Comments on: Are the Duke lacrosse players innocent?

By: me again

me again — Thu, 18 May 2006 16:33:33 +0000

Lawyers are waiting in the shadows for lucrative civil suit

A man stands in the shadows of the Duke Lacrosse ‘rape’ caseâ€¦watching and waiting. While the three wealthy, white male students remains in criminal court, he is not likely to step forward.

Even at this early stage, the stripper’s mother is “very much interested” in “getting Willie E. Gary is a litigator renowned for winning huge settlements.

The stripper’s parents met with Gary in April. The meeting was facilitated by civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Gary acts as a family adviser, and the parents are laying groundwork to make a civil bid. Public opinion can be a large bargaining chip in obtaining a lucrative settlement. Earlier, the parents spoke freely; now they’re being more media savvy.

Essence Magazine featured three articles by Kristal Brent Zook. Each is sympathetic to the accuser. (1st) “Family Defends Daughter’s Painful Past”, (2nd) “Nowhere to Turn,” depicts the accuser as living in terror. (3rd) is basically an announcement of Willie Gary’s appearance in the case; it concludes by stating that the parents “worry that their daughter mayâ€¦need additional legal guidance.”

Civil law deals in torts or harms inflicted by one person upon another; its purposes are compensation for actual or perceived damages.

A “guilty” verdict in criminal court can be used to establish liability in a civil one but if the verdict is “not guilty” or the charges are dropped, a civil case can proceed independently.

Kobe Bryant settled out-of-court settlement. Such settlements are not necessarily admissions of guilt. After months of media blitz, Bryant may have been embarrassed to settle, so civil suits could be lucrative even if the “accuser’s” claim is completely fabricated. The Duke students will face the same choice?

Civil suits can be lucrative, and they’re easier to win; standards of evidence and other legal protections enjoyed by a defendant are significantly lowered in civil court.

Clearly, her parents wish to explore a civil proceeding. Gary is conspicuously available.

Please stop using multiple nicks for posting. I changed the one you used back to the one most people here would recognize. –ST

By: Nice guy

Nice guy — Sun, 30 Apr 2006 09:40:07 +0000

These boys had their reputations destroyed, their scholarship money spent on defense lawyers, daily protest against them, their pictures posted all over their school, community, the internet, and the international media. They’ve been publicly convicted by these victims/feminist special interest political groups in the mass media.
It’s about time someone spoke up for these boys. The defense needs to speak up to clear these boys in the media, and if it exposes the “victim” as being a liar it’s not because we lack empathy for victims, it’s that liars who destroy people’s lives shouldn’t be held in high regard. These boys have good alibis, one has an iron-clad alibi, this added to the fact that there are no DNA matches or evidence of any kind, and serious inconsistencies with the “victim’s” story from the beginning, leads me to believe that she was lying, but regarding the media coverage of the case, it has always been unfair to the accused.
When we think of a single mother, we picture a woman struggling to support herself and her children. Laura Grissim [Letters; April 14] plays on this stereotype to portray the Durham rape accuser/stripper as a stereotypical working single mom.
It’s amazing how just by claiming a person to be a “mother” puts a “halo” on her head. Feminist claim that some women have no other option to provide for herself and her children which paints a picture of a selfless martyr, but this is misleading especially regarding this particular “single mom”. This single mom and her children live with their grandfather so the threat of being homeless or hungry is unlikely. This single mom has been arrested in for larceny and evading police, which doesn’t fit the mold of “martyr”. This single mom arrived at the party inebriated and was found drunk and disorderly in a parking lot, but looking at this woman as an individual instead of a sexist stereotype reveals a more realistic picture of this single mom which dims her halo.
Feminist go on to rants that criticizing this woman “hinges on blaming the victim”. This single mom is not a victim. This single mom is an “accuser”. There’s enough evidence to question her integrity and whether a crime actually occurred. I find it hypocritical that feminist so easily give this “single mom” the benefit of the doubt while condemning a group of boys who happen to be on a sports team. People should avoid stereotypes and focus on each individual, including the “accuser”, as a person.
The actions of District Attorney Mike Nifong have been reckless and irresponsible in playing out this case before the national media. This has inflamed racial stereotypes throughout Durham which makes it more important that everyone take a step back and let the police do their job. If this woman lied; thus exposing Nifong as a fool, then she should be prosecuted for this crime, which have destroyed these young boys’ lives and reputations. Being a “single mom” shouldn’t be an excuse to condone being so reckless and destructive.
Nifong is running scared. If he had anything big, he’d spill it. His desperation was obvious when he held that conference at the NCC University where he thought he was in friendly territory. Nifong claims the boys are “stone walling”, but when the accusation was made, the police questioned the three boys who lived in the house for over six hours, not one asked for a lawyer. When the entire team was told they had to submit DNA samples, they didn’t call their parents or fight the warrant.
The boys cooperated completely. These aren’t the actions of guilty boys. Only when their parents witnessed the circus-like atmosphere created by District Attorney Mike Nifong, the boys were advised to remain quiet.
Nifong nationally proclaimed that he will indict the entire team for aiding and abetting. He doesn’t care whether anyone is innocent or guilty, or if he has to bulldoze over 50 boys to get to one. Nifong portrayed all of these boys as rapists while claiming that they’re hiding information because the only information they have is that the rape never occurred, and DNA evidence supports the boys’ story, and the second stripper coincides with the boys account of events, but it doesn’t matter.
Because of Nifong, these boys have already been convicted in the media. Their reputations destroyed as their names and pictures are widely distributed with hate slogans labeling them as rapist.
Nifong will get an indictment to avoid facing the racial tensions he stoked to near riot levels, then he will leave this “powder keg” to the next elected DA to handle the fallout, and when this case presents itself to be unfounded and accusations of “white privilege” force racial tensions to explode, I predict Mr. Nifong will be somewhere far far away on vacation.
Rape shields were created in the 1970s to protect the alleged “victim” from having her reputation ruined by baseless assumptions, unfair judgments, public humiliation, and character assassinations, but any of this could describe what’s happening to every member of the lacrosse team.
Irresponsible “special interest groups” have held protests everyday holding the name and pictures of anyone on the lacrosse team, to having their pictures and hate slogans pasted all over school. The actions of these groups against these men are nothing short of harassment and unfair character assassination.
The boys are being tried in the national media before there is any charge are made. Nifong stated that someone else could have assaulted the 27 year old stripper, yet he publicly damned the men’s lacrosse team and only the men’s lacrosse team as gang rapist, and still not knowing whether or not the “alleged victim” was telling the truth, or if the three men sought are on the team, Nifong claims the team is stonewalling to protect its own.
In response, daily protest are held with hate comments made directly to the lacrosse teammates, pictures of the teammates with rape slogans are plastered all over Duke’s campus, and now gang members are driving by the east campus threatening students.
Nifong’s circus-like antics to perform for the national media has put the whole campus in danger.
Nifong proclaimed in the national media that the DNA sweep of 46 boys would find the guilty and clear the innocent. DNA tests prove that the boys of the lacrosse team were telling the truth, but Nifong wants to go ahead with the case only weeks before his election against a woman and a black man. There should be laws in place to prevent unscrupulous politician like District Attorney Mike Nifong from bulldozing over 47 innocent boys just to bask in the international media spot-light.
The news that there’s no DNA evidense to link the boys to the stripper is not as curious as there’s no DNA to suggest a crime was ever cmmitted! Where’s her DNA?
Stripper claims: three men raped her on the bathroom rug,
Fact:
â€¢ No vaginal or seminal fluid, no skin, blood, or hair were found anywhere in the bathroom, bath towels, bath rug, door handle, bathroom floor, basin, water faucet handle, etc.
â€¢ A man cannot take off a condom and not get DNA from himself or the female on his hands and not transfer it to everything he touches?
â€¢ Accuser claims she was vaginally penetrated; accuser claims she was panicked and thought she was going to die; Where is her vaginal fluid, urine, or blood anywhere in the bathroom? Does her body defy basic physiology capable of keeping any ejaculate from spilling out?
â€¢ Accuser claims she was anally penetrated; Where’s her fecal material or scat smears in the bathroom? Does the accuser have inhuman anal sphinter control that prevented any of the ejaculate from dripping out?
â€¢ Accuser claims she was orally sodomized; where is DNA from her saliva and tears? Did she lick up every drop and swallowed any evidence?
Stripper claim bruises were result of an attack from three boys:
Fact: Time-stamped photos prove stripper arrived bruised and cut while drunk.
Nifong stated that a condom was used, if this is true than where is the spermicidal lubricant evidence? Where are the condoms? Where are the condom wrappers? Where is the empty condom box?
If no DNA material were present on the stripper, than why were DNA samples taken? The District Attorney vigorously claimed that these DNA evidence will clear the innocent.
The second stripper stated that she didn’t notice any rape, and when they got back in the car the “accuser” didn’t mention anything about being rape, and that she highly doubted a rape occurred, then she changes her story and Mike Nifong allowed her to be released from jail without bail after she was arrested for embezzling over 25,000 dollars. Later she contacted a public ralations firm to “spin this to my advantage.” It’s nice that a woman would so easily support a false rape claim when it suits her needs and possibly her wallet.
We have to consider the fact that this may be a common “false accusation of rape”, and she must be prosecuted for the harm she’s done to these men and to the entire Duhram community.
I was surprise of how many false rape accusations have been made by several independent surveys reveal that 42% to approximately half of all accusations made are false. Most cases involve divorce battles involving the custody of children, some for revenge for withdraw of affection, monetary gains, an excuse for infidelity, or misidentification.
â€¢ According to the FBI, one of every 12 claims of rape filed in the United States are later deemed â€˜unfounded,’ meaning the case was closed because the alleged victim recanted or because investigators found no evidence of a crime.
â€¢ Howard County Police classified one out of every four rape allegations as unfounded in 1990-91.
â€¢ The National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers says around 600 teachers a year are falsely accused – a trebling since the 1989 Children’s Act.
â€¢ Citing a recent USA Today article, discussing the miracle of DNA and FBI studies of sexual assault suspects, DNA testing exonerated about 30% to 35% of the more than 4,000 sexual assault suspects on whom the FBI had conducted DNA testing over the past three years.
â€¢ Purdue sociologist Eugene J. Kanin, in over 40% of the cases reviewed, the complainants eventually admitted that no rape had occurred (Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol. 23, No. 1, 1994).
â€¢ 1985 the Air Force conducted a study of 556 rape accusations. Over 25% of the accusers admitted, either just before they took a lie detector test or after they had failed it, that no rape occurred.
â€¢ 1996 Department of Justice Report, of the roughly 10,000 sexual assault cases analyzed with DNA evidence over the previous seven years, 2,000 excluded the primary suspect, and another 2,000 were inconclusive.
â€¢ Linda Fairstein, who heads the New York County District Attorney’s Sex Crimes Unit. Fairstein, the author of Sexual Violence: Our War Against Rape, says, “there are about 4,000 reports of rape each year in Manhattan. Of these, about 50% simply did not happen.”
Craig Silverman, a former Colorado prosecutor known for his zealous prosecution of rapists during his 16-year career, says that false rape accusations occur with “scary frequency.” As a regular commentator on the Bryant trial for It seems that every feminist wants thise stripper to have been raped because if she was, this is good as gold when political groups lobby the government for more money for women-only programs, but what feminist don’t want is to lime-light the problem of the flase accusations of rape that occurs more frequently that is known.

By: Lucius

Lucius — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 16:56:10 +0000

How do you rape someone and not get sperm in the person? Or a Pubic hair at least??? No scratches, no bruises on the alleged victim’s face where they would have to subdue her by hitting her, no bite marks at least???

If the stripper had sex with them, there would still be a lot of DNA evidence all over her. Skin under her nails where she could have scratched them, hair, blood, semen, saliva, etc.. Rape is not a clean process.

The fact is the media has already convicted them of rape, such as FOX News referring to the stripper as “the victim” rather than the “alleged victim”.

And if they called her racial slurs, that’s proof that they were not attracted to her and had no interest in having sex with her.. leaving her feeling undesirable, so she thinks “Okay, I’ll say they raped me so everyone will know I am still fu**alicious” So she grabbed her dildo, beat it up then called 911. According to the lack of evidence that seems to be the likely scenario. Unless she prostituted herself out earlier and the client was rough… Why wouldn’t he be? He doesn’t love her.

But black people don’t seem to care if the boys are guilty or not, If they cared about the truth O.J. Simpson would be in jail, they just want to see some white boys thrown in jail because they think that black boys get thrown in jail all the time for no reason, so this is like pay back in their minds… the fact that these lacrosse players had nothing to do with any rape is irrelevant to people like Jesse Jackson. They just want to make a racist point that the word of a black woman is more important than the word of any white man.

So when they are convicted by minds of the NAACP then FOX News, then the people, then the jury . . . just remember, in the beginning, they had no evidence.

They will be convicted, and sent to prison, because they are white.

And we will face judgment by God for not saying a word… for remaining silent and not letting the media know what we think of them prejudging these boys!

By: Baklava

Baklava — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 19:52:41 +0000

Yes. The public which knew next to nothing was beating pots and pans in front of the President’s house and the alleged perpetrators house. The President (part of the public) who knew next to nothing cancelled the Lacrosse season and the coach resigned. The alleged perpetrators had to move from the house. The alleged perpetrators had their mug shots posted on campus walls by the public who knew next to nothing.

The District Attorney who has an election in either 12 or 21 days has exonerating evidence yet is going forward with the case due to the public who knew next to nothing being worked up for a conviction.

Yes. Premature. That’s what we are saying solitaire. The same premature conclusions you make and do as a lefty on almost every issue to issue your false allegations/accusations. Why do you do that?

Is the prosecutor doing things by the book as you said? He may be but I didn’t know that 70 interviews was necessary for the case or by the book. And attending a public forum at NCCU was by the book? It may be…

Yes. Everyone has their opinion. But the media and DA didn’t help anything and raised racial tensions. Nice agenda you lefties have is what we are pointing out. You like raising racial tensions?

Here’s an article that talks about this stuff repeating itself. One of the incidents detailed in this link is:

Also last year, students at Wooster College in Ohio awoke to find swastikas and racist messages written on dorm walls. Angry protestors raged against “typical white males” until the writers of the slurs turned out to be a group of lefty students led by a black studies major.

Do we have a problem with letting the police do it’s job? I can’t believe you asked that… That’s what we are for. Is that what the left is for? Or are the leftist racists out for convictions of people without a trial and evidence. Stirring up racial tensions is common of the left from my perspective. Read Ward Connerly’s “Creating Equal” for more of that perspective….

By: solitaire

solitaire — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 19:15:19 +0000

It seems to me that the public really knows next to nothing about the details in the case. All this weeping and knashing of teeth seems premature, on both “sides”. There shouldn’t be sides. Why isn’t it just ok for the prosecutor to do things by the book, which he is saying is the path he is on. If you live around the triangle, you quickly realize that EVERYBODY has weighed in on their opinion. They are still just opinions. Let the police do their job.
You got a problem with that?

By: Lisa

Lisa — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 16:46:23 +0000

This case shows who has the race problem. Here are two black and one mexican to only name a few that have been convicted of rape and or murder in Durham. Some victoms were children. No on has marched. Lawrence Hawes, Lazaro Martinez and Santiaga Elliott. I do not for one minute think that the Duke rape is true. It just reflects the truth that lots of blacks really don’ t like white people. I’m very light, and most don’t like me. I have people tell me go back to Mexico and eveything else. I’m american Indian and don’t need to leave. I just want to know why no one else is marching when Durham has crime every night. Where is the NAACP march, the Jesse, and… If this has been a white women and black men the NAACP would have been stood by the DNA results. When it was Kobey and a white girl, she was trash and Kobey could have not done any wrong.

By: Baklava

Baklava — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 18:46:16 +0000

How about these statements, ““No DNA material from any young man tested was present on the body of this complaining woman, not present within her body, not present on the surface of her body and not present on any of her belongings,” Smith said in a prepared statement.”

and, “Answering questions from reporters, defense attorney Joe Cheshire did say that DNA of two of the men was found on a towel and on the floor of the bathroom, but that it was not in any way related to the DNA found on the alleged victim.

“The bathroom where this DNA was found happened to be the bathroom of the two boys,” Cheshire said. “And any expert and any person in the world will tell you that your DNA is in your bathroom.”

BTW, I don’t condone the type of partying these boys did. I’ve only been to one party in my life where a stripper was hired. It was a bachelor party. While all of the men/boys there were well behaved and kept their hands to their side when the stripper rubbed against them, I felt uncomfortable. Just call me a prude.

By: MondayMorningQuarterBacks.com

MondayMorningQuarterBacks.com — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 18:24:11 +0000

CSI Durham: No DNA match in Duke Lacrosse Case

DNA test results have failed to connect any members of the DukeUniversity men’s lacrosse team to the stripper who accused the team of sexual assault. ESPN.com news services has an article about the allegations. “â€¦There is no DNA evidence

By: mondaymorningquarterbacks

mondaymorningquarterbacks — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 18:23:37 +0000

Oh, I dunno, I would have thought the media would give these guys a chance before burning them on the stake. Anyway, I don’t watch the mainstream media for news, for the same reason I don’t wipe my ass with hot peppers or chew on glass.

By: Baklava

Baklava — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 18:16:38 +0000

Y
A
W
N
!

Me thinks you are unfailingly on the right side.

By: Sister Toldjah

Sister Toldjah — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 18:10:10 +0000

I doubt Norah cares, Bak. Her only purpose in posting that comment was to take a cheap shot at me. Where’s that “yawn” emoticon when I need it?

By: Baklava

Baklava — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 18:02:42 +0000

This does harm to people who really are raped. Can’t you see that Norah? Harm. Is that what you are for? I wouldn’t think so…

By: Baklava

Baklava — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 17:59:15 +0000

On the side of truth and justice?

How is that the wrong side Norah?

THere is ZERO DNA evidence yet due to the damaging nature of the allegations people’s reputations and careers were ruined. What is your idea of the right side in this case? To prosecute without evidence?????

ZERO convictions would occur. According to the police report which a local radio show host here (who fills in for Rush sometimes – Tom Sullivan – yes this reached a local show in Sacramento, CA) read, there should be plenty of matching evidence due to what she said happened (all orifices used). But there is ZERO matching evidence. ZERO. How much? ZERO.

By: Norah

Norah — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 17:33:27 +0000

Unfailingly on the wrong side, aren’t you?

By: Dave in CO

Dave in CO — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 15:37:24 +0000

Didn’t the university president cancel the remaining season for the team? So, hasn’t he convicted all of them preemptively? And, by doing so, didn’t he punish players that weren’t even involved? How is any of this fair?

Dave