The View From Here . . .
By Bob Morgan, Jr.

The very unfortunate story of three Duke student accused (almost certainly wrongly), of serious sexual and other misconduct points up the danger of a rush to judgment as well as of an out of control prosecutor.

When it first came out, the story had every stereotypical element of a mediocre TV movie. A well-reputed school, an almost all-white team in a sport with a preppie reputation, an off-campus party, alcohol, two black strippers, alleged racial epithets, allegations of an extremely serious nature, major criminal charges against three players.

The national media and many others flooded the zone. The initial spin was that the case was an allegory for the shameful treatment of minorities by members of the privileged elite able to attend a prestigious university. The prosecutor, Mike Nifong, facing an election, helped add to the furor by calling the lacrosse team a "bunch of hooligans" and with statements like "the contempt that was shown for the victim, based on her race, was totally abhorrent." 88 members of the Duke faculty took out an ad in the campus paper referring to "what happened to this young woman" without qualification.

In fact, it should have been apparent from the outset to prosecutors, the media and indeed the Duke University administration, which was very slow to defend its students, that the evidence of criminality was very weak. There were serious questions about the mental state of the accuser, her stories were contradictory, the other dancer on the scene was unable to corroborate key parts of her account. But this would have contradicted the story line about predatory athletes preying upon the less fortunate.

But if the case was characterized by a rush to judgment and unjust stereotyping, it was also filled with numerous instances of apparent serious prosecutorial misconduct. The prosecution made numerous prejudicial statements about the defendants at the beginning of the case. The procedure for identifying the accused was incredibly flawed, with the accuser only shown pictures of lacrosse team members, rather than a number of non-suspect "fillers" as is the usual case. One of the players appeared to have an airtight alibi with numerous computer records showing that he could not have been present when the alleged attacks occurred, but this was ignored. Most seriously, DNA tests exonerating the defendants were suppressed by the prosecution despite apparent on the record statements by Mr. Nifong to the presiding judge that all favorable evidence had been presented to the defense.

In December, prosecutor Nifong, following an interview with the accuser, dropped the rape charges but retained many other serious ones, including kidnapping. Nevertheless, the tide seems to have turned against him as the North Carolina bar has now widened an investigation into his conduct.

It is almost inconceivable that any of these defendants, one of whom lives in our readership area, are guilty of anything more than attending a rowdy party. Duke has belatedly offered reinstatement to the two who have not graduated and sooner or later the remaining charges will surely be dropped. But, sadly the names of the accused (which I have deliberately omitted) have been dragged through the mud totally unfairly. Where do they get their reputations back?

Hopefully, justice will be done as to Mike Nifong. But for the rest of us, this case again signals the importance of withholding judgments and not jumping to stereotypical judgments, even if those stereotypes are politically correct ones.