Opening Argument – An Outrageous Rush to Judgment
by Stuart Taylor, Jr.
The trashing of Duke’s lacrosse team by many in the media may be shifting gears as the Durham, N.C., district attorney’s case against two players indicted for gang rape falls apart and evidence of gross prosecutorial misconduct mounts. I can’t rule out the possibility that there may be some horrible truth in the shifting claims by an African-American "exotic dancer" that the two indicted defendants and another team member gang-raped her in a bathroom. But accumulating evidence strongly suggests that the charge may well be a lie.
The innocence of at least one defendant seems clearly established by rock-solid evidence that he could not possibly have been raping anyone during the half hour after the accuser and another woman had done their four-minute dance at a team party at midnight on March 13. The case against the other defendant also seems weak.
And the evidence that perhaps no Duke lacrosse player committed rape should make a lot of people ashamed of themselves: District Attorney Mike Nifong, the Durham police, many in the media, politically correct Duke professors, spineless Duke administrators, and others.
(Disclosure: A parent of one team member is a friend of mine, and I might not be writing about the case if my analysis of the evidence supported the rape charge.)
Instead of backing off, many in the rush-to-judgment crowd have simply hedged their presumption of guilt and shifted to smearing the lacrosse players — including sons of three retired New York City firefighters, and others from modest backgrounds — as a bunch of privileged, thuggish, racist, and (horrors) white jocks, suggestive of Southern slaveholders.
As to the rape charge, consider some evidence.