Criminal Law

From the Court

Posted on November 23, 2009
Last week featured the latest Craven filing from the Mike Nifong camp. Nifong attorney Jim Craven filed a four-page brief (which included a grand total of 14 lines in his own words) regarding the Pottawatomie case, which I have previously discussed. Craven?s conclusion? "We suggest that if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the Iowa prosecutors/petitioners on the immunity case, such a ruling would likely apply to the defendant Michael B...

"Alleged"

Posted on November 09, 2009
The media generally does not withhold information as a matter of official policy. But, to my knowledge, every major newspaper in the country has an official policy of not reporting the names of accusers in rape or sexual assault cases. (I?m not aware of any paper that has a policy of refusing to report the name of suspects in sexual assault cases...

News & Notes

Posted on November 02, 2009
Few journalists performed as poorly in the lacrosse case as Samiha Khanna. Virtually every statement in her N&O interview with false accuser Crystal Mangum turned out to be wrong. Khanna seemed not to have even bothered to do a basic reporting task?checking her interviewee?s name in the N&O database?which would have uncovered not only Mangum?s criminal conviction but would have proved that Mangum had lied to Khanna in claiming that she was a newcomer to the world of exotic dancing...

In the Can

Posted on October 26, 2009
I recently received an email from DIW reader and commenter ES Class of 1990. He reports:I got a fundraising call from a Duke Freshman this evening. This is a tried and true Duke event, in which living groups raise money for Duke and get a slice for their group or cause...

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Pottawatamie County & Nifong

Posted on October 19, 2009
In 1978, in Iowa?s Pottawattamie County, a retired police officer working as a security guard was murdered. Police and prosecutorial attention rapidly focused on Curtis McGhee and Terry Harrington. The two suspects were tried, convicted, and imprisoned for more than two decades...

Academic Free Speech

Posted on October 17, 2009
An excellent essay by Peter Berkowitz on the topic. Here's his perceptive summary of the Duke case:In 2006, even as the police had barely begun their investigation, Duke University President Richard Brodhead lent the prestige of his office to faculty members' prosecution and conviction in the court of public opinion of three members of the Duke lacrosse team falsely accused of gang raping an African-American exotic dancer...

More from the Group

Posted on October 12, 2009
While Wahneema Lubiano?she who wrote, without any citation, that ?many whites . . . might not ever be persuaded by appeals to reason, to what we ?know? and agree to be ?truth??that all men/women were created equal, for example??is busy tending to all Duke undergraduates through her position as a departmental director of undergraduate education, three other Group members made news last week...

A Treat for Duke Students

Posted on October 07, 2009
At most large universities, the position of undergraduate deputy serves as the department's ambassador to the undergraduate student population. He or she is the professor to whom students will come with questions about the department's courses, or rules and regulations, or faculty members...

Updates, Including Bob Steel's Latest

Posted on October 05, 2009
If I were looking for the identity of someone least likely to be named trustee for a major hospital, former Duke BOT chairman Bob Steel would be high on the list. Leaving aside Steel's ill-fated performance at Wachovia, Duke under Steel's leadership paid out millions of dollars in settlements and legal fees from lawsuits stimulated, in large part, by the dubious conduct at Duke University Hospital...

More from Yale & Hofstra

Posted on September 28, 2009
Writing at cbsnews.com, legal analyst Andrew Cohen expressed concern about the legal impact of the massive publicity in the Yale murder case. Taking note of the breathless reporting from ?anonymous? sources, Cohen noted that ?it?s no wonder that [defendant Raymond] Clark?s attorneys now are talking about opening a legal ethics case into the way prosecutors and the police have trampled upon Clark?s fair trial rights, and his constitutionally-protected presumption of innocence...

The Times, the Post, and Hofstra

Posted on September 23, 2009
The name ?Crystal Mangum? only appeared on the news pages of the New York Times after Mangum published her ?memoir.? Carrying its policy of not naming sexual assault accusers to an absurdist extreme, the Times refused to use Mangum?s name when reporting on Attorney General Cooper?s announcement that Mangum?s myriad, mutually contradictory claims were wholly false and without any evidence...

From the Newsdesk

Posted on September 21, 2009
Two issues in the news over the past week have brought to mind lessons of the lacrosse case. The first, of course, came at Hofstra, where a freshman student named Danmell Ndonye falsely accused five men of raping her. Four of the men were arrested, solely on the basis of Ndonye?s claims; the only one of the four who was a Hofstra student was immediately suspended by the university...

A Note from Hofstra

Posted on September 17, 2009
Doubtless Wendy Murphy will be appearing on some news program to demand that the "secret" evidence from this case be released as well.The County DA stated, "Late this evening, during the continuation of the Nassau County Police Department's investigation of the allegation, and under questioning by my office's chief trial attorney and chief sex crimes prosecutor, the alleged victim of the sexual assault admitted that the encounter that took place early Sunday morning was consensual...

A Final Word on Lisak

Posted on September 14, 2009
As I noted in my previous posts, Duke women?s center director Ada Gregory, in her damage-control letter to the Chronicle, cited the work of researcher David Lisak to bolster her . . . provocative . . . claim that elite universities face a particular threat from potential rapists because these institutions house more intelligent people than the general public...

On Gregory and Lisak

Posted on September 10, 2009
Duke Women?s Center director Ada Gregory came under justifiable criticism for her preposterous recent assertion to the Chronicle: ?The higher IQ, the more manipulative they are, the more cunning they are . . . imagine the sex offenders we have here at Duke?cream of the crop...

Updates

Posted on September 07, 2009
I?ll have a more substantive post up tomorrow; for today, however, a few loose ends: 1.) For those interested, I have an article at Minding the Campus looking at the transformation of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) from an organization committed to upholding academic freedom into a group whose leadership is obsessed with protecting the majority viewpoint in the contemporary academy...

Simply Extraordinary

Posted on September 01, 2009
Three Duke University students were the victims of the highest-profile fraudulent rape claim in modern American history. That fact alone should make the University particularly sensitive to the dangers of false rape allegations, and the need for a firm commitment to due process in handling any allegation of sexual misconduct...

August Events in the Case

Posted on August 31, 2009
No major developments in the civil case; blog posts looked at the following items:a California case of a wrongfully convicted man, but which also illustrated that the conviction of the innocent doesn't necessarily suggest prosecutorial misconduct;the Gerst Program at Duke, which provides an oasis of liberal arts learning amidst the race/class/gender dominated sea in Duke's humanities and social sciences departments;a letter from two Duke graduates, noting the striking contract between the response of the administration and faculty "activists" to the Lombard and lacrosse cases;a low-work proposal from Group of 88 stalwart Cathy Davidson, who will allow students to grade themselves, even as she admits she doesn't much like grading;a reminder of the contempt through which Davidson views those with whom she politically disagrees...

The Gerst Oasis

Posted on August 24, 2009
Despite the many problems in contemporary academia, working within the system is almost always preferable to seeking solutions imposed by legislators. A good example of the unintended consequences of outside intervention came a few years ago, when legislatures in several states (Ohio and Florida most prominently) considered an academic bill of rights...

Four* Items

Posted on August 17, 2009
Forbes is the latest national publication to produce a college ranking list, and I doubt that this item will make Duke alumni mailings. Duke is ranked 104th, behind Hendrix College (Arkansas), Berea College (Kentucky), St. Mary?s College (California) and conservative favorite Hillsdale College in Michigan...

The Lisker Case

Posted on August 12, 2009
A few years ago, TalkLeft?s incomparable Jeralyn Merrill (one of the first high-profile legal commentators to raise questions about Mike Nifong?s misconduct) flagged a Los Angeles Times magazine article about a convicted murderer named Bruce Lisker. The lengthy article is well worth reading: it?s impossible to come away from it without believing that an innocent man has spent more than 20 years of his life in jail for a crime he didn?t commit...

A Bit More from Davidson

Posted on August 10, 2009
On a few occasions over the course of the blog, I?ve mentioned the 2004 Duke Conservative Union survey, which revealed that an 18-1 majority of Duke humanities faculty members were registered Democrats. Surveying professors? political registration is, at best, a blunt instrument in determining the intellectual atmosphere on campus...

Davidson Does Grading

Posted on August 04, 2009
Cathy Davidson occupies a unique place in the history of Duke?s response to the lacrosse case. Widely perceived as among the more moderate of the Group of 88, Davidson humiliated herself by penning the first apologia for the Group?s action. In her January 2007 op-ed, the Duke English professor invented a past that never existed, claiming that in the first two weeks after the case broke?a time when both local and national coverage was overwhelmingly slanted against the lacrosse players?the media was in fact ?rampant? with ?racist and sexist remarks,? with those intent on ?defending David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann ...

July Events in the Case

Posted on August 03, 2009
All three sets of attorneys provided a forceful rebuttal to the Duke/Durham claim that the recent Iqbal decision justifies dismissal of the civil cases. In one of the briefs' better passages, "In supplemental briefs, the wrongdoers behind the Duke lacrosse case?one of the best-documented episodes of police and prosecutorial civil rights abuses in modern history?contend that their misconduct can never be the subject of a federal action because the pleading requirements of Rule 8(a) present an insurmountable barrier...

Who Were the Sociologist Signatories?

Posted on July 27, 2009
At this stage, nothing should surprise me about this case. But I admit that even I was a little taken aback at reading the May 1, 2006 Sociology professors/graduate students letter that was uncovered in the Campus Cultural Initiative archive. (I summarized the letter here and reprinted it here)...

No Comment

Posted on July 27, 2009
I recommend sitting down as you read the identity of the lawyer "representing" the 911 caller in the Gates case.What's next? Crystal Mangum as a PR consultant?

I Don't Recall . . .

Posted on July 24, 2009
Vanderbilt University professor Houston A. Baker being so concerned with the importance of protesting police misconduct when those whose civil liberties were being violated went to school at his then-institution. Nor do I recall Distinguished Professor Baker being so concerned about the importance of avoiding racial profiling when he elected to comment on the case involving his own institution's students, acting as he did solely on the version of events presented by the police and the prosecutor...

The Players' Iqbal Briefs

Posted on July 20, 2009
All three sets of attorneys for the lacrosse players have now filed their response briefs on the Iqbal issue. (I discussed the University?s and the city?s briefs here and here.) Here are their main points:1.) The Defendants Misread IqbalVirtually all of the defendants strongly implied that Iqbal made it much harder for the plaintiffs to survive summary judgment...

Checking in with the Group

Posted on July 13, 2009
A recent issue of Duke Magazine featured three members of the Group of 88 showing that critical self-reflection is not a hallmark of Group scholarship. The first essay?coupled with a bizarre photograph?came from Karla Holloway, identified as ?James B...

A Troubling Case

Posted on July 09, 2009
A disturbing, and compellingly written, ESPN article that I strongly recommend. The lacrosse case shone a light on the guilty-until-proven-innocent nature of rape law: the idea that someone can be, theoretically, convicted solely on the basis of an accuser?s testimony and ID?even in the face of evidence of actual innocence?is chilling...

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