Tuesday, February 20: Greetings! This post is closed. There’s been an arrested in the second Duke rape case, so continue the discussion here.
Update (2/14): Alleged victim is white; alleged rapist is black. Hmm…what broad social commentary will feminists come up with now? Will the New Black Panthers return to Durham to lecture their “brother” on the evils of his allegedly brutish behavior? Will the Group of 88 sign another “listening” statement? If I see a single column from a feminist ranting about this incident the way they did with the lacrosse case or hear one chastising word from a black militant toward the alleged rapist, I’ll videotape myself eating a boiled rat and upload it for the world to see.
————————————————————–
An 18-year-old Duke University student said she was raped in the bathroom at a house party early Sunday morning. The man is described as “late teens or early 20s, about 6-foot-1 and wearing a black do-rag, a gray sweatshirt and blue jeans.” (Source)
So, who was this do-ragged dude? Is he one of the “several male Duke students” living in the house?
Let’s not ask the questions we all want to ask. We’ll wait for more facts to emerge before we do that, OK? (Yeah, right!)
Whether or not a rape occurred, I hope the Durham police and DA’s office do a much better job investigating than they did in the Duke lacrosse “rape” case.
Feel free to post links and more info about this developing case. More to come…
Update: The Chronicle, Duke’s student newspaper, reports what other stories have omitted: the suspect is black. It’s important to note race as a descriptor if the alleged rapist isn’t in custody. This men-in-their-thirties-style crap is irresponsible.
Duke blogging: The Johnsville News, Durham-in-Wonderland, LieStoppers, Crystal Mess, John in Carolina…
(Photo source: Sparkling Earth)
Unrelated Update (2/3): I may blog more about the Long Beach hate crime beating trial next week. A group of black teenagers brutally beat three white women on Halloween Night — merely because they were white. I read that one of the women has to have surgery to realign an eye socket. Good grief.
This LA Weekly story is rather interesting.
Feel free to discuss the case on this thread. More later…
[click to continue…]
Friday, February 2: Post is closed to commenting. Resume discussion at the latest post.
(Update: If it wasn’t clear before, it should be clear now: Mike Nifong, disgraced Durham County district attorney, is in serious trouble. Also, in addition to James Waller [pictured with lawyer Barry Scheck], I should have mentioned Cory Maye. A few bloggers on “the right” have covered his case, including The Volokh Conspiracy and libertarian Radley Balko.
Later…Linwood Wilson, Nifong’s investigator, is quite a character. He’s the subject of ethics complaints, too. Some team Nifong had.
A few months back, Wilson publicly challenged a statement made by the defense, and all it did was reveal his own ignorance. He was unfamiliar with the case files, and had the nerve to publicly criticize someone quite familiar with them. What a dope. More blog stuff here.)
Columnist David Hawpe makes a good point in his latest column about the Duke case, “On wrongful prosecutions, the right engages in selective outrage.” He wonders why “the right” isn’t just as vocal or as outraged when blacks are falsely accused of obviously phony crimes. He calls our outrage selective.
Is he correct? Is there a bit of unnatural selection going on?
Before I deal with the substance of the piece, allow me to point out to Mr. Hawpe that his column’s title just as easily could have been, “On wrongful prosecutions, the left engages in selective support and reverence for prosecutors and the police.” But tit-for-tat doesn’t get us very far.
[click to continue…]
Wednesday, January 24: Hello fellow, Duke case followers. This post is closed to commenting. Resume the discussion at the latest post, Unnatural Selection on Both Sides?
Thursday, January 18: I’m not a big fan of John Podhoretz, but I recommend “Orwell University Duke Profs’ P.C. Travesty.”
Update (1/17 @ 6:12 p.m.): I’ll respond to provost Peter Lange’s statement about the Group of 88 later.
My surface-level reaction: Mr. Lange, vent some of your “free speech” concerns on Mike Nifong, who race-baited his way into a weak case and, hopefully, out of a job.
People are fired up, angry (for the record, I certainly don’t endorse sending people ad hominem-laced e-mail; it’s a shame that some professors are being personally attacked, but that, as I’ve been told, is life), and it’s on Nifong’s head. But bloggers are the ideal scapegoat for Duke’s “African American” professors who endorsed that idiotic and embarrassingly ignorant ad.
That act has consequences. Get it? Deal with it.
[click to continue…]
Thursday, January 11: Post closed to commenting but continue discussion at Stripper-Accuser’s New Version of Gang-Rape Fantasy.
————————————————————
Note: Post and article round-ups at The Johnsville News and LieStoppers.
GUILTY Until Proven Innocent
Reade Seligmann, one of the Duke lacrosse players indicted for “raping” a stripper, is going through what countless others have gone through. Falsely accused of a heinous crime, he’s had to face the possibility of prison, see the disappointment and worry in his family’s faces, and endure negative media attention, all because an egomaniac race-baited his way against a brick wall.
Seligmann didn’t rape, assault, or kidnap the stripper-accuser, and he has the paper trail to prove it. But for almost a year he’s lived under the curse of a rogue prosecutor intent on making an example of him.
Seligmann spoke to Newsweek about what the past year has been like for him and his family. An excerpt:
Seligmann now awaited a call from the prosecutor that would tell him if he was one of the players she’d singled out. He felt certain he would be cleared. The call came. Reade, 20, was being indicted for first-degree rape, kidnapping and sexual offense. He had a strong alibi—cell-phone records would show he was busy calling his girlfriend at the time the alleged crime was taking place—but the D.A. declined to hear it. As he heard the news, Reade looked at his dad. It was the first time he’d ever seen his father cry. Then it hit him: how was he going to tell his mom? Kathy Seligmann was home in New Jersey with her three other boys. He dialed her number. “Mom,” he said, “she picked me.”
Seligmann, Collin Finnerty, and David Evans are learning a hard lesson. Actions have consequences. For future reference, I advise them to avoid the kind of women who strip and slut themselves out for a living. They will be exonerated because Mike Nifong does not have a case against them. He’ll succumb, eventually, to professional pressure to drop the case and resign from office. Until then, the families must remain confident that justice will prevail.
[click to continue…]
Update II (1/3): See “Hispanic-on-Black Violence: Protestors, Where Are You?”
Update: If Darrent Williams’s killer is black, expect to hear no more about the case. However, if the killer is white, expect man-bites-dog media coverage.
Also not of interest to the “black community” or white liberal media: latino-on-black crime.
Nifong responds to media after his swearing in ceremony (video).
——————————————————————
Why did certain blacks in Durham, North Carolina, rally around a black stripper claiming to have been gang raped by three white men but virtually ignore the more destructive trend of black-on-black crime in their midst? (Duke blogger KC Johnson elaborates on blacks’ deafening silence about the latest developments in the so-called rape case.)
Last year, four young black men were murdered by a black man in a drug-related incident, and I don’t remember the national or local NAACP or black citizens of Durham protesting against the perpetrator. I don’t recall the so-called New Black Panthers showing up at the courthouse and shouting him down, either.
[click to continue…]
Update V (1/8): Commenting closed. To continue discussion, see “Reade Seligmann: ‘Mom, she picked me.’”
Update IV (1/1/07): Merry New Year! Check out this must-read article by “Duke writer” William Anderson, “What the Duke Non-Rape (and Non-Kidnapping/Sexual Assault) Case Taught Me in 2006.” Thanks for the acknowledgement!
Update III (10:30 p.m.): It’s getting hotter in here. Mike Nifong’s colleagues keep up the pressure. The North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys has asked him to step down from the Duke case.
———————————————————————–
For Mike Nifong, Durham County district attorney, his words are coming back to haunt him in real life. His colleagues at the NC State Bar have filed ethics complaints against him, based on statements he made about the “rape” case generally and accused players specifically. Read the 17-page complaint (PDF) or the HTML version at The Smoking Gun.
Watch this space because I’ll update it later today with my assessment of the complaint and predictions about Nifong’s next move. Until then, discuss the new developments here.
I love blogging. 
Update (1:08 p.m.): I decided to open this post for discussion. Durham native Mary Katharine Ham has posted a funny video of her walking “Tour of Things That Did Not Happen in Durham” for her Ham Nation video blog. Clever!
Do I hear “Carolina Girl” in the background?
A special shout-out to frequent commenter Seahawk, who wrote:
If three innocent guys don’t end up in prison for 30 years, then a part of the credit will be due to bloggers like LaShawn, who didn’t give up, weren’t satisfied with the MSM’s portrayal of events, and were willing to swim against the tide of popular culture and preconceptions.
And that’s no small accomplishment for 2006, or for a blog, or for a person.
I don’t think the part I’ve played in the drama is that significant, but thanks all the same, Seahawk. 
More Nifong ethics complaint-blogging: The Johnsville News, LieStoppers, John in Carolina, Crystal Mess, Durham-in-Wonderland, Captain’s Quarters, Ankle Biting Pundits…
Update II (3:40 p.m.): I’ll post my groundbreaking thoughts about the NC State Bar’s complaint next week. In fact, I’ll probably write about it for my next column.
Ring in the New Year safely, everybody.
Friday, December 29 : Closed to commenting, but resume discussion of this case at Haunt Me In My Dreams…
Thursday, December 28 @ 6:13 p.m.: The North Carolina State Bar has filed ethic charges against Mike Nifong.
Thursday, December 28: KC Johnson, “Duke blogger” and history professor, penned an article for Inside Higher Ed chastising 88 members of Duke’s faculty for their hypocrisy to date.
KC included a statement I also included in a column I wrote last week, which is unpublished because it needs to be updated (emphasis added):
Over the last nine months, Mike Nifong has coupled demagogic appeals to prejudices based on class and race with a habit of making public charges unsubstantiated by material in his own files. Meanwhile, he overrode standard procedures (ordering police to show the accuser a lineup confined to suspects; refusing to meet with defense attorneys to consider exculpatory evidence; concealing DNA test results) and mocked due process. In one of his most outrageous lines, he mused, “One would wonder why one needs an attorney if one was not charged and had not done anything wrong.”
A prosecutor about to charge men with forcible rape wonders why such men need an attorney even if they didn’t nothing wrong? For a reminder of Nifong’s other boneheaded statements, see Scottsboro, NYT, and Hauntings, and keep scrolling.
In other news, 400 complaints have been filed against Nifong…
[click to continue…]
Wednesday, December 27: This post is closed to commenting. To discuss recent case developments, see 2007 Prediction: Mike Nifong Will Drop All Charges.
Update II (12/23): From a reader:
Dear LaShawn,
There are so many things I don’t agree with in your blog, however, you and I have seen eye to eye on the Duke scandal.
As a black woman, I was so annoyed and frankly embarrassed at people jumping to conclusions and lining up to defend this woman and drag these men through the mud. This was a disservice to black causes and to women’s causes. This was a disservice to humanity. To automatically judge a case based on people’s melanin content and whether they have a uterus or a penis is truly a disgrace, and the perpetrators of this are now laying low, hoping the whole thing goes away. I guess crow is a meal better eaten silently.
Thank you for staying on this case the way you did. I am glad those fake civil-righters and lame pseudo-feminists have been proven wrong. Since most of them lack a moral compass, I doubt that they will learn from their lessons but, hey, I can dream.
Jaded in California
Update (12/22 @ 3:33 p.m.): The Smoking Gun has posted the dismissal order. It seems the stripper-accuser may claim she was penetrated by something other than a penis. Under NC law, that’s not rape. Although I don’t believe she was penetrated by anyone or anything at 610 N Buchanan on March 13, 2006, the rape charges can’t be sustained based on the latest version of her gang-rape fantasy.
Commenter Richard Nieporent wrote:
It is perfectly obvious what Nifong is doing by not dismissing all of the charges. He is holding the three Duke Lacrosse players hostage in an attempt to prevent their lawyers from filing criminal and civil charges against him. Nifong knows that it’s much easier to convict the Duke Lacrosse players of sexual assault because DNA evidence is not needed. He is hoping that by holding these remaining charges over their heads they will be amenable to a quid pro quo of Nifong dropping all charges if they do not pursue a criminal or civil case against him.
[click to continue…]
Update III (12/22 @ 12:45 p.m.): Looks like Collin Finnerty, Reade Seligmann, and David Evans won’t face charges of rape. Ding-dong Mike Nifong dropped the rape charges. But kidnapping and sexual offense charges stand. (???) This post is closed to commenting, so please visit the latest post to discuss the good news: DUKE RAPE CHARGES DROPPED!
Every bit of exposure helps. Thanks.
Update: First-time or new readers may be interested in my Duke Rape Case archives (going back to April – sometimes the “Next Page” link at the bottom left of the middle column doesn’t show up in the IE browser unless you move the cursor near the small dash) and two columns I wrote for Townhall, The Most Absurd Rape Story of the Year (original title) and Scottsboro Revisted.
———————————————————————————————–
Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.
I’ve written an op-ed about the latest developments in the Duke “rape” case that I hope will be published at National Review Online this week or early next week. In the meantime, I wanted to highlight a few new items.
It’s becoming incredibly obvious to anyone with sense that Durham County district attorney Mike Nifong is a rogue prosecutor, at least when it comes to the so-called case against the indicted Duke lacrosse team players. At last Friday’s hearing, Brian Meehan (pictured), director of DNA Security, the private lab that analyzed DNA found in and on the stripper-accuser, admitted, under oath, that he and Nifong agreed to suppress evidence favorable to the defense.
[click to continue…]
Tuesday, December 19: This post is closed to commenting. Continue the discussion at Conspiracy in Durham.
——————————————————————-
2:26 p.m.: News of a baby’s birth is greatly exaggerated. The stripper-accuser is still pregnant. Not due until February. She was knocked up after the alleged gang-rape.
Update III (12/15): Last night, FOX News reported that the stripper-accuser had a baby recently. Independent Conservative has linked to video and said yesterday was “exactly 9 months to the day of that early morning of March 14, when the accuser left the Duke lacrosse players’ house and claimed she was raped.”
She was not pregnant the night of the party.
Poor kid. A stripper and a liar for a mother, and now he’s/she’s got to play, “Who’s my daddy?”
There’s a hearing today. If the defense motions succeed…
Update II (12/14): Bill Anderson has a written a more in-depth comparison of the Duke and Scottsboro cases.
Update (12/13 @ 4:27 p.m.): It gets nastier and nastier. The results of the stripper-accuser’s DNA tests showed “genetic material from several males,” Duke lacrosse players not included. Mike Nifong knew and didn’t tell the defense. We’ve known for months that DNA matched a “boyfriend.” I guess she’s got more than one. 
Commenter Seahawk posted a link to this article.
—————————————————————————————————————————-
Walter Jones, a U.S. congressman from North Carolina, has asked the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate Durham County district attorney Mike Nifong for violating the civil rights of Collin Finnerty, Reade Seligmann, and David Evans, three men indicted on comically bogus gang-rape charges. (Source)
[click to continue…]
Update (12/12): KC Johnson answers this question: “Through what kind of process do professors like [Wahneema] Lubiano get hired?”
——————————————————-
Here’s some common sense advice for everyone: Never puff up your academic and professional credentials. All it takes is one smart and motivated person to do a little digging and expose you to ridicule.
KC Johnson, premiere Duke case blogger, has been blogging his butt off. Not only has he been burning up bandwidth reporting on procedural errors in the case, but he’s taken Duke faculty to task, particularly members of the “Group of 88,” professors who signed off on a letter/advertisement rushing to judgment against the lacrosse players. By signing and publishing that letter, the professors became fair game.
Johnson’s coverage of the Duke case and subsequent criticism of Duke’s faculty are two reasons why blogging is so important. Anybody with a computer, Internet connection, and a little time on their hands can churn out post after post of the kind of reporting mainstream media should be doing.
As a professor, Johnson probably was naturally interested to know what credentials these professors hold. According to the Duke Chronicle, Johnson said that some of them had “meager credentials” and one had a pattern of “adopting ideologically extreme positions that fail to stand the test of time.” He added: “Since March 14, nearly 100 of Duke’s arts and sciences faculty engaged in rush-to-judgement denunciations of the lacrosse players.”
I haven’t read the letter/ad, but I can guess what’s in it. I’ve had the misfortune of knowing the type of privileged, ungrateful professors who inexplicably paint themselves as “victims” of “white male privilege.” They sounded stupid to me even when I was younger and liberal. I’d agree with what William Anderson, an assistant professor of economics at Frostburg State University, said about the Group of 88: “These young men represented everything these faculty members despised, and they were not going to permit something as bourgeois as truth stand in the way of their attempt to remake Duke University in their own image.”
Johnson has blogged about various members of the group, including Karla Holloway, a typical liberal “feminist” professor, and most recently, Wahneema Lubiano, a professor light on scholarly credentials.
[click to continue…]
*** Updates already! Keep scrolling, scrolling, scrolling… ***
Perhaps next week I’ll write a long and in-depth post about my opinion of the latest news in the Duke case. But the other “Duke bloggers” have done such an outstanding job blogging about the case, my commentary seems superfluous.
But I’ll say this. I do have something to offer as a “Duke blogger.” Though I would prefer not to refer to my race and sex, they are important factors. The current list of Duke bloggers are all white males, I presume. Although this fact doesn’t preclude or disqualify them, it does influence readers’ perceptions.
For instance, as a black conservative woman privy to “insider” conversations of both white conservatives and black liberals, I know that white conservative men are presumed to be prejudiced against blacks unless the presumption is rebutted. This typically requires the white male to express some politically correct opinion and/or denial of his own racial consciousness. It’s what I call a racialist double standard. Black people and other so-called minorities are free to celebrate and talk incessantly about their “culture,” while whites are perceived as supremacists if they do the same. How this double standard came about is a long story…
Like it or not, race is a factor in the case. I believe it influenced Durham County district attorney Mike Nifong to pursue it in the first place (black vote, and all that), and now that he’s come this far, race and a hefty dose of class envy continues to motivate a man strangely indifferent to actual justice.
[click to continue…]
Tuesday, October 25: Finally, a blogger gets invited to speak on a panel about the Duke case. Go show KC Johnson your support.
—————————————————–
I’ve done a lot of blogging about the Duke case, but I’ve got nothing on bloggers like KC Johnson, who started a blog dedicated to the case, John in Carolina (fact-checks N.C. newspapers reporting on the case), Lie Stoppers, The Johnsville News, and Crystal Mess. Because I cover a wider variety of political topics, I haven’t gone as in depth as the others.
And they’re on top of things.
Last week there was a panel discussion about the case. Invitees were journalists, and at the time it didn’t occur to me to ask why “Duke bloggers” weren’t invited to join the panel. I’m asking now. I’ve been in touch with Robert Bliwise, editor of Duke Magazine, over the past few weeks. I assume he organized the panel, and I asked him why he didn’t invite bloggers. I’ll post his response if I get one.
As a blogger, I’m biased. As journalists talk about how “unedited” and “unvetted” bloggers are, they often do the same things they accuse us of doing. At least bloggers are open about their biases, whereas journalists hide behind the cover of “objectivity.”
I think left-leaning media were motivated to a greater extent by the man-bites-dog aspect of the “rape” story. I suspect that liberal journalists who wrote slanted stories didn’t really believe the lacrosse players raped the stripper-accuser. But it was good copy.
Like the Rathergate story, this one is moving too fast for me. So I’ll do what I think I’m better at doing: providing round-up coverage and cranking out a column or two about the blog swarm.
Journalist Jon Ham attended the Duke-and-the-media panel and blogged about it.
Unrelated Update (7:00 p.m.): I just got some cool news I can’t blog about yet. (I know it’s not nice to tease, but the girl can’t help it.) I’ll fill you in later. 
