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<p>Yes, I believe that being treated the way the Duke 3 were treated is comparable to receiving a brutal beating.</p>
<p>“Yes, I believe that being treated the way the Duke 3 were treated is comparable to receiving a brutal beating.”</p>
<p>Ummmm, Okaaaay…:rolleyes:</p>
<p>I doubt Abner Louima would agree with you, though. I wonder which scenario Colin Finnerty, Dave Evans, and Reade Seligmann would say they’d rather endure.</p>
<p>Agree, poetsheart.^ </p>
<p>Or how about the guy mentioned in an earlier post who was brutalized so badly by police slamming his head against a concrete wall, that he is now a quadriplegic? Somehow, I just don’t see what the “Duke 3” endured as comparable to either, not by any stretch of the imagination.</p>
<p>Well now hold on…</p>
<p>Alot of folks are deciding what is painful and what is not. While I don’t completely agree with iskinner, I do know kids commit sucide over words. Words hurt, accusations hurt. These things hurt. </p>
<p>I would not be so quick to be critical of this fact. Sometimes a physical beating is perferable to an emotional one. You can certainly disagree, but you don’t know for sure, you just have your own feelings to go by. </p>
<p>I can’t discount emotional damage done in this case. One of the reasons we play contact sports is simply for the violence, the contact. Sometimes that is easier to deal with compared to words. Words have caused me more pain in my life than violence and I’ve been in more than a scrape or two. </p>
<p>I don’t know if anybody can say with 100% absolute certainty that iskinner is wrong. At least, I don’t think he is and I don’t think these boys are gonna be alright.</p>
<p>While I’ve already said that I think the kind of money that is being talked about in this case is excessive, I don’t think that this position is supported by an argument that (1) Louima’s case was worse than this one, and (2) he wound up getting a lot less money than these guys are asking for.</p>
<p>For one thing, I agree with Opie that it’s not necessarily self-evident that Louima’s case was worse. I’m not saying that it wasn’t - just that the two situations were both awful and, beyond that, can’t really be compared. In this regard, it’s important to keep in mind that while this case came to an (unbelievably) good resolution for these guys, there would have been no reason whatsoever for them (or their families) to believe that such a result was on the horizon while they were going through this ordeal. (And it is not at all inconceivable to me that a young person put in the situation of these three young men could have wound up suffering the ultimate physical injury - through suicide.)</p>
<p>For another, who’s to say that Louima’s case, as resolved, wasn’t undervalued? Arguing that these guys should get less than Louima assumes, among other things, that his case was resolved in a way that fairly and reliably reflected its value as a lawsuit. But there are all sorts of reasons why someone (in Louima’s position) would be willing to settle for a few million dollars even though, if they had held out a while longer, they might well have been able to get more money (maybe a lot more money) through a settlement or from a jury.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, I just don’t see the Louima case as being very relevant, much less illuminating, one way or the other.</p>
<p>Opie, don’t get me wrong. I could easily believe that Reade, Finnerty, and Evans will forever identify this chapter as having been the defining one of their lives, the one which shook them to their core and perhaps made them rethink just about everything they thought they knew. I’m not trying to trivialize their ordeal. But I still wouldn’t equate their emotional and psychological strain with the physical AND psychological rape suffered by Louima. He literally had his manhood stolen from him, which is exactly what the NYPD set out to do. No amount of money is likely to erase the memory of the abject emotional denigration, the total powerlessness, and horrific physical abuse he was made to endure during those hours. The waterboarding endured by supposed enemy combatants in Gitmo is child’s play compared to this (and look how up in arms people got about THAT on this board!). He has permanent bowel damage (among other things) in the wake of that night. Do you think he’d rather have the money, or the ability to take a cr@p like everybody else? Do you think people in his community look upon him as a conquering hero, or a pitiful and emasculated man?</p>
<p>By now, everyone knows that Reade, Finnerty, and Evans were totally innocent of the charges against them. They’ve come out of this smelling like a rose. If the reactions of the majority of persons posting on this thread are any indication, most people in this country took their abuse at the hands of the Durham DA’s office personally, and see their vindication as tantamount to their own. Realistically, there’s no “stigma” attached to these boys. They practically walk around with halos of martyrdom, and can expect considerable perks attached to this new national image. How long do you think it’ll be before there’s a book deal (with a very handsome advance)? And won’t you buy a copy when it comes out?</p>
<p>As far as Abner Louima is concerned, there are still probably plenty of people who believe (if this case was ever even on their radar), or at least suspect, that he was a common criminal (like so many of “his kind”) who did something to put himself in the position to be treated the way he was. Same with the guy whose assault rendered him a quadriplegic.</p>
<p>poetsheart - I have to ask - don’t you think “there are still probably plenty of people who believe (if this case was ever even on their radar), or at least suspect, that (they were typical rich white helmeted jocks) (like so many of “(their) kind”) who did something to put (themselves) in the position to be treated the way (they were).”?</p>
<p>I cannot compare the physical and mental traumas inflicted in the Louima case - or taking it further, the killing of Amadou Diallo - with whatever happened in this case. But the inability to even do that comparison does <em>not</em> lead me to play a zero-sum-of-injustices game with <em>this</em> case. My belief that the lawsuit against the City of Durham is <em>not</em> a statement that what Mr. Louima or Mr. Diallo’s family deserves is somehow less - it’s simply a belief that in <em>this</em> case, nothing else seems to be making a difference in the Standard Operating Procedure of Durham. </p>
<p>What does someone deserve for a brutal attack, or vengeful and illegitimate incarceration, or character assassination on a national stage, or similar things? I have no idea. It’s like the arguments for and against a living wage - what’s a job <em>worth</em> and what do you do when the <em>person</em> is clearly worth more than the amount she or he is being paid? How do you put a price on things like these? No - this isn’t about some actuarial table of what injustice should cost, this is about how, in America, changes are made.</p>
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<p>Sorry, but “changes in America” aren’t made with lawsuits. If they are (or people truly believe that’s how changes are made), then we’re in more trouble in this country that I thought.</p>
<p>This post is headed down the road the micheal vick post did…</p>
<p>We are comparing two dispicable acts against people and trying to decide which is worse by downplaying the other. Can’t they both just be terrible acts? I know it’s the American way to want a definite #1 but honestly, if you were in the room with any of these people would you not care about what happened to them? </p>
<p>The biggest hope we can have as each terrible experience is laid out for all to see, is that steps are taken to ensure they don’t happen again to somebody else? I don’t want to compare one vs. the other. Terrible is terrible. Each thing should be analized in it’s own world.</p>
<p>Lawsuits are just one way that change comes to America. Think Brown v. Board of Education, medical malpractice suits, product liability suits…</p>
<p>From the H-S on the Campus Culture Initiative:
"Lange’s approach to the problem is winning praise from faculty members.</p>
<p>The February report was the result of a somewhat hurried process, while the new one from Lange’s office benefited from the decision to consult widely, said Michael Gustafson, an engineering professor who chairs Duke’s Faculty-Student Interaction Committee.</p>
<p>Lange’s report is also “not clearly linked to one night in March 2006,” Gustafson said, referring to the Duke lacrosse case. “That’s important because campus culture transcends all that. If we’re going to make changes, it has to be based on all the things Duke has done and will be able to do.”</p>
<p>I am very pleased with Lange’s approach, too…and a BIG thank you to those faculty members who have helped! :)</p>
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<p>I don’t think anyone in this thread is claiming that what the Duke 3 went through (and will go through) is as bad as being rendered a quadriplegic.</p>
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<p>I wonder that too.</p>
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<p>That’s just not true. There are plenty of bitter enders who still believe that “something happened.” Also, there are plenty of people who saw the initial coverage, assumed the defendants were guilty (because they had been indicted and because their arrest pictures were on the news), and then stopped following the case.</p>
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<p>You gotta be kidding me. Ever heard of Roe v. Wade? Brown v. Board of Education?</p>
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Well, then, I hate to have been the one to point it out…but as mentioned by posters above with some of the Big Name cases, the courts have, through findings in various actions, certainly made changes in America. </p>
<p>I did not, of course, say I thought it was the best way, or necessarily the way envisioned by the Framers of the Constitution, but many times it certainly seems to me that institutional and government changes are often made in reaction to or as a result of lawsuits and their findings. If interested, I’d suggest [Landmark</a> Supreme Court Cases](<a href=“http://www.landmarkcases.org/]Landmark”>http://www.landmarkcases.org/) from Street Law and The Supreme Court Historical Society.</p>
<p>“At the end of the day, I just don’t see the Louima case as being very relevant, much less illuminating, one way or the other.”</p>
<p>I agree. There is no relationship at all between the two cases.</p>
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<p>I disagree, and I will pose a hypothetical:</p>
<p>Suppose that the brakes failed on a police car due to improper maintenance and the police car had run into Rodney King, giving him similar injuries and physical pain to that which he experienced from being beaten. Do you think he would have gotten 3.8 million dollars in damages?</p>
<p>My answer is “of course not”</p>
<p>The main difference between the above scenario and what actually happened is the vicious, extreme and outrageous conduct of the authorities in inflicting harm on him. As well as the mental trauma of being the victim of this sort of an attack.</p>
<p>And that’s why it’s reasonable for the Duke 3 to receive millions of dollars in damages. Because if the vicious, extreme and outrageous conduct of the authorities as well as the mental trauma of being victimized by such an attack.</p>
<p>JMHO.</p>
<p>lskinner,
I meant that they should not be compared for purpose of one being a “worse” situation than another. They are totally different situations. I agree with most of what you have said in your other posts.</p>
<p>Somehow, there are still those trying to diminish the injustice that took place regarding the lacrosse players and their families for some reason. I am sure that most of these people have no idea what these people went through. The introduction of other unrelated cases has nothing to do with the injustice that took place in Durham. That was my point.</p>
<p>DukeEgr: Well, I think Landmark Supreme Court Cases, such as Brown vs Board of Education, or Miranda vs Arizona, or Roe vs Wade, or U.S. vs Nixon are differ greatly from the Duke 3 and their lawsuit with Durham. Seriously.</p>
<p>In part, the point here is that while their lives were turned upside down (understatement) for a period in their young, previously charmed, lives, they have been publicly exonerated; their prosecutor has been fired; they received a settlement from their University; they will most likely (if this hasn’t happened already) receive a settlement that pays for all their court costs and legal fees, and they’ll probably receive something for their “emotional suffering.” No doubt, the City of Durham will undergo some changes with future prosecutors, etc. Duke will undergo (and has already) some changes as well. I can imagine they wish they’d done a lot (a lot) of things differently. I doubt very seriously if there will be any landmark reforms in the country as a whole, though, certainly not spurred by their $30M lawsuit with Durham.</p>
<p>The fact that these 3 are now pretty much considered heroes; their lives are back on track in terms of gainful employment and/or resuming their education (one at an Ivy); there will, no doubt, be book deals, public speaking, etc., I don’t think that there will be much support for $30M above and beyond. </p>
<p>Also, a definite relationship does exist between their case and that of Louima or some of these others. And it’s not just the difference in physical/emotional suffering. If you can’t see that, then that’s a problem in itself.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the case of Alan Gell actually helped the Duke 3. Lucky for them he was on death row for 9 years. (There’s a relationship between 2 cases for you.) And I’m 99% confident that the positive changes Gell’s case made (and, again, which greatly helped the Duke 3) didn’t come about with a $30M lawsuit.</p>
<p>sokkermom: Regardless of what you think they deserve, the comparison figures of what others have asked, and ultimately received, was published, in part, to illustrate that no matter what people want for their suffering (monetary value), the payout is always much, much less. Most people would probably consider sitting on death row for 9 years, for a crime they didn’t commit, far worse than what these 3 suffered (as just one example).</p>
<p>"Also, a definite relationship does exist between their case and that of Louima or some of these others. "</p>
<p>Maybe. Not everyone understands this relationship. I don’t. However, one case definitely does not diminish the significance of the other. In my opinion, that is for certain.</p>
<p>I will repeat what I said: The introduction of other unrelated cases has nothing to do with the injustice that took place in Durham.</p>
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<p>I realize this comment isn’t addressed to me, but I would point out that people are citing these landmark cases to show that your claim – that lawsuits never effect change – is false.</p>
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<p>I’m not sure what your point is here, but let me ask you my hypothetical question:</p>
<p>Suppose that the brakes failed on a police car due to improper maintenance and the police car had run into Rodney King, giving him similar injuries and physical pain to that which he experienced from being beaten. Do you think he would have gotten 3.8 million dollars in damages? Do you think he should have gotten 3.8 million dollars in damages?</p>