Disbarred Duke lacrosse prosecutor Mike Nifong is back, along with more misconduct allegations

[mahatmakanejeeves]

10. The three falsely accused players were facing far greater consequences than anything that

Last edited Wed Aug 31, 2016, 01:48 PM - Edit history (2)

could result from the expression of "a sentiment on a message board."

This was not some abstract notion, or a classroom exercise in the theory of jurisprudence. Had the three lacrosse players who had been arrested not had the wherewithal, they would have been sent to prison for the rest of their lives.

To this day, has anyone in the Group of 88 expressed the slightest remorse? Their lives went on uninterrupted and without repercussion. Almost predictably, the originator of the Group of 88's statement declared herself a victim:

Karla F.C. Holloway

....
Group of 88

During the Duke lacrosse case of 2006-07, in which the men's lacrosse team were falsely accused of raping a black woman at a party, Holloway coordinated the so-called "Group of 88" statement. This was an advertisement that she and Professor Wahneema Lubiano crafted for the Duke student newspaper, describing concerns about racism and sexism that the incident allegedly raised, and discussing "what happened to this woman". Historian KC Johnson and journalist Stuart Taylor, Jr. note that Holloway and Lubiano made it a point to publish the statement before the release of DNA results, which prosecutor Mike Nifong had said would be determinative, and before any indictments. The ad proved polarizing.

As the facts of the case became clearer, Duke president Richard H. Brodhead, who had barred the indicted players from campus, invited them back. In response, Holloway resigned from a campus committee, stating that she "could no longer work in good faith with this breach of common trust", and she charged the university with failing to wait for a critical judicial decision. According to Johnson and Taylor, Holloway had previously shown little deference to judicial decisions when she said that, "the seriousness of the matter cannot be finally or fully adjudicated in the courts" because "justice inevitably has an attendant social construction."

Holloway also announced that she had overheard that there was a witness to racial slurs by lacrosse players. No such witness was ever produced, say Johnson and Taylor, but the Wilmington Journal printed the story, and "Holloway was never disciplined or criticized" by Duke. In 2006, Holloway said that she was a "victim" of the case, and that she would sign the Group of 88's ad again “in a heartbeat.”

Those advocating trial by hysteria were only narrowly defeated. It didn't always look as if that would be the outcome.

I can dig up the old threads, if it will help newer members recall the tenor of the times.

Thanks for writing.