Our criminal justice system most notoriosly fails two kinds of people: wrongly convicted defendants, and crime victims whose guilty assailants walk free. Privileged young men who attend elite colleges and face charges of violent sex offenses usually don’t attract public sympathy. That may be why the story of an African-American woman who said three white players on the Duke University men’s lacrosse team raped her possessed an air of plausibility from the start.
This case may yield victims, but it appears less and less likely that the woman is one of them. On Friday, Durham, N.C., County District Atty. Mike Nifong recused himself from his imploding case and handed what’s left of it to North Carolina’s attorney general, Roy Cooper.
This saga began last March when a 28-year-old student at North Carolina Central University, performed as an exotic dancer at a party hosted by lacrosse team members. She accused three players of raping her during the party. David Evans, 23, Collin Finnerty, 21, and Reade Seligmann, 20, were indicted for rape, kidnapping and other sexual offenses.
Nifong announced last month that the rape charges were being dropped because the woman was no longer certain she had been penetrated vaginally. Duke then offered to reinstate Finnerty and Seligmann; Evans graduated in May. The three deny they committed any crime, but the remaining serious charges against them leave them facing the possibility of long prison terms.
Nifong’s case has produced more hot-button rhetoric than compelling evidence that any Duke lacrosse players are guilty of more than house-party boorishness. The question now is whether Nifong railroaded them to help his ultimately successful campaign for re-election.
Early on, Nifong certainly got creative for the cameras. He said there was a “deep racial motivation” behind the players’ alleged assault. He called them “a bunch of hooligans.” But those accusations haven’t held up. The alleged victim has given contradictory statements about the attack–including a newly disclosed version in which she was attacked by two players while a third watched. Police conducted unorthodox photo lineups; in one, the woman identified her alleged attackers after she was shown only photos of lacrosse team players and a few other men who attended the party. The exercise didn’t include photos of certifiably uninvolved men.
There was a “60 Minutes” interview in which a second stripper at the lacrosse team party said the rape charge was bogus. Then this revelation exploded last month: The lab director in charge of a second set of DNA tests admitted under oath that, in a secret deal with Nifong, he withheld information that the DNA of other males–but not from any lacrosse team members–had been found on the woman.
North Carolina bar officials have filed an ethics complaint against Nifong for making misleading and inflammatory comments about the case in the media. He could face disbarment. Defense lawyers have demanded that the remaining charges be dropped. From this vantage, it’s hard to see why Atty. Gen. Cooper wouldn’t investigate and then do as the defense asks.
If that happens, the list of Nifong’s victims will start with the defendants. But that list also will include Duke faculty members, students and Durham residents who, caught up in the symbolism and politics of the case, initially rushed to judge them guilty. One other group of victims: women everywhere who, because of this case, may have a harder time persuading police and prosecutors to bring sexual assailants to justice.
