N&O: "Duke University lacrosse players Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty were charged today with first degree forcible rape, first degree sexual offense and kidnapping in connection with a reported rape at a Duke University lacrosse party, according to George Naylor, director of the jail.

"Bond was set for each player at $400,000, Naylor said."

Let me remind you, dear reader, even now: You don't know what happened. You didn't know before the DNA test, or after. You didn't know when sentiment was strong against the players, or when the backlash flowed against the woman. Your opinion about the facts is not relevant. You don't know.

Comments

[Bubba]

Sounds like a change of venue is in order. How's the court system in the Aleutians?

[btx]

It is perverse to see all those who have sentenced Barry Bonds in the court of public opinion discover innocent until proven guilty in a court of law in the Duke case. I do not like to say it, but I can see how some African-Americans can view the court system (and reporting on it) with great suspicion.

[Jim Caserta]

Barry Bonds's problems are not with the government, but with his employer and they are not bound to the same burdens of proof as the government. Plus, I don't think he's the guy you want to hold up the "innocent until proven guilty" maxim.

[btx]

Once again, Rev. Jesse Jackson's actions have thrown a log on the fire of racial animosity. His announcement that Operation Push will pay the college tuition for the alleged victim in the Duke lacrosse case even if her story proves false may have severe repercussions.

The Reverend's actions are supposedly based on his benevolent concern that the woman in question should not be forced to earn her living as an exotic dancer. Unfortunately, the promise of payments of funds in the middle of a trial is a ghastly mistake that can pervert the judicial system. Until the courts have completed their work and determined guilt or innocence, we should remain vigilant but calm and refrain from such unfortunate statements.

Even if his intentions are pure, what Jackson has done is posted a bounty that can encourage fraudulent charges against innocent persons. Considering his career as a shakedown artist of Fortune 500 firms, we should not be surprised at this development. Perhaps the attorneys for the accused can now call Operation Push as a witness and get an accurate and full accounting of its finances?

[btx]

Bonds problems are with the government -the Giants are not accusing him of perjury, nor are the Giant calling witnesses
before a grand jury.

Unless he is convicted of a crime, the Giants can take little action due to the collective bargaining agreement.

Bonds is a good example, as the trial by book and use of leaked grand jury documents that have not been vetted for truth in open court dovetails with the defense actions in the Duke case.

[Robert]

Gosh, Dear Ed, can you be any more condescending to your readers?

[Ed Cone]

I'm not condescending to my readers, I'm commenting on the opinion culture in which we live. Read the blogs, comments, and letters to the editor out there, Robert, and listen to talk radio -- people talk about this case like they know what happened. They don't.

Leonard Pitts dealt with phony Bonds-as-a-racial-issue narrative in a recent column: "Not every story that is unflattering to an African American is evidence of racial animus. Nor is every sin committed by a black person traceable to racial discrimination. To say otherwise is lazy reasoning at best, an insult to our ancestors' suffering at worst. They understood, I think, better than we, what racism does to you and demands of you. Sometimes, yes, it is a ball and chain. But it should never be a crutch."

[DFL]

For Bonds, I think it's "trial by amazing post 35 muscular development."

[Gary Maxwell]

Ed

How do you reconcile the info in the search warrant with the indictment?

If you are anyone else has not seen the actual search warrant here is a link:

Search Warrant

the police at this point dont seem to have spoken to the players, so where did they get the three names? One or both of the dancers is the only logical conclusion. Now she got all three names wrong, no DNA match but a sexual assault occurred? And where in the world does kidnapping come from?

I am fine with innocent until proven guilty. But I can certainly express my thoughts on facts as they sit. And nothing that I have seen supports the girl's story, including her fellow dancer.

When it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck maybe you have a duck?

[btx]

As a citizen, we owe all a fair trial. As a conservative, we always have to be suspicious of government.

You can have your opinion, but it is left at door when sitting as a juror.

That is the beauty of our system. Unlike the rest of the world where you have to prove your innocence, we attempt to make the accuser prove their case. I hope that inside the jokes you dont' advocate the adoption of the Napoleonic Code and other vestiges of failed socialist states?

Do you want "non-analytic positive" and "comfortable satisfaction" standards used by the WADA to apply to Americans?

"Just because it is sports" is no excuse to allow one worlders to corrupt our laws.

[DFL]

kidnapping occurs when you restrict another's freedom of movement. you can kidnap by locking someone in a room.

[Ken]

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0405061duke4.html

This portion of the warrant may be more pertinent. Sounds like some solid medical forensic evidence is there.

[cfw]

Mr. Nifong says he has identification and a V who claims no consent, so he has enough to get to a jury. On the plus side, filing of charges should give lax players some rights to discovery. No doubt they want to see the med exam report. I suspect a high blood alcohol level, possible other evidence of intoxicants.

Perhaps Duke and other med schools should rethink how they train the nurses and MD's who do med exams in cases of alleged sex assault. It seems best to just record objective findings. Leave out comments about how the "affect" is consistent or not consistent with having been through a rape. Also leave out characterization of the observed injuries, if any, as consistent or not consistent with forced sex. The injuries are what they are. Let the jury decide what must have happened. Here, it looks like the MD and nurse came up with "false positive" med exam test results for rape.

I suspect the folks that sign up to do "rape kit" exams (should be "alleged rape kit" or simply "med exam") are naturally biased toward finding sex assault. Then, over time, I suspect they are trained and groomed primarily by DA's and police to become still more biased.

More broadly, it seems to me that Durham does not appreciate what Duke does for undergrads, or how property values in Durham are probably bolstered by having 6400 Duke undergrads.

Perhaps Duke should announce a plan to move undergrad slots elsewhere - say 25% to Redmond, Washington, and 25% to the San Francisco or San Diego area. Melinda Gates is a Duke grad, I think, and the Gates family could certainly seed a great undergrad campus away from the "we love to hate Duke" crowd in Durham.

With communications as cheap as they are now, and getting cheaper, well-endowed private universities can and should branch out geographically. Why not have Duke lead?

Duke already has away-from-Duke programs in places like Mexico, New York, etc. Princeton, Duke, Harvard, Yale etc. all encourage junior year abroad (or away from the home school).

From Durham City council sessions, one would think there is no underage drinking or noise at UNC or other colleges, only Duke. Duke needs to find and develop more facilities and programs away from the vocal and prominent "Duke folks are jerks" crowd in Durham.

Why not rotate the undergrads to places like NYC, Redmond, Mexico City, SF, San Diego, Dubai, London, instead of parking them in Durham for 4 years? Use the extra dorm space in Durham for students that are over 21. Or turn them into hotel space for academic conventions, married student housing, etc. Duke takes a huge hit in "beauty contests" before prospective top faculty and students because it is in Durham. Why not change that with infrastructure elsewhere?

[Jeff]

I understand why the laws are written the way they for rape cases. Rape is probably the hardest crime to prove when there is only 2 people involved. There are 4 people involved in this case and she just now identified 2 of them and still can't positively id the third. What I'd like to know is why they dragged the whole team in for DNA testing? Could she not ID them in the beginning? That makes me suspicious.

[Greg D]

Ed,

Are you saying that we don't know that the DNA test didn't find any matches? Are you saying that we don't know that they couldn't even find any DNA from semen on her at all?

If those two claims are false, I'll be happy to reasses the case. But unless those claims can be disproved, I will continue to believe that this is another Tawana Brawley (sp?) case, and that the prosecutor pushing the case is a politically motivated hack who should be voted out of office.

Rape is a serious crime. False accusations of rape are at least as serious of a crime, for they harm not only the wrongly accused individual, but every actual rape victim, as well.

[Ken]

So now the medical experts are in some kind of conspiracy? Yeah, that must be it. lol

[M. Simon]

I think Jesse Jackson has the right idea.

Black college girls ought to become strippers. Accuse their customers of rape and get a free education.

I love his incentive plan.

[M. Simon]

It also may be that one of the accused has a good alibi including taxi and ATM reciepts.

It is going to be hard to convict the remaining two if one of he three was falsely identified.

[tilson]

From Greg D: "So now the medical experts are in some kind of conspiracy? Yeah, that must be it."

no, that's not implied at all. the 'expert' said that there are signs that are consistent with rape. but what exactly does that mean, specifically? without getting too graphic, does it mean a little bruising? some cuts or scrapes maybe? cuts and scrapes were already present, according to the photos from the players. and maybe a little bruising in sensitive areas? i don't know, but you think maybe its consistent with things strippers do to themselves at a bachelor party? and what exactly is the evidentiary difference between forced sex and consensual sex?

[Jim Caserta]

Regardless of race, class, and circumstance, rape is a horrible violent crime, which this case is one of many. There were 94,635 rapes in the US in 2004(p19), or about 260 per day.

[Greg D]

tilson:

That was "Ken" you were responding to, not me.

"Jim Caserta":
We do NOT "know" that this case is a rape. Given the lack of foreign DNA on the complainants body (and the fact that she did NOT claim that her attackers wore condoms), we have no real evidence that rape took place. We have evidence that she was assaulted, and other evidence that it happened before she got to the party. That's it. Rape is a horrible crime. People who make false charges of rape are therefore horrible people.

Ed:
I take it from your lack of response that we DO know things about the DNA, and that everything we know is exculpatory. No?

Greg

[Ed Cone]

My lack of response was due to the irrelevance of your comment to my statement.

I did not say we don't know anything about the case. I said we don't know what happened, that is, whether or not this woman was raped by these men.

And we don't.

[Greg D]

We know there's no DNA on her from her supposed rapists. When know they checked her with a rape kit within a period of time such that, if they HAD raped her, they should have got incriminating DNA. We know the woman didn't claim that her attackers wore condoms, or that they cleaned her off afterwards, or that she cleaned herself off afterwards (if any of these had happened, the DA wouldn't have made a big deal about going after the DNA evidence).

So yes, we do know that her story is garbage. No DNA on the nails that she claims tore off while she was fighting her attackers. No DNA from the rape. In this case, that's just about as conclusive proof of innocence as finding matching DNA would have been conclusive proof of guilt.

Do we knwo everything that happened? No. But we know she lied, and that she was not raped by those players the way she claimed she was.

And that tells me that she should be going to jail.

[Ed Cone]

You've made up your mind, and you may well be correct.

That is different from knowing what happened, but I don't guess there is much point in arguing with you about it.

[Jim Caserta]

Greg, you missed my point. My point was that there are 259 other (eventually convicted) rapes happening every day. This case has a lot of plotlines, race, class, boorish jocks, that people have taken hold of, but at the price of ignoring the real problem of rape as a whole. It's the OJ/Natalee Holloway "celebrity" crime, when there are thousands of "ordinary" crimes that we don't pay attention to.

And as for false accusation being at least as bad as actual rape, I ask myself whether I'd rather my brother be falsely accused or my sister be raped...Give me a break, is it even a choice.

[Jenny]

Of course, the problem with rape law is that for a crime to be a crime it has to be perceived as a crime by the perpetrator--a woman may feel as if she is being raped when the other person does not feel that they are raping. Also, a woman can be forced to have sex without aggressive physical violence. Finally, many rape cases yield no DNA evidence--DNA is a standard, but it is not the gold one. One of the reasons that many rapists roam free is because it can be a crime that leaves little to no hard physical evidence. Hence, women often get raped twice--once physically, the second time in the court room. Psh.