The Duke lacrosse incident

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Last edited Fri Dec 13, 2024, 06:24 AM - Edit history (1)

This Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of the fateful party held by members of the Duke lacrosse team. There will be many television shows and articles this weekend and next week. For example:

THE CASE THAT CHANGED DUKE: Lacrosse 10 years later

What to Expect: ESPN's 30 for 30 'Fantastic Lies'

March 10, 2016

by Corey McLaughlin | LaxMagazine.com

Editor's note: Lacrosse Magazine was provided an advance review copy of Sunday's ESPN "30 for 30" documentary on the Duke lacrosse scandal. This is a review about what to expect, and does not intend to spoil the documentary for viewers.

The first five minutes of "Fantastic Lies" might make lacrosse fans cringe. White privileged athletes. Partyers. A de facto frat house. The labels thrown out, true or not, will likely lure a mainstream audience into watching the two-hour documentary, the latest in ESPN's critically-acclaimed "30 for 30" series.

But the lacrosse community should be thankful for what follows: a down-the-middle, fair and compelling telling of the story that is commonly referred to as the Duke lacrosse scandal.

By the end of "Fantastic Lies" — which debuts at 9 p.m. Eastern Sunday on ESPN, 10 years to the day of the ill-fated party that started it all — it's clear what this was all about: the party, yes, then a sequence of events that included a miscarriage of justice by a district attorney seeking re-election, a town-and-gown rift between the city of Durham, N.C., and Duke University, statements on modern media and society, and how an institution's decision-making perhaps made things even worse.

{WATCH: THE TRAILER | FORFEITURE CLIP | DIVIDED CLIP}

The documentary, directed by Marina Zenovich (m{"Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired," "Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic"}, includes interviews with 35 people with direct or indirect involvement in the scandal. The parents of Reade Seligmann, one of the three members of the 2006 Duke team falsely accused of rape by a stripper, and the father of another, Collin Finnerty, share their story, although Seligmann, Finnerty and the third wrongly accused, team captain David Evans — like many others — declined to be interviewed.

How The Duke Lacrosse Rape Case Became A Stain On The Legal System

A decade later, the issues raised by Prosecutor Mike Nifong's actions still resonate.

03/11/2016 06:19 pm ET | Updated 19 hours ago

{snip}

Ten years ago this month, Duke lacrosse players Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and Dave Evans were accused of raping Crystal Mangum, a North Carolina Central College student who was hired to strip for the team during a party.

The media's coverage of the case inflamed race, gender and class divisions locally and nationally. But upon further investigation by North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, Mangum's allegations were deemed false. Cooper exonerated the students, saying in April 2007, "We have no credible evidence that an attack occurred."

{snip}

[MisterP]

1. that was a lot of people's first encounter with the likes of Amanda Marcotte and Jessica Valenti

[bluestateguy]

2. Anybody who still insists the lacrosse players are guilty can go to hell

We had a few serious dead-enders here on DU, who would not let it go for years and years.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

3. They served their purpose...

How else was I going to learn I am a member of the "racist hetero-patriarchy"?

[Doctor_J]

14. I tried to pull up some of the du pages from ten years ago to see the prevailing wisdom in

the gd and hof, but the links don't work. Would have been amusing I bet

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

16. The greatest hits were deleted pretty quickly

by the moderators in those days.

Don't worry, with the fiasco brewing at Yale you will be able to relive the experience.

[pnwmom]

18. I'll tell you, because that's when I started posting a lot here.

The strongly prevailing wisdom from the very beginning was that the "privileged" students were guilty as hell. No trial necessary to determine the truth. The idea being that women "never" lie about rape, so Crystal Mangum must be believed.

I assumed they were guilty, too, for a month or so. Then my elderly mother asked me what I thought -- she had seen one of the young men on TV -- and I didn't really know so I started looking into it.

And I immediately found major holes in her story. No time frame that allowed for a rape to have happened. Another dancer who flatly contradicted Mangum's story. No DNA found on the "victim's" body that matched ANY one of the 48 members of the lacrosse team. One of the accused with an airtight alibi -- because during the period the victim claimed to have been raped, he was across town getting money from a bank ATM (that had a camera.) Etc. etc. etc.

What I found was a horrifying rush to judgment, no real evidence, and yet DU GD was fully engaged in the witch hunt -- and most people here refused to listen to reason.

And it took almost a year AFTER then -- after any rational person could see that they shouldn't have been charged -- before the state finally gave up and announced that the three students were INNOCENT.

What if a couple of the families weren't wealthy enough to afford the huge legal bills? (One wasn't wealthy at all.) They probably would have been convicted, like most other falsely accused victims of unethical prosecutors.

[Doctor_J]

4. Very few of the SJW who slandered these dudes and tried to ruin their lives have apologized

[mahatmakanejeeves]

5. You'd think that all those letters after their names would indicate

a higher level of thoughtfulness or wisdom. It doesn't seem to work that way, however.

Thanks for writing.

[tammywammy]

6. I can't believe it's been 10 years

I'll have to look for the 30 for 30 episode.

[Nye Bevan]

7. The lying accuser Crystal Mangum escaped punishment for her lies in this case,

but she subsequently went to prison for murdering her boyfriend.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Mangum

[Crepuscular]

9. Karma

can sometimes be a beautiful thing.

[GaYellowDawg]

12. I wouldn't think

her boyfriend thought so.

[pnwmom]

8. I watched the ESPN show a few days ago. Good show. All of the cases

Nifong prosecuted before then should be looked at carefully. He was willing to do anything to win.

[Doctor_J]

15. That was an excellent film. With the exception of the one female journalist, none of the

lynch mob bandwagon riders apologized.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

20. I can't bring myself to watch it,

I just know I will throw something at the TV.

[oberliner]

10. And now Colin is an equity sales trader for Deutsche Bank

And David is a senior associate at a venture capital firm.

So I guess things worked out alright for those Duke boys after all.

[Nye Bevan]

13. Always good when wrongly accused innocent people are vindicated (nt)

[pnwmom]

17. No. Nothing makes up for more than a year out of their lives. And what about the coach?

He lost his job at a division one school and was never able to return to that level.

And the third falsely accused student is a lawyer working for the Innocence Project. Good for him.

[oberliner]

21. Huh?

I'm just saying their lives turned out well, not that their success makes up for what happened to them.

[pnwmom]

22. On the surface their lives turned out well.

But they went through a trauma for a year. I imagine they still have some scars.

But thanks for clarifying. I mistakenly had the impression you were minimizing what happened to them, because they're doing okay now.

[Laxman]

23. The Coach, Mike Pressler....

has indeed returned to coaching at the Division I level. He is the head coach at Bryant College in Rhode Island. He's a good person and I would be fine with him coaching my sons. What Duke did to him was unconscionable. However, his behavior was a great example of what taking personal responsibility really means.

[pnwmom]

27. That's great news. Thanks, Laxman. n/t

[mahatmakanejeeves]

11. Where are they now?

I had thought that David Evans had gone to law school and was working with the Innocence Project. I was wrong. That's Reade Seligmann.

Where are they now?

A look at the main characters involved in the lacrosse case

By Claire Ballentine and Samantha Neal | Thursday, March 10
....

David Evans
....

Evans received his master’s in business administration from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in 2013. According to his LinkedIn page, Evans is currently a principal for the consumer team at Apax Partners, a private equity and venture capital firm, in New York. Evans has remained out of the media spotlight after settling with the University for an undisclosed amount in June 2007. Evans could not be reached for comment.
....

Collin Finnerty
....

He currently works in equity sales trading for Deutsche Bank, according to his LinkedIn page. In recent years, Finnerty has remained out of the media spotlight after settling with the University for an undisclosed amount. The Chronicle was unable to contact Finnerty for comment.
....

Reade Seligmann
....

Since his wrongful accusation during the lacrosse case, Seligmann has been involved with the Innocence Project—a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals. Seligmann raised $50,000 in 2010 for the Innocence Project and organized the Eyewitness Identification Symposium at Brown, which focused on discussing ways to improve the accuracy of the eyewitness identification process.

[Doctor_J]

24. Or publicity craving social justice warriors

[onenote]

25. It was an eye-opening experience here on DU

where it became clear that facts were secondary to some posters' agenda driven assumptions.

[HassleCat]

26. I assumed they were guilty.

From my college days, I know of the insane behavior of "student athletes." They are allowed to do things that would result in expelling ordinary students. We had no lacrosse at my school, but the football players made up for it, and I went to a middle sized state university, not one of the big sports powerhouse schools.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

28. I wasn't exactly a model citizen at that age (or later) either.

I look back, and I say, "how could I have been so stupid?" I am so thankful there was no Internet back then.

Everyone gets to go through his own learning process.

Yes, it was easy to think that there was something to the story. The incident illustrates why caution is advised before one leaps to conclusions. I'm hesitant to point fingers, because I too ... um, well, I'd rather not finish that sentence.

DU could use an emoji of a character waving a huge red flag emblazoned with the motto "look before you leap."

Best wishes. Thanks for writing.