A Dirty Game

by Stuart Taylor Jr. and KC Johnson - December 27th, 2006 - Opinion Journal (The Wall Street Journal)

The Duke "rape" case unravels.

How can we be confident that the charges are false? Let us count the ways: The police who interviewed the accuser after she left the March 13-14 lacrosse team party where she and another woman had performed as strippers found her rape charge incredible, and for good reason. She said nothing about rape to three cops and two others during the first 90 minutes after the party. Only when being involuntarily confined in a mental health facility did she mention rape. This predictably got her released to the Duke emergency room for a rape workup, whereupon she recanted the rape charge.

Then she re-recanted, offering a ludicrous parade of wildly implausible and mutually contradictory stories of being gang-raped by 20, five, four, three or two lacrosse players, with the other stripper assisting the rapists in some versions. After settling on three rapists, the accuser gave police vague descriptions and could not identify as a rapist any of the 36 lacrosse players whose photos she viewed on March 16 and 21. These included two eventual defendants: Dave Evans, whom she did not recognize at all, and Reade Seligmann, whom she was "70%" sure she had seen at the party, but not as a rapist.

With this background, you might wonder exactly what would have persuaded the DA to charge anyone in this case? The reason is simple. This is typical of the extortion and blackmail practiced in our American courts. The DA needed a charge, and so he simply went forward and charged the 3 students. DAs do this all the time. No one in our system of "injustice" cares a whit for the defendents. Rarely does a defendent get "justice". It is all a corrupt game and everyone in the system knows it. If anything happens to correct this injustice in this particular case, that will be the astonishing anomaly.



Update to article: December 31st, 2006
This is a link to an article covering the NC Bar complaint against DA Nifong -
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/29/us/29nifong.html?ex=1168059600&en=e2e060b33b9e5f80&ei=5123&partner=BREITBART

This is a link to an article covering the North Carolina District Attorneys who want Nifong removed from the case -
http://abcnews.go.com/US/LegalCenter/story?id=2760232

It appears even the U.S. court system cannot allow itself to be made to look this stupid without doing something to cover up how their system really works.