The most appalling thing about the prosecution of three Duke lacrosse players for rape and other charges (see the New York Times) is that the abuses of prosecutorial powers have been bluntly manifest to everyone who has looked at it, and the motive of the prosecutor has been almost as transparent, and yet the circus has not yet been forced to fold its tents. As for the motive, it is clear that Durham County, N.C., District Attorney Michael B. Nifong thought he had the kind of case he could ride to fame and fortune, and very probably to higher office. American society is quite properly hypersensitive to the kind of case that DA Nifong thought he had: privileged, white athletes had raped an African American woman. But to fabricate such a case where there was no reason to believe that any such thing had taken place is doubly atrocious: it undermines the legal protections of victims and the wrongly accused in equal measure.
As for the abuses of power, here is the Washington Post:
It's been clear for months that Mr. Nifong's case -- to the extent he has a case -- is riddled with flaws that raise serious questions about his motives and ethics. The accuser's story has been inconsistent and unreliable -- and that was even before the latest interview with the prosecutor's office, in which, according to his filing, she said she could no longer be certain she had been penetrated with a penis. The physical evidence was scant at best; the identification procedure -- the woman was shown photographs of only Duke lacrosse players -- was shockingly shoddy; one defendant seems to have an alibi.
In recent weeks, Mr. Nifong has admitted that he failed, as required, to turn potentially exculpatory information over to the defense: test results that showed the presence of semen from several other men, but not the Duke players, in swabs taken from the woman's body and clothing. Mr. Nifong says it was an accidental oversight. Yet the director of the DNA laboratory says that he and the prosecutor agreed to leave that information out of his report because it was so "explosive." If so, Mr. Nifong has a bigger problem than a botched prosecution. He should be subject to further ethics proceedings by state bar authorities, who filed charges Thursday against him for making inflammatory and misleading comments about the case in its early days.
I cannot conceive of how any prosecutor could now make a case against the Duke lacrosse team members. The case should be dropped, there must surely be some legal way to make sure that Mr. Nifong is never in charge of another prosecution.
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