2006-10-15

60 Mins Doubts Duke Rape Occured

"The district attorney, Mike Nifong, took to the airwaves giving dozens of interviews, expressing with absolute certainty that Duke lacrosse players had committed a horrific crime. His comments fueled explosive news coverage and fed public suspicion of the team, before much of the evidence was gathered."

Before, even, DNA tests had returned.

Unlike Nadir, who takes no interest in this case because the falsely accused are rich, a black law professor at Duke investigated the case and concludes that if a DA will commit this injustice on rich innocent people, imagine what he would do to poor innocent people:
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Coleman found that while many of the players drank alcohol excessively, they had no history of violent or racist behavior. Professor Coleman believes that the three indicted players are victims in this case – victims of an overzealous prosecutor who pandered to the black community in the middle of an election campaign.

"I think that he pandered to the community... what are you to conclude about a prosecutor who says to you, 'I'll do whatever it takes to get this set of defendants?' What does it say about what he's willing to do to get poor black defendants?"

Asked if he thinks the D.A. committed prosecutorial misconduct, Coleman says, "Yes... it appears that this prosecutor has set out to develop whatever evidence he could to convict people he already concluded were guilty."
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Nadir, how dare this guy conclude that the players, not the accuser, are victims? He wasn't there! Oh, but wait a minute: the entire legal system is premised on non-witnesses deciding what happened... and on the entire citizenry observing the procedures.

And now this revelation: The accuser we learn admitted to much drinking that night, and administering herself "Flexeril, a powerful prescription muscle relaxant." (Why?) So much for speculation about a date rape mickey. This report confirms early claims by the asshole players (even assholes sometimes get unjustly accused of crimes they didn't commit!) that within minutes of begining their "striptease", the accuser started falling around, as if she was drunk or high; 60 Mins concludes she was both.

And as I surmised early on after it became apparent that no rape occured, the strippers and the guys had a conflict over money.

New revelations: The accuser places Stripper 2 in the room while the rape occured, and Stripper 2 flatly denies ever seeing a rape. And Stripper 2 says that she got called "nigger" once, by a guy responding to her racial insult, which in turn was a resonse to the guy disparaging the accuser's appearance... all traced back to an argument over money when the girls got offended by a comment one of the guys made about a broomstick about 4 minutes into their dance.

Also: "District Attorney Mike Nifong, who had declared that DNA would be the crux of his case, played down the results, speculating that the absence of DNA meant that the attackers may have used condoms, although the accuser had already stated that there were “no condoms used”, and that at least one of her three attackers had ejaculated inside her."

This article contains many revelations, and many contradictions to any claim of rape. The accused rapists are not my kind of guys. But they're certainly not rapists, at least not at the time and place in question.

1 comment:

Paul Hue said...

http://www.postchronicle.com/commentary/article_21244698.shtml

Sober analysis of the 60 Minutes episode.