No, you were the one that initially said it was quite credible to believe a lying whore with an extensive criminal record over 47 young men with relatively spotless records because “THEY” were all alike, bonded to silence or lies to save “PEERs”….Then your proclamation of the lineup tactic as “perfectly credible so the suspects ID’d are to be limited & linked to just the team the rapists came from”. You drip presumptions of race and class.

There are certainly folks who believe race and class are key to the case–but I’m not one of them, and don’t you dare try to pin some “identity politics” card on me, just because I disagree with you on the merits of the legal system.

I do dare, because the whole logic of your argument is predicated on biases based on race or class. That a mass cover-up is wholly believable given “THEY ARE ALL ALIKE”.

If it’s not your 46 white players risking prison for rape or perjury for someone they met, sometimes, just 6 months earlier – out of class and race solidarity, then what are you saying, tvd? That all athletes, NAACP members, soldiers, Glee Club singers automatically lie for one another?? Try other nutty cover-up conspiracies like how TWA flight 800 was shot down by accident and then concealed by over 1100 USN sailors, hundreds at the Pentagon, civilian air traffic controllers, Canadian divers…THEY were almost all of the Ex-military class.

“Keep my name out of your mouth that way. Thanks in advance.”

Try arguing intelligently and without the race or class bias you bring and others will stop bringing up your name. Far be it from me to want your name on my mouth.

Actually, at least one of the 47 turned in that tasteless email.

Unfortunately, especially where law and order is limited and gangs have street power, there can be 47 people who witness a crime and 47 don’t want to get involved. Unfortunately, some people have no other life experience and actually think everyone one is like this. While 47 people may witness a crime, it’s usually easy to get someone to “rat” them out.

How does that old joke go? Two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead.

People often can’t keep their mouth shut and brag about their crimes, which is another reason why the police, even if they had tunnel-vision, would have wanted to talk to everyone the accused talked to that night in person or on the phone.

Who brought up race and class initially? YOU. Who continues to bring it up over and over and over again? YOU.

There are certainly folks who believe race and class are key to the case–but I’m not one of them, and don’t you dare try to pin some “identity politics” card on me, just because I disagree with you on the merits of the legal system.

Keep my name out of your mouth that way. Thanks in advance.

Oh, please, criticism of law does not mean vigilantism. Respect for law is not the same as bowing to it, while seeking changes to law you do not respect in the least.

Being on a sports team does not involve an Omerta, a sacred oath between team members to maintain silence and cover up team mates major crimes and to have preset stories in place in case all 47 members have to agree on the same story and details without meeting or consulting after a party goes bad. 44 team members would expose themselves to major felony charges that would effectively end their until now highly promising, high performance, crime -free lives to conceal the actions of the other 3?? Get real.

Ruling power elites in America have always used their preferential access to the levers of law and law-making to consolidate their rule and power, and to advance their family’s enrichment and their careers.

That many believe that 47 people of good reputation vouching the claims of a person of poor reputation are false – only proves the claims of the accuser are MORE CREDIBLE for that – indicates to me folks like tvd are locked into their beliefs by viewing the class through a lens of identity politics dependent on race or class. The same people would be even more convinced if the numbers of lacrosse players had doubled to 94. Unless of course the additional 47 saying the stripper was lying had been black – THEN they might be willing to entertain the stripper was BS-ing, as “racial balance and diversity” would de facto PROVE team innocence….

==============================

I disagree a bit with StevenDinMD on this – “That said, I would NEVER trade the U.S. legal system for a civil law European equivalent. I’ll take a jury every time — even in Durham.”

The basic flaw in our legal system is that over 230 years of “influencers” and self interested lawyers, it has evolved into a system that puts the interests of lawyers and activists 1st, while facilitating the advancement of the rich and powerful.

In the worst cases of the jury system, juries are used as easily manipulated pawns of the rich and powerful to arrive at a predetermined outcome, or at least screened and assembled enough to make their judgements less on the evidence than how “they feel”.

The European system has gone through fundamental reforms and requestionings the American system has been complacent about. The Euros and Asians have a “loser pays” system that ensures rapacious tort lawyers are held in check. Innocents are reimbursed for costs as much as possible for being falsely accused. The American system punishes the innocent financially regardless of the merit of the charge. Prosecutorial error or misconduct is never grounds to “make an innocent defendent whole” – instead we are told that while innocents are financially ruined, it is up to voters to punish bad lawyers in power, not to recompense legal harm inflicted by the system. False accusations are treated as a major crime that can rise to felony convictions with significant jail time. Libel laws are stringent in Europe and Asia, a value is put on smeared reputations and lost opportunity. Juries are screened not just on bias but competence. Unlike American juries where a verdict in a drug liability claim or antitrust action, as examples, turns not on evidence, which many juries have found utterly unfathomable given their knowledge and learning abilities, but admittedly on (1)who they “like more”; (2)which side had more lawyers and witnesses of their own race or class; (3) how physically attractive or unattractive the plaintiff or defendent was.

If I was quilty, I would want an American jury – hoping for the wildcard OJ crowd – especially if I had good looks, winning personality, tear-jerking “mitigating factors” working for me, and legal counsel that pleased the eyes of the jury members.

If I was innocent, I’d have far greater confidence in a Euro or Asian style case judge that impartially investigates the case, evidence, and determines if charges are needed or consonant with justice…..rather than run up massive bills and risk freedom on a politically driven DA or prosecutors that advance on the quality and quantity of “heads” they present to their superior. If I was innocent and being sued, the odds under the American system are that I’m almost guaranteed to be out a significant sum of money unless I am indigent, and about 70-30 that the predator will get some verdict or extortion (settlement is cheaper than vindication).

Law school friend of mine who grew up there described the way you can tell whether a Lexington, NC barbecue joint is good or not: The good ones will have a condom machine in the men’s room….

Hey, I’m not making this up!!!

I don’t think it was shown that he was trying to “hide evidence” just that he did not know (if the evidence has been processed.) – just as the police did not apparently know about the phone calls (alibi) that one accused made (or at least did not follow up with the cab driver or girlfriend he called).

My guess, and it’s a guess, is that the police reached the conclusion that there was not currently enough evidence to pursue until politically pushed. An alternative explanation is stupidity or “oversight.”

“But I do know that Martin Luther King Jr. and many, many others of all races did not die so that the poor, black and oppressed could surrender the moral high ground and attempt to inflict injustice on the privileged.

(snip)

To the contrary, if anything, what is happening in Durham is further polarizing the haves from the have-nots, white from black. It’s justifying racism. It’s justifying a mind-set that states: Do it to them because they’d do it to you.

(snip)

It takes real courage to maintain the moral high ground, to avoid resorting to self-destructive violence or revenge, to hold on to your dignity, ethics and principles.

Do we understand that? Do we, black people, understand the brilliance and necessity of Martin’s dream any better than the people who despised him when he was alive and claim to love him now?

If we do, then we need to be pressuring the authorities to pursue justice in the Duke lacrosse case regardless of where that pursuit leads.

Any one know why Nifong is trying to hide evidense that the stripper was on the phone during the time she claimed she was raped.

That should be “witness”.
(That’s what I get for using the spell-checker. . . )

You’re a male. Males deserve everything they get. (sarc/off)

“Is there any record of someone being thrown in jail for having cried rape falsely?”

I still like the remedy in Deut. 19.15ff

“If a malicious witness takes the stand to accuse a man of a crime. . . and if the Winters proves to be a liar, giving false testimony against his brother, then do to him as he intended to do to his brother. . . The rest of the people will hear of this and be afraid, and never again will such an evil thing be done among you.”

Why can’t the defense go before the judge and point out all these grievous offenses and say, judge, you have to throw this out!?

It makes me think – god help me if I ever get falsely accused – I will be ruined even though I am totally innocent!

I will never feel safe breaking off an unsatifactory relationship or terminating the employe of an incompetent female again.

All she needs to do is run to the police and make a false charge and I am ruined – with little to no possible reprecussions to her for her lies.

Scary, scary, scary people.

If a woman with NO history of character or truthfulness whatsoever can make these charges with no physical evidence and create this kind of turmoil, lord help every man on the planet. Even in the face of blatant excupatory evidence, it cannot be stopped.

Is there any record of someone being thrown in jail for having cried rape falsely? With so much to gain and so little to lose, I am surprised we don’t hear of this type of legalized blackmail more often.

If ever I am rich, which I hope to be, I will never do anything in private with a woman that isn’t video-taped and time-stamped. Any agreement to mutual sex would be only done under written and signed contract.

You’ve heard of pre-nuptual contracts? Get ready for pre-coital contracts folks. As always a few of the rotten ones ruin it for everyone.

Sweet tea is drink to abuse at all these places!!

I am not a historian, but I think by the 1930s, the Scottsboro Trial, the Southern white elite was trying to stop lynchings.

Imagine having a Duke rape case every month. Reports and pictures of a lynching every month in Northern newspapers in the 1920s and 1930s were very harmful to the South’s reputation and business prospects. Even white Southerners got tired of being questioned about every lynching: “Governor, you want to be president, but John Doe was just lynched in your state?”

Many Southern elites, often lawyers, while prejudiced, thought that even blacks deserved a trial.

I think the myth of “blacks have no white or Jewish friends in the struggle” is more the result of radical blacks trying to increase their victimhood than historically accurate., but I digress from the topic of this post.

(Sarcasm on)
If we don’t need to give people a speed trial or reasonable bail, why don’t we just put people in jail for a year or two or five and save ourselves the cost and trouble of a trial and avoid all this unpleasantness.