The Duke lacrosse team's "Rape Case:" More complicated than ever

The only person you should be angry with is the DA for not correctly investigating this case. Because of this incident the city is divided by racial and class lines. I feel very sorry for the young men who will have this incident hung over thier heads for years to come and also for the young lady who I believe have some serious problems. If the roles were reversed and the suspects were black and the alledged victim was white and the situation was under the same circumstances - Blacks would be very outraged that the men would have been charged with the crime. We (Blacks) need to stop with trying to insert vengeance in this situation and understand that both sides are being crucially hurt in this case. Dr. King didn't risk his life for the sake of vengeance but for justice. I really feel that the DA needs to drop the case and make a public apology to the public for pursuing this case without any merits. The alledged victim need some serious counseling - I really believe she has some deep seeded emotional distress and she just doesn't know where to turn to for help. I have been a police officer for 10 years and it doesn't take an expert to see that this case is just wrong.

I don't know what happened at that Lacrosse team party. Neither does anyone who wasn't there (and perhaps some who were there). I do not know whether the accuser was raped or not raped. If she were raped, I do not know if any of the accused commited the act. There is simply no evidence that is sufficient to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that she was raped and was raped by the accused. There is no DNA evidence, except that DNA left on her fingernail was "consistent" with one of the men. She did identify two men. However, for that identification, without any other evidence, to constitute proof beyond a reasonable doubt, we must be able to exclude any reasonable possibility that she was either lying or mistaken. We cannot. She has serious credibility problems. I do not know why she would falsey accuse the students. I also do not know why she would steal a taxi cab to drive around, as she apparently had done in the past. If it was true that she was raped, is her identification reliable beyond a reasonable doubt? A police officer reported that after the party she was "passed out drunk". Did the pictures of the team that she was shown look like the members of the team at the party? And if one man's alibi holds, proving that she mistakenly identified him, couldn't that raise doubt about her identification of the other? While we wait for a trial, expected next spring, the accused are not allowed to attend Duke and likely will not be allowed to attend other schools. Unless the DA has evidence that can prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, he should drop the charges now and let all involved get on with their lives.

None of your comments mention the high-profile, high-priced defense team, nor the ease with which it has manipulated the media to its advantage. They never mention that the victim is an honors student and a military vet; they indicate that she lacks credibility as a stripper, but trumpet what the other stripper says when it suits them; they manage to drown out the legitimate prior conviction of one of the suspects for a violent crime. The victim has made ill-advised statements because she doesn't have a half-million dollar lawyer on retainer to tell her what to say.

Why do people allow expensive lawyers to pull these stunts time after time??!! The police are convinced that rape occurred. Why are they being drowned out?

And some new info-all his credible evidence which revolved around the nurse at the hospital who administered the rape kit is now going to shit. according to usa today, a.) the nurse was still in training, b.) while mike nifong stood on a podium and gave 70 interviews before dna tests were even back and said that the woman had bruises all over her body from the savage beating she survived, it is now known that the medical report from the hospital came back that there we no bruises or swelling on her neck, stomach, wrists, face, and abdomen. She had a cut on her ankle, which was not bleeding, and a scrape on her arm. Next, Mike Nifong tried to use the fact that she had vaginal swelling as a reason to believe she was raped. Not only did he neglect to mention that she had had sex with 4 people over the course of the week, including her boyfriend that day (who subsequently was the ONLY dna found in her body), but she also performed for a couple in a hotel room only hours before the duke party, and performed with a vibrator.

This case is pathetic, this woman has single handedly set back race relations YEARS. Mike NIfong should be disbarred and I hope the parents of all three boys sue the accuser and Nifong for every freaking penny they have. These boys lives are RUINED, even if they are acquitted they will have the rape allegation for the rest of their lives, at every interview they have they will have to admit that they have a criminal record, regardless of whether or not it was a false accusation, and explain to their duture employees that they have been charged with rape. The media won't even release this woman's name, she will get off scott free with a free fucking ride from Jesse Jackson's PUSH coalition for her education. I don't see him offering to pay for the tuition for those three boys who lost their last semester of sophomore year due to this bullshit.

As a 2nd year law student, I am saddened that a representative of our legal system is continuing to maintain its interest in this case. The evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the defense and not the prosecution. What irritates me most, being from the Raleigh/Durham area, is that some of the serious social issues and injustices that could have finally been addressed will probably not be because of this woman's false accusations. As much as we may not like to think so, instances like this do nothing to help improve race relations and only adds to the tensions that the city of Durham face, especially between the ivy league of the south "Duke" and the NCCU, the "black public university."

Please let it be noted that while these 3 white lacrosse players may not be guilty of rape, they are in no wise choir boys. The fact is that they purposely requested an African-American and did so no doubt demean her because of her race. The fact is that they did make racial slurs toward her; slurs such as "thank your grandfather for picking the cotton that made this shirt." This is morally irreprehensible but it does not constitute rape. The fact is that many faculty and staff on the Duke campus have complained about the behavior of the lacrosee team and their special treatment. The fact is that a very disturbing email was sent from one of the lacrosse players shortly after the incident. All of these facts, however, do not amount to rape. So while I believe these 3 young white men are racists and morally inept, and dispicable, and while I believe that something happened in that house, I do not believe it was raped. I wished I could say that I feel sorry for them, but I don't. They shouldn't be indicted for rape but how many of our African-American men have been falsely accused and in some instances sentenced to death over cases that had scantly to no evidence.

I don't know what, but I pray some good comes from this.

If you're a law student, I feel sorry for ou legal system that it will ever have to deal with your logic. "These boys are far from innocent, and I don't feel bad for them.. They shouldn't have been charged with rape but how many of our african american men shouldn't have been charged with rape".

So, because white people fucked up and unjustly charged black men with rape because they were racist and the times were different, it's a free pass for a black woman to LIE and absolutely devistate the lives of not only the three men indicted, but their families, communities (I am from Garden City myself where Collin Finnerty is from and my town has been dragged through the mud in the media), their teammates and their college. Awesome, hey why don't we just make a week of it.
"Reprecussion for black injust week-you accuse the honkies, we make sure their lives are ruined regardless!".

And clearly you haven't been following the story. They didn't request a black stripper, in fact they requested a white one. Their racial slurs, though demeaning and uncalled for, were a response to the fact that the strippers, according the the players, danced for only 5 minutes and still demanded 800 dollars. They didn't just sit there and start calling them "nigger" for kicks. Their comments were out of anger, and if the same thing happened with a white stripper they probably would have called her white trash, trailer trash, etc. I'm not justifying racial epitepths, but you act as though they are freakin, the KFC man with nothing better to do than say nigger.

And I agree with the above poster. If I were to make a trust call on the accuser or the players solely based on past credibility, I would rather trust young men who are smart that have minor offenses like public urination, noise offenses and "misues of the duke mealcard" than a woman who stole a cab and attempted to run down a police officer, regardless of whether or not she is a straight A student.

And to the other poster who was pissed because they didn't comment on her "honor role status" or her military carreer. I didn't see them commenting on how much her house was apraised at, how much her pricat eeducation was worth, or what her parents yearly income was. I didn't see them commenting that Duke University Lacrosse is one of the most active student organizations in the COUNTRY with community service. I didn't see them mention that more than half the team yearly makes honor role at DUKE, something I would imagine holds a little more weight than NCCU. She is what she is, a student stripper who has children. If she doesn't want to be classified as a stripper, she shouldn't do it. Her occupation is a student stripper, and I think despite the retardation of most media outlets today, psycho feminists like Wendy Murphy make sure that she isn't simply slated as a "stripper". I don't think the boys on the Duke lacrosse team are given as much...wrong, I don't think people tiptoe around them as much as they do the occuser.

And finally, as was said, race relations have been set back years, especially with the fact that retarded racists like the New Black Panther Party and Jesse Jackson have stepped in to publicly gain off of an alleged rape. I don't even wanna get started on the Black Panther Party, because I consider they equvilant to a black KKK. They have no moral conception of today's society and no human concern for white people. They protest that "white men always do this and take advantage of their young black sister's", but neglect to mention that according to the US Department of Justice, only 6 percent of rapes, yearly, are white on black, while 10.6 percent of rapes are black on white. How come they aren't protesting that 10.6 percent of black men who rape white women? How come they aren't protesting black men who rape black women?

This case is retarded, hands down Mike Nifong should be disbarred and this woman should go to jail. She has NO business being in society unattended, it's another Tawana Brawly.

For those on the board making excusing for the use of racial slurs, there is no excuse. The use of these slurs is just evidence of character flaws that are alredady there. When I get ripped off I don't start shouting racial slurs at people.

As for the lives of these men (I don't know why people are calling them boys) being devasted, perhaps they should have thought about that before they decided to break the law. I don't mean for rape, but for underage drinking, public urination and in Finnerty's case, he attacked a complete stranger.

I can't understand why more people aren't outraged at their behavior. Just like one post said, you can't justify racist acts against blacks by racist acts against blacks. You can't ignore the horrible behavior of these guys. They lied about what type of party it was. They said it was a small bachelor party. They used names of baseball players when they called. Why?

They claim the woman fell and hurt herself and then passed out. They have pictures that show injuries they claim happened because of the fall. Instead of calling 911, they all take pictures. One guy, I think, had enough sense to help her.

My belief is that the party got out of hand. She came back in to get her shoe and some of the guys got really nasty and probably pushed her around. She as scared, went into the bathroom to hide. She made a break for it, and fell and hurt herself. She was angry because they yelled racial slurs at her and was probably a bit traumatized. C'mon folks, take a step back and think, even a woman who strips would be scared of a room of 40 angry guys calling you the N word and ho and cursing you out.

She is not herself, won't get out of the car. Cops come and she seems passed out. No one smells alcohol and right now there is no evidence she drank at all that day.

Goes to police, doesn't say she is rape. DA comes in and convinces her she has been raped. I think initial reports were that she didn't say she was raped. If she were out to get those guys, she would have cried rape right away. DA is tryign to get re-elected and uses her.

He tells her if they pushed you and did this and that, then it was rape. She starts singing his song. She has no idea this will blow up. It does, now she's backed into a corner.

Everyone wants to make this black or white. It could be somewhere in the middle. Didn't it ever occur to you all that the DA could be using her and messing up her life, as well as the men?

I am a former sportswiter who covered college sports and my stepdaughters played lacrosse. I am a black woman and I want my son to play lacrosse because it's the easiest route to a sports scholarship.

Right now there are more colleges playing lacrosse and few high school programs that carry it. Long Island, NY, the Maryland/Virginia area and parts of South Florida, provide most of the lacrosse players to schools on the East Coast. That is why Maryland, John Hopkins, Duke, Syracuse and Virignia are always in the top 10 in college lacrosse.

Jim Brown, yes the NFL's Jim Brown, still holds many of the lacrosse records at Syracuse. If you are a mediocre athlete who has played lacrosse for years, you can get a scholarship. Trust me.

You may not get one to Duke. But you'll get one.

As for those throwing out the players graduation rate. Graduation rates in college sports have way more to do with opportunity to play the sport on the pro level than it does with the students.

Duke has one of the top programs and even for its students pro lacrosse is really not a way to make a lot of money. Many of these guys would do better to take a job as a secretary. With men's basketball you can bypass college and make millions if you are among the best. Even a buy who sits on the bench in the NBA is making at least $800,000 a year, more than many of us will make in our lifetime.

Women's basketball used to have the highest graduation rates. I bet that is going down with the WNBA.

The lowest graduation rates? Tennis. If you are a woman and you are good, you are on the tour at about the time you need to be thinking about getting into college. Most never go. Almost all never finish, including Chris Evert, Sampras, Agassi. None.

I think track and field athetes are among the top. Again, nothing to do with that after school. Can't run all your life. Gotta get a degree.

As a whole, student athletes are good people. They just get picked on more.

Bigger question is, why do regular students pay extra to support so many "non-revenue" earning sports like Lacrosse. It cost Duke millions every year to support teams that generate no revenue. The basketball and football teams make tons of money that goes into the school, but it doesn't cover the cost of all those other sports that generate nothing. Student tuition helps supports the scholarships of these teams. If more kids knew this, they would be outraged.

47 players on a lacrosse team that only fields 10 players at a time (they play both ways). They have to dress, house and provide meals and travel for these guys. The school doesn't make a dime on lacrosse. It's a way to provide scholarships to already wealthy families. It's like welfare for the rich.

I'm among them. I live in Northern Virginia and my son starts lacrosse camp next week. It's not a fair system, but parents would be fools not to take advantage of it. Crew and lacrosse are tickets to better schools. Even if you don't get a scholarship, they look great on applications.

You forget, the money that is generated from the big sports like basketball and football don't go into "the school". I go to Maryland, and that money goes to team uniforms, equiptment, in our case an entirely new basketball arena (comcast center), the players don't get paid in money but often receive things like DVD players, brand new sneakers whenever neccessary. The money goes into traveling, into hotels and the busses, into the stadium, into the coaches' paycheck (Gary Williams just got a nice bonus when he signed to work ntil 2008). That money isn't going into books, classroom tools, dorms (God, definitely not dorms), libraries, offices, etc. It goes specifically to the sports program. The only money that sports may generate for the school as a whole is increasing the want of high schoolers to go there. I went to maryland specifically for their journalism program and because they have such a great rep with sports. In fact, I worked for our Men's lacrosse team as their manager.

Lacrosse is not a scholarship sport at Duke.

Yeah it is. For most of them, they get a fair bit of money. And at any rate, even if they don't get money, their books are paid for, they get to register for classes earlier than everyone else, they have OODLES of gear and equiptment given to them. It's a money saver, if not an entire scholarship. Nothing wrong with it, in my opinion.

My understanding is that the defense has only selectively released information that would support their case. That there is plenty we don't know, and won't know, until the trial. I suspect as others do that 'something' nasty happened there that night. We'll have to wait for the trial to get the whole picture. Maybe someone HAS talked about what really happened. If so, this person is likely going to be kept under wraps until the trial. As others have said, my 'guess' is that things got out of control, there was some very bad behavior on behalf of several of the men involved, possibly some criminal behavior as well re threats, abduction (blocking the girls exit), man handling, etc; my guess is that there was no actual rape, but other criminal activity; also, that things got out of hand afterwards and the girl was possibly steered to the rape charges; or, its also not unlikely that there were very serious threats of rape or possibly feigned or 'real' indications she was going to be raped; we'll know more at the trial, if the defense does not create so much of an outrage by selectively releasing information.

It was reported that the accuser came to the car and said to the other dancer "let's stay here, we can make more money". If you were just raped, sexually assaulted, or scared for your life, would you really think about making a buck and sticking around?

The defense has allowed several media outlets, including Dan Abrams who is the only one I actually respect, to view all 1300, not 300, 1300 pages of discovery. He claims that he has read almost all of it and so far, there is not one smoking gun. There isn't a shot in hell any of the guys on the team went to the DA,so that theory is out. His medical report which was the sole evidence that he brought the charges to the grand jury on has fallen apart.

The defense is doing their job; damage control. Mike Nifong, despite being closed lip now, gave 70 some odd interviews before DNA results were back nd before charges had been filed basically condemning the entire team, and giving his own conclsuion that the guys were 100 percent guilty. He slandered them in the media and now for a lot of their, their good names are ruined. If I were on that team, and charged with something I didn't do I would make it a point to constantly show people what I have to prove it. That's what the defense is doing. It's their job to show the public what they have. And it's not like they are lying, every piece of information being release is not only a sworn document, but is backed up with affidavidts from the police department, or statements from other witnesses.

You are all getting on the guys for their minor offenses, but some of you fail to realize they are still in college. No, it's not the best things to do, but as someone who is still in college, I can tell you I've popped a squat behind a parked car at two in th emorning walking home from the bar when I couldn't wait. I've drank underage, just like 98% of my campus. I've gotten in trouble from my RA about noise. That's what you do in college. Minor offenses like that don't ruin anyone's lives. They may be vulgar and rude, but when it comes to an interview at a job they don't have to be reported. When these boys sit down at job interviews they have to say that they were charged with rape. Many of the boys already lost job offers because of this. And if it comes out to be a lie, most of th epublic doens't even know this woman's name. She will be able to scoot under the radar while these boys carry the cross for the rest of their lives. This is what you don't understand.

Pure, plain and simple. She claimed in her first statement that the other dancer helped the players rape her and stole her money. She has done this before, rape claims. Now she is in over her head. And her drivers statements show that she is beyond a 'dancer.' Sex toys performing for a couple? Waiting in a hotel room for a man she met?

SHE IS LYING.

Reading this blog there is a lot of good dialogue on this case, however there is also a lot of falsehoods, and lies being put forth as truth. It makes me sick that people would talk as an authority on the subject and make several mistakes on facts. I don't believe a rape occured, the facts that have been "selectively" released by the defense seem to go to the core of the case and are supported by full documentation. The DA gave no facts only his belief that they are guilty. That goes to the heart of this case, what ever happened to innocent until proven guilty? When the person prosecuting the case tells the public and the press that the accused are guilty. how could there ever be a fair trial? As far as scholarships go, scholarship students are not allowed to work any kind of job nor are they allowed to accept gifts from anyone but family. The handouts they get (T-shirts, shorts, sweatpants, shoes) are a small thank you for dedicating many hours every week in and out of season and dedicating their lives and bodies to the well being of the program. As far as the "evil" players drinking , and urinating in public this goes on at every level of every school, from the nerdiest chess club member to the varisty lacrosse team and is no indication of their guilt in a truly horrible crime. Citations for public drunkenness and urination are no doubt on the rise across the nation because of the growing size of campus police forces (and their need to justify their prescence) needed to give the illusion of safety on campus.

i just thought it'd be cool to tell yall that just last year the same house was busted for having a party with a wading pool filled with baby oil. it was kinda fun until people started faceplanting in it and throwing up. what a great party

1. Hooker Whore had sex with at least 3 Negroes prior to the party. 2. Hooker Whore had beat her snatch to a pulp with a sex toy prior to the party. 3. Hooker Whores snatch only contained residue from Type #N jizz. 4. Hooker Whore has repeatedly changed story. 5. Broh Nifong needed Negroe votes to win election and continue living in his N. Durham Country Club home 6. Second hooker whore told da polleece it was all a crock of shit. Slap ma fro. Case closed.