Criminal Law

October Events in the Case

Posted on November 03, 2008
October in the case was highlighted by release of serial fabricator Crystal Mangum?s ?memoir.? Among other things, Mangum: Invented a whole new version of the ?crime,? this one in which she implicitly admitted that she had falsely accused Collin Finnerty (without of course, issuing any apology to Finnerty); Lashed out at the special prosecutors, whose job she seemed to believe was to accept anything she had to say at face value, not seek the truth; Suggested that ?hidden? DNA evidence existed?even though the DNA evidence was publicly discussed, at great length, in the Dec...

The Least Surprising Endorsement

Posted on October 31, 2008
In January 2007, just after Mike Nifong turned the case over to Roy Cooper, the Wilmington Journal (the paper best known for pushing the bizarre theories of "Cousin Jakki," a/k/a Clyde Yancey) published an op-ed on the case. The column contained a thinly veiled threat--that if the Attorney General wanted the votes of North Carolina blacks, he needed to push forward with Crystal Mangum's fantastic lies...

Reflections on the Mangum Opus

Posted on October 27, 2008
As could be expected from the work of a serial fabricator, Crystal Mangum?s memoir is little more than a tissue of lies. 1.) The book restated one of Mangum?s most transparent lies?that she was consistent in describing the ?attack.? Mangum writes, ?My account of what happened next is the same as I have described all along...

Mangum Takes on the Special Prosecutors

Posted on October 25, 2008
While she praised the unethical efforts of Mike Nifong, Crystal Mangum had nothing but contempt for the special prosecutors who took over the case after Nifong recused himself. She especially seemed not to like Assistant Attorney General Jim Coman. In her first meeting with the new prosecution team, she recalled, Both Mary Winstead and Jim Coman struck me as professional people, but I was a bit nervous...

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Crystal's Many Enemies

Posted on October 24, 2008
The Mangum Opus is an oddly structured book. After introducing her invented reminisces of the party?drawn, seemingly willy-nilly, from her April 6, 2006 and December 20, 2006 stories?Mangum then provides a long section in which she criticizes her father, her mother (who was admitted to hospital for psychiatric problems), and her brother, while providing page after page of jealousy toward her sister...

Crystal Does the Party

Posted on October 24, 2008
Mangum opens her ?invent-all? memoir with her latest story about her introduction into the world of exotic dancing; and then a wildly non-credible recapitulation of the party. Here?s the serial fabricator on how she allegedly got into exotic dancing...

The Fantastic World of Vincent "Ed" Clark

Posted on October 24, 2008
After leading off with the almost laughable Shird preface, the Mangum Opus segues into a chapter from Mangum co-author Vincent ?Ed? Clark, the figure who the N&O delicately described as ?a self-employed publicist.? Clark recalls for readers his first reaction upon hearing news of the Mangum?s fantastic charges: I hated anything related to Duke sports...

The Shird Preface

Posted on October 24, 2008
The preface to the Mangum Opus was penned by a North Carolina A&T professor named Myra Shird?perhaps best known on campus for abruptly resigning her department chairmanship in the middle of the semester last year. Shird?s preface is . . . eye-opening...

Shameless

Posted on October 23, 2008
A few things in the lacrosse case have been certain. Former lawyer Mike Nifong would violate the Bar?s ethics rules whenever presented with the opportunity. Group of 88 leader Wahneema Lubiano?s ?forthcoming? books will still be ?forthcoming.? And serial fabricator Crystal Mangum?the woman who could never tell the same story twice?will continue to fabricate...

Emory Talk

Posted on October 20, 2008
For DIW readers in Atlanta, my talk at Emory will be on Wednesday evening, at 7pm. The talk will be in White Hall, Room 110. And my thanks to everyone in Rye for the enjoyable event yesterday.

Updates

Posted on October 17, 2008
I'm going to be offline most of the next three/four days, so comments will be updated on only an irregular basis. For DIW readers in the Metro North area, I'll be speaking Sunday afternoon in Rye. For DIW readers in Atlanta, I'll be speaking Tuesday night at Emory University...

Amazing

Posted on October 14, 2008
?Take Back the Night? events are a mainstay of contemporary college campuses. Although they originated from a debunked theory (the idea that one in four women will be victims of sexual assault while in college), they are the sort of undertakings that can?t really be criticized: who, after all, wants to be attacked as ?pro-rape?? That said, the lacrosse case offers an example of how easily the cause can be overtaken by extremists...

Ekstrand Filings

Posted on October 13, 2008
Last week, Bob Ekstrand?on behalf of lacrosse players Breck Archer, Ryan McFadyen, and Matt Wilson?filed a lengthy series of responses to Duke, Duke Hospital, and various Durham officials. Ekstrand urged a broad view of case, with events the unfortunate if likely outcome of the Duke/Durham policy of treating Duke students as second-class citizens in the city: ?It was,? he wrote, ?not the natural consequence of a false allegation made by a drug-addled woman who, at the time, was in the midst of an apparent psychotic break, in police custody, and in the process of being involuntarily committed...

Nifong's Guitars

Posted on October 11, 2008
The N&O reports:Mike Nifong might have to part with his cherished guitars.The trustee overseeing his estate in federal bankruptcy court has asked a judge to order a public auction of the instruments Oct. 12 at 361 Ja Max Drive, Hillsborough.This all is a result of the bankruptcy filing employed by Nifong in a thus-far unsuccessful attempt to escape from the civil suit filed by the three people he unethically prosecuted...

Attorney McSurely

Posted on October 08, 2008
In the lacrosse case "hall of infamy," few figures are more worthy of inclusion than state NAACP attorney Al McSurely. This is, after all, the man who authored the August 2006 guilt-presuming, error-laden 82-point "memorandum of law," [scroll down] which stood as the NAACP's legal "analysis" of the case...

The Lacrosse Case & the Khalidi/Ayres Controversy

Posted on October 07, 2008
A few years ago, I testified before the Senate Education Committee about the diminution of the academy?s intellectual diversity. I spoke as a registered Democrat, and contended that the issue should concern Democrats as much as Republicans, since neither party has an interest in an academy dominated by race/class/gender groupthink...

Mangum's Alternate Reality

Posted on October 04, 2008
In an interview with the Herald-Sun, Vincent Clark, who describes himself as Crystal Mangum?s ?publicist,? refused to say whether Mangum would admit that she lied about the case in her ?tell-all? memoir. ?I?ll leave that nugget for the press event,? Clark teased...

Update on the Mangum Opus

Posted on October 03, 2008
The p.r. firm handling Crystal Mangum's memoir can't even spell its client's name correctly: a press release announcing the book's (now) late October availability indicated that "Crystal Magnum[sic] is donating one dollar from the purchase of each book to help battered women...

UPI Paperback

Posted on October 01, 2008
The paperback version of UPI is now out; it contains a new chapter, updating events since April 2007, as well as a few new items in the text, based on recently released information. The sourcenotes for the book are here.

A Craven Filing

Posted on October 01, 2008
Nifong attorney Jim Craven has filed a reply supporting his appeal of a lower-court ruling, which denied the disgraced ex-DA an opportunity to use bankruptcy protection to bow out of the civil suit. Even by the standards of Nifongesque legal theory, this was a bizarre document...

Cooper Ad

Posted on September 30, 2008
Few political leaders distinguished themselves in the lacrosse case, but one of the heroes of the affair was Attorney General Roy Cooper. His office conducted an impartial investigation, free from political pressure, and allowed the facts to dictate the outcome...

September Events in the Case

Posted on September 29, 2008
September was a light month legally; here are the case-related highlights: As the new chairman of its African-American Studies Department, Duke has hired a professor best-known for his anti-Israel screeds and as an apparatchik focused on enforcing campus political correctness...

Matory to Duke

Posted on September 24, 2008
Here?s how Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz reacted to the news that J. Lorand Matory is leaving Cambridge: ?I think it?s the best thing that?s happened to Harvard in a long time. Privately, there?s a real sense of exhilaration and relief that this man is no longer a blot on our community...

Group Members Discover Civil Liberties

Posted on September 22, 2008
Wahneema Lubiano. Her authorship of the guilt-presuming Group of 88 statement (something ?happened? to Crystal Mangum; ?thank you? to protesters carrying ?castrate? signs; the signatories would hold firm ?regardless of what the police say or the court decides?) didn?t exactly identify her as a friend of civil liberties...

Words To "Stand By"

Posted on September 16, 2008
As noted below, when asked about his inflammatory remarks on the case, anti-lacrosse extremist Tim Tyson recently announced, "I stand by every word of it." Four clips of the words that Tyson stands by, in his own voice, are below.First, Tyson recalled his time in the potbangers' March 25, 2006 candlelight vigil, outside the lacrosse captains' house...

Tyson Hunkers Down

Posted on September 15, 2008
The coach that Duke saw fit to fire (before an investigatory report concluded he had done nothing wrong) was recently honored by the lacrosse community. Mike Pressler has been named head coach of the U.S. National Lacrosse team for 2010. Said the chair of the selection committee, ?We were certainly very impressed with Mike?s professionalism and more importantly, his excitement and enthusiasm for the position...

New Case "Scholarship"

Posted on September 08, 2008
The latest academic publication on the case has appeared, courtesy of Barbara Barnett, who earned her M.A. degree from Duke?s Group of 88-topheavy English Department. The University of Kansas professor produced an article in Communication, Culture & Critique, in which she advances the all-but-incredible theory that Duke?s official response to the case was overly concerned with such issues as due process and right to a fair trial...

August Events in the Case

Posted on September 04, 2008
I know that a good number of people drop in only from time to time to check up on events in the case: here is a summary of what occurred in August.Attorneys for the unindicted players filed responses to Duke; Duke Hospital; and various Durham figures...

Cooper Response: Durham Filings

Posted on September 02, 2008
Chuck Cooper, joined by Durham attorney Bill Thomas, also filed briefs opposing the motions to dismiss of Durham and various Durham employees (including ex-DA investigator Linwood Wilson). A summary is below. The Thomas/Cooper brief regarding Durham?s motion to dismiss opens by commenting on the intriguing tendency of each party to concede that wrongdoing occurred but to blame someone else for it...

Remainders: Levicy

Posted on September 01, 2008
For readers new to the blog, or for readers desiring a refresher course, below is a three-part series I did last year summarizing the pernicious effects of former SANE nurse-in-training Tara Levicy in first initiating and then sustaining the hoax.Part OnePart TwoPart ThreeTomorrow, by the way, I'll have a summary and analysis of the remaining briefs filed by Chuck Cooper and Bill Thomas.

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