On the two year anniversary of the end of this sad episode, this is a look back at 10 of the most outrageous moments in the case. They are presented in chronological order.
1. With no DNA evidence, Nifong vows to prosecute case "the good old-fashioned way"
When interviewed by the Durham Police Department, Crystal Mangum said her rapists hadn't used condoms and had ejaculated. DNA was collected from all 46 white Duke lacrosse players, and based on Mangum's account, Nifong stated the DNA evidence would implicate the guilty and "immediately rule out any innocent persons."
Lab tests showed that DNA from several men was present in Mangum's underwear, pubic hair and rectum, but none of it matched any of the 46 lacrosse players. Upon learning these results, Nifong conspired with the lab director to withhold information about the unidentified DNA from the defense. It was also at this time that Nifong declared that DNA needn't be the crux of the case after all. Instead, he vowed he would prosecute the rape charges "the good old-fashioned way".
The old-fashioned way isn't necessarily good, as evidenced by the number of people who have been exonerated post-conviction based on new DNA testing. However, the media gave Nifong a pass on his DNA about-face. Incredibly, some commentators actually claimed Nifong's case was stronger with a lack of DNA evidence.
The most ludicrous explanation given for the lack of DNA evidence came from Wendy Murphy. Speculating that the Duke 3 had assaulted Mangum with a broomstick, the legal analyst declared on MSNBC that "the broomstick DNA has not yet been revealed." In fact, Mangum had made no mention of a broomstick being used during the alleged attack, and there was no mention of a broomstick on any of the search warrants.
Nifong vows to prosecute the case "the good old fashioned way."
2. Nifong attends raucous forum at accuser's school
On April 11, Nifong attended a forum at the accuser's school, North Carolina Central University. For weeks Nifong had been stating with certainty that a rape had occurred, but he had not yet charged any of the lacrosse players. The mostly black crowd of 700 cheered when Nifong declared "my presence here means that this [case] is not going away." However, the atmosphere quickly soured.
Nifong was repeatedly chided for not arresting the entire lacrosse team the moment the rape allegation was made. The crowd hissed at Nifong when he wouldn't agree with an audience member who claimed that Duke University had "tampered" with DNA evidence. When Nifong told the crowd "I don't want anybody who did not commit a crime to be arrested and put on trial", the remark was met with catcalls and screams.
After the forum adjourned, the crowd surged toward Nifong, and a police escort was needed for him to safely exit the building. Chan Hall, a member of the NCCU student government, made explicit what appeared to be widespread sentiment at the forum when he told Newsweek that Duke students should be prosecuted "whether it happened or not. It would be justice for things that happened in the past." (Most of the information in this section is from the book Until Proven Innocent - see the link at the bottom of the page).
Nifong takes a verbal lashing from an irate citizen who alleges Duke University has tampered with DNA evidence. That was one of many conspiracy theories aired when Nifong attended a forum at the accuser's school.
3. Flawed lineup used to identify suspects
Without DNA evidence linking any of the Duke lacrosse players to a sexual assault, Nifong needed the accuser to identify her alleged attackers. Two suspect identification lineups had already been administered, but Mangum hadn't picked anyone out as an attacker.
Nifong devised a final lineup which included mugshots of all 46 white players on the team. Basically, Mangum was told there were no wrong answers, and whoever she picked would be indicted. Four of the men were selected by Mangum as potential attackers, and three of these men were subsequently charged.
Because he didn't even vaguely resemble any of the suspect descriptions Mangum had given to police, Colin Finnerty hadn't been included in either of the earlier lineups. In the final lineup, Mangum said she was 100% sure Finnerty was one of the men who raped her.
In one of the previous lineups, Mangum was only 70% sure she had seen Reade Seligmann somewhere at the party. Now she was 100% certain he looked like one of the men who had raped her.
Mangum hadn't recognized Dave Evans at all in a previous lineup, but she was now 90% certain he had raped her. She said Evans had a mustache during the attack. Evans tried to submit photographs to Nifong which showed he didn't have a mustache on the night of the party, but he was turned away.
There were many other contradictions in Mangum's identifications. In the final lineup, she failed to recognize three of the men she said she was 100% certain she saw at the party in an earlier lineup. The only man Mangum consistently identified as having been at the party was in fact out of town on the night in question. None of this worried Nifong or the investigators.
In a lineup with no wrong answers, Mangum identifies David Evans as one of her rapists.
4. Nifong discusses the case with members of an anti-white hate group
In a May 2, 2006 interview with Fox News Channel, Malik Zulu Shabazz, the leader of the New Black Panther Party, said he had met with Mike Nifong. According to Shabazz, Nifong shared "evidence" and discussed the lacrosse case at length with the Panthers. Nifong confirmed the conversation, but refused to reveal any details.
At a May 18 court hearing, members of the Panthers were waiting outside the courthouse as Reade entered. "Justice will be served, rapist!" one of them screamed. Reade's father followed his son into court, scanning the crowd for anyone who might attack Reade from behind. The Panther entourage was allowed into the courtroom, where one member glared at Reade and declared, "Dead man walking." None of this seemed to bother Nifong or the judge.
The Southern Poverty Law Center lists the New Black Panther Party as an anti-white, anti-Semitic, Black Separatist hate group. The Duke 3 are white, and Reade's father is Jewish.
Members of the New Black Panther Party, an anti-white hate group, protest outside the house where the lacrosse party was held. Nifong met with members of the group to discuss the case and share evidence.
5. Nifong engages in witness intimidation
Reade had been uncomfortable on the night of the lacrosse party, and immediately after the strippers stopped dancing he called a taxi driver to pick him up. The taxi driver, Moezeldin Elmostafa, signed an affidavit declaring he had picked Reade up at 12:19 AM. According to Mangum's timeline, her "rape" had occurred later than this.
This presented a huge problem for the prosecution. On May 10, Duke rape case investigators Benjamin Himan and Richard Clayton visited Elmostafa and asked him if he had anything new to tell them about the lacrosse case. When the Sudanese immigrant said 'No', he was arrested.
Two and a half-years earlier, Elmostafa had given a ride to a woman who shoplifted five purses. Elmostafa was now to stand trial as an accessory to that crime.
Nifong repeatedly denied he had anything to do with Elmostafa's arrest, but Elmostafa's lawyer introduced a note written by Himan which read: "Mr. Nifong wanted to know when we picked [Elmostafa] up."
The prosecution had no case, and Elmostafa was quickly found not guilty by the judge. Still, by going to trial, Elmostafa had put his dream of American citizenship in jeopardy. For telling the truth and not changing his story under pressure, Elmostafa was chosen as the Reader's Digest 2008 Hero of the Year.
Duke rape case investigators Himan and Clayton attend Elmostafa's trial. "Why are they here?" Elmostafa's lawyer asked the court.
Elmostafa appears on the Today Show after winning the Reader's Digest 2008 Hero of the Year award.
6. Nifong wins racially polarized election
In an election that was a referendum on the Duke lacrosse case, Nifong won with 49% of the vote. This victory came less than a month after a devastating two-segment 60 Minutes investigation of the Duke lacrosse case by award-winning black journalist Ed Bradley. Bradley's report left no doubt that the Duke 3 were innocent and that Nifong had engaged in serious prosecutorial misconduct.
Toward the end of the second 60 Minutes segment, Bradley discussed the implications of a Nifong victory with black Duke Law Professor James Coleman. After detailing Nifong's abuse of power, Coleman made a thinly-veiled appeal to black Durham voters to do the right thing and reject Nifong when he rhetorically asked Bradley, "What does it say about what he's willing to do to get poor black defendants?"
Coleman's warning went unheeded, as Nifong captured an astonishing 95% of the black vote. Only 20-25% of whites voted for Nifong.
Duke Law Professor James Coleman, who accused Nifong of serious prosecutorial misconduct on 60 Minutes.
Ed Bradley interviews Reade Seligmann on 60 Minutes. Less than a month after the segment aired, Bradley died of complications from leukemia. In 2007, he posthumously won the 66th annual George Foster Peabody award for his examination of the case.
7. Accuser no longer sure she was penetrated with a penis
On December 20, 2006, the North Carolina State Bar informed Nifong he was facing potential ethics charges for withholding exculpatory DNA evidence from the defense. The next day, in an attempt to mitigate the significance of this serious ethics violation, Nifong pushed Mangum to change her story and say she was no longer certain she had been penetrated by a penis. Because penile penetration is necessary for a charge of rape, Nifong dropped the rape charges. The kidnapping and sexual assault charges, which still carried potential 30 year sentences, were left intact.
To most observers, Nifong's convenient dropping of the rape charges was further proof that the conspiracy was unraveling. A week earlier, Saturday Night Live had done a sketch mocking Nancy Grace in which they presumed the Duke 3's innocence. Many of Nifong's remaining defenders conceded that the case was collapsing. But according to Irving Joyner, a black law professor who was monitoring the case for the NAACP, Nifong was now in an even stronger position to win a conviction.
Throughout the case, Joyner was one of Nifong's most reliable cheerleaders. As displeasure with Nifong was growing in other regions of the state, Joyner said Nifong "still has a viable shot at victory before a jury in Durham." This was because "a Durham jury may see things differently" than a jury in a whiter North Carolina county. Joyner was against a change of venue, and he agreed with Nifong's claim that the case called for a "Durham solution."
KC Johnson has documented several ways in which the NAACP took stances on the lacrosse case that contradicted the organization's longstanding core principles on criminal justice matters. In all these instances, the NAACP took positions that were more likely to result in a conviction of the Duke 3.
NCCU Law Professor Irving Joyner: Academic Racist
8. The 2nd Duke Rape Case
On February 11, 2007, another woman alleged she was raped in the bathroom at an off-campus party at Duke. Despite the many similarities between this rape allegation and the one made against the Duke lacrosse team a year earlier, the reactions by the media and by Duke University were very different.
Initially, the cable news networks showed a great deal of interest in this second rape allegation. However, this interest waned when it was revealed the party had been hosted by Phi Beta Sigma, a black fraternity. By the time it was confirmed that the rapist was black and the victim was white, the story had been relegated to conservative and legal blogs. Only the Duke campus newspaper reported the victim's race. While the suspect was still on the loose, the local daily newspaper, which had shamelessly highlighted the racial angle of the Duke lacrosse rape case, refused to mention the suspect was black. None of this is surprising. As Lawrence Auster has noted, no explicit reference is ever made to the racial aspect of black on white rapes in the media.
The response by Duke University was also very different this time around. There were no prayers, marches, or candlelight vigils for Katie Rouse. Vice President of Student Affairs Larry Moneta even seemed to blame the white victim, when he dismissed her rape as "part of the reality of collegiate life and of experimentation and some of the consequences of students not always being in the right place at the right time."
In March 2009, Michael Jermaine Burch was sentenced to 48-67 months in prison for the rape. Actually, the sentence was for two rapes - the one at Duke and a second one committed after the defendant was set free on bail. If Burch's bail had been set at $400,00, as it had been for the Duke 3, this second rape (race of victim unknown) could have been prevented.
When a white Duke student was raped by a black Durham resident, there were no protests or marches.
9. Duke administration sides with the faculty radicals
It's fairly well known that 88 Duke faculty members signed a "listening statement" which assigned guilt to the lacrosse team and thanked demonstrators "for not waiting and for making yourselves heard." What many people probably don't realize is that this was not a fringe group unrepresentative of the university at large. In fact, the administration took the side of these faculty radicals.
President Richard Brodhead formed a committee called the Campus Culture Initiative, and the fiercest faculty critics of the lacrosse team were rewarded with positions chairing the subgroups on athletics, race, and gender.
History professor Peter Wood, who without any corroborating evidence had called Reade Seligmann "cynical, arrogant, callous, dismissive—you could almost say openly hostile", was chosen to chair the subgroup on athletics.
English professor Karla Holloway, who wrote that "justice inevitably has an attendant social construction" and therefore the lacrosse case "cannot be finally or fully adjudicated in the courts", was chosen to chair the subgroup on race. It was Holloway who had put together the "listening statement."
Anthropology professor Anne Allison, who, like Wood and Holloway, had also signed the "listening statement", was chosen to chair the subgroup on gender.
Not surprisingly, in February 2007 the committee issued a report calling for more mandatory diversity classes and additional affirmative action programs in the form of more aggressive recruitment and increased financial aid for "underrepresented groups". As the Wall Street Journal has pointed out, white Christians, and especially Southern Baptists, are actually the most under-represented group at elite universities such as Duke. However, by "underrepresented groups" the committee almost certainly meant blacks, who make up 10% of the Duke undergraduate student body.
Duke University President Richard Brodhead squirmed when Ed Bradley asked him "Were you at all concerned that your students and some members of your faculty were engaged in a rush to judgment? And that their actions might actually throw fuel on the fire?"
10. Nifong returns with a smirk
Nifong was found guilty of 27 ethics violations relating to his handling of the Duke lacrosse rape case. He served one jay in jail, and was disbarred. Nifong turned in his law license, which he noted had been damaged when his puppy chewed on it.
You might assume the disgraced prosecutor would be something of a pariah among his former colleagues at the Durham County DA's office. Sadly, you'd be wrong in making that assumption.
In January 2009, Nifong received a "personal invitation" from incoming Durham Country DA Tracey Cline to attend her swearing in ceremony. Nifong accepted the invitation and was greeted with hugs by his former colleagues in the DA's Office.
During the Duke lacrosse case, then-Assistant DA Cline was Nifong's rape specialist prosecutor. When asked for her thoughts on how her former boss handled the Duke Lacrosse rape case, Cline declined to comment.
Nifong's mugshot (September 2007).
Nifong returns with a smirk (January 2009).
Dishonorable Mention
New York Times' desperate attempt to prop up a dying case
Registration is required to read the full article, but the first sentence of this 5600-word, front page article speaks for itself: "An examination of the case file shows that there is a body of evidence to support the prosecutor’s decision to take the matter to a jury." Bloggers immediately tore the piece to shreds, and MSNBC's Dan Abrams called the article "shameful." Anyone who relied exclusively on the New York Times for their news must have been flabbergasted when Cooper dropped all charges in the case.
Two other outrageous moments weren't included because they are only tangentially related to the case: (1) When the accuser's cousin hinted that one of the Duke 3 had fathered the accuser's baby, and (2) When the accuser was awarded a degree in police psychology.
For Additional Information on the Duke lacrosse rape case
Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case
Complete 60 Minutes Transcript
