Guilty until proven innocent: The Saga of the Duke Lacrosse Trial

It has been nearly ten months now since members of the Duke lacrosse team held a fateful party that included hired strippers and large amounts of alcohol, seldom a good combination. As everyone knows by this point, members of the team were accused of gang-raping one of the two exotic dancers, and three of them were charged criminally in the case by Durham, North Carolina, District Attorney Mike Nifong with rape, among other charges. The Duke lacrosse program was suspended almost immediately by Duke President Richard Brodhead; Coach Mike Pressler resigned less than a month after the incident.

In the nine-plus months that have passed in the interim, the case has been almost perpetually in the public purview due to a seeming constant flow of new developments. In the weeks that followed the allegations, Nifong referred to the lacrosse team as rapists, and insinuated that retaining legal help amounted to guilt on the part of the accused. Racially-motivated groups, including white supremacist outfits and the Black Panther Party, demonstrated on the Duke campus threatening violence against both the players and the accuser. Apparently America has come so far since the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s that a white on black crime is automatically a racist offense in the eyes of prying media types.

Since then, the second dancer at the party has changed her story-twice, and once in a nationally televised interview. The first dancer, the accuser herself, has changed her story as well, and was not even interviewed by Nifong before he brought the charges. We found out that one of the accused Duke athletes had a pending assault trial back home, and that the accuser had multiple remnants of genetic material on her clothing that night. It turned out that not one of the stains matched up to a Duke lacrosse player, and the accuser was, in fact, pregnant. The lineup that lead, in part, to the indictments, was conducted using only photos of Duke players, clearly a violation of protocol. In an apparent effort to continue his race-baiting techniques, the sole African-American member of the lacrosse team was excused from the investigation. That player also received death threats on the basis that he was not standing up for his people, and that he was not a true black man.

In the latest round of hearings, the three accused players and their legal counsel found out for the first time that none of the genetic material on the dancer's clothing belonged to them, or to any other person present at the party. Nifong dropped the rape charges at that point, but has not moved to drop the remaining charges as well. And, now that all of the missteps and outright violations in the investigation have become public, he is being charged with ethics violations by the North Carolina Bar Association and asked to recuse himself of the case by his fellow State District Attorneys. He even refused comment to local press outside of the courtroom, but turned around to give the New York Times a three-hour session.

Mike Nifong won his primary election shortly after the case broke, and he also won re-election in November, albeit by a slim margin. He used the case initially in the primary race as a way to tout his own tough on crime appearance, but as the details of his improprieties leaked out, it became a weapon for his opponents in the general election. Unless he resigns, or is forced out by the bar association, Nifong will continue to serve as Durham District Attorney.

It is truly unfortunate to see the results of this case already, before it has even seen a jury trial. Nifong essentially railroaded the three lacrosse players, as he used the indictments to impress voters in the primary. He had already crucified, in effect, the entire team before the indictments were even handed down. The lineup used was completely unethical, as was the withholding of evidence, for which he gave no less than three explanations in one day. And then he disregarded the local press, all while basking in the national spotlight when it came calling. Any single one of these transgressions would be despicable in its own right, but when taken in sum, they should amount to great consequences for Mike Nifong. He should lose his office, his license to practice law, and issue a public apology to the players that he rushed to indict.

Do not think that the players are without some fault, though. Hiring strippers to work at a party attended by fifty-plus collegiate males is never the best decision. Providing for mass consumption of alcohol at the same event is not the best of choices either. And yelling the racial epithets at the dancers as they left the party, a point corroborated by neighbors in the vicinity of the party location, is rather despicable, as well. However, none of these things add up to rape on their own (or taken together).

The three who have been accused of rape, along with the other team members, were convicted in the public eye long before the charges were even filed. Mike Nifong did quite a bit to help this along, but all of the 24-hour news outlets, ESPN, the print media, and national nightly news programs handed down their judgments for mass consumption in the days that followed the story breaking. The nonstop coverage of the case, especially in its infancy, has forever tainted the futures of these three students beyond repair. Merely dismissing the charges in the case has not cleared their names in the mind of America, and even widespread public apologies by Nifong or the reporters who rushed to judgment will not fix the damage done. No, there will never be justice for the three Duke athletes falsely accused here. In the land where all are presumed innocent until proven guilty, these three young men will be forever guilty, regardless of their innocence.