<p>Well, if you had been “perfectly clear” in your original post, perhaps some of us wouldn’t have thought you meant, the case itself was kept hush-hush.</p>
<p>As far as why the accuser in the Duke case wasn’t prosecuted, I really don’t know. If I were the mother of one those boys, I would want her punished. I still don’t quite get why you refer to the lack of prosecution of the accuser as being “hush-hush”, however. Are you saying there was a groundswell insistence that she be prosecuted (by the families of the Duke boys, for instance) that went unreported and ignored? If so, document it please. </p>
<p>I think the reason why the actions of Mike Nifong were the focus of the outrage, is because, had he exercised even a modicum of judicial integrity, he would not have so shamelessly and relentlessly attempted to railroad those young men. The bogus charges made by Crystal Whatshername wouldn’t have been nearly so damaging had the DA done his job properly. </p>
<p>I’ve read some reports stating that the accuser has a history of serious mental problems. It would surely seem to take a certain amount of insanity to make up such a story out of whole cloth. She must have known that her claims could be easily disproved—unless she was so crazy, she really did believe she was raped by those boys. Her history indicates that she’s as crazy as a hat full of wiggle tails. Even her own father indicated as much. What concerns me is her children. Does she still have legal custody of them? </p>
<p>As damaging as her accusation was, the real culprit in this case is Mike Nifong.</p>
<p>edvest, I think the reason that she has not been prosecuted is complicated. I’m of no particular mind on this; if she is charged or not, I don’t really have a preference. I suspect a large reason for not prosecuting may be that she has been said to be mentally ill, insofar as she supposedly still vehemtnyl believes that a rape occurred.</p>
<p>Given that, and given that the real issue in the case is not that she made a rape report but that Nifong prosecuted it so maliciously, I think prosecuting her at this stage may very well be not that important.</p>
<p>“Also, the white man who hit the black youth with a beer bottle pleaded out to misdemeanor battery and received probation. I certainly think adults perpetrating an assault on a minor should have been charged with something a little stronger.”</p>
<p>Well, maybe. But what were the detailed facts of that incident? Who did what, to whom, when, and in what order? Depending on which (detail-free) news account you read, this incident involved a group of men assaulting one boy, or a fight between two groups of roughly equal size. Without knowing more facts, the tendency is to try to fit the incident into our expectations, and that can be quite wrong.</p>
<p>you refused to answer my question. Why did they not prosecute the false accuser? </p>
<p>Why did she get a free pass !!!</p>
<p>Have a hard time following your logics. I love my gov’t. You’re the one who laid this innuendo that “we spent billions to incarcerate young black men”. I can guarantee you every prison inmate got there because they were tried and convicted of a crime regardless of color. It is my question to you that do you hate our gov’t so much to think some power-that-be’s in dusty lighted caucaus room said “lets round them up”. And I dont speak in hyperboles when I give specific examples of murder and mayhem. You made it sound like the gov’t put away innocent young black men. Misguided liberal heart goes out to oppressed people without thinking what got them there in the first place. It must have felt good to have such compassion. What about compassion for parents who lost their daughter to rapist?</p>
<p>EDVEST…those of us who feel compassion for someone who is wrongly accused, wrongly jailed, unfairly treated by the justice system, or is a victim of racism doesn’t mean that we do not ALSO care about victims of heinous crimes. It is not an either or proposition.</p>
<p>hunt - you’ve used that catch phrase or sentiment a few times …“fit the incident into our own expectations” which I take you to mean is there is too much ‘reading between the lines’ going on here. Fine and well you think this I suppose. What I see happening is people questioning an outcome that is unfair and the process that yielded the outcome. </p>
<p>But we can make it very simple. If one believes nothing Justin Barker could have ever done or said would justify being assaulted including any detail related to “what, whom, in what order…”, then one must believe the same regarding the black kid who was assaulted at the party. In the case of the assaulted black kid, all those details should fall away as well and we should declare that nothing this black kid did at that party could justify being assaulted with a deadly weapon… and we should then expect the DA to seek to apply the law equally.</p>
<p>Btw…the most egregious ‘fitting’ of facts I’ve seen yet can be found in the DAs opinion piece in the NYT.</p>
<p>The Bin Ladins of the world saw that as weak America, and openly seek to destroy us because they saw how malcontent we are. They never know we just love our gov’t so much - in your words: “question it loudly , often and without mercy”. Aren’t you overdoing it just a bit ? I don’t European democratic societies do that, not so viciously and with absurb liberal arguments. I really think what your doing is strengthening our enemies around the world.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I don’t see Americans behaving like sheeps but why say things like “We (as in the govt) spent billions incarcerating young black men…disenfranchising a generation” with a blind eye to ,hey maybe the majority of them committed crimes?</p>
<p>edvest, the United States government is founded on no idea more than that of constantly questioning government. That’s the whole idea of the United States.</p>
<p>If you think that Europeans don’t question their governments, you’re either delusional or you don’t read the news very much.</p>
<p>Even more hilarious is your assertion that when Europeans question their government, they don’t do it with “absurd liberal arguments.” Perhaps you didn’t notice that essentially every European country is more “liberal” than America - with things like the abolishment of the death penalty, a far more wide-reaching welfare system, higher taxes, more social liberty, and universal health care, as well as far more government intervention in general. Are those not the hallmarks of what modern day US conservatives call “liberalism”?</p>
<p>As for why people say things about how black people are continually incarcerated more than whites, it’s not because they wish to smooth over the fact that the blacks committed crimes, but rather because statics definitively show that black people are incarcerated at a far higher rate for the same crimes compared to whites. Now, I’m not going to suggest letting more blacks go free, or arresting more whites, but there has to be equity, and right now there is none.</p>
<p>I’m not about to start going with the flow so Bin Laden will leave me alone. That’s exactly what his gang wants. He and all America-haters gain the ultimate power when they start controlling our behavior.</p>
<p>So when you say ‘maybe the majority of them committed [the] crimes’, I guess that means you don’t buy the whole argument 100 free guilty men is small price to avoid 1 imprisoned innocent man?</p>
<p>Trying hard to find even a hint of the principles on which this country was founded in your posts edvest. Sadly, they just don’t seem to be there.</p>
<p>Edvest1. Let’s try some facts: 2.2 million are currently incarcerated; this number has grown seven-fold since the early 70’s; as a nation we spend 60 Billion per year to maintain our prison system; 60% are prisoners of color; convicted felons cannot vote (disenfranchisement). To somehow make a connection to Bin Laden because I express concern about this “societal shift” and the long-term social costs is absurd, ridiculous, and asinine.</p>
<p>Why is it constantly either/or? Why do you have to let 100 criminals go in order to care about a single innocent in jail? I’m not for letting criminals go but surely care about innocent people who are incarcerated! Do you not care about innocent people who are in jail? One can care about that and not want to let criminals go.</p>
<p>“So when you say ‘maybe the majority of them committed [the] crimes’, I guess that means you don’t buy the whole argument 100 free guilty men is small price to avoid 1 imprisoned innocent man?”</p>
<p>That was what Idmom06 said. </p>
<p>How about factoring in the incredible number of guilty people walking around free because witnesses will get shot if they testify against them? That’s a huge problem in the cities in my home state, and in most urban areas. </p>
<p>Freeing nonviolent offenders early for budget cuts, as is done in the state where I live, has been a tremendous problem, because often these (repeat) offenders also have committed violent crimes that they have “pleaed down” (sp?) or for which they are not arrested. </p>
<p>I don’t know how many of you actually live or have lived in the violent areas of large cities (not suburbs or smaller, safer cities and towns) where violent crime is a way of life for the residents. Overall, I have seen that it is very common for the people themselves to try to avenge crime, and that there are many criminals out there either who were never arrested or who are on parole or probation that are repeat offenders. My worry is more that enough people are not incarcerated for crimes they have committed than that too few are. As bad as prison is for them, their crimes on the streets are a lot worse.</p>
<p>For the most part, many criminals are let out too soon because of budget considerations than are sitting innocent in prison. Stopping and punishing crime should be the push, and strengthening the criminal justice system. Then the innocent people can live in their neighborhoods without fear.</p>
<p>^way to twist the point and veer off on a tangental. </p>
<p>It’s scary to see how many people are willing to sacrifice the original principals and theories upon which this country was built. (Shall we call this the Cheney effect?) </p>
<p>In this country, we have built a justice system with failsafes that we hope will prevent an innocent man from being unjustly charged or improperly imprisoned. It doesn’t always work and many complain about the guilty who slip through the cracks of this system. But there are many places you can live in this world with almost foolproof systems where many an innocent man can just rot in jail. I doubt anyone of you would rather live there.</p>
<p>“But we can make it very simple. If one believes nothing Justin Barker could have ever done or said would justify being assaulted including any detail related to “what, whom, in what order…”, then one must believe the same regarding the black kid who was assaulted at the party. In the case of the assaulted black kid, all those details should fall away as well and we should declare that nothing this black kid did at that party could justify being assaulted with a deadly weapon… and we should then expect the DA to seek to apply the law equally.”</p>
<p>But it’s not that simple. That’s the problem. You bring up these two incidents as if they are mirror images. They aren’t. At least according to what I’ve read, they are quite different. The incident at the party was a confrontation between two groups of people–there were five boys, not one. The incident at the school was an attack by six boys on a single boy–it is not really even fair to refer to it as a “fight.” It seems to me that in order to make this a “simple” story of unequal justice, it works better to play up the seriousness of the party fight (i.e., by forgetting that there were five boys, not one), and to play down the seriousness of the schoolyard attack (i.e., by minimizing the injuries suffered by the victim). But the reality is not that simple. Now, don’t get me wrong. The totality of the circumstances certainly suggests to me that a number of the incidents in this story were handled improperly, probably because of institutional racism (the most obvious being the handling of the noose incident). I do think that the attempted murder chargers were excessive (unless there were threatening statements I don’t know about). However, I don’t like it when people try to fit a bunch of incidents into a neat package, when they have to ignore a lot of the troublesome details. But “Free the Jena Six” is a better slogan than “Treat All Felons Equally.”</p>
<p>I don’t disagree with you hunt. In fact no one here has advocated ‘freeing’ the Jena 6. Your issue is with those who want to give the Jena 6 a pass. My issue is with those who only want to talk about THAT and not the inequality in the judicial process in Jena…and those (not you) who deliberately seek to divert focus to any place but on that inequality by parsing the words of people like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton.</p>
<p>Ultimately, we are talking past each other.</p>
He and all America-haters gain the ultimate power when they start controlling our behavior.</p>