Criminal Law

Paperback Source Notes

Posted on September 01, 2008
< Chapter One: (pp. 1-15) p. 1: Author interview with Devon Sherwood. p. 2: Devon Sherwood interview. ?Indeed, more than one sorority hired . . .? : ?Only Race Matters: A Duke Woman Speaks,? Liestoppers, 25 Jan. 2007. ?Emulating the movie Old School?: USA Today, 25 Jan...

Cooper Response: Duke's SANE Brief

Posted on August 30, 2008
The unindicted players? lawsuit against Duke focuses on two areas: (1) the actions of the administration; (2) the performance of Duke Hospital, especially former SANE nurse-in-training/feminist zealot Tara Levicy. Duke attorneys Jamie Gorelick and Dan McLamb have thus far struggled to develop a consistent legal justification for Levicy?s actions?which, in all fairness, is not easy to do...

Cooper Response to Duke

Posted on August 29, 2008
The unindicted players represented by Chuck Cooper have filed a powerful response to Duke?s motion to dismiss. Summarized below, it addresses not only the legal arguments offered by Jamie Gorelick and Dan McLamb, but also the (scarcely credible) p.r. spin that the Duke attorneys chose to include in their legal filing...

Q&A Regarding the Mangum Opus

Posted on August 25, 2008
In the comments section and through e-mail, I?ve had some questions regarding the Mangum Opus. Here are my replies. Q: What new could come from this book? A: There are a few items related to the case (Mangum?s April 11, 2006 meeting with Mike Nifong, for instance) for which we have never received a credible explanation...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

The Mangum Opus

Posted on August 22, 2008
The Mangum Opus, once scheduled for release in June, is now due out in October?at least according to this press release, which is riddled with grammatical and other errors: Poignant Memoir Reveals Details of a Difficult Life(Los Angeles) - The Duke Lacrosse case is no longer the lead story on the network and cable news shows, but there is one central figure, who was there on the night in question and who?s [sic] voice has been silent...

Ironies

Posted on August 21, 2008
In justifying his character assault on the lacrosse players, History professor Peter Wood mused that the lacrosse players were undesirable upper-classers, while ?the football players here are often rural white boys with baseball caps or hard-working black students who are proud to be at Duke...

Thirty-Six Questions

Posted on August 18, 2008
?Equal justice for all in North Carolina begins with justice for Mike Nifong!? At one level, this statement is undeniable: equal justice for all would be served by Mike Nifong standing trial, an outcome prevented by then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales...

Nifong: "$34.99 Is My Final Offer"

Posted on August 15, 2008
The N&O reports that Nifong attorney Jim Craven filed a brief today asserting that the three lacrosse players unethically prosecuted by the disgraced ex-D.A. "will never collect so much as $35 from Mike Nifong." Apparently, then, $34.99 is still on the table...

Airbrushing

Posted on August 11, 2008
When asked for an anecdote of why history is important, I usually cite a story from March 1948, shortly after a coup that installed totalitarian rule in Czechoslovakia, when the Czech Communist Party (KS?) convened a celebratory gathering in Prague?s Old Town Square...

Still More: Only in Durham

Posted on August 11, 2008
It appears that NCCU has been improperly awarding degrees for a satellite campus that it set up in, of all places, the state of Georgia.

More Only in Durham

Posted on August 08, 2008
The "Committee on Justice for Mike Nifong"--which consists of two people, one of whom is Durham's resident homophobe, former Nifong citizens' committee chair Victoria Peterson--has been sending out the following item:The "Committee on Justice for Mike Nifong" is conducting a survey and we would consider your participation to be invaluable...

Brodhead, Brown, & the Seligmanns

Posted on August 07, 2008
There has been some attention in the blogosphere caused by a recent statement from Jim Cooney about a possible letter from Duke president Richard Brodhead and Reade Seligmann?s application to Brown. The Seligmann family issued a statement on the matter to the Herald-Sun, which quoted excerpts in today?s paper: Seligmann ?knows of no support that Brodhead gave him at Brown,? lawyer Richard Emery said Wednesday after his office e-mailed a statement from his client to The Herald-Sun...

FODU on Brodhead, the Giuliani Case

Posted on August 07, 2008
Jason Trumpbour's latest post.

The Baker File

Posted on August 06, 2008
[updated] From Ray Gronberg's article in this morning's H-S:Notes officials took from Mayor Bill Bell's regularly scheduled Wednesday morning meetings with City Manager Patrick Baker, for example, show the two discussed the case every week after reports surfaced that police took DNA samples from team members [3-23-06] to the time grand juries indicted the three players [5-15-06]...

Delaying Discovery

Posted on August 05, 2008
The legal skirmishing in the civil suits by both the falsely accused and the unindicted players has featured two unusual items of contention. The first was Duke?s motion to close down the Duke Lawsuit website?even as the University hosted a website containing (among other items) President Brodhead?s April 5, 2006 letter to the community...

July Events in the Case

Posted on August 02, 2008
I realize that as the case has moved into the civil suit process, many DIW readers drop by only periodically to check in on developments. For these readers, here?s a review of case-related events in July: The major parties filed their motions to dismiss the Ekstrand lawsuit...

SEALS Panel

Posted on July 31, 2008
I?m back in the United States, and yesterday participated in a lacrosse-case roundtable at the SEALS conference. My views on the case are, obviously, well-known to any reader of the blog. But here?s a summary of some points presented by the other panelists...

Nifong "Contributes" To Obama

Posted on July 27, 2008
From yesterday's Herald-Sun:Even former District Attorney Mike Nifong, who lost his job last year because of the Duke lacrosse scandal, spent much of Saturday morning canvassing homes for the Democratic presidential hopeful. "He's the right man at the right time," said Nifong...

Tone & Substance

Posted on July 21, 2008
I suspect that the 9/11 Commission public hearings introduced most people to Jamie Gorelick. In contrast to ineffective questioners such as Bob Kerrey, Jim Thompson, or Richard Ben-Veniste, Gorelick?and fellow commissioner Tim Roemer?proved an incisive cross-examiner, someone with impressive knowledge of the myriad issues associated with the commission...

More from the Rev. Barber

Posted on July 19, 2008
In recent months, the North Carolina NAACP and Rev. William Barber have taken up the cause of James Johnson, an African-American initially accused as an accomplice to murder in Wilson, North Carolina. The two pieces of evidence that the NAACP cited to justify its ?demand? that Johnson ?be exonerated?? (1) No DNA evidence linked Johnson to the crime...

The Rev. Barber

Posted on July 16, 2008
The N&O reports that William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP, has been elected to the NAACP national board.That's the same Rev. Barber who:--demanded a gag order against defense attorneys in the case, with the head of his organization's Legal Redress Committee suggesting that the defense attorneys, not Mike Nifong, had committed ethical misconduct; and then rejoiced when the order temporarily was put in place;--had his photo above an 82-point guilt-presuming memorandum of law riddled with factual errors and unfounded speculation about the lacrosse players, a document for which neither he nor author Al McSurely has ever apologized;--went to Duke Chapel to attack the lacrosse players' character while remaining silent as the grave about Nifong's procedural abuses;--suddenly rediscovered his concern with prosecutorial misconduct after the lacrosse case had concluded;--is, according to last report, overseeing his organization's own "investigation" into the lacrosse case...

A DIW Contest

Posted on July 14, 2008
Two recent breathtaking assertions prompt this two-part DIW contest. Part One. Duke attorneys Jamie Gorelick and Dan McLamb wrote, [The lacrosse players] contend that Duke and its employees violated their legal rights by providing the police with information about the alleged rape during the investigation...

Steel to Wachovia

Posted on July 10, 2008
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Wachovia has hired Bob Steel as its new chief executive officer. Notes the Journal, ?Mr. Steel said he was approached about the job in the past few days. He has a long friendship with Mr. [Lanty] Smith [who chaired the Wachovia search committee] as both share ties to Duke University; Mr...

The Lying Game

Posted on July 07, 2008
Over the extended holiday weekend, the defendants in the Ekstrand lawsuit filed their expected motions to dismiss. For the most part, they make similar arguments to the motions to dismiss the Cooper lawsuit?it was all Mike Nifong?s fault, Duke has no legal obligation to enforce its own anti-harassment policies or its Faculty Handbook, and the Durham Police Department did nothing wrong in the case...

Rabinowitz

Posted on July 07, 2008
For those who missed it, the extraordinary Dorothy Rabinowitz from today's Wall Street Journal. IUPUI, the university of which Rabinowitz writes, is a leading backer of the AAC&U, an academic organization that captures a lot of the Group of 88's ideology, and about which I wrote a few years ago here.

Only in Durham

Posted on July 01, 2008
The People's Alliance didn't exactly distinguish itself during the lacrosse case: the far-left group announced in April 2006 that it "wholly supports the struggle of this young woman [Crystal Mangum]"; resolutely stood up in November 2006 for prosecutorial misconduct in its enthusiastic support for Mike Nifong; and then stood four-square in summer 2007 for police misconduct when its most prominent City Council backer, Diane Catotti, did her best to frustrate the inquiry into why the Durham Police Department helped indict three demonstrably innocent people...

The Perkinson Files

Posted on June 30, 2008
UPI received two negative reviews from what, at first blush, could be considered expected sources. One came from The Independent: no one would have expected the Triangle?s alternative weekly to suddenly abandon its demagogic view of the lacrosse case...

Schedule

Posted on June 25, 2008
I will essentially be off-line for the next three days; I am returning to the U.S. Thursday to speak at FIRE's Campus Freedom Network conference. No comments, therefore, will be cleared until I have returned to Israel on Sunday; a new post will be up on Monday.

A Gorelick Essay

Posted on June 23, 2008
As mentioned below, Duke civil attorney Jamie Gorelick is presenting today at the NACUA conference, held in Manhattan?s Marriot Marquis hotel. Her topic: ?The Best Defense: Navigating Complex Criminal Matters on Your Campus.? An essay prepared by Gorelick and Christopher Zimmermann provides background for her talk...

Comments Policy

Posted on June 22, 2008
On at least four occasions over the course of the blog, I have printed my comments policy.Having received an e-mail yesterday inaccurately describing the comments policy, I will print it again.(1) Comments are moderated, but with the lightest of touches, to exclude only off-topic comments or obviously racist or similar remarks...

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.