Criminal Law

Ironies

Posted on June 20, 2008
In light of recent filings, this item passed onto me by a reader is ironic.National Association of College and University Attorneys: 48th Annual Conference June 22-25, 2008, Session 3H: ?The Best Defense: Navigating Complex Criminal Matters on Your Campus,? Monday, June 23, 11:15 a...

Deferring Discovery

Posted on June 18, 2008
It perhaps should surprise few that the civil cases would be as peculiar as was the criminal case. First came Duke's peculiar (and unsuccessful) motion demanding that the judge shut down the dukelawsuit.com website?even though the website only had links to case events and documents, while Duke itself hosted a website containing President Brodhead's official statement linking the plaintiffs to racism and the legacy of rape...

Journalistic Hit-Jobs

Posted on June 16, 2008
A paperback version of UPI will be published in September; it will include additional material updating matters since the hardcover book appeared. In the process of working on the update, I went back and looked through some of the early press coverage of events in Durham, and was particularly struck by two articles?columns that could be described as journalistic hit jobs...

Items in the News

Posted on June 11, 2008
The N&O has reported that, to date, the city of Durham has spent more than $730,000 on legal fees defending the various lawsuits arising from the case. The city?s insurance carrier pays for legal (and settlement) costs starting at $500,000 but ending at $5 million?which means, if the city fails in its attempt to get the falsely accused players? lawsuit dismissed, legal bills alone likely will exceed the insurance policy...

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The Butler Column and Its Response

Posted on June 09, 2008
A few weeks ago, the Chronicle?s Kristin Butler penned a column that opened with the arresting line, ?It seems anyone can get a college degree these days?especially if they go to North Carolina Central University.? Given Crystal Mangum?s personal history of accusing people of crimes that never occurred, drug and alcohol abuse, hospitalization for mental difficulties, and participation in the sex trade, Butler wondered how the false accuser did not seem to have violated NCCU?s honor code...

Eugene Brown, Voice of Reason

Posted on June 06, 2008
City Council member Eugene Brown has been one of the few voices of reason from Durham's political leadership over the past two-plus years. The N&O's Bull's Eye blog recounts this detail from yesterday's City Council meeting, regarding John Shelton--the police officer who saw through Crystal Mangum's lies from the start: Councilman Eugene Brown told Lt...

Nifong's Guitar

Posted on June 05, 2008
Tamara Gibbs is reporting that Mike Nifong has filed an appeal against the court order denying his request to get out of the lacrosse players' lawsuit by pleading bankruptcy.The bankruptcy judge's order, meanwhile, contains the following only-in-Durham item:3...

Reflections on the Motions to Dismiss

Posted on June 02, 2008
The several hundred pages of briefs filed last Friday contained four items of note. Two were genuine surprises?even at a stage in the process when only the most jaded person could be surprised about the case. Two more were expected legal arguments?but nonetheless spoke volumes about the atmosphere in Durham and at Duke...

The Other Briefs

Posted on June 01, 2008
Any case with multiple defendants (each of whom have behaved in what at the very least could be described as a dubious fashion) creates the possibility of the defendants falling out among themselves. In this case, of course, Mike Nifong represents an easy target...

Creative Writing 101

Posted on May 31, 2008
The Duke attorneys summarize the lacrosse players? claims, in the very first paragraph of the Duke reply?s ?nature of proceedings?: [The lacrosse players] contend that Duke and its employees violated their legal rights by providing the police with information about the alleged rape during the investigation...

The Duke Motion to Dismiss

Posted on May 31, 2008
The Duke motion to dismiss was filed yesterday afternoon. The document is a curious one?reflecting the University?s twin, and perhaps irreconcilable, aims in the lawsuit. On the one hand, the 50-page motion seems geared not for the court but for public opinion, describing the lacrosse players? legal claims in a manner that anyone who has read the case file would recognize as ridiculous?but which might allow the University to score some public relations points...

Tyson Reinvents Some More

Posted on May 27, 2008
Professors are supposed to be open-minded, willing to dispassionately evaluate new evidence as it arrives, and, if necessary, reconsider their initial assumptions. Obviously, the lacrosse case showed another side of some elements of the Duke faculty, as race/class/gender advocates not only presumed guilt but then reinvented the past to rationalize their initial actions...

Tyson Reinvents History

Posted on May 24, 2008
Last week, the N&O?s Peder Zane profiled Duke faculty member Tim Tyson?s efforts to examine the racial history of the South; the article revealed that ?Pender and New Hanover counties District Attorney Benjamin R. David?s mother signed up for the course last year, then convinced her son that the class would help his efforts to build trust across communities...

Moneta: ?Not Really a Topic I?m Interested in Talking About?

Posted on May 20, 2008
In a recent radio interview, Duke?s Larry Moneta criticized a website called juicycampus.com. Moneta pointed to the site?s anonymous rumor-mongering to describe it (correctly) as worthy of condemnation. Moneta?s outrage about the site prompted an understandable question from panelist Christopher Anderson, who wondered why Moneta hadn?t seemed concerned in spring 2006, when Duke professors and some students embarked on a rumor-mongering campaign against the lacrosse players...

Lindgren on the Lubiano Trio

Posted on May 16, 2008
At the Volokh Conspiracy, Jim Lindgren comments further on the peculiar Lubiano/Hardt/Wiegman defense of the Group of 88: I strongly doubt that suggestions that the offending professors should ?work as maids? or ?return to the slave quarters? were ?typically? offered by their critics...

The DOJ

Posted on May 13, 2008
Tomorrow, two subcommittees of the House Judiciary Committee will hold joint hearings on the following topic: "Allegations of Selective Prosecution Part II: The Erosion of Public Confidence in Our Federal Justice System."Here are the members of the two subcommittees; the links will proceed to the individual members' websites and email addresses...

Duke/Loyola

Posted on May 11, 2008
Yesterday, Duke ousted Loyola from the NCAA lacrosse tournament. For Loyola, the leading scorer was Collin Finnerty, who had three goals. After the game, a reunion photo:

North Carolina Results

Posted on May 07, 2008
Last night, Barack Obama scored a sizeable victory in what his opponent had suggested could be a ?game-changing? contest, one that would place the eyes of the ?world? on North Carolina. Obama won by around 233,000 votes?or around 3,000 votes fewer than Hillary Clinton?s combined popular vote-margin in Pennsylvania and Indiana...

Tracey Cline: The Nifongesque Choice

Posted on May 03, 2008
[At this stage, nothing should surprise me about this case, especially when the issue is Durham politics. Yet I confess that I am amazed that former Mike Nifong ADA Tracey Cline is a frontrunner for the position--endorsed by (of course) the Herald-Sun and several local PACs, despite the heavy shadow that Nifong should cast over her candidacy...

A Well-Deserved Award

Posted on May 02, 2008
From Editor & Publisher:Kristin Butler, a senior English major at Duke University, has won the $1,000 first-place prize in the National Society of Newspaper Columnists' annual student-scholarship contest . . . The winners were selected by Boston Globe/Washington Post Writers Group columnist Ellen Goodman, who'll receive the NSNC Ernie Pyle Lifetime Achievement Award at the organization's June 21-24 conference in New Orleans...

Responding to "Reharmonizer"

Posted on April 24, 2008
As DIW readers know, I generally have avoided making my own comments over the last several months, and have confined myself to the occasional post. I thought, however, it might be useful for me to respond to the reharmonizer comment in the Lubiano thread below...

A Lubiano "Publication"

Posted on April 23, 2008
Wahneema Lubiano, whose last scholarly publication was entitled ?Interview with Wahneema Lubiano,? recently took a break from her two ?forthcoming? manuscripts, Like Being Mugged by a Metaphor and Messing with the Machine. Both of these manuscripts, it?s worth remembering, have now been ?forthcoming??a designation that normally means completed and under contract?for eleven years...

Brad Ross

Posted on April 23, 2008
For those who haven't seen it, Brad Ross, one of the heroes of the case, is up for the Lowe's Senior Class Men's Lacrosse Award. You can vote here.

Butler's Last Column

Posted on April 22, 2008
For those who haven't yet seen it, the extraordinary Kristin Butler signs off.

More from "One of the Most Wide-Ranging Intellectuals in America"

Posted on April 20, 2008
In 1993, Terry Teachout penned a brutal review of Houston Baker?s then-most recent book. ?The argument of Black Studies, Rap, and the Academy,? noted Teachout, ?can be summed up briefly: (1) Black studies is an indispensable part of American higher education...

See It To Believe It

Posted on April 15, 2008
Vanderbilt University has 2876 full-time faculty members. Of this number, which one has the University chosen to highlight on its website? A hint: three days after the first article on the case appeared, he demanded that Duke summarily expel at least 46 members of the lacrosse team...

Duke Motion Denied

Posted on April 15, 2008
In what will surely rate as the least surprising development of the civil case, Judge James Beatty has rejected the Duke demand to sanction the unindicted lacrosse players' attorneys and close the Duke Lawsuit website.As Powerline's Paul Mirengoff had previously noted, "Setting up this kind of website, and indeed ones that are much more aggressive, is a common thing for plaintiffs to do these days ...

Good News on Elmostafa

Posted on April 12, 2008
From the Readers' Digest hero of the year, Moez Elmostafa:The good news is, yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security called me in for an interview, and I was finally awarded my citizenship. I am very happy as it has been a very long wait . ...

Kevin Finnerty Letter

Posted on April 09, 2008
A powerful letter by Kevin Finnerty, in the most recent Metro:Finnerty Family Remembers Article on Duke Lacrosse Case To writer Sharon Swanson: I hope this note finds you and your family doing well. We sure are. Easter has just passed, and I must say, we enjoyed a very warm family holiday, completely different from just a year ago...

Remarkable

Posted on April 05, 2008
Even now, there are case-related events that leave me stunned. The below is an actual press release.LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 7, 2008) ? The University of Kentucky Libraries Wendell H. Ford Public Policy Research Center will present a talk on the now infamous rape case lodged against members of a Duke University athletic team...

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