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DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE WENDY MURPHY FILE Anonymous said Equally disturbing is the lack of balanced coverage by those bloggers who, with such voracity, gouged into the very hearts of the three men back in M/A/M of this year. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE LATEST BOMBSHELL The Latest Bombshell. I spoke last night with Ashley Cannon, a former assistant district attorney in Mike Nifong’s office. She told me the following: On Friday, her last day working for Nifong, Cannon spoke with the Administrative Office of the Courts, and filed an oral complaint alleging sexual harassment by Assistant District Attorney C DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: APRIL 2006 Duke's Campus Culture. The Duke Chronicle has coverage of the first university-wide event, held last night, to address campus culture at Duke. Professor of African and African-American Studies Mark Anthony Neal maintained, “We need an innovated and brave curriculum that will allow our students to engage one another in a progressivemanner.”.
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: SUNDAY HEARING ROUND-UP For those curious about how the forensics community reacted to Brian Meehan’s appearance at Friday’s hearing, Kathleen Eckelt at Forensics Talk has the answer. Brent Turvey heads Forensic Solutions LLC and has authored several forensics books and articles; he also has conducted lectures on forensic practices in China, Australia, dozens of state and university conferences in the DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: GROUP PROFILE: WAHNEEMA'S WORLD In the months since Houston Baker departed Durham for Vanderbilt, a race to the bottom has occurred among the Duke faculty to determine which ideologue can behave in the most irresponsible manner. Three finalists for this dubious honor: Peter Wood, who has gone out of his way to appear to slander his own students;; Karla Holloway, who has proclaimed that “white innocence means black DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE PERRY MASON MOMENT The Perry Mason Moment. Seligmann attorney Jim Cooney: “Was the exclusion of material the result of a specific agreement between you and representatives of the state of North Carolina?”. DNA Security director Brian Meehan: Yes. Posted by kcjohnson9 at 3:08 PM. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: DSI "From the Scottsboro Boys to Clarence Gideon, some of the most memorable legal narratives have been tales of the wrongly accused. Now “Until Proven Innocent,” a new book about the false allegations of rape against three Duke lacrosse players, can join these galvanizing cautionary tales . . DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE MEEHAN TRANSCRIPT The Meehan Transcript. Today’s post begins with a multiple choice quiz. Mike Nifong waited until December 21 to have a representative from his office speak to the accuser about her recollections of March 13-14 because: a.) Using his skills as an amateur psychologist, Nifong determined that it would take no fewer than 281 days for the accuser DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: CHAFE CHIMES IN This morning’s Chronicle features an opinion piece by William Chafe on conditions at Duke. I’m a great admirer of Chafe’s scholarship, which I’ve frequently used in my classes. So of all the signatures on the Group of 88’s statement, his disappointed me the most.. Many of Chafe’s current comments are common sense. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: JOINED AT THE HIP The “joined-at-the-hip” relationship, ironically, seems quite one-sided: when the Gottlieb report was leaked, the recipient was not Ashley or Stevenson but Duff Wilson of the New York Times. The Herald-Sun was left with the thankless task of explaining how Gottlieb’s statistically disproportionate arrest rate of Dukestudents really
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE WENDY MURPHY FILE Anonymous said Equally disturbing is the lack of balanced coverage by those bloggers who, with such voracity, gouged into the very hearts of the three men back in M/A/M of this year. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE LATEST BOMBSHELL The Latest Bombshell. I spoke last night with Ashley Cannon, a former assistant district attorney in Mike Nifong’s office. She told me the following: On Friday, her last day working for Nifong, Cannon spoke with the Administrative Office of the Courts, and filed an oral complaint alleging sexual harassment by Assistant District Attorney C DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: APRIL 2006 Duke's Campus Culture. The Duke Chronicle has coverage of the first university-wide event, held last night, to address campus culture at Duke. Professor of African and African-American Studies Mark Anthony Neal maintained, “We need an innovated and brave curriculum that will allow our students to engage one another in a progressivemanner.”.
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: SUNDAY HEARING ROUND-UP For those curious about how the forensics community reacted to Brian Meehan’s appearance at Friday’s hearing, Kathleen Eckelt at Forensics Talk has the answer. Brent Turvey heads Forensic Solutions LLC and has authored several forensics books and articles; he also has conducted lectures on forensic practices in China, Australia, dozens of state and university conferences in the DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND The second significant event occurred with publication of the revisionist book by William D. Cohan.In his up-is-down opus, Cohan portrayed Mike Nifong as victim, “crucified” by the efforts of an amorphous conspiracy that included defense attorneys, the State Bar, some members of the media, Judge Osmond Smith, the Disciplinary Hearing Commission, families of the lacrosse players, senior DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: DSI "From the Scottsboro Boys to Clarence Gideon, some of the most memorable legal narratives have been tales of the wrongly accused. Now “Until Proven Innocent,” a new book about the false allegations of rape against three Duke lacrosse players, can join these galvanizing cautionary tales . . DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE COMPLAINT Some quick reactions, with more detailed analysis to follow. 1.) This filing is the beginning of the end of Nifong’s career as Durham D.A. The filing focuses solely on his procedurally improper public statements, which the Bar (correctly) contends violated Rule 3.8(f) of DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: CHAFE CHIMES IN This morning’s Chronicle features an opinion piece by William Chafe on conditions at Duke. I’m a great admirer of Chafe’s scholarship, which I’ve frequently used in my classes. So of all the signatures on the Group of 88’s statement, his disappointed me the most.. Many of Chafe’s current comments are common sense. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: UPDATED: CLINE REMOVED FROM OFFICE Rejects Judge Morey's claim that Cline's conduct has not impeded the administration of justice. Cline must be removed from office. Apart from the hearing, just before the filing deadline, and without informing his boss (interim DA Leon Stanback) Cline backer and ass't district attorney Jim Dornfried has filed to run against Judge Hudson. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: UNDERSTANDING SANE, IV Kathleen Eckelt continues her pathbreaking work on the case, with a summary post at Forensic Talk. The post, which focuses on the medical shortcomings and peculiarities in the state’s evidence, complements mine on the legal and academic side of the case.. Eckelt’s ten “strikes” against the medical evidence possessed by the state divide into five broad categories: (1) new—and critical DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: MEAGERLY ARTICULATED AGENDAS The change-of-venue motion’s faculty section, unsurprisingly, revolves around the Group of 88’s statement. Several weeks ago, Holloway complained that the Group’s critics had “displaced the actual content of the ad for the fiction of their own meagerly articulated agendas.”. In fact, most critics have focused on the“actual content
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE ARROGANCE OF STARN Anonymous said Dear Mr. Brodhead, I graduated Trinity in ‘75 and Duke University Graduate School of Business in ’78. I have written twice before and received only form responses. I am disappointed more and more each day by the failure to demonstrate leadership in the LAXcase.
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: DECEMBER 15 HEARING foregoing proceeding was taken on December 15, 2006, do hereby. certify that said hearing, pages 4 through 104 inclusive, is a. true, correct, and verbatim transcript of said proceeding. I further certify that I am neither counsel for, related to, nor employed by any of the parties to the action. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: STEVEN BALDWIN SPEAKS OUT Steven Baldwin Speaks Out. An extraordinary column in the Chronicle this morning from Chemistry professor Steven Baldwin. He argues, My biggest concern has always been with Duke’s treatment of the student athletes at the center of the storm. These kids DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: GROUP PROFILE: WAHNEEMA'S WORLD In the months since Houston Baker departed Durham for Vanderbilt, a race to the bottom has occurred among the Duke faculty to determine which ideologue can behave in the most irresponsible manner. Three finalists for this dubious honor: Peter Wood, who has gone out of his way to appear to slander his own students;; Karla Holloway, who has proclaimed that “white innocence means black DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE PERRY MASON MOMENT The Perry Mason Moment. Seligmann attorney Jim Cooney: “Was the exclusion of material the result of a specific agreement between you and representatives of the state of North Carolina?”. DNA Security director Brian Meehan: Yes. Posted by kcjohnson9 at 3:08 PM. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE COMPLAINT Some quick reactions, with more detailed analysis to follow. 1.) This filing is the beginning of the end of Nifong’s career as Durham D.A. The filing focuses solely on his procedurally improper public statements, which the Bar (correctly) contends violated Rule 3.8(f) of DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: CHAFE CHIMES IN This morning’s Chronicle features an opinion piece by William Chafe on conditions at Duke. I’m a great admirer of Chafe’s scholarship, which I’ve frequently used in my classes. So of all the signatures on the Group of 88’s statement, his disappointed me the most.. Many of Chafe’s current comments are common sense. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE MEEHAN TRANSCRIPT The Meehan Transcript. Today’s post begins with a multiple choice quiz. Mike Nifong waited until December 21 to have a representative from his office speak to the accuser about her recollections of March 13-14 because: a.) Using his skills as an amateur psychologist, Nifong determined that it would take no fewer than 281 days for the accuser DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE LATEST BOMBSHELL The Latest Bombshell. I spoke last night with Ashley Cannon, a former assistant district attorney in Mike Nifong’s office. She told me the following: On Friday, her last day working for Nifong, Cannon spoke with the Administrative Office of the Courts, and filed an oral complaint alleging sexual harassment by Assistant District Attorney C DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: JOINED AT THE HIP The “joined-at-the-hip” relationship, ironically, seems quite one-sided: when the Gottlieb report was leaked, the recipient was not Ashley or Stevenson but Duff Wilson of the New York Times. The Herald-Sun was left with the thankless task of explaining how Gottlieb’s statistically disproportionate arrest rate of Dukestudents really
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE WENDY MURPHY FILE Anonymous said Equally disturbing is the lack of balanced coverage by those bloggers who, with such voracity, gouged into the very hearts of the three men back in M/A/M of this year. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: GROUP OF 88 STATEMENT In light of a strongly negative reaction to the Group in the Duke Chronicle comments section and a biting essay on the Group’s motives in Johnsville News, the Group of 88’s statement suddenly disappeared from the Duke server. JN scanned the image before it, somewhat fittingly, vanished into the ether. The statement dated from April 6, when 88 members of Duke’s arts and sciences faculty DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: SUNDAY HEARING ROUND-UP For those curious about how the forensics community reacted to Brian Meehan’s appearance at Friday’s hearing, Kathleen Eckelt at Forensics Talk has the answer. Brent Turvey heads Forensic Solutions LLC and has authored several forensics books and articles; he also has conducted lectures on forensic practices in China, Australia, dozens of state and university conferences in the DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: GROUP PROFILE: WAHNEEMA'S WORLD In the months since Houston Baker departed Durham for Vanderbilt, a race to the bottom has occurred among the Duke faculty to determine which ideologue can behave in the most irresponsible manner. Three finalists for this dubious honor: Peter Wood, who has gone out of his way to appear to slander his own students;; Karla Holloway, who has proclaimed that “white innocence means black DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE PERRY MASON MOMENT The Perry Mason Moment. Seligmann attorney Jim Cooney: “Was the exclusion of material the result of a specific agreement between you and representatives of the state of North Carolina?”. DNA Security director Brian Meehan: Yes. Posted by kcjohnson9 at 3:08 PM. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE COMPLAINT Some quick reactions, with more detailed analysis to follow. 1.) This filing is the beginning of the end of Nifong’s career as Durham D.A. The filing focuses solely on his procedurally improper public statements, which the Bar (correctly) contends violated Rule 3.8(f) of DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE MEEHAN TRANSCRIPT The Meehan Transcript. Today’s post begins with a multiple choice quiz. Mike Nifong waited until December 21 to have a representative from his office speak to the accuser about her recollections of March 13-14 because: a.) Using his skills as an amateur psychologist, Nifong determined that it would take no fewer than 281 days for the accuser DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE LATEST BOMBSHELL The Latest Bombshell. I spoke last night with Ashley Cannon, a former assistant district attorney in Mike Nifong’s office. She told me the following: On Friday, her last day working for Nifong, Cannon spoke with the Administrative Office of the Courts, and filed an oral complaint alleging sexual harassment by Assistant District Attorney C DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: CHAFE CHIMES IN This morning’s Chronicle features an opinion piece by William Chafe on conditions at Duke. I’m a great admirer of Chafe’s scholarship, which I’ve frequently used in my classes. So of all the signatures on the Group of 88’s statement, his disappointed me the most.. Many of Chafe’s current comments are common sense. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: JOINED AT THE HIP The “joined-at-the-hip” relationship, ironically, seems quite one-sided: when the Gottlieb report was leaked, the recipient was not Ashley or Stevenson but Duff Wilson of the New York Times. The Herald-Sun was left with the thankless task of explaining how Gottlieb’s statistically disproportionate arrest rate of Dukestudents really
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE WENDY MURPHY FILE Anonymous said Equally disturbing is the lack of balanced coverage by those bloggers who, with such voracity, gouged into the very hearts of the three men back in M/A/M of this year. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: GROUP OF 88 STATEMENT In light of a strongly negative reaction to the Group in the Duke Chronicle comments section and a biting essay on the Group’s motives in Johnsville News, the Group of 88’s statement suddenly disappeared from the Duke server. JN scanned the image before it, somewhat fittingly, vanished into the ether. The statement dated from April 6, when 88 members of Duke’s arts and sciences faculty DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: SUNDAY HEARING ROUND-UP For those curious about how the forensics community reacted to Brian Meehan’s appearance at Friday’s hearing, Kathleen Eckelt at Forensics Talk has the answer. Brent Turvey heads Forensic Solutions LLC and has authored several forensics books and articles; he also has conducted lectures on forensic practices in China, Australia, dozens of state and university conferences in the DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: CHAFE CHIMES IN This morning’s Chronicle features an opinion piece by William Chafe on conditions at Duke. I’m a great admirer of Chafe’s scholarship, which I’ve frequently used in my classes. So of all the signatures on the Group of 88’s statement, his disappointed me the most.. Many of Chafe’s current comments are common sense. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: GROUP OF 88 STATEMENT In light of a strongly negative reaction to the Group in the Duke Chronicle comments section and a biting essay on the Group’s motives in Johnsville News, the Group of 88’s statement suddenly disappeared from the Duke server. JN scanned the image before it, somewhat fittingly, vanished into the ether. The statement dated from April 6, when 88 members of Duke’s arts and sciences faculty DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE MEEHAN TRANSCRIPT The Meehan Transcript. Today’s post begins with a multiple choice quiz. Mike Nifong waited until December 21 to have a representative from his office speak to the accuser about her recollections of March 13-14 because: a.) Using his skills as an amateur psychologist, Nifong determined that it would take no fewer than 281 days for the accuser DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: DSI "From the Scottsboro Boys to Clarence Gideon, some of the most memorable legal narratives have been tales of the wrongly accused. Now “Until Proven Innocent,” a new book about the false allegations of rape against three Duke lacrosse players, can join these galvanizing cautionary tales . . DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: MEAGERLY ARTICULATED AGENDAS The change-of-venue motion’s faculty section, unsurprisingly, revolves around the Group of 88’s statement. Several weeks ago, Holloway complained that the Group’s critics had “displaced the actual content of the ad for the fiction of their own meagerly articulated agendas.”. In fact, most critics have focused on the“actual content
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: ANALYZING THE COMPLAINT “Nifong engaged in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation . . .” --The North Carolina State Bar v. MichaelB. N
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: DUKE AND THREE FAMILIES SETTLE Duke today has announced a settlemen t with David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann. This a common-sense decision that serves the best interests of both sides. For the three players and their families, the move continues the process of putting behind them the events of the last 15 months; for Duke, the settlement prevents litigation that could have posed serious public relations DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: MORE MALAKLOU Duke Basketball Report has a must-read column appropriately comparing Shadee Malaklou's recent Herald-Sun op-ed to McCarthyism. (The links between McCarthyism and the case also were examined in a fascinating TalkLeft thread.) As DBR notes, quite beyond her other incredible statements, Malaklou twice suggests, without supplying any evidence, "that the lacrosse team has DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: WILSON AND STEVENSON DUKE IT OUT Wilson and Stevenson Duke It Out. This case has featured some extraordinary newspaper reporting—chiefly that of Joseph Neff—but also two examples from the other end of the spectrum of journalistic quality. Duff Wilson’s one-sided early coverage, coupled with his widely ridiculed August article, rightfully has earned him a placealongside
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: NIFONG ACCEPTS DISBARMENT David Freedman, Mike Nifong's attorney, has just announced that Nifong has accepted that disbarment is an "appropriate" penalty, and has accepted both disbarment and waived the right to appeal. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: GROUP PROFILE: WAHNEEMA'S WORLD In the months since Houston Baker departed Durham for Vanderbilt, a race to the bottom has occurred among the Duke faculty to determine which ideologue can behave in the most irresponsible manner. Three finalists for this dubious honor: Peter Wood, who has gone out of his way to appear to slander his own students;; Karla Holloway, who has proclaimed that “white innocence means black DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE PERRY MASON MOMENT The Perry Mason Moment. Seligmann attorney Jim Cooney: “Was the exclusion of material the result of a specific agreement between you and representatives of the state of North Carolina?”. DNA Security director Brian Meehan: Yes. Posted by kcjohnson9 at 3:08 PM. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE COMPLAINT Some quick reactions, with more detailed analysis to follow. 1.) This filing is the beginning of the end of Nifong’s career as Durham D.A. The filing focuses solely on his procedurally improper public statements, which the Bar (correctly) contends violated Rule 3.8(f) of DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: CHAFE CHIMES IN This morning’s Chronicle features an opinion piece by William Chafe on conditions at Duke. I’m a great admirer of Chafe’s scholarship, which I’ve frequently used in my classes. So of all the signatures on the Group of 88’s statement, his disappointed me the most.. Many of Chafe’s current comments are common sense. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE LATEST BOMBSHELL The Latest Bombshell. I spoke last night with Ashley Cannon, a former assistant district attorney in Mike Nifong’s office. She told me the following: On Friday, her last day working for Nifong, Cannon spoke with the Administrative Office of the Courts, and filed an oral complaint alleging sexual harassment by Assistant District Attorney C DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: JOINED AT THE HIP The “joined-at-the-hip” relationship, ironically, seems quite one-sided: when the Gottlieb report was leaked, the recipient was not Ashley or Stevenson but Duff Wilson of the New York Times. The Herald-Sun was left with the thankless task of explaining how Gottlieb’s statistically disproportionate arrest rate of Dukestudents really
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE WENDY MURPHY FILE Anonymous said Equally disturbing is the lack of balanced coverage by those bloggers who, with such voracity, gouged into the very hearts of the three men back in M/A/M of this year. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: GROUP OF 88 STATEMENT In light of a strongly negative reaction to the Group in the Duke Chronicle comments section and a biting essay on the Group’s motives in Johnsville News, the Group of 88’s statement suddenly disappeared from the Duke server. JN scanned the image before it, somewhat fittingly, vanished into the ether. The statement dated from April 6, when 88 members of Duke’s arts and sciences faculty DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: SUNDAY HEARING ROUND-UP For those curious about how the forensics community reacted to Brian Meehan’s appearance at Friday’s hearing, Kathleen Eckelt at Forensics Talk has the answer. Brent Turvey heads Forensic Solutions LLC and has authored several forensics books and articles; he also has conducted lectures on forensic practices in China, Australia, dozens of state and university conferences in the DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: DUKE AND THREE FAMILIES SETTLE Duke today has announced a settlemen t with David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann. This a common-sense decision that serves the best interests of both sides. For the three players and their families, the move continues the process of putting behind them the events of the last 15 months; for Duke, the settlement prevents litigation that could have posed serious public relations DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: GROUP PROFILE: WAHNEEMA'S WORLD In the months since Houston Baker departed Durham for Vanderbilt, a race to the bottom has occurred among the Duke faculty to determine which ideologue can behave in the most irresponsible manner. Three finalists for this dubious honor: Peter Wood, who has gone out of his way to appear to slander his own students;; Karla Holloway, who has proclaimed that “white innocence means black DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE PERRY MASON MOMENT The Perry Mason Moment. Seligmann attorney Jim Cooney: “Was the exclusion of material the result of a specific agreement between you and representatives of the state of North Carolina?”. DNA Security director Brian Meehan: Yes. Posted by kcjohnson9 at 3:08 PM. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE COMPLAINT Some quick reactions, with more detailed analysis to follow. 1.) This filing is the beginning of the end of Nifong’s career as Durham D.A. The filing focuses solely on his procedurally improper public statements, which the Bar (correctly) contends violated Rule 3.8(f) of DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE MEEHAN TRANSCRIPT The Meehan Transcript. Today’s post begins with a multiple choice quiz. Mike Nifong waited until December 21 to have a representative from his office speak to the accuser about her recollections of March 13-14 because: a.) Using his skills as an amateur psychologist, Nifong determined that it would take no fewer than 281 days for the accuser DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE LATEST BOMBSHELL The Latest Bombshell. I spoke last night with Ashley Cannon, a former assistant district attorney in Mike Nifong’s office. She told me the following: On Friday, her last day working for Nifong, Cannon spoke with the Administrative Office of the Courts, and filed an oral complaint alleging sexual harassment by Assistant District Attorney C DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: CHAFE CHIMES IN This morning’s Chronicle features an opinion piece by William Chafe on conditions at Duke. I’m a great admirer of Chafe’s scholarship, which I’ve frequently used in my classes. So of all the signatures on the Group of 88’s statement, his disappointed me the most.. Many of Chafe’s current comments are common sense. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: JOINED AT THE HIP The “joined-at-the-hip” relationship, ironically, seems quite one-sided: when the Gottlieb report was leaked, the recipient was not Ashley or Stevenson but Duff Wilson of the New York Times. The Herald-Sun was left with the thankless task of explaining how Gottlieb’s statistically disproportionate arrest rate of Dukestudents really
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE WENDY MURPHY FILE Anonymous said Equally disturbing is the lack of balanced coverage by those bloggers who, with such voracity, gouged into the very hearts of the three men back in M/A/M of this year. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: GROUP OF 88 STATEMENT In light of a strongly negative reaction to the Group in the Duke Chronicle comments section and a biting essay on the Group’s motives in Johnsville News, the Group of 88’s statement suddenly disappeared from the Duke server. JN scanned the image before it, somewhat fittingly, vanished into the ether. The statement dated from April 6, when 88 members of Duke’s arts and sciences faculty DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: SUNDAY HEARING ROUND-UP For those curious about how the forensics community reacted to Brian Meehan’s appearance at Friday’s hearing, Kathleen Eckelt at Forensics Talk has the answer. Brent Turvey heads Forensic Solutions LLC and has authored several forensics books and articles; he also has conducted lectures on forensic practices in China, Australia, dozens of state and university conferences in the DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: CHAFE CHIMES IN This morning’s Chronicle features an opinion piece by William Chafe on conditions at Duke. I’m a great admirer of Chafe’s scholarship, which I’ve frequently used in my classes. So of all the signatures on the Group of 88’s statement, his disappointed me the most.. Many of Chafe’s current comments are common sense. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: GROUP OF 88 STATEMENT In light of a strongly negative reaction to the Group in the Duke Chronicle comments section and a biting essay on the Group’s motives in Johnsville News, the Group of 88’s statement suddenly disappeared from the Duke server. JN scanned the image before it, somewhat fittingly, vanished into the ether. The statement dated from April 6, when 88 members of Duke’s arts and sciences faculty DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE MEEHAN TRANSCRIPT The Meehan Transcript. Today’s post begins with a multiple choice quiz. Mike Nifong waited until December 21 to have a representative from his office speak to the accuser about her recollections of March 13-14 because: a.) Using his skills as an amateur psychologist, Nifong determined that it would take no fewer than 281 days for the accuser DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: DSI "From the Scottsboro Boys to Clarence Gideon, some of the most memorable legal narratives have been tales of the wrongly accused. Now “Until Proven Innocent,” a new book about the false allegations of rape against three Duke lacrosse players, can join these galvanizing cautionary tales . . DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: MEAGERLY ARTICULATED AGENDAS The change-of-venue motion’s faculty section, unsurprisingly, revolves around the Group of 88’s statement. Several weeks ago, Holloway complained that the Group’s critics had “displaced the actual content of the ad for the fiction of their own meagerly articulated agendas.”. In fact, most critics have focused on the“actual content
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: ANALYZING THE COMPLAINT “Nifong engaged in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation . . .” --The North Carolina State Bar v. MichaelB. N
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: DUKE AND THREE FAMILIES SETTLE Duke today has announced a settlemen t with David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann. This a common-sense decision that serves the best interests of both sides. For the three players and their families, the move continues the process of putting behind them the events of the last 15 months; for Duke, the settlement prevents litigation that could have posed serious public relations DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: MORE MALAKLOU Duke Basketball Report has a must-read column appropriately comparing Shadee Malaklou's recent Herald-Sun op-ed to McCarthyism. (The links between McCarthyism and the case also were examined in a fascinating TalkLeft thread.) As DBR notes, quite beyond her other incredible statements, Malaklou twice suggests, without supplying any evidence, "that the lacrosse team has DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: WILSON AND STEVENSON DUKE IT OUT Wilson and Stevenson Duke It Out. This case has featured some extraordinary newspaper reporting—chiefly that of Joseph Neff—but also two examples from the other end of the spectrum of journalistic quality. Duff Wilson’s one-sided early coverage, coupled with his widely ridiculed August article, rightfully has earned him a placealongside
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: NIFONG ACCEPTS DISBARMENT David Freedman, Mike Nifong's attorney, has just announced that Nifong has accepted that disbarment is an "appropriate" penalty, and has accepted both disbarment and waived the right to appeal. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: GROUP PROFILE: WAHNEEMA'S WORLD In the months since Houston Baker departed Durham for Vanderbilt, a race to the bottom has occurred among the Duke faculty to determine which ideologue can behave in the most irresponsible manner. Three finalists for this dubious honor: Peter Wood, who has gone out of his way to appear to slander his own students;; Karla Holloway, who has proclaimed that “white innocence means black DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE PERRY MASON MOMENT The Perry Mason Moment. Seligmann attorney Jim Cooney: “Was the exclusion of material the result of a specific agreement between you and representatives of the state of North Carolina?”. DNA Security director Brian Meehan: Yes. Posted by kcjohnson9 at 3:08 PM. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE COMPLAINT Some quick reactions, with more detailed analysis to follow. 1.) This filing is the beginning of the end of Nifong’s career as Durham D.A. The filing focuses solely on his procedurally improper public statements, which the Bar (correctly) contends violated Rule 3.8(f) of DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: CHAFE CHIMES IN This morning’s Chronicle features an opinion piece by William Chafe on conditions at Duke. I’m a great admirer of Chafe’s scholarship, which I’ve frequently used in my classes. So of all the signatures on the Group of 88’s statement, his disappointed me the most.. Many of Chafe’s current comments are common sense. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE LATEST BOMBSHELL The Latest Bombshell. I spoke last night with Ashley Cannon, a former assistant district attorney in Mike Nifong’s office. She told me the following: On Friday, her last day working for Nifong, Cannon spoke with the Administrative Office of the Courts, and filed an oral complaint alleging sexual harassment by Assistant District Attorney C DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: JOINED AT THE HIP The “joined-at-the-hip” relationship, ironically, seems quite one-sided: when the Gottlieb report was leaked, the recipient was not Ashley or Stevenson but Duff Wilson of the New York Times. The Herald-Sun was left with the thankless task of explaining how Gottlieb’s statistically disproportionate arrest rate of Dukestudents really
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE WENDY MURPHY FILE Anonymous said Equally disturbing is the lack of balanced coverage by those bloggers who, with such voracity, gouged into the very hearts of the three men back in M/A/M of this year. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: GROUP OF 88 STATEMENT In light of a strongly negative reaction to the Group in the Duke Chronicle comments section and a biting essay on the Group’s motives in Johnsville News, the Group of 88’s statement suddenly disappeared from the Duke server. JN scanned the image before it, somewhat fittingly, vanished into the ether. The statement dated from April 6, when 88 members of Duke’s arts and sciences faculty DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: SUNDAY HEARING ROUND-UP For those curious about how the forensics community reacted to Brian Meehan’s appearance at Friday’s hearing, Kathleen Eckelt at Forensics Talk has the answer. Brent Turvey heads Forensic Solutions LLC and has authored several forensics books and articles; he also has conducted lectures on forensic practices in China, Australia, dozens of state and university conferences in the DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: DUKE AND THREE FAMILIES SETTLE Duke today has announced a settlemen t with David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann. This a common-sense decision that serves the best interests of both sides. For the three players and their families, the move continues the process of putting behind them the events of the last 15 months; for Duke, the settlement prevents litigation that could have posed serious public relations DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: GROUP PROFILE: WAHNEEMA'S WORLD In the months since Houston Baker departed Durham for Vanderbilt, a race to the bottom has occurred among the Duke faculty to determine which ideologue can behave in the most irresponsible manner. Three finalists for this dubious honor: Peter Wood, who has gone out of his way to appear to slander his own students;; Karla Holloway, who has proclaimed that “white innocence means black DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE PERRY MASON MOMENT The Perry Mason Moment. Seligmann attorney Jim Cooney: “Was the exclusion of material the result of a specific agreement between you and representatives of the state of North Carolina?”. DNA Security director Brian Meehan: Yes. Posted by kcjohnson9 at 3:08 PM. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE COMPLAINT Some quick reactions, with more detailed analysis to follow. 1.) This filing is the beginning of the end of Nifong’s career as Durham D.A. The filing focuses solely on his procedurally improper public statements, which the Bar (correctly) contends violated Rule 3.8(f) of DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: CHAFE CHIMES IN This morning’s Chronicle features an opinion piece by William Chafe on conditions at Duke. I’m a great admirer of Chafe’s scholarship, which I’ve frequently used in my classes. So of all the signatures on the Group of 88’s statement, his disappointed me the most.. Many of Chafe’s current comments are common sense. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE LATEST BOMBSHELL The Latest Bombshell. I spoke last night with Ashley Cannon, a former assistant district attorney in Mike Nifong’s office. She told me the following: On Friday, her last day working for Nifong, Cannon spoke with the Administrative Office of the Courts, and filed an oral complaint alleging sexual harassment by Assistant District Attorney C DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: JOINED AT THE HIP The “joined-at-the-hip” relationship, ironically, seems quite one-sided: when the Gottlieb report was leaked, the recipient was not Ashley or Stevenson but Duff Wilson of the New York Times. The Herald-Sun was left with the thankless task of explaining how Gottlieb’s statistically disproportionate arrest rate of Dukestudents really
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE WENDY MURPHY FILE Anonymous said Equally disturbing is the lack of balanced coverage by those bloggers who, with such voracity, gouged into the very hearts of the three men back in M/A/M of this year. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: GROUP OF 88 STATEMENT In light of a strongly negative reaction to the Group in the Duke Chronicle comments section and a biting essay on the Group’s motives in Johnsville News, the Group of 88’s statement suddenly disappeared from the Duke server. JN scanned the image before it, somewhat fittingly, vanished into the ether. The statement dated from April 6, when 88 members of Duke’s arts and sciences faculty DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: SUNDAY HEARING ROUND-UP For those curious about how the forensics community reacted to Brian Meehan’s appearance at Friday’s hearing, Kathleen Eckelt at Forensics Talk has the answer. Brent Turvey heads Forensic Solutions LLC and has authored several forensics books and articles; he also has conducted lectures on forensic practices in China, Australia, dozens of state and university conferences in the DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: DUKE AND THREE FAMILIES SETTLE Duke today has announced a settlemen t with David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann. This a common-sense decision that serves the best interests of both sides. For the three players and their families, the move continues the process of putting behind them the events of the last 15 months; for Duke, the settlement prevents litigation that could have posed serious public relations DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: CHAFE CHIMES IN This morning’s Chronicle features an opinion piece by William Chafe on conditions at Duke. I’m a great admirer of Chafe’s scholarship, which I’ve frequently used in my classes. So of all the signatures on the Group of 88’s statement, his disappointed me the most.. Many of Chafe’s current comments are common sense. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: GROUP OF 88 STATEMENT In light of a strongly negative reaction to the Group in the Duke Chronicle comments section and a biting essay on the Group’s motives in Johnsville News, the Group of 88’s statement suddenly disappeared from the Duke server. JN scanned the image before it, somewhat fittingly, vanished into the ether. The statement dated from April 6, when 88 members of Duke’s arts and sciences faculty DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE MEEHAN TRANSCRIPT The Meehan Transcript. Today’s post begins with a multiple choice quiz. Mike Nifong waited until December 21 to have a representative from his office speak to the accuser about her recollections of March 13-14 because: a.) Using his skills as an amateur psychologist, Nifong determined that it would take no fewer than 281 days for the accuser DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: DSI "From the Scottsboro Boys to Clarence Gideon, some of the most memorable legal narratives have been tales of the wrongly accused. Now “Until Proven Innocent,” a new book about the false allegations of rape against three Duke lacrosse players, can join these galvanizing cautionary tales . . DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: MEAGERLY ARTICULATED AGENDAS The change-of-venue motion’s faculty section, unsurprisingly, revolves around the Group of 88’s statement. Several weeks ago, Holloway complained that the Group’s critics had “displaced the actual content of the ad for the fiction of their own meagerly articulated agendas.”. In fact, most critics have focused on the“actual content
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: ANALYZING THE COMPLAINT “Nifong engaged in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation . . .” --The North Carolina State Bar v. MichaelB. N
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: DUKE AND THREE FAMILIES SETTLE Duke today has announced a settlemen t with David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann. This a common-sense decision that serves the best interests of both sides. For the three players and their families, the move continues the process of putting behind them the events of the last 15 months; for Duke, the settlement prevents litigation that could have posed serious public relations DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: MORE MALAKLOU Duke Basketball Report has a must-read column appropriately comparing Shadee Malaklou's recent Herald-Sun op-ed to McCarthyism. (The links between McCarthyism and the case also were examined in a fascinating TalkLeft thread.) As DBR notes, quite beyond her other incredible statements, Malaklou twice suggests, without supplying any evidence, "that the lacrosse team has DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: WILSON AND STEVENSON DUKE IT OUT Wilson and Stevenson Duke It Out. This case has featured some extraordinary newspaper reporting—chiefly that of Joseph Neff—but also two examples from the other end of the spectrum of journalistic quality. Duff Wilson’s one-sided early coverage, coupled with his widely ridiculed August article, rightfully has earned him a placealongside
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: NIFONG ACCEPTS DISBARMENT David Freedman, Mike Nifong's attorney, has just announced that Nifong has accepted that disbarment is an "appropriate" penalty, and has accepted both disbarment and waived the right to appeal. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLANDLIESTOPPERSJOHNSVILLE NEWSKRISTIN BUTLERFRIENDS OF DUKE UNIVERSITYPOSTS (ATOM) The second significant event occurred with publication of the revisionist book by William D. Cohan.In his up-is-down opus, Cohan portrayed Mike Nifong as victim, “crucified” by the efforts of an amorphous conspiracy that included defense attorneys, the State Bar, some members of the media, Judge Osmond Smith, the Disciplinary Hearing Commission, families of the lacrosse players, senior DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: GROUP PROFILE: WAHNEEMA'S WORLD In the months since Houston Baker departed Durham for Vanderbilt, a race to the bottom has occurred among the Duke faculty to determine which ideologue can behave in the most irresponsible manner. Three finalists for this dubious honor: Peter Wood, who has gone out of his way to appear to slander his own students;; Karla Holloway, who has proclaimed that “white innocence means black DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE PERRY MASON MOMENT The Perry Mason Moment. Seligmann attorney Jim Cooney: “Was the exclusion of material the result of a specific agreement between you and representatives of the state of North Carolina?”. DNA Security director Brian Meehan: Yes. Posted by kcjohnson9 at 3:08 PM. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: CHAFE CHIMES IN This morning’s Chronicle features an opinion piece by William Chafe on conditions at Duke. I’m a great admirer of Chafe’s scholarship, which I’ve frequently used in my classes. So of all the signatures on the Group of 88’s statement, his disappointed me the most.. Many of Chafe’s current comments are common sense. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: JOINED AT THE HIP The “joined-at-the-hip” relationship, ironically, seems quite one-sided: when the Gottlieb report was leaked, the recipient was not Ashley or Stevenson but Duff Wilson of the New York Times. The Herald-Sun was left with the thankless task of explaining how Gottlieb’s statistically disproportionate arrest rate of Dukestudents really
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE WENDY MURPHY FILE Anonymous said Equally disturbing is the lack of balanced coverage by those bloggers who, with such voracity, gouged into the very hearts of the three men back in M/A/M of this year. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: UPDATED: CLINE REMOVED FROM OFFICE Rejects Judge Morey's claim that Cline's conduct has not impeded the administration of justice. Cline must be removed from office. Apart from the hearing, just before the filing deadline, and without informing his boss (interim DA Leon Stanback) Cline backer and ass't district attorney Jim Dornfried has filed to run against Judge Hudson. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE LATEST BOMBSHELL The Latest Bombshell. I spoke last night with Ashley Cannon, a former assistant district attorney in Mike Nifong’s office. She told me the following: On Friday, her last day working for Nifong, Cannon spoke with the Administrative Office of the Courts, and filed an oral complaint alleging sexual harassment by Assistant District Attorney C DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE ARROGANCE OF STARN Anonymous said Dear Mr. Brodhead, I graduated Trinity in ‘75 and Duke University Graduate School of Business in ’78. I have written twice before and received only form responses. I am disappointed more and more each day by the failure to demonstrate leadership in the LAXcase.
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: SUNDAY HEARING ROUND-UP For those curious about how the forensics community reacted to Brian Meehan’s appearance at Friday’s hearing, Kathleen Eckelt at Forensics Talk has the answer. Brent Turvey heads Forensic Solutions LLC and has authored several forensics books and articles; he also has conducted lectures on forensic practices in China, Australia, dozens of state and university conferences in the DURHAM-IN-WONDERLANDLIESTOPPERSJOHNSVILLE NEWSKRISTIN BUTLERFRIENDS OF DUKE UNIVERSITYPOSTS (ATOM) The second significant event occurred with publication of the revisionist book by William D. Cohan.In his up-is-down opus, Cohan portrayed Mike Nifong as victim, “crucified” by the efforts of an amorphous conspiracy that included defense attorneys, the State Bar, some members of the media, Judge Osmond Smith, the Disciplinary Hearing Commission, families of the lacrosse players, senior DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: GROUP PROFILE: WAHNEEMA'S WORLD In the months since Houston Baker departed Durham for Vanderbilt, a race to the bottom has occurred among the Duke faculty to determine which ideologue can behave in the most irresponsible manner. Three finalists for this dubious honor: Peter Wood, who has gone out of his way to appear to slander his own students;; Karla Holloway, who has proclaimed that “white innocence means black DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE PERRY MASON MOMENT The Perry Mason Moment. Seligmann attorney Jim Cooney: “Was the exclusion of material the result of a specific agreement between you and representatives of the state of North Carolina?”. DNA Security director Brian Meehan: Yes. Posted by kcjohnson9 at 3:08 PM. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: CHAFE CHIMES IN This morning’s Chronicle features an opinion piece by William Chafe on conditions at Duke. I’m a great admirer of Chafe’s scholarship, which I’ve frequently used in my classes. So of all the signatures on the Group of 88’s statement, his disappointed me the most.. Many of Chafe’s current comments are common sense. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: JOINED AT THE HIP The “joined-at-the-hip” relationship, ironically, seems quite one-sided: when the Gottlieb report was leaked, the recipient was not Ashley or Stevenson but Duff Wilson of the New York Times. The Herald-Sun was left with the thankless task of explaining how Gottlieb’s statistically disproportionate arrest rate of Dukestudents really
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE WENDY MURPHY FILE Anonymous said Equally disturbing is the lack of balanced coverage by those bloggers who, with such voracity, gouged into the very hearts of the three men back in M/A/M of this year. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: UPDATED: CLINE REMOVED FROM OFFICE Rejects Judge Morey's claim that Cline's conduct has not impeded the administration of justice. Cline must be removed from office. Apart from the hearing, just before the filing deadline, and without informing his boss (interim DA Leon Stanback) Cline backer and ass't district attorney Jim Dornfried has filed to run against Judge Hudson. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE LATEST BOMBSHELL The Latest Bombshell. I spoke last night with Ashley Cannon, a former assistant district attorney in Mike Nifong’s office. She told me the following: On Friday, her last day working for Nifong, Cannon spoke with the Administrative Office of the Courts, and filed an oral complaint alleging sexual harassment by Assistant District Attorney C DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE ARROGANCE OF STARN Anonymous said Dear Mr. Brodhead, I graduated Trinity in ‘75 and Duke University Graduate School of Business in ’78. I have written twice before and received only form responses. I am disappointed more and more each day by the failure to demonstrate leadership in the LAXcase.
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: SUNDAY HEARING ROUND-UP For those curious about how the forensics community reacted to Brian Meehan’s appearance at Friday’s hearing, Kathleen Eckelt at Forensics Talk has the answer. Brent Turvey heads Forensic Solutions LLC and has authored several forensics books and articles; he also has conducted lectures on forensic practices in China, Australia, dozens of state and university conferences in the DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: CHAFE CHIMES IN This morning’s Chronicle features an opinion piece by William Chafe on conditions at Duke. I’m a great admirer of Chafe’s scholarship, which I’ve frequently used in my classes. So of all the signatures on the Group of 88’s statement, his disappointed me the most.. Many of Chafe’s current comments are common sense. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: DSI "From the Scottsboro Boys to Clarence Gideon, some of the most memorable legal narratives have been tales of the wrongly accused. Now “Until Proven Innocent,” a new book about the false allegations of rape against three Duke lacrosse players, can join these galvanizing cautionary tales . . DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: 2006 In fact, most of the players waited more than a week after the party to retain counsel. 7.) (17 April 2006) “Brett and Matt happen to be the real names of two of the captains who lived in that home.”. In fact, the three residents of the house were named Matt Zash, Dan Flannery, and Dave Evans. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE CHRONICLE REMEMBERS Interviews with '06 and '07 editors Seyward Darby and Ryan McCartney.I never met Darby; I had a few conversations with McCartney (whose work I admired very much). Both are asked--appropriately--what they would do differently, with the benefit of hindsight; and both have someideas.
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: APRIL 2006 88 members of the Duke faculty—including 11 members of its History Department, among them such luminaries as William Chafe and Claudia Koonz—and 15 academic departments or programs recently signed a public statement saying they were “listening” regarding allegations against the Duke lacrosse team.The statement spoke of “what happened to this young woman” (which at that point DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: UPDATED: CLINE REMOVED FROM OFFICE Rejects Judge Morey's claim that Cline's conduct has not impeded the administration of justice. Cline must be removed from office. Apart from the hearing, just before the filing deadline, and without informing his boss (interim DA Leon Stanback) Cline backer and ass't district attorney Jim Dornfried has filed to run against Judge Hudson. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: ANALYZING THE COMPLAINT “Nifong engaged in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation . . .” --The North Carolina State Bar v. MichaelB. N
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: 2013 (1) For those interested, I have a long piece at Minding the Campus examining the overall decline of due process involving campus allegations of sexual assault—and asking why colleges are so reluctant to treat rape what it is: a crime. In short, a combination of pressure from the Office for Civil Rights, a general indifference to due process by some administrators, and an aggressive attempt DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: REMINDERS A few items from the last week serve as reminders of the lacrosse case. First, a teaser from yesterday’s N&O front page, highlighting an article to appear Sunday (that I’ll blog) on Mike Nifong’s ethically-challenged successor, Tracey Cline.. Second, college football fans might have read about the arrests of two of LSU players (including the starting quarterback) for assault. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: LINWOOD WILSON ARRESTED (UPDATED) Linwood Wilson --whose penchant for unethical behavior was outdone only by the unethical behavior of his disgraced former boss--has been arrested, on a Delaware warrant related to domestic violence and cyberstalking his estranged wife. Warrants state on June 1, Wilson allegedly sent his wife an instant message that said in part, "'tildeath do
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLANDLIESTOPPERSJOHNSVILLE NEWSKRISTIN BUTLERFRIENDS OF DUKE UNIVERSITYPOSTS (ATOM) The second significant event occurred with publication of the revisionist book by William D. Cohan.In his up-is-down opus, Cohan portrayed Mike Nifong as victim, “crucified” by the efforts of an amorphous conspiracy that included defense attorneys, the State Bar, some members of the media, Judge Osmond Smith, the Disciplinary Hearing Commission, families of the lacrosse players, senior DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: GROUP PROFILE: WAHNEEMA'S WORLD In the months since Houston Baker departed Durham for Vanderbilt, a race to the bottom has occurred among the Duke faculty to determine which ideologue can behave in the most irresponsible manner. Three finalists for this dubious honor: Peter Wood, who has gone out of his way to appear to slander his own students;; Karla Holloway, who has proclaimed that “white innocence means black DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE PERRY MASON MOMENT The Perry Mason Moment. Seligmann attorney Jim Cooney: “Was the exclusion of material the result of a specific agreement between you and representatives of the state of North Carolina?”. DNA Security director Brian Meehan: Yes. Posted by kcjohnson9 at 3:08 PM. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: CHAFE CHIMES IN This morning’s Chronicle features an opinion piece by William Chafe on conditions at Duke. I’m a great admirer of Chafe’s scholarship, which I’ve frequently used in my classes. So of all the signatures on the Group of 88’s statement, his disappointed me the most.. Many of Chafe’s current comments are common sense. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: JOINED AT THE HIP The “joined-at-the-hip” relationship, ironically, seems quite one-sided: when the Gottlieb report was leaked, the recipient was not Ashley or Stevenson but Duff Wilson of the New York Times. The Herald-Sun was left with the thankless task of explaining how Gottlieb’s statistically disproportionate arrest rate of Dukestudents really
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE WENDY MURPHY FILEWENDY MURPHY BIOWENDY MURPHY LAWYERARTICLES BY WENDY MURPHYATTORNEY WENDY MURPHY BOSTONWENDY MURPHY FACEBOOKWENDY MURPHY DISBARRED Anonymous said Equally disturbing is the lack of balanced coverage by those bloggers who, with such voracity, gouged into the very hearts of the three men back in M/A/M of this year. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: UPDATED: CLINE REMOVED FROM OFFICE Rejects Judge Morey's claim that Cline's conduct has not impeded the administration of justice. Cline must be removed from office. Apart from the hearing, just before the filing deadline, and without informing his boss (interim DA Leon Stanback) Cline backer and ass't district attorney Jim Dornfried has filed to run against Judge Hudson. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE LATEST BOMBSHELL The Latest Bombshell. I spoke last night with Ashley Cannon, a former assistant district attorney in Mike Nifong’s office. She told me the following: On Friday, her last day working for Nifong, Cannon spoke with the Administrative Office of the Courts, and filed an oral complaint alleging sexual harassment by Assistant District Attorney C DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE ARROGANCE OF STARN Anonymous said Dear Mr. Brodhead, I graduated Trinity in ‘75 and Duke University Graduate School of Business in ’78. I have written twice before and received only form responses. I am disappointed more and more each day by the failure to demonstrate leadership in the LAXcase.
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: SUNDAY HEARING ROUND-UP For those curious about how the forensics community reacted to Brian Meehan’s appearance at Friday’s hearing, Kathleen Eckelt at Forensics Talk has the answer. Brent Turvey heads Forensic Solutions LLC and has authored several forensics books and articles; he also has conducted lectures on forensic practices in China, Australia, dozens of state and university conferences in the DURHAM-IN-WONDERLANDLIESTOPPERSJOHNSVILLE NEWSKRISTIN BUTLERFRIENDS OF DUKE UNIVERSITYPOSTS (ATOM) The second significant event occurred with publication of the revisionist book by William D. Cohan.In his up-is-down opus, Cohan portrayed Mike Nifong as victim, “crucified” by the efforts of an amorphous conspiracy that included defense attorneys, the State Bar, some members of the media, Judge Osmond Smith, the Disciplinary Hearing Commission, families of the lacrosse players, senior DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: GROUP PROFILE: WAHNEEMA'S WORLD In the months since Houston Baker departed Durham for Vanderbilt, a race to the bottom has occurred among the Duke faculty to determine which ideologue can behave in the most irresponsible manner. Three finalists for this dubious honor: Peter Wood, who has gone out of his way to appear to slander his own students;; Karla Holloway, who has proclaimed that “white innocence means black DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE PERRY MASON MOMENT The Perry Mason Moment. Seligmann attorney Jim Cooney: “Was the exclusion of material the result of a specific agreement between you and representatives of the state of North Carolina?”. DNA Security director Brian Meehan: Yes. Posted by kcjohnson9 at 3:08 PM. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: CHAFE CHIMES IN This morning’s Chronicle features an opinion piece by William Chafe on conditions at Duke. I’m a great admirer of Chafe’s scholarship, which I’ve frequently used in my classes. So of all the signatures on the Group of 88’s statement, his disappointed me the most.. Many of Chafe’s current comments are common sense. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: JOINED AT THE HIP The “joined-at-the-hip” relationship, ironically, seems quite one-sided: when the Gottlieb report was leaked, the recipient was not Ashley or Stevenson but Duff Wilson of the New York Times. The Herald-Sun was left with the thankless task of explaining how Gottlieb’s statistically disproportionate arrest rate of Dukestudents really
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE WENDY MURPHY FILEWENDY MURPHY BIOWENDY MURPHY LAWYERARTICLES BY WENDY MURPHYATTORNEY WENDY MURPHY BOSTONWENDY MURPHY FACEBOOKWENDY MURPHY DISBARRED Anonymous said Equally disturbing is the lack of balanced coverage by those bloggers who, with such voracity, gouged into the very hearts of the three men back in M/A/M of this year. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: UPDATED: CLINE REMOVED FROM OFFICE Rejects Judge Morey's claim that Cline's conduct has not impeded the administration of justice. Cline must be removed from office. Apart from the hearing, just before the filing deadline, and without informing his boss (interim DA Leon Stanback) Cline backer and ass't district attorney Jim Dornfried has filed to run against Judge Hudson. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE LATEST BOMBSHELL The Latest Bombshell. I spoke last night with Ashley Cannon, a former assistant district attorney in Mike Nifong’s office. She told me the following: On Friday, her last day working for Nifong, Cannon spoke with the Administrative Office of the Courts, and filed an oral complaint alleging sexual harassment by Assistant District Attorney C DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE ARROGANCE OF STARN Anonymous said Dear Mr. Brodhead, I graduated Trinity in ‘75 and Duke University Graduate School of Business in ’78. I have written twice before and received only form responses. I am disappointed more and more each day by the failure to demonstrate leadership in the LAXcase.
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: SUNDAY HEARING ROUND-UP For those curious about how the forensics community reacted to Brian Meehan’s appearance at Friday’s hearing, Kathleen Eckelt at Forensics Talk has the answer. Brent Turvey heads Forensic Solutions LLC and has authored several forensics books and articles; he also has conducted lectures on forensic practices in China, Australia, dozens of state and university conferences in the DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: CHAFE CHIMES IN This morning’s Chronicle features an opinion piece by William Chafe on conditions at Duke. I’m a great admirer of Chafe’s scholarship, which I’ve frequently used in my classes. So of all the signatures on the Group of 88’s statement, his disappointed me the most.. Many of Chafe’s current comments are common sense. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: DSI "From the Scottsboro Boys to Clarence Gideon, some of the most memorable legal narratives have been tales of the wrongly accused. Now “Until Proven Innocent,” a new book about the false allegations of rape against three Duke lacrosse players, can join these galvanizing cautionary tales . . DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: 2006 In fact, most of the players waited more than a week after the party to retain counsel. 7.) (17 April 2006) “Brett and Matt happen to be the real names of two of the captains who lived in that home.”. In fact, the three residents of the house were named Matt Zash, Dan Flannery, and Dave Evans. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: THE CHRONICLE REMEMBERS Interviews with '06 and '07 editors Seyward Darby and Ryan McCartney.I never met Darby; I had a few conversations with McCartney (whose work I admired very much). Both are asked--appropriately--what they would do differently, with the benefit of hindsight; and both have someideas.
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: APRIL 2006 88 members of the Duke faculty—including 11 members of its History Department, among them such luminaries as William Chafe and Claudia Koonz—and 15 academic departments or programs recently signed a public statement saying they were “listening” regarding allegations against the Duke lacrosse team.The statement spoke of “what happened to this young woman” (which at that point DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: UPDATED: CLINE REMOVED FROM OFFICE Rejects Judge Morey's claim that Cline's conduct has not impeded the administration of justice. Cline must be removed from office. Apart from the hearing, just before the filing deadline, and without informing his boss (interim DA Leon Stanback) Cline backer and ass't district attorney Jim Dornfried has filed to run against Judge Hudson. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: ANALYZING THE COMPLAINT “Nifong engaged in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation . . .” --The North Carolina State Bar v. MichaelB. N
DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: 2013 (1) For those interested, I have a long piece at Minding the Campus examining the overall decline of due process involving campus allegations of sexual assault—and asking why colleges are so reluctant to treat rape what it is: a crime. In short, a combination of pressure from the Office for Civil Rights, a general indifference to due process by some administrators, and an aggressive attempt DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: REMINDERS A few items from the last week serve as reminders of the lacrosse case. First, a teaser from yesterday’s N&O front page, highlighting an article to appear Sunday (that I’ll blog) on Mike Nifong’s ethically-challenged successor, Tracey Cline.. Second, college football fans might have read about the arrests of two of LSU players (including the starting quarterback) for assault. DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND: LINWOOD WILSON ARRESTED (UPDATED) Linwood Wilson --whose penchant for unethical behavior was outdone only by the unethical behavior of his disgraced former boss--has been arrested, on a Delaware warrant related to domestic violence and cyberstalking his estranged wife. Warrants state on June 1, Wilson allegedly sent his wife an instant message that said in part, "'tildeath do
skip to main | skip to sidebar DURHAM-IN-WONDERLAND Comments and analysis about the Duke/Nifong case (2006-2014). FRIDAY, JULY 18, 2014CLOSING COMMENTS
When I first started writing about the lacrosse case, at a joint historians’ blog called Cliopatria, I did so in reaction to the Group of 88 statement. Then (and now) I considered the statement an indefensible betrayal by professors of their own school’s students, an action that contradicted many of the basic values on which American higher education rests. Absent the Group statement, I doubt I would have noticed the case at all—in spring 2006, I didn’t even know that Duke had a lacrosse team, much less know any of its members. But as I remained interested in the case, the editor of Cliopatria suggested I spin off into a focused blog. When I did so, in August 2006, I envisioned a six-week effort, which would perhaps provide background for people interested in the case from the _60 Minutes _broadcast, which I had heard was scheduled for early October. Instead, a flurry of events—the delay of the broadcast, then the November 2006 election, the Meehan hearing, the Nifong ethics charges, the culmination of the criminal case, and the two Nifong hearings—sustained the blog on a daily basis (the blog had more than 1000 posts during its first 14 months) throughSeptember 2007.
I stopped daily posts in fall 2007, and since then have averaged only about a post a week. I extended the blog to follow the civil cases, which struck me as likely to establish important precedents. (They did so, though in ways that trouble me—suggesting that in the 4th Circuit colleges have no obligation to enforce the student bulletin or faculty handbook, at least in cases where disfavored groups of students are targeted by powerful faculty interests on campus; and victims have no grounds for a federal civil rights lawsuit when prosecutors and police conspire to frame innocent people, provided the police are internally candid about their lack of evidence and the prosecutor obtains a grand jury indictment.) The civil cases dragged on for much longer than I had anticipated, largely due to Durham’s high-risk, but ultimately high-reward, strategy of filing multiple interlocutory appeals to avoid any discovery. This delay, ironically, meant that the blog remained active during two unanticipated but important events. The first came when Duke employed the civil suit discovery process to try and obtainmy private correspondence with confidential sources forthe book and blog
.
For reasons neither the university nor its attorneys ever explained, I was the only person who covered the case to receive such a subpoena; even _UPI _co-author Stuart Taylor wasn’t targeted by Duke. Thanks to excellent representation from my attorney, Patrick Strawbridge, and assistance from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, I resisted the subpoena. A limited setback before a Maine magistrate judge evaporated in the courtroom of Maine district court judge Brock Hornby, who peppered the Duke attorneys with questions, eliciting the extraordinary statement that Duke would be happy for its professors to live under the same standards the university expected of me. (Unsurprisingly, no member of the Brodhead administration ever informed Duke faculty members of this new policy, which would decimate the freedom to research controversial topics at Duke.) In the aftermath of the hearing, and after the _Carrington _settlement, Duke withdrew its subpoena before Hornby could render a decision. The magistrate judge’s decision subsequently was vacated. The second significant event occurred with publication of the revisionist book by William D. Cohan.
In his up-is-down opus, Cohan portrayed Mike Nifong as victim, “crucified” by the efforts of an amorphous conspiracy that included defense attorneys, the State Bar, some members of the media, Judge Osmond Smith, the Disciplinary Hearing Commission, families of the lacrosse players, senior prosecutors in the North Carolina attorney general’s office, and Northeastern lawyers whose identities he declined to reveal. Cohan reached this startling conclusion not by interviewing any members of the alleged conspiracy, but instead by speaking to Nifong at length, and then uncritically accepting the version of events offered by his chief source, a convicted liar. The result: a book praised by many of the papers who got the story wrong at the start, and sharply criticized by virtually every reviewer who knew anything about what occurred in Durham.
With the _Carrington _and _Evans _lawsuits having concluded, and with the Cohan book consigned (to borrow Judge John E. Jones, III’s recent usage of Ronald Reagan’
s
famous
line
)
to the “ash heap of history,” it seems like an appropriate time to bring the blog to a close. Before doing so, however, allow me to offer three generalreflections:
The Academy
Higher education is perhaps the only product in which Americans spend tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars without having any clear sense of what they are purchasing. Few parents, alumni, legislators, or prospective students spend much (if any) time exploring the scholarship or syllabi offered by professors at the school of their choice; they devote even less effort to understanding hiring patterns or pedagogical changes that have driven the contemporary academy to an ideological extreme on issues of race, class, and gender. At most, there seems to be a general—incorrect—impression that while colleges have the occasional “tenured radical” who lacks real influence on campus, most professors fall well within the ideologicalmainstream.
But while most outsiders have neither the time nor the inclination to challenge faculty on scholarly or curricular matters, the lacrosse case was different. Here, the relevant facts were public knowledge. The event was high-profile, and the more evidence that emerged, the less likely it appeared that a crime occurred. At the least, it was clear by 1 May 2006 that at least one innocent Duke student (Reade Seligmann) had been indicted. And yet for dozens of Duke faculty, this evidence appeared irrelevant. Eighty-eight of them rushed to judgment, signing a statement (whose production violated Duke regulations in multiple ways) affirming that something had “happened” to false accuser Crystal Mangum, and thanking protesters (“for not waiting”) who had, among other things, urged the castration of the lacrosse captains and blanketed the campus with “wanted” posters.
As the case to which they attached their public reputations imploded, Group members doubled down, with most issuing a second statement promising they would never apologize for their actions. (Only three Group members ever said they were sorry for signing the statement, and two of that number subsequently retracted those apologies.) For months, the Duke administration was either in agreement with the faculty extremists or cowed by them—or some combination of both. The lacrosse case provided a rare opportunity to glimpse inside the mindset of an elite university—and
the look was a troubling one. There is no evidence of _any _accountability at Duke: the university has the same leadership and the same hiring patterns it had in 2006. Several members of the Group of 88 have gone on to more prestigious positions, their efforts to exploit their students’ distress causing them no problem in the contemporary academy.
Nifong
In this respect, Duke isn’t exceptional: if the lacrosse case had occurred at another elite university, something like the Group of 88 probably would have formed there, as well. (Hypothetical Groups at other schools might not have been quite as large—the effects of ex-president Keohane and ex-provost Chafe on maximizing race/class/gender hires did have some additional effect.) Nifong, on the other hand, _was _unusual. Prosecutorial misconduct is a blight on the American justice system, but few prosecutors violate quite as many ethical rules in a single case as did the disgraced former DA. Of course, Durham’s particular circumstances accounted at least to some degree for the extent of Nifong’s perfidy: he had to violate ethical guidelines to create “evidence” of a “crime” that never occurred; and then he had to violate more ethical guidelines to create “evidence” to point to the “perpetrators” of this non-existent crime. It’s worth remembering, however: lots of people seemed quite untroubled with Nifong’s actions. He did, after all, win the primary election—the day after Durham voters saw on their TV screens a video of Reade Seligmann at an ATM machine at the time Nifong claimed a rape was occurring. And he did win the general election—even after Durham voters were exposed to massive evidence of his ethical improprieties, thanks to reporting from the _N&O_ and _60 Minutes_. Moreover, Nifong almost managed to bring the case to trial. The State Bar vote to go ahead with the prosecution before the end of the case passed only by one vote, with the chair of the relevant committee casting the tie-breaking ballot. If not for the brilliant cross-examination from Jim Cooney and Brad Bannon, plus the inability of Dr. Brian Meehan to carry off the conspiracy, would the Bar have acted when it did? Despite his apologists’ best efforts to rehabilitate his reputation, Nifong’s behavior might have had one salutary effect: he now personifies the position of rogue prosecutor. Journalists, legal commentators, and the public at large now have a reference point when they hear defense attorneys speak of the importance of due process, or caution against prosecutors violating ethical norms. And DA’s inclined to ignore ethics to advance their political careers will (hopefully, at least) recall Nifong’s fate.Media
Excellent coverage of this case came from some quarters of the traditional media—from the 2006-2008 staff of the Duke _Chronicle_; from Joe Neff at the _N&O_; and nationally from _60 Minutes _and ABC’s Law and Justice Unit. But the terrible traditional coverage—from the _New York Times_, the _Herald-Sun_, op-ed commentators such as Selena Roberts and Eugene Robinson, and other outlets in the early stages of the case—was terrible indeed. The bad work suffered from two problems that reinforced each other. The first comes from the media’s general ideological biases. While not as left-wing as the typical elite school’s faculty, the media obviously leans left, especially on issues of race and gender; and in spring 2006, the facts offered by Nifong seemed for too many too good to be false. So rather than challenging Nifong’s presentation of the case, the _Times, _the _H-S,_ and politically correct commentators and authors served as de facto stenographers for the prosecutor, uncritically passing along whatever version of events he happened to be offering at the time. The second general problem exposed by the case was the media’s poor coverage of procedure and procedural issues. It’s no coincidence that the best reporter on this case—Neff—was comfortable with procedure, and that the worst—Duff Wilson and self-described “serious investigative journalist” William D. Cohan—appeared clueless on procedural matters. For the media as a whole, covering procedure can be difficult—it’s often technical, and it doesn’t exactly sell newspapers. But as the lacrosse case demonstrated, explaining the role of procedure in policy and legal matters is a critical role that journalists play in society. And while there’s been some progress in this regard (consider, for instance, the _Washington Post _partnering in its blogs with Volokh Conspiracyor Radley
Balko ), as a whole, the media tends to do a poor job at illustrating procedural matters. Jim Fallows’ laments about the mainstream newspapers’ frequent failures to explain the Senate’s filibuster process is a good example of the broaderproblem.
-----------------
DIW was a blog of a particular time and place. If the lacrosse case had occurred a few years earlier, the blog likely never could have been launched. In the initial months, I relied heavily on primary source material posted by others (the _N&O _and WRAL for discovery documents; the State of North Carolina for various ethics and election items; Duke and electronic resources for academic matters). As recently as the late 1990s, this type of material often was not available online, so initially covering the case from New York or Maine (as I did, most of the time) would not have been possible—meaning that I never would have developed the local sources whose willingness to answer questions from me (and not infrequently provide me with tips) helped the blog to break stories. If the lacrosse case occurred today, on the other hand, the blog’s reach almost certainly would have diminished; the blog’s biggest readership days (over 100,000 each day) occurred during the live-blogs of the Nifong ethics proceedings; most of that information would now be communicated via twitter, not through live-blogs, which have becomepassé.
It might well be—as any numberof commentators
have contended
—that
blogs, at least of this type, will be much less common in the future. (I’ll still be writing on higher-ed matters, at the Manhattan Institute’s _Minding the Campus _, and readers can follow me on twitter ; obviously my academic work is still on my homepage .) That said, many of the strengths of a blog—namely, the sense of community from readers and commenters—aren’t easily replicable on twitter or in other forms. Moreover, the structure of the blog certainly aided me; over the course of the case, I learned a lot about criminal procedure, legal ethics, the nature of journalism, and North Carolina issues, courtesy of exchanges with readers, commenters, and other bloggers. To DIW’s readers and commenters, my thanks. Posted by kcjohnson9at 12:01 AM
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Labels: general
SUNDAY, JULY 13, 2014 THE GROUP OF 88 & WIKIPEDIA Some interesting comments in a Wikipedia discussion thread regarding efforts to remove mention of their membership in the Group from Wikipedia bios of Group of 88 members. The evidence regarding Cathy Davidson, author of the infamous _N&O_ apologia for the Group,
is particularly troubling, in that the editor/whitewasher was traced to a CUNY IP on the same day that Davidson began her CUNY service. I welcome insights from any Wikipedia editors in the comment thread. Posted by kcjohnson9at 1:06 PM
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Labels: faculty
FRIDAY, JULY 11, 2014HOWARD UPDATE
Anne Blythe reports in the_N&O
_that Judge Hudson has said he wants to grant bail to Darryl Howard, whose prosecution, writes Blythe, the judge described “as one of the most 'horrendous' prosecutions he had seen in his 34 years on the bench.” The prosecutor in the case was, of course, disgraced ex-DAMike Nifong.
As he has deemed Nifong as honorable and quite credible, author William D. Cohan has yet to comment once on the Howard case. Posted by kcjohnson9at 2:48 PM
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Labels: ethics
MONDAY, JULY 07, 2014GOTTLIEB NEWS
WRAL's Julia Sims is reporting that former Sgt. Mark Gottlieb died onSaturday
,
apparently of suicide. He had, according to WRAL, been living in DeKalb County, Georgia, where he had worked as a paramedic after leaving the Durham Police. I will post more information if and when itbecomes available.
Posted by kcjohnson9at 3:54 PM
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CHECKING IN WITH THE GROUP OF 88 As I wind down the blog after the resolution of the _Evans _and _Carrington _lawsuits (I’ll have a closing post next Monday), I thought it might be useful to check in on some members of the Group of 88. An utter lack of accountability within the academy for those faculty members who abandoned due process (and, in some cases, appeared to violate Duke regulations) was apparent almost from the start in the case, and remains so today. No fewer than nine Group members were hired away from Duke, often for more prestigious positions, despite (because of?) their activism in the Group. Cathy Davidson—author of the Group apologia that invented a spring 2006 that never existed—was
the latest, having just joined the faculty at the CUNY Graduate Center. She joins Grant Farred (Cornell, which got a taste of the contempt for students he had demonstrated at Duke);
Houston Baker (Vanderbilt); Charles Payne (University of Chicago); and Rom Coles (Northern Arizona, endowed chair) in moving onto greener pastures. Meanwhile, three signatories who were members of the University Writing Program received full-time, tenure-track positions—Jason Mahn at Augustana, Matthew Brim at the College of Staten Island, and Christine Beaule at the University of Hawai’i—while a fourth (Caroline Light) was appointed to an administrative-teaching position at Harvard’s women’s studiesprogram.
Several other Group signatories advanced at Duke. Srinivas Aravamudan currently serves as Duke’s dean of the humanities. Lee Baker is dean of academic affairs at Trinity College. And Paula McClain is dean of the graduate school, and vice provost for graduate education. Clearly the role of their behavior in causing a multi-million dollar settlement was no barrier in the Group members’ standing at Duke. Imagine if the lacrosse case had featured a race-baiting DA, on behalf of a white false accuser, going after African-American students to advance his political career. Does _anyone _believe that professors who abandoned due process to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the DA, affirming that something “happened” to the false accuser, would not have faced professional repercussions in the contemporary academy? And then there’s the principal author of the Group statement, Wahneema Lubiano. Those waiting for her perpetually “forthcoming”books
(_Like Being Mugged by a Metaphor: “Deep Cover” and Other “Black” Fictions; _and _Messing with the Machine: Politics, Form, and African-American Fiction_) continue to wait; 15 years after Lubiano advertised their coming appearances, the books remain nowhereto be found.
Lubiano, befitting someone who believes that she participates in what she calls “public intellectualism,” has sporadically shared her insights via twitter . In February, for instance, she revealedthat she has
spent her “entire adult life addressing the US public’s murderous imagination when it comes to the lives of black Americans.” As always, temperate analysis from the tenured professor. Lubiano hasn’t tweeted in a few months. She doesn’t appear to be academically active, either. According to her departmental CV at Duke,
the Group of 88 leader has a grand total of . . . one . . . academic publication in the past _six years_, an article entitled, “Affect and Rearticulating the Racial ‘Un-sayables.’”
The four-page essay appeared in the journal _Cultural Anthropology_. (Lubiano appears to be comfortable with this length; her previous publication, subtitled “An Interview with Wahneema Lubiano,” also spanned four pages.) In the event, Lubiano’s recent publication builds off her work in teaching a first-year seminar at Duke,
“Prison, the U.S., and the Citizen.” The course, according to the Group leader, explores “the inability of general public discussion—what my students are aware of in abundance but which they understand as ‘natural’—to accommodate elaborated and unelaborated discourses for cathected critical engagement, e.g., white supremacy and its connection to prison.” Lubiano lamented that, in the class, she often ran “up against the difficulty of moving our students from that hegemonic subjectivity to something more specifically critical.” The Duke professor expressed her concern that “what I have in the classroom” could “best be described as a fierce (albeit inarticulate) obedient state subject who resists a critique of the state and of prison, _a resistance that might be described as white supremacist common sense_.” Lubiano further contended that “because of resistance to the basics of empathy with regard to mass incarceration, they’ve taken up the position of aestheticized white supremacist subject instead.” In other words: parents can spend $50,000 a year to have Duke faculty suggest that their son or daughter exhibits “white supremacist common sense.” You’d almost think that Lubiano is a fiction, invented by David Horowitz or another right-wing critic of the academy to discredit the entire higher-ed enterprise. As a reminder: Lubiano was hired by Duke on the basis of two “forthcoming” books that, to date, have never appeared. Posted by kcjohnson9at 12:01 AM
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TUESDAY, JULY 01, 2014COHAN'S TRIALS
Now that his publicity tour appears to have ended, I thought it might be worthwhile to have two short concluding comments on the work of William D. Cohan. (You can read all of my Cohan-related posts here.)
First: a mantra of Cohan’s tour was the author’s purported intention to have the book function as a trial in the case. He described the book in this odd manner on Morning Joe,
WNYC
,
WAMC
,
C-SPAN
,
the Michael Smerconish Show,
and the Diane Rehm Show.
Leave aside, for a moment, the obvious: in the United States, political trials of the type that Cohan seems to have wanted don’t occur. Instead, when prosecutors (in the lacrosse case, Jim Coman and Mary Winstead, and through them Attorney General Roy Cooper) believe that the defendants are actually innocent, the prosecutors have an ethical obligation to dismiss charges. But, again, leave aside basic rules of legal ethics. In a sexual assault trial, at a bare minimum four people speak: the judge, the prosecutor, the accuser, and the defense attorney. (Obviously in most cases, more people than four speak.) The defendant might or might not take the stand; in many cases, for various reasons, the defendantdoesn’t testify.
In Cohan’s model of the book-as-trial, author Cohan functioned as the judge, and he certainly spoke (as, for instance, when he praised Nifong’s defense, which the State Bar wholly rejected, as “cogent”). Accuser Crystal Mangum was given the opportunity to speak, in a jailhouse interview in which she told still more tall tales (that medical staff had to pull wooden shards from her, that one of the students she falsely accused carried her to the car). And Nifong was allowed to speak. And speak. And speak. And speak some more, virtually always without challenge—even though in a real trial, a prosecutor who bore false witness would be silenced by thejudge.
But in William D. Cohan’s “trial,” Judge Cohan never asked the defense attorneys to speak. He solicited no interviews from Brad Bannon, Jim Cooney, Joe Cheshire, Wade Smith, or Doug Kingsbery. Nor, when Nifong became the defendant, did Cohan seek to interview the men and women who prosecuted him, either before the State Bar or in the contempt trial. The author never explained this curious editorial decision, either in the book itself or in his myriad post-publication interviews. Indeed, to the best of my knowledge, he never was asked, in any interview, why he deliberately did not solicit interviews from such key figures in the case. In this manner, Cohan imitated the conduct of his book’s protagonist, when Nifong notoriously refused to speak with multiple groups of defense attorneys before the indictments. This approach was one of the many ways in which the line between Cohan and the disgraced prosecutor blurred to such an extent as to be almost invisible. Second: consider one element from Cohan’s presentation of the ethics hearing, courtesy of the “honorable” and “quite credible” Mike Nifong. Discussing Reade Seligmann’s testimony during the proceedings, Cohan wrote the following, mostly consisting of quotes from his interviews with Nifong (p. 554): “‘They were very surprised to find that Reade Seligmann came across very well, even though some of what he said might not have been true. And actually, he did come across very well . . . . Not everything he said was true, but he did come across very well.’ Nifong was reluctant to specify what exactly Seligmann had said in his testimony that wasn’t true. ‘Some of the things that he said about the party, we had other things to show otherwise,’ continued. ‘There’s no point in getting into any of that. I’ve already talked to you about how his actions after the party indicated that in leaving he showed that he knew that there was something about that that he had to distance himself from. There were some other things that I pointed out that he said, about he was going to get married, which, of course, is exactly what Crystal Mangum said about the person she identified as Seligmann.’” In the critiques of Cohan book, this passage hasn’t received much attention, presumably because the allegations are bizarre even for the reality-challenged Nifong. But the passage is revealing about the deeply troubling editorial standards that Cohan employed in his book, which Scribner’s editorial and legal staff tolerated. In this passage, Cohan allows Nifong, unchallenged, to make threepoints:
(1) The State Bar prosecutors were “very surprised to find that Reade Seligmann came across very well”; (2) Seligmann committed perjury on the stand during the proceedings, regarding “some of the things that he said about the party”; (3) At some point in the case, Seligmann “said” something “about he was going to get married.” The first claim is based on Cohan’s inexplicable strategy of attempting to glean the State Bar prosecutors’ legal strategy not by interviewing them, or by interviewing their witnesses, but instead by interviewing the defendant in the case, Mike Nifong. State Bar prosecutor Doug Brocker (to whom Cohan did not speak) confirmed to me that the Bar prosecution team was not in any way surprised by Seligmann coming across well. No sentient person could have been “surprised” that Seligmann came across well—his coming across well had been a major theme of the case by this time. It remains unclear why Cohan printed something that he must have known was untrue. It also remains unclear why Cohan apparently made no attempt to verify Nifong’s counterintuitive assertion with the Bar prosecutors before including it, unchallenged, in what Scribner’s has termed the “definitive” account of the book. The second item in the passage raises even more serious concerns about Cohan’s integrity. Could it possibly be that Nifong and his attorneys knew that a powerful witness against them had lied on the stand, and yet elected not to confront him with this information at the hearing? What possible rationale could they have had for such acourse?
They had, naturally, no such rationale, because Seligmann didn’t lie on the stand. Indeed, on the stand, his only discussion regarding “things . . . about the party” involved material related to his alibi, as previously presented both in a defense motion and then to the special prosecutors, and verified through electronic evidence along with the statements of two other people. As with the first false statement in this passage, I confirmed with Doug Brocker that the Seligmann testimony contained nothing untruthful. In this instance, however, Cohan wouldn’t have needed to have interviewed Brocker to have discovered that Nifong was lying. While Cohan didn’t attend Nifong’s disciplinary hearing, on page 619 of the book, he did imply that he watched the video of it: “There is also a treasure-trove of contemporaneous video recordings—from WRAL-TV in Raleigh—of events and press conferences as they unfolded.” At the least, he was aware that a video of Seligmann’s testimony existed. That video is embedded below. Given the video’s contents, there are only two explanations for the second element of the passage above: (1) Cohan unknowingly printed Nifong’s false allegation that Seligmann hadn’t told the truth on the stand. Cohan did so because he elected not to take one hour to investigate Nifong’s claim—even though he understood that his book’s chief source (Nifong) is aconvicted liar.
(2) Cohan had, in fact, viewed the video of Seligmann’s testimony, and therefore knew that Nifong’s assertion was false. But—blinded by his partisanship for Nifong, his disdain for the falsely accused students, or some combination of the two sentiments—he printed theallegation anyway.
Either explanation would—at the very least—demand that Scribner’s issue a public retraction of this section of the Cohanbook.
And then there’s the third section of the passage, in which Nifong reminisces that Seligmann had said “he was going to get married, which, of course, is exactly what Crystal Mangum said about the person she identified as Seligmann.” The inclusion of this item, unchallenged, is nothing short of extraordinary. At no point in the case did Seligmann ever say something to the effect that “he was going to get married”—because, of course, in 2006 he wasn’t “going to get married.” He didn’t say anything to this effect in the Bar testimony, as Cohan could have confirmed if he had looked at the video of Seligmann’s testimony. Seligmann also didn’t say anything to this effect in any interview he gave on the case, or in any available document from the discovery file (which Cohan, despite his self-described credentials as an “investigative reporter,” seems not to have obtained). Why, then, did Cohan print Nifong’s false assertion without any challenge or factual context? (1) Cohan didn’t know the allegation was false, because he elected not to take one hour to confirm the veracity of Nifong’s claim, and because the book’s reporting limitations had denied him access to case-related documents that likewise had no substantiation for Nifong’s assertion. (2) Cohan, in fact, knew that Nifong’s assertion that Seligmann said something about getting married was false. But—blinded by his partisanship for Nifong or his disdain for the falsely accused students or some combination of the two sentiments—he printed theallegation anyway.
Either explanation would—at the very least—demand that Scribner’s issue a public retraction of this section of the Cohanbook.
Cohan’s willingness to publish serious allegations that he either knew were false or would have recognized as false with a minimum of reporting speaks volumes as to his goals in producing the allegedly “definitive” account of the case.Hat tip: K.
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Labels: Cohan book; Nifong apologists MONDAY, JUNE 16, 2014 CREDIBILITY & COMMENTARY I have a piece over at Minding the Campus on the issue of accountability, in this instance regarding the approach of the commentariat to the current war on campus due process. One of the people I looked at was retired Penn anthropology professor (specialist in Women's Studies, Southeast Asia, Anthropology of Gender, Multiculturalism, Sexual Culture, Public Interest Ethnography/Anthropology) Peggy Reeves Sanday, whose final book, published in 2007, was an updated version of her earlier _FraternityGang Rape_.
NYU Press blurbed the book in the following manner:
“Sanday updates the incidences of fraternity gang rape on college campuses today, highlighting such recent cases as that of Duke University and others in the headlines.” Of course, there was no “gang rape” in the lacrosse case, and the lacrosse players weren’t part of a fraternity. Otherwise, Sanday seemed right ontarget.
As part of a Cohan-esque book tour, Sanday defended her work with a March 2007 column placing the “Duke case in perspective”—in which she proclaimed that she would not address “whether a sexual assault took place at the party” or “whether the district attorney botched the investigation.” Nonetheless, she deemed it “noteworthy that the sexual offense and kidnapping counts have not yet been dropped.” Of course, one month later, the charges were not only dropped but the falsely accused were declared innocent. In the book itself, Reeves Sanday offered the following . . . analysis . . . of the case: “one can only imagine” that the goal of the lacrosse players’ party was to create an event that “actively promotes if not abets non-consensual sexual behavior.” (p. 202) It’s not clear why Reeves Sanday based an item in what was an academic publication on her imagination. Why bring these items up now? As many DIW readers know, we’re in the midst of a high-profile public debate about whether due process for students accused of sexual assault should be eroded. (To my dismay, the Obama administration and a coalition of “activists” have pushed strongly for weakening due process protections.) The move has also attracted support from politically correct journalists, such as NPR blogger Barbara King. In a post celebrating a California bill requiring students to obtain (and, presumably, find a way to record) “affirmative consent” any intercourse, King cited—of all people—Sanday. The Duke “expert” affirmed rejoiced that the California bill would help “to make campus sexual cultures more equitable and by so doing change the broader understanding of the meaning of sexual equality.” The politically correct don’t need to worry about false predictions costing credibility. On the issue of what it takes to lose credibility when the thesis is a politically correct one: consider the latest (perhaps the last?) review of the Cohan book, coming from Matt Storin, the (well-respected) former editor of the _Boston Globe_. Storin went on to work in the Notre Dame Communications Office,
and his review was published in _Notre Dame Magazine_.
Continuing the pattern of praising a book that doesn’t exist (seen in the _Economist _and _Newsday _reviews, in particular),
Storin gushes that Cohan “interviewed so many of the key people, and so well, that it is mostly captivating.” Among the “key people” that Cohan didn’t _try _to interview: the major defense attorneys; the State Bar prosecutors; Nifong’s primary campaign manager; the judge; the DHC chairman and panel; the special prosecutors in the criminal contempt trial; and the senior prosecutors in the AG’s office who oversaw the office’s investigation. Indeed, as I’ve noted previously, Cohan appears to have interviewed only five people (Mike Nifong, Nifong’s attorney, Crystal Mangum, Bob Steel, and Ryan McFadyen) for the book. Why Storin considers this meager list to constitute interviewing “so many of the key people” in the case he doesn’t say. Nor does he reveal why he considers Cohan’s penchant for virtually never challenging Nifong’s assertions to exemplify a reporter interviewing “so well.” I grew up reading the _Globe_; I don’t recall the paper_ _regularly covering criminal justice issues through its reporters not even _trying _to interview the defense attorneys, as Cohan did in the sections of the book dealing with the criminal case in 2006, or the prosecutors, as occurred in the book’s coverage of Nifong’s ethics and criminal contempt proceedings. Storin doesn’t explain in his review why he held Cohan to a lower standard than that expected from first-year _Globe _reporters. Storin also came away from the book concluding that “you probably have to give a nod to the defense attorneys.” Those would the same defense attorneys who Cohan didn’t try to interview and who he recently claimed (without presenting any substantiation) want to see Nifong “literally dead in the ground.”
Storin praises Cohan (who, again, didn’t try to speak to more than a dozen “key” players who tangled with book protagonist Nifong in the courtroom) for reporting “meticulously and fairly about the whole sorry episode.” That would be the same Cohan whose “something happened” thesis depends on police investigator Ben Himan lying about the AG’s evidence,
coupled with a wide-ranging conspiracy of the defense attorneys, the Bar, the AG’s office, and unidentified Northeastern money to prevent the truth from coming out. And, of course, the same Cohan whose . . . meticulous . . . research uncovered no new evidence about the criminal case, other than Mangum’s false assertions about wooden shards and who carried her tothe car.
In the end, Storin rejects the book’s basic thesis when he describes the lacrosse players as “falsely accused.” He doesn’t say if he agrees with Cohan that Nifong, a “quite credible”
and “honorable
”
man, was “crucified.”
Perhaps that’s the type of meticulous analysis that Storin found soappealing.
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Labels: Cohan book; Nifong apologists; due process; media MONDAY, JUNE 09, 2014 COHAN: "DEFENSE ATTORNEYS" WANT NIFONG "LITERALLY DEAD IN THE GROUND" Author William D. Cohan recently departed a columnist’s position at Bloomberg View for one at _Huffington Post _(which generally does not pay its columnists). Cohan then used his first _HuffPost _piece to lash out at the free speech rights of his critics.
_
_
_Huffington Post _also provided what likely will be Cohan’s final promotional appearance for his book.
As with each of his interviewers other than WUNC’s Frank Stasio, the _HuffPost Live _asked no meaningful questions about Cohan’s revisionist thesis. Cohan, even so, came across as noticeably more ill-tempered than in his initial interviews about the book; at times, he seemed almost unhinged when talking about his critics and (especially) the defense attorneys.Cohan, Unhinged
Cohan was asked who had suffered the most in the case. The answer supplied by the passionate Nifong apologist would come as little surprise. But then the author seemed to lose touch with reality. COHAN at 13.30: “So you ask who, who came out the worst in all of this, who suffered the most: I think, obviously, Mike Nifong, the prosecutor, suffered the most. He’s the only one who spent any time in jail, he spent a day in jail. He lost his job, he was disbarred as a lawyer. He filed for personal bankruptcy. I mean, there are—of course, the defense attorneys would say, ‘That’s not good enough for him, that’s too good for him, and he should be, you know . . .’ They won’t be happy until he’s literally dead in the ground. And they’re doing everything they can to try to put him there!” Here is a link to the audio:
Incredibly, the _HuffPost _host made no comment, no request for substantiation, as her guest made this wild assertion. Since the criminal contempt trial, the defense attorneys have had no dealings with Nifong. The idea that they’re “doing everything they can” now to place him “literally dead in the ground” is nothingshort of bizarre.
It should go without saying that while Cohan offers such a crazy claim, he never even tried to interview any of the attorneys he now claims want Nifong “literally dead.” So how he reached this determination about their thoughts must remain a mystery. Seligmann, Finnerty, and the Party Early in the interview, Cohan offered what appears to be a new description of the party. COHAN at 1.53: “In this situation, you had three students, accused of sexual assault, and rape, after _all day of partying, and drinking_, when they thought it would be a great idea to invite strippers to _their _house, off campus.” By this point, it’s beyond clear that Cohan simply doesn’t know very much about the topic on which he wrote. But could he actually now have come to _believe _that Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty lived with the three captains? That they were at the house “all day” during the day of the party? That strippers were invited to “their” house? His statement makes no sense otherwise. The Nifong Apologist The host asked, without providing specifics, if Cohan had a response to criticisms that the book sought to rehabilitate Nifong: COHAN at 3.06: “I really find it humorous and counterintuitive . . . To be criticized for talking to one of the principal players in this drama, no pun intended, the prosecutor, Mike Nifong, who brought this action, to be criticized for actually giving him a chance to tell his story, by other journalists who criticize me—many other journalists have criticized me for allowing Mike Nifong to have a microphone!” Given that a bit later in the interview, Cohan would lament Nifong’s suffering, present him as the major victim in the case, and wildly claim that defense attorneys were trying to leave him “literally dead in the ground,” the denial about his status as a Nifong apologist rings a bit hollow. In the event: to the best of my knowledge, no one has criticized Cohan for speaking to Nifong. I certainly haven’t. The criticism—made by the first person to publicly comment on thematter, Joe Neff
,
and echoed by me after I got to read the book—has
been that Cohan uncritically accepted the version of events presented by a convicted liar, that instead of functioning as an “investigative journalist,” Cohan saw his role as a pro-Nifongpropagandist.
Nothing Cohan has said or done at any point in his publicity tour has refuted this criticism. Math Lessons from William D. Cohan COHAN at 4.00: “So you’ve got a 620-page book, 600 pages of which are incredibly critical of everything Mike Nifong did along the way, and 20 pages of it are Mike Nifong explaining why he did what he did, and also to some extent admitting many of the things his critics ascribe to him, and basically saying if he could have done it differently, he probably would have, and yet also defending many ofhis actions!”
I addressed this very strange argument previously.
At this point, Cohan’s repeating the assertion suggests either that he hasn’t read his own book or he possesses an almost casual willingness to make demonstrably false statements. Cohan and His Enemies COHAN at 4.22: To somehow ascribe to me motives, as if I were trying to rewrite this story , or to give Mike Nifong a platform he doesn’t deserve, to me is so ridiculous, and so absurd, that I was absolutely—I wasn’t shocked by it, but I couldn’t believe that people who consider themselves to be professional, responsible journalists today, and who have gotten space in some of our most well-respected publications like the _New Republic _, and _Commentary _, and the _Wall Street Journal _, to make their, you know, vitriolic cases against me. One of their main criticisms would be that I gave air time to Mike Nifong and Crystal Mangum, two of the principal uh, uh, actors in this drama, is _patently _absurd.” Cohan has already made clear that whether his critics deserve free-speech protections is an open question. The criticism that Cohan gave “air time” to Nifong and Mangum appeared nowhere in any of the reviews that Cohan mentioned. Notice that amidst his self-professed horror, Cohan nowhere in the interview addresses the actual criticisms of his book. At this point, I think it’s fair to say that his silence regarding the substantive critiques speaks volumes. Proper Procedures for Prosecutors The host clearly knew very little about the case. But she did know that Nifong was disbarred, and six minutes into the interview, she tried to get Cohan to explain precisely what Nifong did. The guest wasn’t interested. COHAN at 5.51: “ was disbarred by the State Bar, . . . then he was found in contempt of court and spent that 24 hours in jail . . . all for doing what prosecutors are supposed to do: which is, if they believe a crime was committed . . . You know, and prosecutors can believe a crime is committed for any number of different reasons—they believe the witness, they believe the police investigation, they looked at, you know, the documentary evidence and the DNA evidence, they talked to the nurse that examined Crystal Mangum on the night this supposed, uh, felony was committed. For whatever reasons that he believed a crime was committed, his job as a prosecutor is to take that evidence . . . forth into a trial.” It’s terrifying that Cohan believes that a prosecutor who lies to a judge, withholds exculpatory evidence, violates ethical guidelines regarding public statements amidst an election campaign, and orders the police to run a photo array that violates their own guidelines was just “doing what prosecutors are supposed to do.” Beyond that point, take a look at the remainder of Cohan’s statements and apply it to this case. Nifong first made his public statements that he had come to “believe a crime was committed” early in the afternoon of 27 March 2006. At that point, he hadn’t spoken to the witness, the police investigation had uncovered nothing, he hadn’t looked at the documentary evidence, there was no DNA evidence, and he hadn’t talked to the nurse that examined Crystal Mangum on the night this supposed felony was committed. But don’t take my word for it. Here’s Cohan’s protagonist, Mike Nifong, admitting as much during the ethics hearing. So is it Cohan’s conclusion that a prosecutor can “believe” a crime occurred, and thus take a case to trial, for any reason at all?The Nifong Record
COHAN at 6.58: “Well, this was a situation in which this prosecutor was not _allowed _to bring this evidence to a trial. By the way, this was a guy who had been in the Durham DA’s office for 28 years, and before this he was generally thoroughly well-regarded as a very strongprosecutor . . .”
Cohan here is describing a legacy that includes the Darryl Howard case, in which Judge Orlando Hudson found that Nifong made “false and misleading” statements that led to the conviction, for murder, of a likely innocent man.
At no point in a 15-minute interview did Cohan ever say that Mike Nifong made ethically improper public statements in the hopes of bolstering his election campaign, or that Mike Nifong improperly withheld exculpatory DNA evidence, or that Mike Nifong lied in open court to a judge. Instead, he said that Nifong made unspecified“mistakes.”
Enemies of the “Truth” COHAN at 8.57: “I dug up as much as I could that raised some serious questions about what happened. Of course, any time you say this, there’s an established narrative out there—there’s an established narrative out there that the people are very, very wedded to (the parents of the kids, the kids themselves , their attorneys, and their powerful allies in the media) who don’t want anybody bringing this up, and would go to whatever length they could—for them, this is a war. This is a war that began in 2006, and it’s going to continue until, uh, you know, until it can’t continue anymore. Until all the principal people are no longer alive! And by me taking an objective look at what happened, seven or eight years after it happened, it apparently, you know, something that they’re having a real trouble dealing with.” Cohan might, at some point, want to consult a dictionary to determine the meaning of “objective.” That said, consider the oddity of Cohan’s first sentence. With regards to the criminal case, the only thing that Cohan “dug up” was the revelation that as his ethical misdeeds were exposed, Nifong confined his reading to the _New York Times__.
_None of his lengthy interviews with Nifong brought any new facts about the criminal case. His shorter jailhouse chat with murderess Crystal Mangum did dig up two new items, but both (that medical personnel had to remove wooden shards from her, that Reade Seligmann carried her to the car) were demonstrably false. Has Cohan now conceded that all that his book “dug up” about the criminal case was precisely . . . nothing?Media Expert
COHAN at 3.20: “The job of the investigative reporter is to go back to Ground Zero of the story, accumulate all the information that he possibly can, all the documentary evidence, and talk to as many people as possible who would talk to him.” Author Cohan fulfilled the task of seeking to “talk to as many people as possible who would talk to him” by _NOT_ seeking to talk to (among many others): any of the defense attorneys, any of the senior prosecutors in the AG’s office, the Bar prosecutors, Nifong’s primary campaign manager, the DHC chair and members, Judge Smith, the criminal contempt prosecutor, and (it appears) 43 of the 44 unindicted members of the 2006 lacrosse team. It would seem, therefore, that Cohan failed the “job of the investigative reporter,” at least as he defines it. “Rush to Judgment” The host—who at several points in the interview seemed a bit startled by the passion that Cohan brought both to his defense of Nifong and to his attack on the falsely accused players—noted that from the standpoint of the falsely accused, there was a rush to judgment. Cohan responded: COHAN at 12.17: “Everybody rushed to judgment, including the prosecutor, Mike Nifong. But he did, you know, believe that a rape had occurred, and he was going to make it his duty to bring it to a court of law, which is his job, to either prove it or not prove it.” If it’s possible to get beyond Cohan’s claim that the defense attorneys want Nifong “literally dead,” this was clearly the oddest statement of the interview. If, as Cohan now admits, Nifong “rushed to judgment,” how, possibly, could it have been proper for him to have sought charges based on his rush to judgment? That question, unsurprisingly, was one that Cohan showed no interest inanswering.
Contempt for the Falsely Accused COHAN at 12.36: “Uh, you know, the kids, from their point of view—I mean, people are accused of crimes, you know, all the time. Uh, either they did them, or they didn’t do them. Either they could be proved in a court of law they did them, or they didn’t do them, and you know, there are plenty of cases where there are people who are wrongfully convicted , who spend, you know, 18, 20 years in prison , and get out based on new evidence, or new DNA evidence , and they get, you know, whatever, $20,000 a year for their pain and suffering. I mean, these three kids didn’t spend a day in jail, there was no trial, and they ended up with $20 million each. This party cost Duke $100 million, all told, with legal fees and settlements, etc.” The Attorney General COHAN at 8.35: “There was a secret investigation done by the state attorney general , who declared them _innocent _at the end of that 4-month investigation, and he won’t be interviewed about it , and he won’t allow his investigatory filed to beviewed
. . .”
COHAN at 14.01: “We’ll never know what really happened . . . The State AG won’t open his investigatory files. I have sued in North Carolina to force him to open those files. I’m sure I’ll lose, and he won’t have to.” I hope that representatives of the North Carolina attorney general’s office take notice of this comment, which essentially features plaintiff Cohan admitting that he has filed a frivolouslawsuit.
Cohan’s Publicity Tour Is (Literally) Cut Off COHAN at 14.22: “This is just sort of one of those incredible anomalies of justice that’s occurred in our society, that if you even have the temerity to talk about it, you get, you know, eviscerated by—” At that point, the host appeared to have had enough with Cohan’s pity party, cut the author off, and ended the interview. Due Process and FalseCharges
Cohan also offered his typically bizarre interpretation of the legal system, suggesting that even though the prosecutors from the AG’s office and the defense attorneys both believed the players were innocent, they nonetheless should have faced a trial: COHAN at 7.12: “In our system of jurisprudence, the prosecutor brings cases before the jury, the people decide whether he’s right or he’s wrong, the people are not guilty or guilty, and that’s the way the system works. Here was a case—whether these kids were not guilty or guilty, they were ultimately declared innocent by the state attorney general. Our justice system was subverted in this case. And I think that is the most profound uh, uh action to come out of this whole incident. That our system of justice was subverted by very clever, deep-pocketed defense attorneys who exploited every mistake that the prosecution made and that the principal witness made.” A good response to this basic misunderstanding of our legal system came from one of these “deep-pocketed defense attorneys,” Brad Bannon, during the Nifong ethics hearing: Needless to say, this was another section of Bannon’s testimony that never found its way into Cohan’s book. Posted by kcjohnson9at 12:01 AM
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BOOK
* _Until Proven Innocent_COMMENTS POLICY
(1) Comments are moderated, but with the lightest of touches, to exclude only off-topic comments or obviously racist or similarremarks.
(2) My clearing a comment implies neither that I agree nor that I disagree with the comment. My opinion is expressed in my words and my words only. Since this blog has more than 1500 posts, and since I at least occasionally comment myself, the blog provides more than enough material for readers to discern my opinions. (3) If a reader finds an offensive comment, I urge the reader to e-mail me; if the comment is offensive, I will gladly delete it. (4) Commenters who either misrepresent their identity or who engage in obvious troll behavior will not have their comments cleared. Troll-like behavior includes, but is not limited to: repeatedly linking to off-topic sites; repeatedly asking questions that already have been answered; offering unsubstantiated remarks whose sole purpose appears to be inflaming other commenters. * "From the Scottsboro Boys to Clarence Gideon, some of the most memorable legal narratives have been tales of the wrongly accused. Now “Until Proven Innocent,” a new book about the false allegations of rape against three Duke lacrosse players, can join these galvanizing cautionary tales . . , Taylor and Johnson have made a gripping contribution to the literature of the wrongly accused. They remind us of the importance of constitutional checks on prosecutorial abuse. And they emphasize the lesson that Duke callously advised its own students to ignore: if you’re unjustly suspected of any crime, immediately call the best lawyer you can afford."--_Jeffrey Rosen, New York TimesBook Review_
LINKS
* Case Narrative (start to finish)* Kristin Butler
* Liestoppers
* William L. Anderson * Liestoppers Discussion Boards * Friends of Duke University * Duke Students for an Ethical Duke* Johnsville News
* La Shawn Barber
* Forensics Talk
* Duke Students for an Ethical Durham * Conflicting Lineup Results MOTIONS AND DOCUMENTS * Attorney General's Report* DNA motion
* Lineup motion
* Supplementary lineup motion * Change of venue motion * Bar amended complaint/Nifong response * December 15 hearing * State Bar v. Nifong * Brewer removal motion * Nifong December 28 letter to Bar * Nifong January 16 letter to Bar * Group of 88 statement (removed from Duke website) * Group of 88 membership * Transcript of relevant sections, April 4 "identification""procedure"
SOURCE NOTES
* Book Sourcenotes
Details
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