Criminal Law

More from the Comments Thread

Posted on July 08, 2009
At View-from-Wilimington, Chris Halkides summarizes what I consider unfortunate recent behavior by the blogger John in Carolina--whose work on the lacrosse case I had admired (with the exception of what seems to me his unfair unwillingness to consider the N&O's work after early April 2006 in evaluating the N&O's overall performance in the case)...

Nifong & Gottlieb

Posted on July 06, 2009
Two additional items worth noting from the recent civil suit filings. First, the changing views of disgraced ex-DA Mike Nifong on the merits of the case that cost him his career:April 12, 2007:To the extent that I made judgments that ultimately proved to be incorrect, I apologize to the three students that were wrongly accused...

The Iqbal Briefs: The Falsely Accused Players

Posted on July 01, 2009
As I noted Monday, several new filings in the lacrosse case have come in, all dealing with the Supreme Court?s recent decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, described by one commentator as ?an unexpected gift for the business community.?Today?s post summarizes the filings in the three falsely accused players? lawsuit...

(Yet Another) Comment re Comments Policy

Posted on June 30, 2009
I continue to be amazed at how, despite my having written more than 1300 posts totaling more than 1.3 million words on the case, a few readers continue to attempt to discern my attitudes not by examining any of those 1.3 million words but instead by ruminating over comments I have or have not cleared--despite the unequivocal wording of the blog's stated comments policy: "My clearing a comment implies neither that I agree nor that I disagree with the comment...

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The Iqbal Briefs: The Unindicted Players

Posted on June 29, 2009
Friday?s Wall Street Journal profiled the recent Supreme Court decision Ashcroft v. Iqbal, which is now at the heart of the lacrosse case. At the request of Duke?s attorneys, Judge Beaty allowed all parties to the case to file briefs regarding Iqbal; offerings from Duke, various Durham entities, and DNA Security have arrived...

From the CCI Archive: More Documents

Posted on June 25, 2009
A few more documents from the CCI archive.After Karla Holloway resigned her CCI subcommittee chairmanship via a mass e-mail containing fifth-hand, unsubstantiated gossip about Duke students, the Chronicle asked CCI head Bob Thompson for comment. You?d think that the head of a committee ostensibly devoted to improving ?campus culture? would have been outraged by a senior faculty member behaving in such an intemperate fashion...

Pearlman Defends Roberts

Posted on June 24, 2009
One striking element of the reaction to the lacrosse case has been the general willingness of those who rushed to judgment (i.e., the Group of 88, Selena Roberts) to attempt to cover up what they did in spring 2006?rather than simply apologize for their rush to judgment?and the willingness of their apologists (Charlie Piot and Robert Zimmerman are the best examples here) to accept their after-the-fact rationalizations even when those rationalizations directly contradict contemporary documentary evidence...

From the CCI Archive: Documents

Posted on June 22, 2009
It seemed worthwhile to post some of the actual documents from the CCI archive; the first batch will come today, a second batch will appear Thursday. First, some items from Group of 88?er Anne Allison?s Gender and Sexuality Subcommittee. This summary document from the Allison Subcommittee contains many of the key elements of the Group of 88 approach?from anonymous, random quotes from alleged Duke students to blind acceptance of desired assertions from ideologically preferred groups...

CFN Conference

Posted on June 18, 2009
For those interested, I'll be speaking this evening at the Campus Freedom Network conference; a live-stream is available.

From the CCI Archive: Voices of the Extremists

Posted on June 18, 2009
As his committee began to take shape, CCI head Bob Thompson received a number of e-mails reminding him that the coterie of extremists that swarmed the Duke campus in spring 2006 extended beyond the Group of 88. In early April 2008, a Duke student named Tsahai Tafari (who described herself as an African-American woman) told Thompson that ?I have been afraid of the young white men on campus at Duke for a very long time, and the racist assault and ...

The CCI: Closing Months

Posted on June 15, 2009
(This post is the third in a series using documents from the CCI's own archive, which I recently read.)By the time the CCI took up its work in fall 2006, the case to which President Brodhead had inextricably linked its mission had all but collapsed. Mike Nifong had become a national laughingstock; the Group of 88 was busy revising history; and Duke students were registering to vote in unprecedented numbers to try and effect change through the system...

The CCI: Summer 2006

Posted on June 11, 2009
During summer 2006, the CCI?s four subcommittees went to work. The initiative?s directors, Bob Thompson and Larry Moneta, made no pretense of balance in selecting subcommittee chairs, instead handing three of the four over to figures on the extremist fringe of discourse about the lacrosse case: Karla Holloway chaired the race subcommittee, just as she was analyzing the case through a take-no-prisoners lens: ?White innocence means black guilt...

Note re Roberts

Posted on June 10, 2009
It appears as if the National Mendacity Tour failed to pay off for Selena Roberts. The AP reports: Published in early May by HarperCollins with an announced first printing of 150,000, "A-Rod" has sold just 16,000 copies so far, according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 75 percent of industry sales...

The CCI: Spring 2006

Posted on June 08, 2009
The Campus Culture Initiative was among the most outrageous examples of the Duke administration?s response to the lacrosse case. Launched in the same message in which President Brodhead canceled the 2006 season (and on the same day in which he sent his guilt-presuming ?letter? to the Duke community), the CCI functioned as a caricature of what?s wrong with higher education today...

Bowen on Sotomayor

Posted on June 08, 2009
Few high-profile figures who involved themselves in the lacrosse case embarrassed themselves more than did William Bowen. The former Princeton president, invited with the NAACP?s Julius Chambers to review the Duke administration?s response to the case by Duke President Richard Brodhead, produced a report that could have passed as a parody of political correctness...

Civil Suit Delay

Posted on June 05, 2009
ORDER signed by CHIEF JUDGE JAMES A. BEATY, JR on 6/4/2009 that within 20 days of the date of this Order, any of the previously-designated Defendant groups may file a Supplemental Brief, not to exceed 20 pages, addressing the impact of the Supreme Court's decision in Ashcroft v...

On the Schedule

Posted on June 04, 2009
A quick announcement: I have obtained the archive of the Campus Culture Initiative, the Brodhead-launched undertaking which had as task force chairs Karla Holloway, Peter Wood, and Anne Allison. The archive includes internal committee documents and a handful of e-mails...

Selena Roberts National Mendacity Tour

Posted on June 01, 2009
Selena Roberts appears have concluded her appearances to promote her new book on A-Rod. The interviews doubled as a National Mendacity Tour regarding Roberts? writings on the lacrosse case. As the Mendacity Tour comes to a close, I thought it would be useful to compile the range of Roberts? distorted, misleading, and outright false statements about her work on the lacrosse case...

May Events in the Case

Posted on May 30, 2009
As part of her A-Rod book tour, Selena Roberts offered misleading and outright false statements about her writings on the case. On Monday, I?ll be providing a comprehensive summary of the Roberts National Mendacity Tour.[I should note that I previously suggested "some slanders are too outrageous even for Selena Roberts," and that Roberts had dropped her ludicrous claim that her rush-to-judgment columns were justified because the players placed "pornographic" photos of false accuser Crystal Mangum on the internet...

"Diversity" and Duke Admissions

Posted on May 28, 2009
These are quite striking totals, courtesy of TaxProf Blog. The level of detail in this data is unusual.Duke Admissions and Academic Performance: Race and Ethnicity Variable White Black Asian Latino Admissions office evaluations --Achievement 4...

The Next Generation

Posted on May 25, 2009
This blog has often noted how?in the race/class/gender groupthink atmosphere that dominates many humanities and some social sciences departments?it is likely that the academy will become more extreme in the foreseeable future. Since department members control new hires, those likely to challenge the status quo can be screened out at the stage of the job description or, if the candidate somehow makes it past the screening committee, at the campus interview...

Roberts: The Art of Deception

Posted on May 21, 2009
Selena Roberts continued yesterday her National Mendacity Tour, this time speaking to WEEI, where she again lied about what she wrote in her infamous March 31, 2006 column on the lacrosse case. Roberts began by again claiming that she wrote merely about the ?culture? and not the ?crime?; later in the interview, she all but taunted her hosts to look at her guilt-presuming March 2006 column...

Three Updates

Posted on May 20, 2009
1.) For those who missed it, the Duke men's lacrosse team will be heading back to this year's Final Four, after defeating UNC in the quarterfinals. This year's team is the last one in which several key members were at Duke at the time the case began; the list of stars includes Brad Ross, whose ability to show that he never was even in Durham the night of the party played such a key role in demonstrating Crystal Mangum's lying ways...

From the Wires

Posted on May 18, 2009
Two . . . intriguing . . . items crossed my desk Friday.The first came from Durham mayor Bill Bell. WTVD ran a lengthy story noting that Durham officials, including Bell, have complained again about Duke students? off-campus partying?and some of the student behavior in Tamara Gibbs? story is disgusting (although, I suspect, not exactly unheard of in any college or university town in the country, not just Durham)...

Why Love Is Bad Law

Posted on May 11, 2009
?The Duke bulletin is not a valid contract.? Of Duke?s hundreds of pages of filings in the lacrosse case civil suit, that sentence is perhaps the most striking. Duke?s official publications and website tell students that they will not be harassed on the basis of race, class, or gender; and that professors will treat all Duke students with respect, as fellow members of the academic community...

Chass: Roberts "Queen of Innuendo"

Posted on May 09, 2009
Selena Roberts' former Times colleague, Murray Chass, has read the A-Rod book, which he describes as a " journalistic abomination," with Roberts fulfilling the role of "Queen of Innuendo." In devastating detail, Chass dissects Roberts' thin arguments and takes her to task for her lack of understanding about baseball history...

The Roberts National Mendacity Tour Continues

Posted on May 07, 2009
In a recent appearance on the Jim Rome radio show, former New York Times columnist Selena Roberts continued her campaign of distortions and outright lies about her writings on the lacrosse case. In some ways, her remarks?part of a desperate bid to retain her credibility, so readers and the media will trust the anonymously sourced conclusions in her A-Rod book?are worse than her initial columns at the lacrosse case...

Selena Roberts & Journalistic Credibility

Posted on May 04, 2009
Today, Selena Roberts? exposé of Alex Rodriguez hits the bookstores. We already know that Rodriguez is a bald-faced liar with what could charitably be described as a host of other character flaws. But what about Roberts? In a recent interview with the MLB Network?s Bob Costas, Roberts affirmed that her obligation as a journalist was to ?find the truth...

Whitlock on Roberts

Posted on May 03, 2009
I am not a fan of Alex Rodriguez, to put it mildly. But I agree completely with Jason Whitlock's column:When since-disgraced district attorney Mike Nifong whipped up a media posse to rain justice on the drunken, male college students, Roberts jumped on the fastest, most influential horse, using her New York Times column to convict the players and the culture of privilege that created them...

The Group Apologist, in Action

Posted on May 02, 2009
Several days ago, the most aggressive apologist for the Group of 88, Duke Music professor Robert Zimmerman, published a post leveling against me a serious allegation: that I had exercised a ?moderator?s veto? against him, refusing to clear a comment he had offered at DIW, which he interpreted as a disinclination to debate him...

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