LIVE THREAD: Duke Lacrosse Grand Jury

Started by sorryisntgoodenough, Apr 17, 2006, 09:59 AM

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dr e


Does anyone know if those guys are still being called rapists?


Most good people have ceased in calling the Duke 3 rapists but there are a number of folks who continue to bang their pots.  Here's one called UBUNTU

Here's a quote if you can believe it.  Well then again this is a feminist organization....emphasis mine
Quote
Who We Are: Purpose & Goals

UBUNTU was born in the aftermath of the March 13, 2006 rape of a Durham, NC Black woman by members of the Duke University Lacrosse team. UBUNTU is a Women of Color and Survivor-led coalition of individuals and organizational representatives. We prioritize the voices, analyses, and needs of Women of Color and Survivors of sexual violence in both our internal structure and our external work. We are Women, Men, and people who do not fit into the gender binary. We are non-trans and trans. We are People of Color, Multi-racial, and White. We come from throughout the Triangle area and have roots both within and outside of the United States. We are sex workers, students and community members. We are workers. We are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two-Spirit, and Questioning. We are Queer and Straight. We are young, old, and in-between. We come from a broad range of economic, geographic, spiritual and political experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives. 
Contact dr e  Lifeboats for the ladies and children, icy waters for the men.  Women have rights and men have responsibilties.

dr e

I suggest you not read this unless you have a strong stomach.  It is Dukes official take on the Lacrosse case.  Whitewash is the word of the day.  You won't find a shred of responsibility being taken here.  Duke is cowardly, opportunistic and ultra PC. 

http://news.duke.edu/lacrosseincident/


Quote

Looking Back at the Duke Lacrosse Case

On April 11, 2007, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper stepped before a crowded press conference and spoke the words that ended one of the most publicized legal stories in recent American history. "We believe these three individuals are innocent of these charges," he said.

Cooper's long-awaited decision ended a legal ordeal for three Duke University students who had been charged with first-degree sexual offense, kidnapping and, earlier, with rape. The allegations were made by one of two exotic dancers that they and other members of the Duke men's lacrosse team had hired to perform at an off-campus party in March 2006. Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong stated publicly that a rape had taken place, called the lacrosse players "hooligans" and prosecuted the three students vigorously even as evidence mounted that raised serious questions about the accuser's credibility and the veracity of the charges.

Cooper took over the case in January 2007 after the state bar association filed ethics charges against Nifong for withholding exculpatory evidence and making inflammatory statements about the case. In dismissing the charges and stating the attack never occurred, Cooper spoke of a "rush to accuse" and said "there were many points in this case where caution would have served justice better than bravado." In one of the many similar judgments made about how the news media covered the case, columnist David Broder described "a painful exercise in journalistic excess."

The case changed the lives of the three young men and their families and deeply affected the broader Duke community, which found itself in the spotlight with major stories in The New York Times, Newsweek, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated and thousands of other outlets. Five segments on "60 Minutes" were devoted to the case, as were extensive commentaries on blogs and tabloid television shows.

From his first statement in March 2006, Duke President Richard H. Brodhead repeatedly emphasized both the seriousness of the charges and the need for the players to be presumed innocent until proven otherwise within the legal system.  Simultaneously, he moved to address broader university issues highlighted by the case, forming a council of advisers and four committees to examine the lacrosse team, the administration's response to the incident, the student judicial process and Duke's campus culture. In the weeks and months that followed, the committees issued their findings, all of which Duke made public immediately.

Independent of the legal case, given the standards expected of teams that represent Duke, the university forfeited two lacrosse games in the immediate aftermath of the incident as a response to admitted behaviors by team members, such as underage drinking. Later, with input from the athletics department and some of the players themselves, Brodhead suspended the remaining games - not as punishment, but as a necessary action until the legal situation became clearer, based on concerns including the safety of Duke's players. At the time, the district attorney was saying emphatically that as many as 46 of the players were still under suspicion for the alleged crimes. After the district attorney indicted three of the players, Duke placed on interim suspension the two who had not yet graduated - part of a routine protocol most U.S. universities follow when students are charged with violent felony crimes. Duke later modified the status of the two players to "administrative leave" and, soon after it became clear in court that Nifong's statements were not credible, invited them to return in good standing, months before Cooper's decision. (The players said they would not consider coming back until the case was resolved and later said they would transfer elsewhere.) In addition, in an effort to create a fresh start for the program, Duke replaced Coach Mike Pressler with an interim coach and, subsequently, with John Danowski, who previously coached the lacrosse team at Hofstra University.

While saying it was the job of the legal system - not of Duke - to determine legal guilt or innocence, Brodhead told "60 Minutes" in August 2006 that "the DA's case will be on trial just as much as our students will be." After Nifong dropped the most serious of the charges - rape - in December 2006, Brodhead called on him to recuse himself from the case, saying, "Mr. Nifong has an obligation to explain to all of us his conduct in this matter." James Coleman, a professor at Duke Law School who chaired the committee that investigated the lacrosse team and emerged as a leading independent voice on the case, said Brodhead's repeated insistence on the presumption of innocence while avoiding interference with the legal process ended up facilitating the eventual outcome. Calling actively for the students to be exonerated "would have been a mistake" Coleman told a gathering of judges and lawyers in April 2007. "In fact, I think it would have harmed their cause, not helped it. It would have made it more difficult for the State Bar to take the unprecedented step it did, because it would have looked like they were yielding to pressure from Duke, it would have made it more difficult for the attorney general to exonerate them - that is a very unprecedented thing - because it would have made it look like he was yielding to Duke. And it would have played into the politics - Nifong's politics in this case - which was to make it a case about race."

From the beginning of the affair, other observers voiced strong, often harsh, opinions about the players, the district attorney, the university and nearly every other aspect of the story. Initial criticism focused on the players, with protesters assembling outside the house where the party occurred, banging pots and shouting their concerns. As doubts grew about the charges, criticism shifted to Nifong and his team, as well as to some administrators, students, community members and others - including a group of faculty members who published an ad in The Chronicle - who were accused of prejudging the players or of using the case to promote their own agendas.

The lacrosse team returned to the field in February 2007 before a cheering crowd that included Brodhead and much of the university's senior leadership, as well as thousands of students and the largest group of reporters ever to attend a regular-season Duke lacrosse game. The team went on to win the league championship while also maintaining a strong record in the classroom and the community.

Meanwhile, Duke began responding to the concerns raised by the committee that had examined the campus culture. Approximately one year after the event, Duke's fund raising hit record levels, applications for student admissions remained near record levels, new media guidelines were in place to enhance the privacy of students and campus life began to return to normal.

Robert K. Steel, the chairman of Duke's Board of Trustees, summarized Duke's remarkable "lacrosse story" in a message he sent to the campus community following Cooper's decision. "Much as we wish that these three young men, their teammates and their families - and indeed the whole community of people who love Duke - could have been spared the agony of the past year, we believe that it was essential for the University to defer to the criminal justice system. As imperfect and flawed as it may be, it is that process that brings us today to this resolution," wrote Steel, who concluded by saying "we hope that the resolution of this unfair, divisive and painful episode can serve to unite us all. There is much to learn from the events that we have lived through, and we intend to put this learning to use. Duke is a great university that steps up to challenges and opportunities, and together we will use this moment to make our community stronger."
Contact dr e  Lifeboats for the ladies and children, icy waters for the men.  Women have rights and men have responsibilties.

CaptDMO

Lest we forget.
It seems that some folk, still weary of liberal propaganda indoctorination in our schools,
have kept a vigilant watch on the 88(-1) nice folk from Duke and their bretheren.
Heaven forfend this  event simply fade into oblivion.

via. Instapundit
Joe's DartblogThursday, May 24, 2007
Quote
The ladies and gentlemen of the Duke Conservative Union, who were--for no good reason, really--the principal defenders of patient justice when three lacrosse players were accused of rape, have placed a full page advertisement in today's issue of The Duke Chronicle, the daily student newspaper. The advertisement is a response to the original 'Group of 88' advertisement which, along with other narrow minded and prejudicial pap, was plastered all 'round Raleigh in an effort to condemn the lacrosse players using the popular academic cant of "social justice," "privilege," "community," and so on. All of this occurred before the trial even started. The 88 radical professors were engaging in something they claimed to detest: prejudice.

Convinced that they had finally found a real-world situation to match the race- and class-obsessed sturm und drang of their syllabi, Duke professors set out to ensure that the public would view the situation through their gray-colored goggles. In the event, the case against the players just vaporized and with it all the tired talk about "social disasters."

Now the Duke Conservatives, who brooked horrible castigation and, without uttering a nasty word and without raising a voice in anger, continued doggedly to press for fair treatment of the accused players in the most poisonous climate imaginable, have written an elegant request that the eighty-seven professors--one has since defected--apologize for their childish behavior. A member writes:

    Why did the DCU decide to run such an advertisement? We are not under the illusion that any, much less all, of these faculty members will admit to any wrongdoing on their part. However, this is a clear message to the Duke faculty that some students will not tolerate their brand of pernicious radicalism any longer. Over four years at a place that I love dearly, I have seen example after example of professors using their position to further their Leftist agendas. Unfortunately, few students publicly and authoritatively held them accountable for their efforts. With the petition signed by over a thousand students (found here) and today's advertisement, the tide is changing on Duke's campus.

It is hardly necessary to append that opposition to professorial radicalism need not be partisan in nature. There is nothing distinctly liberal about accusing an entire class of students of being racist would-be rapists. In fact, to do that is entirely reactionary, and indicative of the use of unthinking heuristic ideology that academics purport to detest. But because students with well meaing liberal sympathies so often allow progressivism to be radically redefined by their professors, it tends to fall to campus conservatives to parry outrages like that perpetrated by the Group of 88.

Good on the Duke Conservative Union.


Go Big Green!

aknapp1112

well, at least some of the players are getting something.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8PESUT80&show_article=1


rantmeister


Looks like Seligmann will be playing lacrosse at Brown:

http://www.newsobserver.com/sports/story/584604.html

Of course, there will be idiots there to greet him as well as supporters:

Quote
Recent Brown graduate Heather Peterson, of Weston, Mass., said she had mixed feelings about Seligmann becoming a Brown student.

"To accept someone who's had such a scandal in connection to their name, who's basically probably coming for athletics, seems sort of strange to me," she said, despite believing he deserves no punishment because he was cleared of any wrongdoing.

Her sister, Brown staff member Gretchen Peterson, said she was proud Seligmann picked Brown.

"I hope that that is reflective of our openness to accept people based on fact and not based on conjecture or how things get spun in the media," she said.



FYI, here's a link to coach Pressler's book coming out in 2 weeks:

http://www.amazon.com/Its-Not-About-Truth-Shattered/dp/1416551468/ref=sr_1_1/002-9630505-0176829?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180575329&sr=1-1




Wussycat

#1685
Jun 01, 2007, 10:30 AM Last Edit: Jun 01, 2007, 10:33 AM by Wussycat
Has Jesse Jackson gone through with his promise?

dr e

Nifong has been disbarred.  He has waived his right to appeal.  He is done. 

This thread has made it full circle. 

Who is up next?
Contact dr e  Lifeboats for the ladies and children, icy waters for the men.  Women have rights and men have responsibilties.

Crusoe

Duke And Lacrosse Players Reach Settlement

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/06/18/national/main2945104.shtml

Quote
AP) Duke University has reached an undisclosed financial settlement with three former lacrosse players falsely accused of rape, the school said Monday.

"We welcomed their exoneration and deeply regret the difficult year they and their families have had to endure," the school said in a statement. "These young men and their families have been the subject of intense scrutiny that has taken a heavy toll."

Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and Dave Evans were indicted last year on charges of rape, kidnapping and sexual offense after a woman told police she was attacked at a March 2006 team party where she was hired to perform as a stripper. Duke suspended all three, canceled the team's season and forced coach Mike Pressler to resign.

The allegations were debunked in April by state prosecutors, who said the players were the "innocent" victims of a "tragic rush to accuse" by Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong. He was disbarred Saturday for breaking more than two dozen rules of professional conduct in his handling of the case.

The players' families racked up millions of dollars of legal bills in their defense, and appear likely to file a civil lawsuit against Nifong.

Duke said it reached a private agreement with each former student after determining "it is in the best interests of the Duke community to eliminate the possibility of future litigation and move forward." Earlier this month, Duke said it had reached an undisclosed financial settlement with Pressler, who is now the coach at Division II Bryant University in Rhode Island.

The players said in a joint statement, also released by the school, they hoped the agreement would "begin to bring the Duke family back together again."

"The events of the last year tore the Duke community apart, and forcibly separated us from the university we love," they said. "We were the victims of a rogue prosecutor concerned only with winning an election, and others determined to railroad three Duke lacrosse players and to diminish the reputation of Duke University."

The announcement came the same day Nifong -- who said he planned to resign during his five-day ethics trial last week -- released a letter sent to Gov. Mike Easley saying that he planned to leave office July 13.

A disciplinary committee of the North Carolina State Bar concluded Saturday that Nifong had lied to the court, made inflammatory statements about the three indicted players and their teammates, and withheld critical DNA evidence from defense attorneys. After some administrative steps, Nifong will have 30 days to turn in his law license.

Nifong embarked on an unyielding push to bring charges against members of the lacrosse team shortly after the allegations emerged. He won indictments against Seligmann and Finnerty in April 2006, even though he knew DNA testing had identified genetic material from several men -- but no members of the lacrosse team -- in the accuser's underwear and body. He won an indictment Evans on the same charges the next month.

In the midst of his investigation, Nifong beat two challengers in the May 2006 Democratic primary for district attorney and later won the office in the November general election. The disciplinary committee concluded his actions, which constituted "intentional prosecutorial misconduct," were politically motivated.

Nifong also sent his resignation letter to Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson, who is overseeing a pending request to remove Nifong from office.

"It is my fervent hope that this action will spare this community the further anguish a removal hearing would entail and will allow the healing process to move forward," Nifong wrote.

Hudson had planned to start a hearing "almost immediately" after the ethics trial ended. He said Monday he would have had to wait for a final disbarment order to go into effect, and by that point, Nifong's July 13 resignation date will have come and gone.
"My position is I'm not going to file anything tomorrow against Mr. Nifong suspending him knowing that he's going to resign on the 13th unless something unusual happens," Hudson said Monday morning. "Because he's going to resign, I think that's going to take care of it."

There was no word on whom Easley will chose to replace Nifong



Too bad it's undisclosed, I'd love to the numbers on this.


RockyMountainMan

Beat me to it.

Here's a link to KC Johnson's blog entry:
http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2007/06/duke-and-three-families-settle.html

There are still some open ends here including:  The unindicted LAX players, and repercussions for individual faculty members.

I presume Durham County is next up to the settlement table.
Give me liberty or give me death.

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Tact is for those lacking sufficient wit for sarcasm.

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