Thursday, April 12, 2007

Finally...Vindication, Well Sort Of

For the three young men involved in the now-infamous Duke rape case, closure began yesterday as the last charges were officially dropped by the state attorney general of North Carolina. While making his statement to the media, AG Roy Cooper used language that stunned most legal experts. Instead of using the legalese "we do not have sufficient evidence to continue", Mr. Cooper stated bluntly "Based on the significant inconsistencies between the evidence and the various accounts given by the accusing witness, we believe these three individuals are innocent of these charges." The straight-forward use of the term 'innocent" shows the level of dishonesty that Mike Nifong was using in his prosecution/persecution of these young men.

Now, despite their vindication, these men will forever be linked to the heinous crime that did not happen. Just a quick Google search of the words "Duke case" turns up dozens of articles from the past year trashing these men, with very vicious implications of guilt. The news media, for the most part was as horrible in covering this as Nifong was in his misguided prosecution. From your local newscast and the "big 3" networks, to CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and others...all had many "experts" who basically convicted these men and trashed them as often as they could.

The sports media jumped into the fray as well, with holier-than-thou sportswriters lamenting the "culture" of racism and sexism that "clouds" Duke University and these WHITE players in the culturally mixed city of Durham. These hypocritical writers continually turn away and ignore any such partying activities by big time college football or basketball programs nationwide, but the Duke lacrosse program is a "cesspool of bad behavior". Ridiculous.

Of course, not every single media person was in on the feeding frenzy. One notable exception was FNC's Bill O'Reilly, who said last summer that all signs pointed to the young men being not guilty. Unfortunately, on that same network and airing after Bill's show was Greta's program which paraded many "experts" who repeatedly trashed and stomped on the reputations of these collegians without remorse. I did not see how Greta handled the dropping off the last charges yesterday.

On ESPN, the sports media spoke about the case yesterday. On the sports talk program "Around The Horn" (which features four sports journalists debating the days sports topics) , all four panelists spoke of the media's over-exuberance in solemn tones. LA Times writer Bill Plaschke was particularly contrite, and even apologized for his own part in jumping on these men. A very impressive show of accountability by Mr. Plaschke. The telling part was when the host asked if the media has learned anything from this case, Bill sadly said "no." I fear that he is correct.

But, most sports and news media types just mentioned the dropped charges and moved on as if nothing had happened. Completely disregarding the fact that these men are forever linked and listed as "accused rapists" and that label is difficult,if not impossible to shed. Events like this further make a jaded person like myself even more cynical of the media as a whole.

Back to the young men involved. Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty, and Reade Seligmann have had their lives forever altered, and not for the better. If I were in their shoes, I would make the lawsuits fly. I would sue the DA Nifong, the University, the city of Durham, the state of NC, and the accuser (who was noticeably absent from the media yesterday). I am no legal expert and do not know how strong any of those cases would be, but they definitely should fire back against the system that tried to railroad them.

DA Nifong should be disbarred and removed from his position. The accuser should be sued,and it's not even the point of how little money she may or may not have, it is to send a message. Apparently she has done this once before, and maybe if her future paychecks are garnished to pay off a lawsuit, she will think before destroying innocent men's reputations. I only wish there were some recourse against the arrogant, destructive media that convicted these men. Holier-than-thou types, such as the NY Times trashed these men daily and are most likely too preoccupied with the Don Imus story to care that these men are INNOCENT.

All in all, this has been a very sad case and an extremely sad display of how the American news media can destroy innocent people whenever they want.

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