If the accuser in the Duke Lacrosse case had been a white woman

[Gman]

would there had been such an effort to exonerate these boys? I think the fact is that had the accuser been a white woman these guys may have still been exonerated because the woman's story kept changing and was contradictory, but would there would have been no where near the outrage. The attitude seemed to have been that this woman was a Black stripper and how dare she accuse these rich white boys of raping her.

Discuss.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Compare this case to O.J.'s.

Wherein O.J. was also found not guilty.

[Gman]

6. Would the outrage have been similar if Ted Kazinski had been acquitted?

I don't think so as Kazinski is white.

[Squatch]

25. The Duke players were not found "not guilty"

Charges were dropped, precluding any judgement as to guilty or not-guilty.

[rockyandmax]

28. What do you mean "precluding any judgement as to guilty or not-guilty"?

You say that as if they might be guilty... In fact, that means there is no evidence to go forward at all.

[pnwmom]

29. The Attorney General emphasized that they are "INNOCENT."

He made an extremely forceful statement at the press conference, probably in recognition of the fact that there will always be people like you who will suspect that they were guilty.

He said that she told numerous stories that contradicted each other and all of the outside evidence that they could gather. He said they considered charging her criminally for lying, but didn't, because of medical evidence about her that they're keeping under seal. He thinks she believes all her contradictory stories as she tells them.

These students shouldn't have to go around the rest of their lives with people saying that they might be guilty, simply because a trial didn't occur. The prosecution should never have happened.

[malaise]

40. Bingo and more than a few people still

believe OJ is guilty.

[pnwmom]

30. There is no comparison.

There was DNA evidence that OJ did it. His lawyers argued that the evidence had been planted.

There was no DNA evidence that the students touched the accuser at all. There was no evidence of any sort, according to the Attorney General, that supported the accuser's contradictory stories.

[Cameron27]

33. Yep.

:thumbsup:

[no_hypocrisy]

2. The Duke debacle is what SHOULD HAVE happened to the

Scottsboro Boys in the 30s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottsboro_Boys

[pnwmom]

34. Right. And Dan Evans, one of the Duke students, spoke out

on this issue. That other people are being railroaded by people like Nifong, and that's outrageous.

[soothsayer]

3. They would have smeared any woman, but yeah it was easier that

these were black women and one appears to be kinda' nutty. Nevertheless, I totally, totally think the boys are actually guilty.

[renie408]

9. Based on what? n/t

[pnwmom]

38. That only goes to show your own prejudice, since there is

zero evidence to support your theory.

[Forkboy]

44. Take a long hard look in the mirror if you're looking for prejudice.

[dairydog91]

4. Er...

I remember that at the beginning of this whole flap, most of the news articles were busy painting a sob story of how a poor black woman had been victimized by spoiled white kids. I didn't notice any mainstream negativity towards her until the case started to fall apart.

[Catherine Vincent]

5. No discusion for scenarios.

The case was dropped.

[bryant69]

7. Or if those had been black guys would there have been any effort at all

to exonerate them.

Bryant

[Mike Daniels]

20. If the victim had been white and the atheletes black

and the case conducted the same way with the same lack of evidence you would have had DU in an uproar over the upcoming lynching.

But because the victim was black and the athletes happened to be well to do white boys it was to be taken for granted that the woman was telling the truth even when early evidence leaned otherwise.

[sandnsea]

55. There was a split opinion

With most DUers reserving judgment. If the situation had been reversed, it would have been the same, as we can see with the number of people coming to Imus' defense.

[mitchtv]

8. I think she had a bad story

and Black or White it was a doomed prosecution. I think if you have prosecutorial misconduct you have a dead case= a mute point

[Gman]

13. Hardly "mute"

but possibly moot.

Nevertheless, this thread is intended not so much to discuss the facts of the case as it is for a discussion of racial perceptions.

[Big Blue Marble]

10. When do rich white or black males ever get convicted of rape? NT

[DemBones DemBones]

12. Bingo. nt

[Balbus]

24. Mike Tyson

[pnwmom]

35. As the Duke students pointed out, how many innocent people

are in prison now because they couldn't afford good lawyers?

[malaise]

41. Bingo n/t

[Name removed]

50. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Catherine Vincent]

51. uh, excuse me?

President Clinton? It faded away because the allegation was false.

[Name removed]

53. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Catherine Vincent]

54. No charges, no arrests. All bullshit.

Republicans and gullible people like you lied.

[Catherine Vincent]

58. Speaking of rape....

[maveric]

If were a basketball team with all black guys. And she was white...

In N. Carolina...

[Gman]

14. Then they'd be doing hard time for a long time

regardless of the facts.

[renie408]

16. That is bullshit.

Believe it or not, we actually do have some kind of due process down here. And we even have toilets right inside our houses now, too!!

God, I hate snobs.

[maveric]

21. Remember the African/American footballer who had consensual sex with a white girl.

He was 17 she was 15? He got like 10 years of hard time. Her Daddy was a big repug supporter and fundie. The kids life is ruined and he will never come out of there the way he went in.
I'm not a snob my friend. History just seems to repeat itself when it comes to the justice system and African/Americans in the south.

Peace,
maveric

[renie408]

23. Again, no comparison.

What happened to that kid was wrong. But what does that have to do with the Duke Lacrosse players being unjustly indicted for rape?

[ms liberty]

32. You don't know anything about NC do you?

Because if you did, you'd know that college basketball is a religion down here. You're in the heart of the ACC, where pastors preach shorter sermons on Sundays when Duke or Carolina, Wake Forest or NC State are playing early.
In your scenario, I might have to give the edge to the basketball team (that goes to a definite edge if the team was Carolina!).
I would hope and expect a fair investigation that followed the evidence to a conclusion. I also think in this case Attorney General Cooper (a Democrat, competent and apolitical) provided that after he took the case from Nifong. Nifong jumped the gun with this case before he knew whether he had a case or not.

[Kagemusha]

11. Personally such crap never entered my mind.

I saw it as a politically and racially explosive case where guilt seemed quite likely until drip, drip, drip, things stopped adding up and it came out that the district attorney was playing fast and loose with the law, and then we had the DNA lab fiasco... but.

I became convinced that people were going to see it as ganging up on a black woman if the case fell apart. I was convinced of that many months ago, and lo and behold, here we are today.

Nevermind that I recall that on DU at the time, there was great certainty of guilt because the accused were rich white trash at a rich white trash school with rich white trash alumni. (Edit: Actually, the tone was like... how dare you accuse these privileged whites of being INNOCENT? How dare you?)

[renie408]

15. Mike Nifong screwed the pooch on this one. He didn't research the woman's story

at all before he started shouting for indictments. He never personally talked to her. There was no DNA evidence, the accuser had credibility problems out the wazoo and Nifong intentionally kept information from the Grand Jury. This case was a dog from the get-go. If it had been handled with ANY kind of care or profesionalism, this would never have become the media circus it did. Nifong wanted the national media attention. THAT'S what this case was about.

[MN ChimpH8R]

52. Yep

No physical or DNA evidence whatsoever, an accuser who tells multiple, contradictory and mutually exclusive stories, and a witness (the other dancer) who said she saw absolutely zilch to corroborate the accuser's story. No prosecutor with half a functioning brain would file charges in such a case, whoever the accuser was.

I spent three years working for judges as a law clerk, and got an extensive up-close look at a number of prosecutors. Ethical, sensible prosecutors simply do not pursue cases where there is no extrinsic evidence.

Failure to disclose exculpatory evidence to opposing counsel is an appalling breach of legal ethics and most likely is obstruction of justice in the context of a criminal investigation. Nifong is toast.

[cgrindley]

17. It would have played out pretty much the same way

I don't think that anything other than incontestable innocence got those boys off those charges.

They're still guilty of being sexist stripper hiring pigs, though.

[moez]

18. white green or purple -

I wish that they would have proceeded with throwing this lying psycho in the can for a couple of years. She screwed up those kids' lives....

[Lex]

19. The community jumped to the defense of the black woman accuser first

because it seemed *at the time* that something terrible had happened and no one wanted her to get railroaded because rich white guys were the accused.

Nifong screwed things up and never said how shaky her story was. Idiot. He kept saying we in the community didn't have all the facts and that something terrible did happen.

[pnwmom]

39. The Attorney General said they will be releasing her various stories

sometime next week. Hopefully, people who read them will understand then why this case couldn't go forward.

[Bake]

22. God this place makes me want to vomit sometimes.

It may be just about time to go.

Bake

[xchrom]

26. pretty weird, huh? -- personally i think it's a sexual thing on the part of some.

and i'm not talkingabout the duke lacrosse thingy.

[jesus_of_suburbia]

37. Don't go.. you aren't alone.

[pnwmom]

27. Nifong would never have prosecuted this case if she'd been white.

The whole point of the prosecution was that he got all kinds of favorable media publicity, saying how he was going to champion this poor woman. At the time of the indictments, he was in a hotly contested political race in a largely African American community. His strongest opponent was black, and he was losing in the primary election -- until he started pushing this case in dozens of media interviews.

If she was white, there wouldn't have been any payoff to Nifong - she would have just been another false accuser who couldn't keep her stories straight.

[Nye Bevan]

31. If the accuser had been white and the young men black

I think that Nifong would have dismissed the case against the young men almost immediately, based upon the alibis, the accuser's changing story, and the lack of any evidence. He would then have launched a prosecution against the white accuser, probably for perjury and obstruction of justice. He would have grandstanded about this racist attempt to railroad innocent black men. Bear in mind that this was all about Nifong picking up black votes to win re-election.

[pnwmom]

42. Good point. He would have twisted the facts in another direction.

Anything that would have helped him politically.

[pnwmom]

36. Actually, there IS such a case going on right now at Duke, but

you're probably never heard of it, because it's being handled much more discretely.

A white Duke student has accused a man of raping her at a party given at a black fraternity. In many of the news accounts, the race of the accused wasn't even mentioned.

[jmg257]

43. Tawana Brawley was a black female who accused a well-to-do white man of rape,

was TOTALLY full of shit, and no one put up much of an effort at all to exonerate HER target. Ruining someone's life through lies and false accusations, no matter what race or sex, deserves as much outrage as we are all capable of.

[Leopolds Ghost]

49. So how come you can't think of a Black example?

Someone who's life has been ruined and has been exonerated with all the effort sites like DU could bear?

[Treehugger_72]

45. response to original thread...

In response to the original thread I have to say that it doesn't matter the color of the accuser, she was lying pure and simple. Those boys deserve to have all the charges dropped because there was NO CASE to begin with. Nifong conspired with the person who took the dna evidence to conceal that evidence. Nifong should be prosecuted and at least the state of NC should give the families money to pay off the defense attys involved in the case. Race is NOT the issue here. There would have been just as much outrage if she were white. There should have NEVER been charges brought upon those boys at all since there was NO evidence with which to prosecute them. I hope Nifong gets disbarred and that state of NC pays more attention to the overly zealous prosecutors.

I believe that the accuser has mental problems but she ran those families through hell. They have a lifetime of this stain on their personal reputations. They handled themselves eloquently. She should be prosecuted.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

46. Absolutely There Would've Been. n/t

[Solo_in_MD]

47. If she had been white, there would have been no charges since Nifong would not have benefitted

The woman was pretty FU'ed that night. She was unclear of anything. Nifong saw an opportunity and ran with it because she was black and he needed votes.

The outrage over the charges is not black v white, it was over the craven actions of a politician, esp once it was clear that one of the charged was not present.

[mitchtv]

48. Kobe Bryant

[LisaL]

56. So hard to tell. Do you think Jesse Jackson would be

offering her a college scholarship if she were white?
:eyes:

[jzodda]

57. Stupid Premise

Had the woman been white there would have been no activists down there stirring up protests and media attenetion. The fact that there was a racial overtone to this case is what drove the proscecutor to see huge career jump and is the reason that bum Sharpton and his pal Jackson were on the first plane to Duke. Once they had stirred up the media attention there was no going back. You don't think that other women get raped on a daily basis and it does not get any attention at all? Here you had the perfect storm of media whore frenzy. Privledged white kids, black stripper, famous university, etc, etc, etc.

You think Sharpton and Jesse pick up the causes of every wronged african american in this country? They go where the media will be