<p>Lake Washington, I’m remembering that the case was eventually dropped. I’m fuzzy on the timeline, but didn’t it happen after the Nifong rape charges were dropped? Finnerty had shoved the man & thrown some fake punches. His buddy, I believe, was the one who had acatually punched the man. Perhaps that fact was relevant?</p>
<p>Kluge:</p>
<p>There are many who see this case about as “injust”* as you can get. One thing you are right about. It is a matter of perspective.</p>
<p>*“injust” = unjust = travesty of injustice!</p>
<p>Thanks Sticker, I’ll Google it, but I suspect you’re correct because nothing has been said about it in quite a while.</p>
<p>Lake Washington,</p>
<p>FYI. <a href=“Lacrosse Player's D.C. Conviction Erased”>http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/1131599/</a></p>
<p>If you’re interested in reading more about cases involving wrongful prosecution (and conviction) of innocent individuals, here’s another place where such stories may be found:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.ip-no.org/cases.htm[/url]”>http://www.ip-no.org/cases.htm</a></p>
<p>When they were about the same age as the three young men in this case, two of these guys, Greg Bright and Earl Truvia, were convicted of a murder that they did not commit. Before their release in 2003, they had each been in prison for over 27 years:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Wow. Innocent people exonerated without spending a day in jail = “about as “injust”* as you can get”? I’m having a hard time following that. True, justice was slow and expensive, but nothing more than money and a year’s peace of mind were lost. That’s why, to me, this case is now significant largely as a means of providing perspective about true injustice - situations where innocent people are accused, convicted, and sent to prison — or executed. James Giles had just as good an alibi as Reade Seligmann, and no more evidence against him - but Giles spent ten years in prison and 13 years as a registered sex offender, while Seligmann, justly, never spent a day in jail (and his family will probably recoup their legal expenses, one way or another.) Still, 1sokkermom finds the Duke case “about as “injust” as you can get.”</p>
<p>All I can say is “wow.”</p>
<p>Injustice is Injustice.</p>
<p>This thread has been focused on the Duke case. The Attorney General of the State of North Carolina has stated unequivocally that the case has been a travesty of injustice for the accused. The “injustice” was rampant in the behavior exhibited by the DA, the media, the civil rights groups, the University, and the community.</p>
<p>This is not a contest. The other cases cited (by our resident lawyers) do nothing to diminish the injustice that prevailed in this case.</p>
<p>Maybe only a lawyer would argue the degrees of injustice.</p>
<p>Wow indeed. :eek:</p>
<p>You know, this arguing about which is worse seems really sad to me. </p>
<p>To me, here’s some perspective: my mom died suddenly in a horrific way, I was devastated. My best friend’s mom died slowly over a period of months of cancer, she was devastated. Does the fact that my mom died horrifically make my devastation worse? Does the fact that she had to see her mother suffer make her devastation worse? In either case, we both went through hell. </p>
<p>I agree, Injustice is Injustice - who’s to judge how people react, how they grieve, how they are able to let the anger go? We certainly don’t know what it was like when these kids tried to go to sleep at night, what scary thoughts were racing through their heads, how their moms felt when they saw the sadness on their child’s face. Geez - just let it go and stop trying to temporize it!</p>
<p>I agree that “injustice is injustice” and that a “my-injustice-is-bigger-than-your-injustice” contest makes little sense.</p>
<p>My point in my last post was not to diminish what these young men have experienced, but simply to put this case into a broader context - something that, incidentally, these young men seem to have been thinking about themselves, as reflected by their comments of gratitude that their parents were able to afford an aggressive defense, their recognition that others have not been so fortunate, etc.</p>
<p>I think that part of what kluge may be responding to - and may be irritated by (and, obviously, he is more than able to speak for himself) - is the sense, which one occasionally gets from comments about this case, that injustice in our criminal-law system was just invented last year, in Durham, North Carolina, with this case.</p>
<p>What was interesting this morning on the news channels when the boys were interviewed, they spoke about people in jail wrongly accused. I think these boys have a real understanding that if their families didn’t have the means, they would be serving 30.</p>
<p>Yes, and I also got the impression from the few times that I have heard them speak, that they plan to be part of “the solution” (simplistic and naive, not them, me) by either becoming involved in the legal profession or using their situation to shed light on the fact that there are legal injustices occurring everywhere and especially to less fortunate people. </p>
<p>IMO, they are handling themselves and the situation really honorably. I’ve been impressed.</p>
<p>I also have been very impressed by these young men. I am certain I could not have been nearly as honorable nor as well spoken.</p>
<p>Not to take anything at all away from them as they are well spoken and have excellent personal presence, but, in all fairness, some of the defense attorney’s budget has almost certainly been spent on extensive media training for them, and with very, very good reason - numerous reasons actually, from a legal perspective probably the most important is planning for the civil suits that may be brought by either side. Literally anything they state, imply, infer, etc. can potentially wind its way into a courtroom eventually. </p>
<p>And it’s not just their civil suit - I can easily see the accuser being represented by some lawyer who brings suit, perhaps never intending to win or even to get very far, but maybe in the hopes of getting some settlement money or getting their name in a headline. I can also see the accuser being puppetted into filing a civil suit by some interest group who wants headlines, soundbites, etc. Given that possibility, these young men will need to be very, very careful what they say and do, for a very long time.</p>
<p>Yeah, LTS, I’m sure they were given some media presentation skill training in the year of being in limbo. They also came from excellent prep schools & were star athletes in their home regions. So in happier times, they were probably no strangers to press interviews. DelBarton, where Seligman graduated from, prepares their boys very well for being poised public speakers. On a side note, I saw Seligman’s two younger brothers listed in the “lacrosse athletes to watch” preview for the new season. DelBarton is usually the top lax program, or close to it, in NJ. Something tells me the brothers won;t be heading to Duke!</p>
<p>ag54, a more apt comparison would be if your friend’s mother got cancer, had a year of expensive and unpleasant treatment – and then recovered fully. Yes, your loss would be worse. “Injustice is injustice”? I don’t think so.</p>
<p>I guess what is bugging me - and Epistrophy has touched on it - is that as a lawyer I not infrequently come across people who don’t just want justice - they want it immediately, and at no cost or effort on their part, and are outraged that they may have to work for it, and may not get 100% of what they think they’re entitled to, to boot. Sometimes you have to work for justice. Sometimes you have to pay for it. If you can do the work and spend the money good for you - you have a pretty good chance of seeing justice done. If you can’t and and don’t, the chances are pretty good that you’ll get screwed. That’s why all the handwringing - on behalf of some very nice and very worthy individuals - is off-putting to me. They got justice. It wasn’t handed to them on a platter, but they had the ways and means to see to it that they did get it. Many people in America don’t. I think a lot of people who are very vocal about the injustice of this case don’t fully appreciate what real injustice looks like, because it doesn’t usually happen to people “like us.”</p>
<p>ag54: I guess an even more apt analogy would be if two mom’s got cancer, and one spent a year going through nasty treatment and survived - and the other simply died because she didn’t have the resources to fight it. The first situation is bad. The second situation is worse.</p>
<p>It is possible that Nifong had felt humiliated. That being reduced to trying cases in traffic court and the associated loss of status and perks was a severe, depressing blow to his psyche.</p>
<p>Then he gets bumped up above his original status to acting DA. Quite an emotional roller coaster. </p>
<p>In this new roll, he gets the chance to be a crusader - to do some real good for the down trodden. To fight the good fight. </p>
<p>“I am back to where I deserve to be because I am such a good person and here is the kind of case in which I shine.”</p>
<p>Fit the election in here as you wish, but to me the big thing is that campaigning caused him to “convict” the LAX players in a public forum. It is very, very difficult for people to back down from public positions - it would have been another humiliation. And it is a subconcious thing to a large extent. He would see the case through a filter. He would believe with a religious fervor that there had been a rape. </p>
<p>And early on his only information is from that investigator who is telling him that a rape occurred.</p>
<p>Kluge,
I think the assumption that these 3 boys will “recover fully” is not reasonable. What they have been through is torturous, and will likely leave them with permanent emotional scars.</p>
<p>kluge</p>
<p>As one who owned a company that was targeted for felony crimes against the government who spent 3 1/2 years defending that company and some of its employees against the federal government (never really knowing if I personally was one of those who were being targeted - yes, sure, the DA said that I wasn’t the target, but let me tell you that doesn’t mean diddly when everything that you own or do is being scrutinized by the FBI).</p>
<p>What these young men went through is as close to looking into the abyss of Hell as actually being it. The fact that there have been others who looked into the abyss and fell into it is irrelevant.</p>
<p>Fifteen years later I still think about what happened to me every day. Yes, I’m not in jail, but for the grace of a US Attorney who reigned in a wayward - in my view - FBI agent, my life and my family’s life would be so dramatically different today.</p>
<p>These young men have suffered in Hell.</p>
<p>good post ^^ VoxDei. I am sorry for what you have been through. Any one who has been prosecuted unjustly is far more empathetic to what these young men have been through. And, if you look at some columns, blogs, etc. since they have been exonerated, the “something happened” rant continues. This is not something people move on from easily.</p>
<p>THESE YOUNG MEN ARE SCARRED FOREVER! Where are the family members who KNEW she was mentally ill and sat back pretending she was normal??? If she is normal then why hasnt she been charged for doing this? Anyone remember hearing over and over that she was a “mother” and a “student”. Where is Nancy Grace has she apologized??? Does this woman still have custody of her children??? Shouldnt she be put into a mental hospital? As for the prosecutor how can he face himself in the mirror knowing he was on his way to put 3 innocent young men in jail for 20 yrs?? And all of these TV prosecutors who condemed these men where are they have they apologized??</p>