order that the Durham Police Department provide proper remedial training to all personnel on “the appropriate chain of command in criminal investigations”; or “the issuance of public statements relating to an open investigation”; or “the conduct of eyewitness identification procedures”; or “the standards for police reports, investigator’s notes, and other reports of investigations, including the timely and truthful preparation of such documents”; or “the standards for probable cause”?

6.) What’s Durham’s defense?

The “la, la, la, la” strategy has one other serious problem: it severely limits the ability of the city’s attorneys to mount an effective defense.

The city, of course, can’t admit that the investigative procedures followed in the lacrosse case are customary for Durham. Yet how else will the city’s attorneys explain away the failure to discipline obvious wrongdoers (such as Addison and Gottlieb) or the acquiescence of the DPD leadership in Nifong’s seizing control of the police investigation?

And, from the other extreme, the city can’t rationalize the errors by admitting that the lacrosse case was an extraordinary one—featuring misconduct of the type never before seen in Durham—since if it does so, such a concession would make another element the plaintiffs’ case.

What approach will Durham select? Perhaps the Beverly Thompson one—mounting a defense on a secret theory that can’t be revealed to the court.

Lawsuit Demands

Here are the demands for the lawsuit. Monday’s “blog epilogue” post will discuss the suit in greater detail.

It is, to put it mildly, highly unfortunate that the city of Durham found these demands to be unacceptable.

The players want a judge to issue an order that:

i. appoints an independent monitor (the “Monitor”), to be determined by the Court, who shall oversee certain activities of the Durham Police Department for a period of ten (10) years, and who shall report to the Court on an annual basis regarding Defendants’ compliance or non-compliance with the terms of the Permanent Injunction;

ii. authorizes the Monitor to establish, review, and enforce all policies applicable to the management of the Durham Police Department;

iii. provides the Monitor with the authority to hire, fire, and promote all Durham Police officials, including the Chief of Police;

iv. establishes an independent citizen Police Review Committee, composed of three members selected by the Court, which shall review and hear publicly complaints of misconduct by Durham residents against Durham Police personnel and make recommendations to the Monitor as to discipline or innocence;

v. orders that all eyewitness identification arrays, lineups, and similar procedures conducted by the Durham Police Department, whether formal or informal, and/or of suspects or “witnesses,” conform to the provisions of General Order No. 4077 and be recorded by videotape;

vi. orders that any reports of DNA or other scientific testing requested by the Durham Police Department or District Attorney’s Office include the results of all testing, and all notes, charts, or raw data generated during such testing, and that a copy of each such report be provided to the Monitor to ensure compliance;

vii. orders that the Durham Police Department provide proper training, based on materials and plans approved by the Monitor, to all current and new personnel (the “Remedial Training”) on the following matters:

1. the appropriate chain of command in criminal investigations;

2. the issuance of public statements relating to an open investigation;

3. the conduct of eyewitness identification procedures;

4. the service of outstanding warrants on witnesses in a criminal investigation or proceeding;

5. prohibiting threats, inducements, or intimidation of witnesses;

6. the standards for police reports, investigator’s notes, and other reports of investigations, including the timely and truthful preparation of such documents;

7. the supervision of private companies engaged to provide scientific testing or other services in connection with a police investigation; and

8. the standards for probable cause;

viii. enjoins the Durham Police Department from issuing any press releases, written statements, posters, flyers, or other materials intended for publication relating to a Durham Police investigation, whether directly or indirectly through an entity in which Durham Police personnel participate (such as Crimestoppers), without first obtaining the approval of the Monitor;

ix. enjoins the Durham Police Department from making any oral public statements relating to a Durham Police investigation, whether directly or indirectly through an entity in which Durham Police personnel participate (such as Crimestoppers), without first obtaining the approval of the Monitor as to the substance of the statement;

warrants on a person known to be a witness in a criminal investigation or criminal proceeding without first obtaining the approval of the Monitor;

xi. enjoins the Durham Police Department from delegating any supervision over a Durham Police investigation to the District Attorney’s Office;

xii. orders the Durham Police Department to implement a policy requiring Durham Police personnel to present exculpatory evidence when testifying before a grand jury.

xiii. enjoins the Durham Police Department from targeting students of Duke University for selective enforcement of the criminal laws, and from refusing to protect the legal and constitutional rights of students of Duke University;

xiv. requires the City of Durham to pay all costs relating to the Monitor, Police Review Committee, and Remedial Training for the duration of the Permanent Injunction; and

xv. enjoins DSI and Meehan from providing any reports of DNA or other scientific testing, or providing any expert testimony, in any court proceeding, whether civil or criminal, for a period of ten (10) years;

b. damages in an amount to be established at trial as compensation for constitutional deprivations; past and future economic loss, physical harm, emotional trauma, loss of privacy, and loss of reputation; loss of education; and expenses associated with defending against the criminal proceedings initiated and sustained by Defendants’ unlawful conduct;

c. damages in an amount to be established at trial to punish Defendants for outrageous conduct pursued out of actual malice that recklessly and callously disregarded and was deliberately indifferent to Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights, to discourage them from engaging in similar conduct in the future, and to deter others similarly situated from engaging in similar misconduct;

d. an award of attorneys’ fees, including attorneys’ fees pursuant to 42 U.S.C. S 1988(b);

e. an award for reasonable and customary costs, expenses, and interest incurred in pursuit of this action; and

f. whatever additional relief the Court may deem proper.

(Semi-)Hiatus

For the last 408 days, this blog has had (at least) a daily post on the lacrosse case. Today’s is the final such post. For the next several weeks, I’ll be doing weekly posts to wrap up some of the themes and events of the blog as new developments (civil suit negotiations, the election) warrant. These posts will appear on Mondays, through October and into November.

Some stats:

The blog had 1,099 posts, totaling 870,364 words. (That number would translate into roughly 2,500 published pages.) These posts generated over 90,000 comments. Some comments were intellectually dubious; a few were vile. Most, however, came from people knowledgeable about the case, and provided insight not only for me but for other readers.

The blog had 3.192 million unique visitors, and 5.755 million hits. Readers came from all 50 states (focused in the Triangle and in the corridor from Washington to New York) and 134 countries, including: Fiji, Anguilla, Cuba, Saint Kitts & Nevitts, Grenada, Guatemala, Bolivia, Paraguay, Antigua and Barbuda, Northern Mariana Islands, Lebanon, Yemen, Qatar, Ghana, Benin, Nigeria, Mali, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Cambodia, Pakistan, Laos, Malawi, Dominican Republic, Luxembourg, Moldova, Bulgaria, Azerbaijan, Kuwait, Ethiopia, Kenya, Senegal, Djibouti, Honduras, Iceland, Malta, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Iran, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Slovenia, Zambia, Vanuatu, Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Netherlands Antilles, Ecuador, Argentina, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Ukraine, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Slovakia, Croatia, Montenegro, Uganda, Kenya, Bahrain, Pakistan, Palau, Taiwan, Cambodia, Nepal, Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Panama, Jamaica, Bahamas, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Iceland, Ireland, Britain, Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, India, Kazakhstan, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Vietnam, China, South Korea, Japan, South Africa, Aruba, Dominica, Venezuela, Morocco, Lithuania, Nepal, Cote D’Ivoire, Zimbabwe, and Gambia.

I first noticed this case because of the Group of 88’s ad. Published on April 6, 2006, it unequivocally declared that something happened to Crystal Mangum and publicly expressed thanks to protesters who had carried “castrate” banners and blanketed the campus with “wanted” posters. Such a document betrayed the signatories’ duties as professors to defend due process and seek the dispassionate evaluation of evidence. My subsequent discovery that none of the departments listed on the ad as endorsing its contents actually voted to do so, a basic violation of academic protocol, only heightened the impropriety of the statement.

Because I was following the case more closely than I might otherwise have been, I read the entire Coleman Committee report when it was published, on May 1, 2006. The document demolished the caricature of the lacrosse players so gleefully provided by elements in the media and activist faculty. It was also clear by that date that—even if a rape occurred—Mike Nifong had indicted a demonstrably innocent person, since Reade Seligmann was videotaped someplace else at the time of the alleged “crime.”

I was startled to see that relatively few people seemed to care that Seligmann’s indictment flowed from Nifong ordering the police to run a lineup that violated their own procedures. Indeed, for months, reputable figures suggested that Nifong must have something in reserve, as if a veteran prosecutor would have chosen to massively violate procedures if he actually had a case.

The situation, as we know now, was much worse than anyone could have known: like Seligmann, Collin Finnerty had unimpeachable electronic evidence that he was not at the party at the only time the “crime” could have occurred. Finnerty’s attorney, Wade Smith, kept this information quiet, fearful that releasing it would prompt Nifong to try and change the timeline—as, indeed, the ex-DA tried to do in response to Seligmann’s alibi.

That such a procedural monstrosity lasted for as long as it did is horrifying. Even more horrifying, however, is that it occurred with the implicit and sometimes explicit support of the institutions that we think of as defenders of civil liberties—elements in the media, civil rights groups, and academics. By this stage, few should be surprised at the continued refusal to apologize of most in the Group of 88 (and other anti-lacrosse extremists, such as Orin Starn or Peter Wood): they staked their reputations on their performance in this case, and were found wanting. Duke alums and trustees should take account of their behavior, and also the Brodhead administration’s unwillingness to confront the faculty extremists in its midst.

Similarly, newspapers such as the New York Times and Durham Herald-Sun appeared to view it as their responsibility to prop up Nifong’s case rather the traditional journalistic goal of exposing governmental misconduct. And the North Carolina NAACP repudiated the legacy of Thurgood Marshall as it functioned as an organization devoted to little more than race-baiting.

As for the blog itself: it was more work than I had expected. I also failed to anticipate the unwillingness of some—especially in the media and at Duke—to alter course even when confronted with facts of the case. Indeed, the reverse occurred: people like Group of 88’er Cathy Davidson, hardly the most extreme member of the Group, invented a reality that never existed to rationalize both the ad and the activist faculty’s dubious behavior.

I am grateful to those who spoke to me, on or off the record, to better my understanding of Durham politics, or conditions at Duke, or legal matters, or the proper role of a SANE nurse. These sources improved my writing and helped me avoid many errors. All remaining errors, of course, were my responsibility.

Over the course of the blog, I repeatedly requested comment from Mike Nifong and from those Durham Police officers (Mark Gottlieb, David Addison) whose behavior in the case was dubious. None ever replied. At Duke, however, John Burness always answered my questions, while Dean Sue Wasiolek and Group of 88 member Lee Baker sometimes did so, even though each doubtless understood that my perspective on the case was strongly critical of the Group and increasingly critical of the administration. I am grateful to them for the professionalism with which they treated me.

Finally, I would like to thank all who read the blog over the course of the past 18 months.

The first of the “blog epilogue” posts will appear on Monday, and I hope that readers will continue to drop by from time to time.

JinC on Starn

In light of the re-emergence of anti-lacrosse extremist Orin Starn, this post by John in Carolina is worth reading. JinC noted that in an N&O op-ed, Starn "misrepresented what Coach K said and it’s very hard" to see how the professor's "misrepresentation could be anything other than deliberate."

I agree, and second JinC's call for an apology by Starn, with a request for retraction.

Apologies

A reader asked me to list the apologies by the lacrosse players, in light of the disturbing Holsti letter:

1) March 24, 2006: the captains apologized to Executive Vice President Tallman Trask, AD Joe Alleva, and Associate AD Chris Kennedy.

2) March 28, 2006: the captains apologized to President Brodhead.

3) March 28, 2006: the captains apologized in a public statement, posted on the Duke website.

4) May 3, 2006: Ryan McFadyen apologized to the team and to President Brodhead for his e-mail.

5) October 15, 2006: Dave Evans apologized in his interview with Ed Bradley, 60 Minutes.

Despite the claims of Prof. Holsti, it would be hard to imagine a spring break party whose organizers have apologized more often.

Holsti Letter, Munger Response

A most unfortunate letter in today's Chronicle from Political Science professor Ole Holsti (a man whose scholarship I very much respect), demanding that the lacrosse players apologize for the party (when, of course, the captains already have, and repeatedly so), criticizing the parents of all the lacrosse players, and playing down the administration's need to apologize. Coming on the heels of Orin Starn's screed in yesterday's H-S, the letter undoubtedly raises concerns about the faculty's willingness to embrace President Brodhead's apology.

I e-mailed Prof. Holsti to ask if he was aware that the captains had apologized on no less than five occasions for the party. He responded, en toto, "Many thanks for your interest." One wonders, also, for what, say, Brad Ross' parents should apologize--for teaching him how to drive, since he spent the entire evening of the party in Raleigh?

The letter triggered an almost immediate response from PoliSci chairman Michael Munger, posted on his blog and to appear in tomorrow's Chronicle. I wholeheartedly endorse Munger's response, and hope that as people read it, they remember that not all Duke faculty speak with one voice on the lacrosse affair.

To the Editor:

I write to disagree with the view of my good friend and colleague, Dr. Ole Holsti, that the lacrosse players should now apologize.

Dr. Holsti criticizes "the parents of the lacrosse players." The "lacrosse players" are not a homogeneous group; they are not equally blameworthy for the party. Some attended, some left in disgust, and some were never there.

Further, the organizers of the party have apologized, in several different forums. These heartfelt apologies came immediately after the events being apologized for. Whether the events at the party required an apology is moot; those responsible have apologized, and the entire team had its season cancelled. Surely that is enough, more than enough, apology and punishment.

Finally, I am not so sure that President Brodhead's apology went "beyond what was necessary," as Dr. Holsti claimed. I do know that a lot of time passed between the events and the administration apology.

Nonetheless, I would hope that the players, and parents, accept Dr. Brodhead's apology in the sincere spirit in which it was offered, and without qualification.

Mike Munger, Chair
Department of Political Science
Duke University

Connect the Dots

The Durham City Council is scheduled to meet today to consider the proposed civil suit settlement--reportedly $30 million, plus adoption of a host of procedural reforms to ensure the sort of abuses that occurred in the lacrosse case never recur in Durham. As they do so, they might reflect on what exactly transpired between Mike Nifong and Durham employees:

March 24-March 26: In his capacity as official spokesperson of the DPD, Cpl. David Addison made a series of public statements riddled with false assertions about the case. Addison stated, among other things, “You are looking at one victim brutally raped. If that was someone else’s daughter, child, I don’t think 46 (tests) would be a large enough number to figure out exactly who did it”; “Addison said police approached the lacrosse team with the five-page search warrant on March 16, but that all of the members refused to cooperate with the investigation”; There is “really, really strong physical evidence”; and “We’re not saying that all 46 were involved. But we do know that some of the players inside that house on that evening knew what transpired and we need them to come forward.”

March 27: Mike Nifong was briefed by DPD officers Ben Himan and Mark Gottlieb on the holes in the case. He concluded, “You know, we’re fucked.” He then began his own pre-primary campaign of slanderous remarks. No one from the Police Department ever corrected even one false statement that Nifong made.

March 28: Ben Himan met with accuser Crystal Mangum. He never produced a statement about what transpired at the meeting.

March 28: Police Department spokesperson Kammie Michael e-mailed H-S reporter Brianne Dopart and falsely stated that police not only did not know the identity of the first 911 caller from the night of the party, but that police were certain the call did not come from Kim Roberts.

Michael’s false assertion, acting in her official capacity as the spokesperson for a Durham government entity, left in place the public impression that the lacrosse players had yelled racial slurs at two innocent black passersby on the night of the party. [This item has not previously been publicly reported, but it’s in UPI.]

In fact, Roberts had told police on March 14 that she made the call, and that she had lied in the call; she reiterated both points in her March 22 statement. Michael has never explained why she provided the public with false information.

March 29: Mayor Bell, City Manager Baker, and Police Chief Chalmers met with Himan. Bell urged the police to wrap up the investigation quickly, because, he later said, he feared racial unrest in Durham. This unrest, of course, had been fueled in large part by the false statements of Addison, Michael, and Nifong, each of whom acted in their official capacities when making these statements. (Neither Michael nor Addison has, to my knowledge, been disciplined for making false statement.) In public, Bell had been downplaying all talk of racial unrest, suggesting that it was a figment of the national media.

In an interview yesterday with Ray Gronberg of the Herald-Sun, Bell claimed that he did not pressure police to make arrests and do so quickly: “I felt it was important to get some resolution relative to the investigation, but I didn’t ask them to forget about thoroughness in doing it.” It is not hard to believe, however, that police officers could have construed his remarks as pressure to make arrests quickly.

Reflecting in May 2006 on this and other late March/early April meetings, City Manager Baker asserted to the N&O, “I’ve had a lot of conversations with the investigators in this case and with officials at Duke, and at no time did anyone indicate [Crystal Mangum] changed her story. If that were true, I’m sure someone would have mentioned it to me.” In fact, Mangum never told the same story twice, and therefore changed her story each time she spoke to an officer. Baker has never explained his rationale for providing the public with false information.

On the same day, ironically, Baker and Bell gave WRAL a completely different version of events, admitting that they were told that at least one officer (presumably Sgt. Shelton) believed Mangum lied. Their reaction? Outrage at Shelton’s behavior, coupled with a request that Police Chief Chalmers investigate the information. Linwood Wilson would later assert that he conducted an internal affairs inquiry into Shelton’s conduct.

March 29: Nifong learned from the SBI lab that there were no matches to any lacrosse players. It is unclear when he and Officers Himan and Gottlieb communicated this information to Bell, Baker, and Chalmers. Baker subsequently told the N&O that Chalmers was exercising vigilant oversight: “I know he always has his Blackberry with him and he gets regular updates about the case.”

March 31: Fresh from his March 29 meeting, Himan, joined by Mark Gottlieb, heard Nifong’s demand to run a third lineup, this one violating city policies (confined to suspects; telling Mangum that it was confined to suspects; letting Gottlieb, someone involved in the inquiry, run the lineup). Senior officers in the DPD did not protest Nifong’s move.

March 31: Appearing on MSNBC, Nifong personally demonstrated the manner in which Mangum was “choked” during the “crime.”

March 31: Bell made a donation to Nifong's election campaign.

April 4: The procedurally improper lineup occurred, yielding the only evidence used to indict Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty. Among the other items from the array was Mangum’s recollection of seeing Brad Ross chatting with Kim Roberts outside the house. But Ross was in Raleigh that night—and his attorneys had provided police with unimpeachable evidence of the fact. Nifong and the police ignored the information of Mangum’s unreliability.

City Manager Baker later told the N&O, “I met with the investigators, and I am satisfied we followed every applicable policy.”

Later that spring, Chalmers, Nifong, and Deputy Police Chief Ron Hodge would meet with Baker: all would agree with him that no procedural problems existed with the lineup. Baker later rationalized that the lineup was proper because not all the lacrosse players were suspects on April 4: “That you’re a suspect in the beginning of an investigation for even one day doesn’t mean you’re going to be a suspect in a week or two weeks.” Neither he nor anyone else has ever explained which lacrosse players were not suspects as of 4-4-2006, or how police arrived at that conclusion.

April 5: At City Manager Baker’s request, Gottlieb presented him with a timeline of the investigation until that date. Baker said he wanted the timeline to keep the City Council informed of what occurred.

April 6: Baker withheld the document from the City Council at its regularly scheduled meeting. Yesterday, he told the N&O he did so “because his focus at the April 6, 2006 council meeting was the first seven to 10 days of the investigation.”

At the City Council meeting, according to H-S reporter Ray Gronberg’s article the following day, Baker “told the council the Police Department is following its standard procedures for investigating rape cases.” At this point, of course, Baker already had been informed, by his own admission, of the procedurally flawed lineup.

At the meeting, Council member Diane Catotti termed Mangum's allegations “both appalling and horrific.” Catotti later would go out of her way to frustrate any independent inquiry of the DPD's misconduct in the case.

April 10: Nifong, Gottlieb, and Himan met with Dr. Brian Meehan, who told them that not only were there no DNA matches to any lacrosse players, but that Mangum’s rape kit yielded matches to at least four unidentified males. This information was withheld from the public until December 15, 2006.

April 11: Hodge informed MSNBC that “I don’t think we would be here if it wasn’t (a strong case).” Hodge has never revealed the basis for his assertion.

The new elements in this timeline (in bold) came from just one document. Can you imagine what will spill out if the city is forced to enter into the discovery process in a civil suit? And what more evidence would federal investigators need of a conspiracy to deny civil rights?

Orin Starn, Researcher

The anti-lacrosse extremist, from an op-ed in today's H-S:

"I stopped reading the blogs many months ago."

"By speaking only of his own supposed mistakes together with a swipe at 'ill-judged and divisive' faculty comments, [Brodhead] left unchallenged the inaccurate, sanctimonious, pseudo-objective blog-driven framing of the lacrosse case that by force of repetition seems to have metamorphosed into the truth of what actually happened."

It's good to see that Orin Starn admitted that it has been "many months" since he even looked at the subject of his hyperbolic attacks today. Is he that cavalier before making assertions in the classroom, or in his research?

Anti-Lacrosse Extremist: No Apologies

Anti-lacrosse extremist Orin Starn took to the pages of today's H-S to proclaim that "there was no need for Brodhead to apologize in remarks last Saturday at Duke Law School."

There were, of course, villains in the case. Who were they? The lacrosse players, whose party "was shameful in the first place. We wouldn't be wasting so much time and energy if the lacrosse players had shown some semblance of good judgment."

"Bloggers and our new lacrosse book authors have stirred up still more trouble with their myopic, mean-spirited, caricatured story line" as they have created an "inaccurate, sanctimonious, pseudo-objective blog-driven framing of the lacrosse case."

And, oh, by the way, "a a few faculty" might have rushed to judgment. Who were these professors? Starn doesn't say.

Why does Starn feel no need to apologize? "I discovered after the case broke that one wrongfully accused student, Reade Seligmann, had been in one of my classes. I wrote him early on to express my concerns about the allegations and offer support."

To begin with, Starn "discovered" this fact not because he actually knew the students that he himself taught, but because I mentioned the fact in a blog posting and e-mailed him to ask him about his experiences with Seligmann. I've also seen the e-mail that Starn wrote his wrongfully accused student, saying how badly he felt and offering support.

A few weeks later, the anti-lacrosse extremist followed up that e-mail with a Herald-Sun op-ed that read as if it scripted by Nifong's pr staff. After mildly criticizing the DA for possible shortcomings in his approach to the case, Starn advanced his basic arguments: (1) the case needed to go to trial regardless of Nifong's massive procedural improprieties, since “most Durhamites want to hear all the evidence before passing judgment;” and (2) that he would be “vigilant in ensuring that both [the players] and their accuser receive fair treatment from the justice system,” thereby creating the spectacle of a tenured professor conflating the rights of an accuser in the “justice system” with those of defendants. (In his op-ed today, Starn implied that he's abandoned his commitment to such vigilance, at least about protecting the falsely accused players' rights--he criticized the proposed civil suit settlement with the city.)

In both his fall op-ed and his production today, "Supporter Starn" offered his strongest criticism of . . . the party and the lacrosse team's drinking (without mentioning even one positive item from the Coleman Committee report). But “none of this,” Starn hastened to add last fall, “means that the three indicted lacrosse players are guilty.” Indeed not. He was just relaying the information as part of his promise to show Reade Seligmann his full support.

Civil Suit Preview

Liestoppers has a full rundown on a just-released police document--the Gottlieb "time-line" of early April 2006. It documents far more extensive involvement in the case than we previously had known by the Durham political leadership. In short, it's a preview of the type of document likely to emerge in any civil-suit discovery--one more reason the city has no choice but to settle.

(Some) Good Things Did Happen in Durham

As the daily version of the blog comes to a close, it seemed appropriate to focus on the better aspects of the case—the people who did not succumb to the rush to judgment atmosphere, who avoided what President Richard Brodhead has termed “ill-judged” and “divisive” actions, and who distinguished themselves for their behavior during the course of the case.

Jim Coleman. The Duke law professor chaired a fair inquiry into the lacrosse team’s behavior—at a time when it’s easy to imagine a less judicial figure yielding to the pressures of the moment and presenting the wholly negative image of the lacrosse players the Group of 88 appeared to believe. Indeed, the Coleman Committee report should have shamed those who blindly accepted the caricatures of the team offered in late March and April 2006. Coleman then pivoted from his work with the lacrosse committee to become the most prominent local critic of Mike Nifong—a voice of moral clarity until Nifong’s ultimate disbarment.

In recent months, Coleman has repeatedly said that people should not view his performance as heroic. He was, he’s noted, only taking the same positions he had supported for years, in cases that attracted little if any notice. But that, of course, is the point: in a case where many abandoned long-held principles for what they perceived as short-term gain, Coleman upheld his ideals, and presented a model of how academics should behave in a crisis.

Lane Williamson. For better or worse, for 2006 and into early 2007, Mike Nifong was the national face of North Carolina justice. Williamson’s extraordinary performance in the Nifong ethics hearing gave the nation a far more positive image of justice in the Tarheel State. Alternatively witty, passionate, and brilliant, Williamson ran an efficient and no-nonsense hearing—one that exposed for the nation the depth of Nifong’s misconduct.

For a sense of Williamson’s rhetorical power, the clip below remains one of the best of the case.

Joe Neff and the N&O news staff. N&O journalists followed the facts—and though the paper’s first few articles presumed guilt, the paper quickly reversed itself and published more exposés on the case than the rest of the print media combined. More so than other publication, the N&O explained—in terms the average reader could easily understand—how Nifong’s flawed procedures yielded flawed results.

Aaron Beard. Beginning the case with few (if any) contacts among either the prosecution or the defense, Beard distinguished himself through his consistently fair reporting. Someone who followed the case solely through the slanted articles of the New York Times would have been stunned at (a) the exoneration; and then (b) Nifong’s disbarment. Those who read about the case through the AP, on the other hand, would have received a wholly accurate account of events in Durham, spiced up by Beard’s frequent scoops.

Jason Whitlock. In a case where too many sports reporters followed the lead of John Feinstein and Selena Roberts, offering fact-free, borderline-slanderous articles and interviews, Whitlock saw through Nifong’s misconduct almost from the start, and recognized as early as April 2006 the scope of the injustice in this case.

Kerstin Kimel. It would have been easy for Kimel to adopt the “holier-than-thou” approach so common on the Duke campus in spring 2006. Instead, in the weeks after Mike Pressler’s firing, she functioned as de facto coach/counselor to the men’s team as well as her own. It would be impossible to overstate her significance in helping the players get through the difficult April and May 2006. For her efforts, Kimel saw her own team viciously smeared by the national press after they wore armbands sympathizing with their fellow students who were targeted by Nifong. To date, no columnist who attacked the women’s team has offered even a half-hearted apology.

Steve Baldwin, Michael Gustafson, Michael Munger, and the Economics professors. This case offered a glimpse into the ugly side of contemporary academia—the groupthink mentality around “diversity” and race/class/gender issues, as well as the intolerance of those who dissent from the status quo. Baldwin, Gustafson, and Munger spoke up even though they knew they would absorb personal attacks for doing so. The Economics professors’ public letter showed the world that the Group of 88 no longer spoke for all Duke faculty. Their willingness to confront the extremists in their own midst took courage and deserves the warmest of praise.

Jason Trumpbour. As we’ve seen through the Duke Magazine coverage and the alumni mailings, the administration carefully managed what type of information officially reached the alumni on the case. Trumpbour’s group, Friends of Duke, formed an alternative voice for alumni frustrated with Brodhead’s refusal to confront Nifong’s misconduct. The items for which the president apologized last Saturday were all points raised in summer 2006 by FODU.

Jackie Brown and Beth Brewer. The lacrosse players or their families had no power base in Durham. It would have been easy, therefore, for local Durham residents to remain silent in face of Nifong’s misconduct, lest they alienate Nifong’s myriad allies. Brown and Brewer, on the other hand, kept the political pressure on Nifong through the Recall Nifong/Vote Cheek effort. Their work was vindicated when Nifong was disbarred.

Duke Students for an Ethical Durham. Professors are supposed to rejoice when our students work through the system to achieve change. The DSED students saw their colleagues being mistreated by local authorities and adopted a tactic pioneered by the civil rights movement—registering voters—to correct the problem. For their efforts, they were accused of “secret racism” by one Duke professor and had one of their two major registration drives suppressed by a Duke official. But, like Brown and Brewer, they kept the pressure on Nifong, denying him a majority of the popular vote in the November election.

Elliot Wolf and the Duke Student Government. A major theme of the case (depressing from one angle, encouraging from another) is how student organizations responded more appropriately to events in Durham than did their elders. Wolf and the DSG took exactly the right approach to the case—avoiding a rush to judgment, and focusing instead on remedying the procedural problems for all Duke students that the case revealed.

Chronicle reporters, editors, and op-ed writers. At last weekend’s conference, Chronicle reporter Emily Rotberg reminded people that the newspaper’s reporters are students first and journalists second—they all have the extensive academic commitments of every Duke student. Even without that caveat, the Chronicle performed remarkably in this case—on-target articles, great op-ed columns, incisive editorials. And no discussion of the Chronicle could be complete without a reference to the incomparable Kristin Butler, whose op-eds were by far the best of any in the country on the case.

The skill of the defense team and the fortitude of the falsely accused players and their families goes without saying. In her 60 Minutes interview, Rae Evans noted that Nifong had targeted the wrong families. Indeed he did.

Reflections on the Law School Conference, II

Though President Brodhead’s apology attracted the most attention at the Law School’s Court of Public Opinion conference, several other presenters offered insightful case-related comments as well.

Paul Haagen. For me—and for others coming into the case from outside of Duke—the introduction to Haagen was not a welcome one: his “helmet sports” remark from the deeply flawed N&O March 25 article.

Yet as I learned more about the case, it became clear that Haagen’s role was almost wholly a positive one. As chairman of the Academic Council, Haagen ensured Jim Coleman’s appointment as chairman of the committee that investigated the lacrosse players’ behavior. He also promoted one of the few unequivocally good ideas to come out of the whole affair—the faculty athletics associate program.

That his successor, Paula McClain, said that (unnamed) colleagues were “aghast” that Haagen’s idea would even be considered gives a sense of what might have occurred had the Academic Council been under less inspired leadership. As Sports Law Blog tartly observed, “Apparently, Professor McClain—who is co-director of Duke’s Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in the Social Sciences—believes that in the aftermath of the Duke lacrosse scandal, the University needs to distance itself from its sports teams, rather than embrace them.”

At the law school conference, Haagen offered a detailed explanation of his approach to the case:

1) He believed (correctly) that Duke faculty needed to avoid specific comments on the criminal case.

2) He did everything he could to have the response conform to existing procedures and to create a common base of information to the shifting set of questions about the team. The Coleman Committee resulted from these goals.

3) He wanted to minimize the sense of isolation among Duke athletes and their coaches, and he personally reached out to facilitate exchanges.

4) He hoped to minimize tensions among the faculty—no easy task when Steve Baldwin, the first professor to criticize the Group of 88, was greeted with an implicit call for violence from one colleague and an intellectually dubious claim of racism by another.

In the end, Haagen hailed the “remarkable” performance of Duke coaches—people who felt “assaulted,” but didn’t become bitter and showed impressive self-restraint. And he raised a question that should form an important lesson of the case: when professors have an opportunity to raise their issues, how aggressively should they exploit that, and what are their other responsibilities? Haagen noted that his “deepest concern was that a number of people didn’t ask very seriously what the tradeoffs were when they used an opportunity to push an issue.”

Sergio Quintana. Quintana, a reporter for NBC17,* recalled that when the crisis began, he spoke to some Duke students who felt that the University was throwing the players under the bus. These students, however, were afraid to speak on camera, lest they get in trouble.

Indeed, if any "listening" ad with anonymous student quotes needed to appear in spring 2006, it was from these students, who understandably feared speaking out. With one grade-retaliation lawsuit so powerful that Duke settled out of court with a public announcement that the grade was changed; and with at least five cases of unprofessional classroom behavior documented in UPI, the students’ concerns seemed reasonable.

Such fear of retaliation wasn’t confined to the student body, of course. Take the case of History professor and Group of 88 member Susan Thorne. Last winter, Thorne told a lacrosse player (in writing) that she understood the harm that the Group’s statement caused, and planned to pen a public essay expressing her regret for the statement. Instead, a few weeks later, she signed the “clarifying” document, whose signatories reaffirmed the Group statement and announced that they would not apologize.

When asked why she had gone back on her word and not published her apology, Thorne coldly replied that “If I publish something like this . . . my voice won’t count for much in my world.”

Quintana’s recollections and Thorne’s behavior serve as reasons why the “Campus Culture Initiative” seemed so misguided. What accounts for a faculty culture where a tenured professor like Thorne believes that she has to betray her own students to maintain influence; or where a host of professors considered it proper to use class time to denounce the lacrosse team?

Those questions about campus culture few, if any, figures in the administration have proved willing to address, even as the CCI focused on the race/class/gender ideological triumvirate so appealing to the Group of 88.

Michael Cassidy. Another clearly good thing to come from the lacrosse case: Duke’s commitment of $1.25 million over five years to expand the Law School’s Wrongful Convictions Clinic and Innocence Project.

Cassidy, a former Boston prosecutor who now teaches at BC Law School, represented a quite different approach to confronting prosecutorial irresponsibility. Cassidy criticized the DHC ruling on Mike Nifong’s unethical comments, contending that Nifong—as a candidate for election—should have had wide latitude to speak out. Yet the comments Cassidy referenced (a) announced that a crime occurred or (b) denounced the character of people Nifong’s office had publicly identified as suspects.

Finally, the institutional response panel provided a useful reminder—while Duke might have had to base its decisions in this case on incomplete information, that condition applies to all crises.

[Note: I am traveling to Boston today for a talk at the Harvard Club; comment moderation, therefore, will be sporadic at best.]

*--corrected

Chronicle on Brodhead Apology

As expected, the Chronicle offers first-rate, comprehensive coverage of the Brodhead apology--with an article, an editorial, and a news analysis of the event.

Reflections on the Law School Conference, I

Although his remarks were brief, President Brodhead effectively apologized for five different elements of his administration’s conduct over the past 18 months.

1.) The treatment of the 47 lacrosse players and their families.

As Brodhead noted, “Given the complexities of the case, getting this communication right would never have been easy.” Yet, as he also conceded, “We did not get it right, causing the families to feel abandoned when they most needed support.”

In retrospect, the president clearly erred when he refused to meet with the lacrosse parents on March 25 (the day he canceled the Georgetown game)—especially since he did meet shortly thereafter with a host of campus or Durham groups that were hostile to the team.

The administration also erred in other ways on this front. For instance, despite the extraordinary nature of the crisis that engulfed the team, and despite the seeming good intentions on the matter of Dean Sue Wasiolek, Larry Moneta’s student life apparatus did nothing to reach out to the lacrosse players at any point in the spring of 2006. The (unsurprising) impression: that the administration cared little about their fate.

2.) The activist faculty’s statements and actions.

As Brodhead noted, “Some of those who were quick to speak as if the charges were true were on this campus, and some faculty made statements that were ill-judged and divisive.”

In one respect, the president was only conceding the obvious with these words. (How could the Group of 88’s statement not be considered “ill-judged,” or the remarks of people like Grant Farred or Peter Wood not be considered “divisive”?) That said, Brodhead had shown an unwillingness to recognize the problem until Saturday.

3.) The activist faculty’s presumptiveness in speaking for the institution.

As Brodhead noted, “The public as well as the accused students and their families could have thought that those [statements] were expressions of the university as a whole. They were not, and we could have done more to underscore that.”

In fact, Duke did almost nothing on this score—the administration’s sole action was Peter Lange’s powerful response to Houston Baker’s racist screed of March 29, 2006. Since the Group of 88’s ad (falsely) claimed the formal endorsement of five academic departments, it’s not difficult to understand why many (even on campus) might have assumed that the Group spoke formally for the institution.

4.) The failure to defend the presumption of innocence.

As Brodhead noted, “By deferring to the criminal justice system to the extent we did and not repeating the need for the presumption of innocence equally vigorously at all the key moments, we may have helped create the impression that we did not care about our students.”

In one respect, the president was only conceding the obvious with these words: whatever Brodhead’s intentions, he did not defend the presumption of innocence—at all—in his key statements from April 2006. That said, Brodhead had shown an unwillingness to concede this fact until Saturday, and his accepting the truth is a positive step.

5.) The failure to defend due process.

Brodhead had an opportunity to avoid this problem in July 2006, when the Friends of Duke open letter explicitly asked him to comment not on the players’ guilt or innocence, but to demand that they be treated just like any other Durham resident. I’m sure if he could do things over, Brodhead would have responded to the FODU letter differently.

Brodhead’s apology contained one clear absence: he didn’t apologize for his administration’s failure to investigate the credible spring 2006 reports that several several arts and sciences professors had behaved inappropriately toward lacrosse players in their classes. On that front, however, the president probably was restrained from speaking out by University counsel.

---------

What long-term effect will the president’s statement have? Brodhead had three targets for his remarks.

1.) The trustees. Board deliberations are, obviously, private; and no Trustee except Bob Steel has spoken out one way or the other regarding Brodhead. But several Trustees attended the speech, and it’s hard to believe that the Trustees aren’t thinking hard about what the administration did right and wrong.

2.) The 2006 lacrosse players and their families. No family members commented publicly on Brodhead’s speech. But given the president’s apologetic sentiments, it’s hard to believe that the remarks were not a precursor to a settlement with the families of the unindicted players.

3.) Duke alums and students. Brodhead’s fate, like that of any major university president, will ultimately be decided by alumni support (and donations). Jay Bilas, who last week became the highest-profile Brodhead critic among Duke alums, told the N&O that Brodhead’s apology was appropriate but “woefully late . . . The confidence in his ability to lead has been eroded. While Dick Brodhead is a terrific person and would make a wonderful head of the English department, he has demonstrated his ineffectiveness and his inability to lead, especially in a crisis.”

The question now is whether Brodhead will demonstrate effectiveness and an ability to lead in implementing the principles laid out in his apology.

For instance, he’s admitted that members of his faculty made “ill-judged and divisive” statements about their own school’s students. It would seem obvious, therefore, that the administration needs to ask some hard questions about why so many Duke professors so readily rushed to judgment.

Have the staffing patterns in many humanities and some social sciences departments made these departments unusually susceptible to the shortcomings of groupthink? What concrete steps will the administration take to remedy the situation, to ensure that Duke’s faculty in future, if not in the past, is staffed by professors who don’t tend toward divisiveness, and who exercise better judgment?

Students and alumni should expect answers to such questions as the University moves forward from Brodhead’s remarks; and hopefully, given the tenor of his statement, Brodhead will be equipped to supply the appropriate responses.

More Times Whitewashing

Here's a sentence from Aaron Beard's AP article from yesterday:

But even as Nifong won indictments against players Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and Dave Evans, it became clear the allegations had no merit.

The sentence initially appeared in that form in the Times. But then the sentence was modified, to the below:

But even as Mr. Nifong won indictments against the players, Reade W. Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David F. Evans, there was growing skepticism over the charges.

Perhaps the Times decided it needed to change Beard's words, since they contradicted the paper's own, widely discredited, reporting on the case?

Brodhead Remarks: Full Text

Given its significance, it seemed worth re-posting the remarks, which included an apology to the 47 lacrosse families along with the president's first acknowledgment of the inappropriateness of the Group of 88's statement.

This conference is not just about the Duke lacrosse case. It is about a kind of event that has taken on a central place in American culture: the legal case that creates a national community of attention, the case the public consumes every “fact” of with an endless appetite for more. Cases like these typically combine scandal, celebrity, and highly combustible social issues, race and sex perhaps chief among them. And having become one of America’s principal forms of shared public life, these cases highlight crucial problems of our culture -- problems of achieving justice in a media-saturated society, problems of fundamental fairness to individuals, and problems in the way the American public is informed and misinformed about the world we live in.

The Duke community lived through a classic example of such a case. When a case like this is over, it’s tempting to think that the facts so clearly established at the end of the day must have been equally clear throughout the process. This was not the case. When the accusations were made, our students said emphatically that they were innocent. On the other hand, the district attorney made a series of public statements expressing absolute confidence that a crime had occurred and that the students were guilty of criminal charges. These starkly opposite versions of the truth created deep uncertainty about what had happened.

Added to this, the local and national media began weeks of highly sensational coverage, creating an air of instant, uncritical certainty that fed on itself in a remarkable way, with each day providing new “revelations” that became known around the world, confirming and re-confirming public assurance that an outrage had occurred.

Given the uncertainty at the heart of the case and given the tides of passionate prejudgment the DA’s comments and media accounts touched off, I staked out a position on behalf of the university that contained three principles. First, the type of crime that had been alleged had no place in our community. Second, the presumption of innocence is fundamental to our legal system, and our students were entitled to that presumption. And third, this whole matter had to be entrusted to the criminal justice system for its resolution.

As president, I had responsibility for the statements the university made and the actions the university took in a virtually unprecedented situation, and I take responsibility for them now. But I didn’t come here to retell the story or explain the logic of our acts. We are now in the aftermath of this extraordinary case, and the aftermath, we have to hope, is a time for learning. Having spent my life in the cause of teaching and learning, I am not at all unwilling to learn lessons of my own. I am happy for this chance to share some of those lessons.

First and foremost, I regret our failure to reach out to the lacrosse players and their families in this time of extraordinary peril. Given the complexities of the case, getting this communication right would never have been easy. But the fact is that we did not get it right, causing the families to feel abandoned when they most needed support. This was a mistake. I take responsibility for it, and I apologize.

Second, some of those who were quick to speak as if the charges were true were on this campus, and some faculty made statements that were ill-judged and divisive. They had the right to express their views. But the public as well as the accused students and their families could have thought that those were expressions of the university as a whole. They were not, and we could have done more to underscore that.

Third, I understand that by deferring to the criminal justice system to the extent we did and not repeating the need for the presumption of innocence equally vigorously at all the key moments, we may have helped create the impression that we did not care about our students. This was not the case, and I regret it as well.

Fourth, this episode has taught me a hard lesson about the criminal justice system and what it means to rely on it. Given the media circus and the public reactions it fed, I thought it essential to insist that the matter be resolved within the legal system, not in the court of public opinion. As far as it went, this was right. But what this case reminds us is that our justice system -- the best in the world -- is only as good as the men and women who administer it. In this case, it was an officer of this system itself who presented false allegations as true, suppressed contrary evidence, and subverted the process he was sworn to uphold.

Relying on the criminal justice system in this case proved to have serious limits. But for the university to strive to set the system to rights -- for instance, by attacking the District Attorney -- presented problems as well. For one thing, none of us can lightly speak as if the system itself is tainted because some of our own have been accused of a crime. I was also concerned that if Duke spoke out in an overly aggressive fashion, it would be perceived that a well-connected institution was improperly attempting to influence the judicial process, which could have caused the case to miscarry in a variety of ways. Finally, there was no legal recourse against the District Attorney, for me or anyone else. Under North Carolina laws, no one had authority to take an active case from a DA absent the DA’s own request, as finally happened in January.

Even with all that, Duke needed to be clear that it demanded fair treatment for its students. I took that for granted. If any doubted it, then I should have been more explicit, especially as evidence mounted that the prosecutor was not acting in accordance with the standards of his profession.

The larger problem for society is how to create and maintain the optimal balance between the independence of the legal system and protection of individuals from false prosecutions. If this state should ever again have a rogue prosecutor on the loose with no more remedies than were available last time around, the failure to have learned the lesson of the Duke lacrosse case would be intolerable. I do not want to create some instant legislative “solution” that opens the door for new injustices tomorrow. I recognize that it is not easy to get the checks and balances right when two such important interests are at stake. But it’s essential for all relevant parties to work to create these mechanisms, and I trust the current conference will contribute to this cause.

Closer to home, this case highlights challenges universities face when students are tied to serious criminal charges. This challenge has many aspects: how the university advises a student in these circumstances, how the university regulates the presence on campus of students charged with serious crimes, how the university interacts with parents, and many more. My colleagues in the Duke administration are going over all our procedures to see what we can learn from our experience. But these are complex questions, and they aren’t ones Duke can or should hope to solve on its own. To work through these difficulties and see that their lessons are learned not only here but around the country, we will be hosting a national conference of educators, lawyers and student affairs leaders to discuss best practices in this important field.

I’ll end with the deepest lesson this case taught me. When I think back through the whole complex history of this episode, the scariest thing, to me, is that actual human lives were at the mercy of so much instant moral certainty, before the facts had been established. If there’s one lesson the world should take from the Duke lacrosse case, it’s the danger of prejudgment and our need to defend against it at every turn. Given the power of this impulse and the forces that play to it in our culture, achieving this goal will not be easy. But it’s a fight where we all need do our part.

Much of me hopes the Duke lacrosse case will be forgotten someday. But if it is remembered, let’s hope it is remembered the right way: as a call to caution in a world where certainty and judgment come far too quickly.

Judges' Panel

Hengslter: who is making editing decisions with news as commodity? Grace, O'Reilly

how can courts deal with fact that justice is becoming entertainment and a commodity--ie, with protective orders? If people who know about case, who will talk? People who speculate.

Millette: (judge) in high-profile cases, judges need to ensure that good defense attorneys if defendants can't afford them

MD sniper cases--both sides were conscious of need to keep case out of trial

change of venue is a tool judges need to use to minimize effects of media

3 things judges worry about with high-profile cases:

1) preserve sense of normalcy in courtroom
2) select an untainted jury
3) keep jury impartial

Ruckriegle: Bryant case--lawyers for the accuser speaking to the media; how to deal with such a blitz?

out of 300 jurors, 174 passed voirdire

Walton: judge in Scooter Libby case

from inception, knew that biggest challenge would be empaneling fair jury for Libby given DC's overwhelmingly Dem nature

DC population: "wholesome degree of skepticism" about prosecutor and the government

Sellers: court public information officer is new position--increasingly prominent in court system over past 25 yrs; liaison between court and media

cameras, technology, seating, jurors, verdict--5 key concern

cameras in courtroom feeds the media interest; technology--keep cameras out? but what about text-messaging, etc.?

dangers of jurors who blog about experience or who read blogs and take influence from them

Levi: what can the judiciary do to restrain Nifong-like statements?
Millette: very difficult to answer--people in VA don't act like that

need to look to bar association for assistance; but judiciary doesn't really have tools to deal with this at this stage

Ruckriegle--trial court doesn't have ultimate legal ability to control leaks

N&O: Brodhead Apologizes

Jane Stancill on the president's speech.