Talking with JinC Regulars and Reader/Commenters – Aug. 12, 2006

New Readers’ Note: This is a post in the old web log tradition of notes and “thinking our loud” with others who know what you’re about.

I do JinC Regulars posts often. Lately I’ve included reader/commenters in the Regulars posts because the number of commenters has grown and, while I read every comment, I can no longer get back to each individual.

In the Regulars posts I try to let reader/commenters know I’m “paying attention.” An example of that is the main item in the post below.

John
___________________________________________

Folks,

For weeks many commenters have been asking questions such as: “Doesn’t the N&O have some liability for what it’s done in the Duke lacrosse case?” and “The N&O just can’t publish the “vigilante” poster and then just walk away from it, can it?”

I’ve not answered those questions. But I haven’t ignored them, either.

I’ve been talking to attorneys who are expert in First Amendment and libel law as they apply to newspapers. I’ve also talked about those same matters with journalists I respect.

Remember I’m not an attorney and I don’t consider myself a journalist.

Now a few thoughts re: the liability questions

Bottom line: In America it’s awfully hard to hold newspapers or other MSM news organization responsible for actions that in other democracies, the United Kingdom for instance, would be libelous and result in severe penalties.

But awfully hard and nearly impossible doesn’t mean impossible.

I’ve been told by people who are usually right about things that a number of people who love those Duke students who were slimed, endangered and, in my opinion, libeled by the N&O already have attorneys and researchers looking at everything the N&O did to twist what should have been a fair, thourgh police investigation into a witch hunt

What needs to be done to make a libel charge against a newspaper stick?

Everyone kept bringing up the same phrase “deliberate maliciousness.” It’s not enough that a newspaper prints something false; or prints a lot about someone that’s false; on keeps printing false or biased stories about a group. To sustain a libel charge you have to prove the newspaper deliberately set out with malicious intent to harm (libel).

You also have to prove that what the newspaper did, in fact, harmed the person or group. If no one takes what a newspaper says seriously, no harm is done, it can be argued.

I’ll be saying more about the N&O and the question of libel in a few days. This is a start.

I hope some of you who are journalists or attorneys comment as well as the rest of you.

BTW – On the matter of deliberateness, you’ll notice the word “deliberate” has recently been appearing more often in some of my N&O posts. Part of the reason for that is journalists I’ve talked with have made me aware of just how deliberate were some of the terrible things the N&O did.

Example: The Mar. 24 “broke the case” story seven times used “victim” or the possessive “victim’s” with no conditional qualifier. Two reporters are bylined on the story. So you might say, “Wow, they must have done that deliberately.”

But wait. There are editors who are supposed to catch errors and decide if what’s said in an article is as accurate as possible; is consistent with the papers news reporting standards; and conforms to those journalism ethics N&O exec editor for news Melanie Sill and public editor Ted Vaden are always talking about.

(Folks, I’m traveling now and must end this right now.

To be continued very soon, tonight I hope, assuming Muslim extremists don’t interrupt my travel plans.

John

The Churchill Series - Aug. 11, 2006

(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

I promised yesterday to illustrate Churchill's loyalty to friends with a story about his care for a person he never would have called a "friend" but whose service to Churchill placed him within a special category that included his friends to whom he was intensely loyal.

The person is Walter Thompson, for many years Churchill principal bodyguard.

In the early 30s Churchill learned that Thompson, who first became his bodyguard about 10 years before, had not been promoted in all that time by Scotland Yard. Wasn't that unusual, Churchill asked Thompson? What explained that?

Thompson feigned ignorance.

But Churchill wasn't to be put off. He pursued his questions with the Yard. He learned that Thompson had sat for promotion exams and done exceedingly well. But he lacked the range of experience an officer was expected to have for promotion. His years had been spent protecting Churchill.

This was all news to Churchill, although Thompson was well aware of why he hadn't been promoted. But as Thompson explained to his wife, Churchill was a great man who might some day be called upon to save the country. It was a privilege and duty to guard him.

For his part, once Churchill learned of the reason Thompson had failed of promotion, he began a two year campaign to reverse matters. It’s difficult to get a large organization to change or override policy, especially a policy that has some sense to it. Surely before a Scotland Yard officer is promoted he or she ought to do more than just bodyguard work.

But Churchill didn't want Thompson and his family to suffer any more on his account than they were doing already with Thompson's strange hours, frequent long trips away from home, and always dangerous work.

Churchill wrote letters, requested and was granted interviews with the Yard's top executives, and had an occasional "word" with people in the Home Office to which Scotland Yard reports. All of this was unknown to Thompson.

How did it all come out?

At the end of two years, Thompson became Detective-Sergeant and eventually a Detective-Inspector.

Thompson retired from the Yard in the late 30s and opened a grocery business. But the day after Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty, he received a call from Churchill.

Thompson rejoined the Yard, and from then until the end of the war he resumed guarding the man whose destiny he foresaw and whose life he felt he was privileged to protect.
______________________________________________
The material in this post is drawn from Tom Hickman's Churchill's Bodyguard.

Duke lacrosse: Two emails to Raleigh public editor Ted Vaden

Readers' Note: I sent a post the other day to Raleigh News & Observer public editor Ted Vaden. I said among other things he'd had no problem with the N&O's publication of the infamous "vigilante" poster.

Although, as JinC Regulars know, I've sent Vaden many posts theses past months criticizing N&O coverage of the Duke lacrosse hoax and injustices and asking for him to respond, I haven’t heard back or have been told by phone “I’m not going to answer you, John.” He’s said that even when I offered to publish in full here his responses.

But my remark the other day about the vigilante poster drew an almost immediate response from Vaden who pointed out he’d called the N&O’s publication of the “vigilante” poster “inappropriate.”

I’ve sent Vaden two emails you’ll read below.

John
_______________________________________________________

Dear Ted:

You did say the publication of the “vigilante” poster was inappropriate.

I apologize for my error.

I’m traveling now so blog work is tough. However, when I get home Sunday, I’ll go back to the post where I made the error and put a correction at its top.

I’ll send you a link to the post once I’ve made the correction.

Again, my apology.

Sincerely,

John
www.johnincarolina.com

______________________________________________________

Dear Ted:

By now you’ll have received my apology for my mistake in saying your were OK with the N&O’s publication of the infamous “vigilante” poster which served no purpose but to slime and endanger the players by provoking as vigilante posters always do irresponsible individuals and hate groups.


One good think my error accomplished was it got a response from you. I’d almost given up hope of ever getting another one from you.

Now that you are back in response mode and you’re satisfied, I hope, with what I’m doing to correct my error, will you now please respond to the portion of my post that referenced the N&O’s Mar. 24 story?

I said in the same post that drew your “vigilante” response:

Ted doesn’t like it when you call up and ask, for example, why in its Mar. 24 story that “broke” what we know is the Duke lacrosse hoax, the N&O keep calling the accuser “the victim” without ever using a conditional qualifier such as “alleged.”

As you know, the N&O never qualified any of its seven "victim" descriptions with the customary "alleged" or "reported."

The N&O's decision to seven times describe the accuser as a victim in that story that “broke the Duke lacrosse case” presented the accuser as a victim and began the deliberate N&O process of framing the Duke lacrosse players as her victimizers. By doing that, the N&O was grossly unfair to the lacrosse players and misled its readers.

The N&O has falsely told readers its “routine” to do what the N&O did. Here’s exec editor for news Melanie Sill responding to a reader at the Editor’s Blog :

Yes it's fairly routine for us to use the word "victim" in crime reports in describing the person who made the report. Sometimes it's amended "reported victim" or simply more descriptive. People report crimes, but police and law enforcement officials bring charges. […],

After reading Sill’s response, I called an editor at another paper. What’s his papers policy on using “victim” without qualification in a case like Duke lacrosse?

The editor said, “We’ve tried to stay away from ‘victim. We’ve mostly used ‘accuser;’ sometimes ‘dancer;’ that kind of thing.”

I asked if the editor was sure his paper didn’t at least sometimes use just “victim”

“I can’t say for certain it didn’t happen. But if it did, it got by us. If you can find where we did, we’ll make a correction.

We don't want to use ‘victim’ in this kind of circumstance. It's not fair to the other person or persons.”

Ted, I have Times Select so recently I went to the NY Times archives and read five Duke lacrosse articles, each of more than one thousand words.

None of the five articles used the term “victim.” Instead, terms such as “woman,” “dancer,” and most often, “accuser” were used.

In his recent letter to the N&O, Duke Law Professor James E. Coleman Jr. referred to the accuser five times as "victim," but in each case preceded it with "alleged."

Ted, I did a customized search of the N&O’s archives for the month of January, 2006, using only the entry word “rape.” I found many articles but not one in which a rape accuser was ever just called “the victim” during the investigative or pre-adjudication phase of a case growing out of the accusation.

Please speak to the N&O's exceptional and deliberate treatment given both the accuser and the lacrosse team in your Mar. 24 article.

Please also tell us how Editor Sill’s statement fits with those journalistic ethics you often write about.

I publish your response in full.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

John
www.johnincarolina.com

The Churchill Series – Aug. 10, 2006

(One of a series of weekday posts about the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

Readers Note: One of you left a kind comment on yesterday's post thread to which I've responded there.

John
_________________________________________

Churchill ended My Early Life with the oft-quoted remark the he "married and lived happily ever after.”

Certainly he and Clementine had a wonderful fifty-seven year marriage filled with love and care in good and bad times.

But their marriage had its moments, too. Sometimes things got very testy. One reason was Churchill's choice of friends.

Clementine approved of most of them but there were some – Brendan Bracken and Lord Beaverbrook were two – who for years she wished Churchill would cast aside. But he wouldn't.

Worse for Clementine, despite her protestations, he'd often invited them as overnight guests at Chartwell.

Why wouldn’t he give in to Clementine? Or at least put a little "distance" in certain friendships?

Violet Bonham Carter, Churchill’s friend for almost sixty years, gives us her answer :

His friendship was a stronghold against which the gates of Hell could not prevail. There was an absolute quality in his loyalty, known only to those safe within its walls. Their battle was his own. He would concede no inch of ground, no smallest point against them. In a friend he would defend the indefensible, explain away the inexplicable – even forgive the unforgivable.

Most of us recognize the Churchill Bonham Carter describes as the same Churchill we respect and honor.

The dogwoods, azaleas and redbuds are still beautiful here. I hope it's nice where you are, too.

Have a good weekend.

John
________________________________________________
Violet Bonham Carter, Winston Churchill: An Intimate Portrait. ( pgs. 116-117)

Talking with JinC Regulars and Readers – Aug. 10, 2006

Traveling so this is “in-between” and short.

You’ll see I picked up and posted following the prompts many of you gave me re: Liestoppers. Thanks again.

Thanks also for the heads-up on Estrich’s 180. More on that this weekend.

Thanks for all the heads up you folks give me. You help keep me smart. No, “You help keep me less dumb” is more like it.

You’ll see that now that that traffic at JinC has picked up and some “key players” on the DL hoax and a few national writers are visiting often, some other folks who write columns and blogs have taken to dropping whole columns or posts onto the comment threads.

As a one time only, “here’s what I’m about” promotion, let’s see for now how things work.

But as anything more than that, "No." Please respect the purpose of the comment threads.

A few of you have asked how I can wish people like the accuser and Ted Vaden well. That’s a good question that deserves a thoughtful answers. I’ll put another Talking with JinC …. post up tonight with my answer. I need time to put my answer together.

For now bear this in mind: In the cases of the accuser and Vaden, I’ve been careful to say I wish them well in the personal portion of their lives.

It’s must rush time. Sorry to be abrupt. Back tonight after 11 p.m.

Two simple questions for Democrats and MSM

CNN is reporting:

The United States on Thursday raised its terror threat level after British police said they had arrested more than 20 suspects in a major terrorist plot to blow up passenger jets flying between the United Kingdom and the United States.

The foiled plot was "intended to be mass murder on an unimaginable scale," London's Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson said.

The intelligence that uncovered the plot "makes very strong links to al Qaeda," a senior U.S. administration official told CNN.

The plot involved hiding masked liquid explosives in carry-on luggage, a U.S. government official told CNN.

One government official said the terrorists had hoped to target flights to major airports in New York, Washington and California, all major summer tourist destinations.

"They were not yet sitting on an airplane," but were very close to traveling, a senior U.S. counterterrorism official told AP. […]

QUESTION FOR DEMOCRATS AND MSM: Now do you believe America and the rest of the civilized world is at war?

Are you finally ready to stop sneeringly referring to our government’s efforts to protect us as "part of Bush's 'war on terrorism?'"

Some truth about Liestoppers.com

The other day I forget to mention Liestoppers.com among the blogs helping “shine the lights” on just what’s been happening in Durham.

Liestoppers is doing a fine job of helping expose the hoax followed by a witch hunt followed by “burnings” such as the forced resignation of former Duke Men’s lacrosse coach Mike Pressler, the circulation of CrimeStoppers’ Wanted posters and the Raleigh News & Observer’s notorious “vigilante” poster, and the indictments of the innocent Duke students following a series of investigative, and very likely illegal, travesties.

Liestoppers often brings a touch of humor, including parody to its work as it does in this Aug. 9 post announcing some important news regarding election opposition to Nifong :

With hope that this is just the first of several upcoming trials for Mr. Nifong, it appears that proceedings have begun today in the Court of Public Opinion otherwise known as Durham County, North Carolina.

This afternoon, both [Republican] Steve Monks and the Committee to Recall Nifong - Vote Cheek declared intentions to challenge Mr. Nifong this fall.

Herald Sun

"Conceding that he desperately needed to boost his name recognition, local Republican Party Chairman Steve Monks ended weeks of speculation Wednesday by saying he will run as an unaffiliated write-in candidate for district attorney in November.

The Committee to Recall Nifong - Vote Cheek filed with the Durham County Board of Elections as a Political Action Committee according to Committee spokesperson Beth Brewer. Mrs. Brewer indicated that a formal statement would be released Monday. The Committee to Recall Nifong - Vote Cheek may be contacted at 919.310.1147 or bbrewer@recallnifong.com.

At issue in this trial by election will be Mr. Nifong’s conduct over the course of his brief occupation of the District Attorney’s office. Will the jurors known as Durham County registered voters find Mr. Nifong guilty of betraying justice and public trust in this trial by election?

Will these jurors be asked to consider additional charges against Defendant Nifong such as:

1. Placing persecution before investigation
2. Jumping to false conclusions
3. Improper self insertion into lineup procedures
4. Impersonation of a DPD Chief Investigator
5. Conduct unbecoming a District Attorney by temper tantrum and foot stomp
6. Menacing by verbal assault
7. Inciting racial and social division in their community
8. Electioneering
9. Misappropriation of Public Trust
10. Indecent exposure of Durham County to Civil Lawsuits
11. Hijacking the District Attorney‘s office for his own personal fiefdom

Will the voting jurors of Durham County find Mr. Nifong guilty of incompetence? …

Well, the “attorneys” a Liestoppers have certainly presented a very good case so far.

One JinC worry: Steve Monks splitting the “jury vote,” and thereby helping allow Nifong to “go free” to inflict on the rest of us in Durham four more years of “Nifong justice.”

If that happens, I’ll move to Raleigh, even if that means I’ll have to live next door to the News & Observer.

Keep looking in on Liestoppers.

And thanks Regulars and Readers for reminding me about Liestoppers.

The Churchill Series - Aug. 9, 2006

(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

In the early summer of 1906, Lady Wemyss hosted one a small dinner party. The guests included a bright, charming nineteen year old, Violet Asquith, daughter of Herbert Asquith, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and soon to be Prime Minister. Violet was seated next to a thirty-two year old Member of Parliament, Winston Churchill, the son of a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Randolph Churchill.

Violet tells us about the evening:

I found myself sitting next to this young man who seemed to me quite different from any other young man I had ever met. For a long time he remained sunk in abstraction.

Then he appeared to become suddenly aware of my existence. He turned on me a lowering gaze and asked me abruptly how old I was. I replied that I was nineteen.

“And I,” he said almost despairingly, “am thirty-two already. Younger than anyone else who counts, though, “he added, as if to comfort himself.

Then savagely: “Curse ruthless time! Curse our mortality. How cruelly short is the allotted span for all we must cram into it.” And he burst forth into an eloquent diatribe on the shortness of human life , the immensity of possible human accomplishment – a theme so well exploited by the of all ages that it might seem difficult to invest it with a new and startling significance .

Yet for me he did so, in a torrent of magnificent language which appeared to be both effortless and inexhaustible and ended up with the words I shall always remember: “we are all worms. But I do believe that I am a glowworm.”

By this time I was convinced of it – and my conviction remained unshaken throughout the years that followed.

The young Violet Asquith, who later became Violet Bonham Carter, and Winston Churchill began a remarkable friendship that night. They remained friends for the next fifty-nine years until Churchill died on January 24, 1965.

Bonham Carter paid a last visit to the Churchill shortly before he died. She surely thought of that summer evening in 1906 when a young man told her he was "a glowworm," something she never doubted and lived to see History confirm.
__________________________________________________
Violet Bonham Carter, Winston Churchill: An intimate Portrait. (p. 3)

Talking with JinC Regulars and Reader Commenter - Aug. 9, 2006

I'm touched, informed and uplifted by your support and comments.

I'm also racing for the airport.

If you look at the recent posts you'll see where you can take you talents and care and put them to good use.

The N&O needs to here from you. There are people there still trying to prop up Nifong. They and some others in media don't want, in my opinion for more of the public to learn that DL is a hoax, followed by injustices and propped up now by bias and special interest ideologues and their silent enablers.

Sorry I didn't get Liestoppers and Lew Rockwell post done. I will late tonight. Both blogs are doing great work as are a growing number of blogs who are joining us.

Some news tonight but it will go up late.

Look for another of these "Talking etc. post by tomorrow A. M.

A hat tip to you all.

BTW - Don't miss the Aug. 8 Churchill Series post.

This unproofed.

John

Duke lacrosse:KC Johnson as Raleigh N&O public editor

The current Raleigh News & Observer public editor is Ted Vaden, a career N&O employee who applauded the N&O's refusal to publish any on the Danish cartoons and then a few weeks later had no problem with the N&O’s publication of the infamous “vigilante” poster.

Ted doesn’t like it when you call up and ask, for example, why in its Mar. 24 story that “broke” what we know is the Duke lacrosse hoax, the N&O keep calling the accuser “the victim” without ever using a conditional qualifier such as “alleged.”

Vaden writes a Sunday column a friend of mine calls the “Gosh we’re great but they don’t know it” column.

Vaden's says at his blog that he's going to write this Sunday's column on the small dating error in reporter Joe Neff’s 3,700 word story exposing some of DA Mike Nifong and certain police investigators procedural violations and very possibly illegal actions (Neff does not come right out and say certain actions were illegal. - JinC)

You can read what Vaden is saying so far at his blog here.

While I wish Vaden well personally, it's too bad the N&O doesn't have a public editor like historian and blogger KC Johnson.

If KC was the N&O’s public editor imagine your shock when you opened the N&O as read something as fact-filled, well-written and carefully reasoned as what KC's just posted:

Timelines are unusually significant in the Duke lacrosse case. Sunday’s N&O article by Joseph Neff, and subsequent correction of the date of a key memo whose existence Neff first revealed, provides more timeline clues. For the first time, it seems more than plausible to suggest that D.A. Mike Nifong’s misbehavior extended beyond procedural misconduct.

Thanks to the N&O, a new timeline of the case’s investigation exists. Dates of items first publicly revealed from the Neff exposé are bolded.

March 16: Operating under the assumption that, as the accuser had claimed, her attackers were named Matt, Adam, and Brett, the Durham police constructed a photo lineup array. The lineup loosely conformed to Durham’s guidelines (which are among the state’s weakest): the accuser was told that her attackers might or might not be in the array, and she was shown five “filler” photos for every suspect.

These “filler” photos, however, were of other lacrosse players, not people uninvolved with the case, as the guidelines suggest. (The photos came from the Duke lacrosse website.) Since the team had two students named Matt, the accuser looked at four arrays of six photos each. She identified no one as her attacker. (blod JinC)

March 21: When the accuser returned to the police station to pick up some of her other items, she was shown two more six-player arrays. The accuser identified no one. That outcome should have come as little surprise to the police.

In extraordinarily vague terms, she had described one of her attackers as “chubby” and said a second weighed about 270 pounds. Duke’s lacrosse team, an elite Division I athletic squad, had no “chubby” players, nor did any of its players weigh anything close to 270 pounds.

March 23: Nifong’s office obtained a court order for all 46 white players on the team to submit DNA samples. The motion neglected to inform the court that the accuser had failed in photo lineups to identify as her attackers at least 36 players on the team, including at least two (Reade Seligmann and Dave Evans) she ultimately would select.

With the wording of the order, authorities abandoned their March 16 belief that Adam, Matt, Matt, and Brett were their targets; now all 46 white players were suspects. At the time, Nifong promised, “The DNA evidence requested will immediately rule out any innocent persons, and show conclusive evidence as to who the suspect(s) are in the alleged violent attack upon this victim.”

March 27-28: In his first public comments on the matter, Nifong repeatedly expressed confidence—in interviews with MSNBC and with North Carolina stations WRAL and NBC-17 —that the DNA evidence produced by the court order would solve the case.

March 29: In an interview with the N&O that was published March 30, Nifong suddenly and dramatically reversed course on the significance of DNA to the case. He now suggested that the attackers could have used condoms—even though the accuser had denied her alleged attackers used condoms, which the district attorney would have known had he read his own file before speaking out publicly. "How does DNA exonerate you?,” mused Nifong. “It's either a match or there's not a match. If the only thing that we ever have in this case is DNA, then we wouldn't have a case.

He no longer mentioned a relationship between the return of the DNA results and closing out the case, and offered no public explanation for his new viewpoint.

March 31, 12.23pm: In a meeting with the two chief police investigators on the case, Nifong ordered a second photo lineup. Only this time, he told the officers, they were to ignore Durham’s procedures and these Nifong-mandated procedural irregularities “strongly suggest[ed] that the purpose of the identification process was to give the alleged victim an opportunity to pick three members of the lacrosse team who could be charged. Any three students would do; there could be no wrong choice.”

April 4, 11.29am: The accuser’s procedurally flawed photo ID session began. Eventually, the accuser identified four players, of whom Nifong charged three. (He couldn’t charge all four, since none of the accuser’s myriad stories had cited an attack by four players, though she had claimed at one point that five had attacked her.)

Nifong has never publicly explained how he chose the three that he did; the accuser said she was 100% certain that Seligmann “sort” of looked like a person who attacked her, while she commented, after seeing a photo of Evans, to be 90% certain that the photo resembled someone with a mustache who attacked her. Evans has no mustache.

April 4, 3.59pm: Police Investigator Michelle Soucie memorialized a conversation in which she gave Nifong price quotes for DNA tests at a private lab. In his pre-primary publicity barrage, Nifong had never suggested that he would request a second round of tests: he had stated, repeatedly, that he would indict based on the results from the state lab. Indeed, the fact that the prestigious SBI lab handled his request on an expedited fashion suggested that its word would be definitive.

Nifong’s only motive for seeking a second round of tests, of course, was bad news from the SBI. In short, sometime before 3.59pm on April 4, the district attorney knew that the first DNA tests would all come back negative. Alas, the N&O, since it dated the memorandum incorrectly in an error unrelated to the content of the story as a whole, has removed this document from its website.

April 10: Nifong supplied the DNA test results to defense attorneys, who publicly announced that all 46 were negative.

This timeline reveals an investigation whose basic evidentiary goal veered dramatically whenever findings contradicted the district attorney’s public theories and political needs. The theories drove the search for evidence; the finding of evidence had no impact on the theories. As a result, the inquiry divided into three, distinct, segments.

First, from March 14 through March 21, the police employed standard tactics, showing the accuser a photo lineup that, more or less (less, in this case), conformed to the spirit of city guidelines. The accuser identified no one; her descriptions of at least two of her alleged assailants did not resemble anyone on the team.

The second stage began sometime between March 21 and March 23, when Nifong seized control of the case. The district attorney argued now that DNA, not results from a photo lineup, would provide the key evidence, and obtained an extraordinarily broad court order to get the evidence he wanted.

Then, no later than the morning of March 31, Nifong completely reversed himself: a photo lineup, not DNA, would supply the key evidence—even though, just 10 days earlier, he had gone to the court on the grounds that DNA, not photos, would make his case.

In the new reality, moreover, authorities would simply pretend that the first photo lineup had never occurred. To ensure that someone would be picked that he could indict before the May primary, the district attorney ordered the police to conduct a lineup that violated Durham’s procedures by consisting solely of suspects, and by telling the accuser of this fact.(bold JinC)

The transition from phase one of the investigation to phase two—i.e., from reliance on photo IDs to the mass gathering of DNA evidence—was irregular: the courts generally frown on demanding DNA solely on the basis of group membership. As Durham attorney Alex Charns noted at the time, “I can't imagine a scenario where this would be reasonable to do this so early in the investigation. It seems unusual, it seems over-broad, and it seems frightening that they're invading the privacy of so many people." To interpret Nifong’s actions in the most favorable light to the district attorney, perhaps he wished to give every conceivable benefit of the doubt to the accuser.

There can be, however, no benign explanation for the transition from stage two (DNA as the inculpating evidence) to stage three (back to photos, but with a lineup that violated all procedures).

The question, therefore, becomes when, and especially why, Nifong made this decision. The Soucie memo confirms that the district attorney had word of the negative DNA results at least six days before they were publicly revealed. How much earlier had he gained access to this information? Did he know of the likely negative outcome on March 29, when he inexplicably started to downplay the significance of DNA in his public statements?

Regarding the negative DNA tests, the question is: what did Nifong know, and when did he know it?

Specifically, why, on March 31, did he order the Durham police to orchestrate a second lineup that violated their own procedures in virtually every way, even though they had already conducted a lineup whose results he ignored? Did he do so in response to a heads-up that the DNA tests he had promised would “show conclusive evidence as to who the suspect(s) are in the alleged violent attack” instead produced no matches? If so, he dangerously abused his authority, in a manner well beyond his (by now routine) violations of the state ethics code.

It’s unlikely that the [Durham]Herald-Sun, whose ardently pro-Nifong editorial stance has recently seeped into its news coverage, will explore these matters; and, from the look of things, the Herald-Sun is the only media outlet to which Nifong speaks.

Perhaps, in any case, the questions of what Nifong knew and when he knew it are more appropriate for federal authorities to ask. It’s high time they did so.

High time, indeed.

I hope N&O public editor Ted Vaden and editorial page editor Steve Ford read KC's post and then, instead of continuing the N&O's editorial policy of "Leave it to Nifong," call for his replacement and a federal investigation?

The players and their families deserve no less. So do all the rest of us in North Carolina who care about the proper administration of justice.

It's time the N&O got with us.

Ted Vaden's email: ted.vaden@newsobserver.com

Steve Ford's email: sford@newsobserver.com

The Churchill Series – Aug. 8, 2006

(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

In the early summer of 1906, Lady Wemyss hosted one a small dinner party. The guests included a bright, charming nineteen year old, Violet Asquith, daughter of Herbert Asquith, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and soon to be Prime Minister. Violet was seated next to a thirty-two year old Member of Parliament, Winston Churchill, the son of a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Randolph Churchill.

Violet tells us about the evening:

I found myself sitting next to this young man who seemed to me quite different from any other young man I had ever met. For a long time he remained sunk in abstraction.

Then he appeared to become suddenly aware of my existence. He turned on me a lowering gaze and asked me abruptly how old I was. I replied that I was nineteen.

“And I,” he said almost despairingly, “am thirty-two already. Younger than anyone else who counts, though, “he added, as if to comfort himself.

Then savagely: “Curse ruthless time! Curse our mortality. How cruelly short is the allotted span for all we must cram into it.” And he burst forth into an eloquent diatribe on the shortness of human life , the immensity of possible human accomplishment – a theme so well exploited by the of all ages that it might seem difficult to invest it with a new and startling significance .

Yet for me he did so, in a torrent of magnificent language which appeared to be both effortless and inexhaustible and ended up with the words I shall always remember: “we are all worms. But I do believe that I am a glowworm.”

By this time I was convinced of it – and my conviction remained unshaken throughout the years that followed.

The young Violet Asquith, who later became Violet Bonham Carter, and Winston Churchill began a remarkable friendship that night. They remained friends for the next fifty-nine years until Churchill died on January 24, 1965.

Bonham Carter paid a last visit to the Churchill shortly before he died. She surely thought of that summer evening in 1906 when a young man told her he was "a glowworm," something she never doubted and lived to see History confirm.
__________________________________________________
Violet Bonham Carter, Winston Churchill: An intimate Portrait. (p. 3)

Duke lacrosse: Raleigh N&O correction is wrong

Readers' Note: Raleigh News & Observer reporter Joe Neff's story, "Lacrosse files show gaps in DA's case," has been widely praised for it exposure of actions by DA Mike Nifong and certain Durham police investigators that violated proper investigative procedures and very likely violated the law as well, although Neff's does not come right out and say that.

Neff's 3,700 word story contains one small error which you'll read about below.

Based on that error, the N&O today issued a correction which was the right thing to do. But the N&O then used that correction to undercut the major thrust of Neff's story. That wasn't the right thing to do.

The N&O appears to be unable to consistently and fully tell readers the truth about the Duke lacrosse hoax which it helped turn into a witch hunt with a series of grossly inaccurate, biased and inflammatory stories that cast the accuser as the victim and the lacrosse players as her gang-rape victimizers.

A JinC reader has just made this comment:

The top editors inside the N&O are biased against the Duke students. By overreacting to an error in Neff's otherwise excellent story, they have made Neff's error look worse than it actually is and show an ignorance of the facts of the case. Once again, shame on the N&O and its top editors.

I think the reader has it right.

I just left the following comment at N&O executive editor for news Melanie Sill's McClatchy Company sponsored Editor's Blog. I hope many of you will go there and make your own comments.

John
____________________________________________


Dear Melanie:

Regarding DPD Inv. Michelle Soucie's memorandum of April 4 which the N&O incorrectly reported as being written on April 17 you say:

"The error means the lead illustration on the story does not have the significance we thought it did. We have removed the illustration from our Web site."

In a front page correction today the N&O says in part: “This error changes the implication of the first five paragraphs of the story: that the conversation between Nifong and Soucie was an example of the words and actions of police and persecutors outpacing the facts in the file.”

No it doesn’t change "the implication of the first five ...."

Here’s part of what the distinguished historian and blogger Robert KC Johnson just said in his post, “The Soucie Memo”

http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/28991.html

Johnson says: -- The words of the correction were poorly chosen. For, in fact, as Neff’s original article claimed, “the conversation between Nifong and Soucie was an example of the words and actions of police and prosecutors outpacing the facts in the file.”

Before April 4, Nifong gave dozens of interviews to the state and national media commenting with certainty on the “events” of the “rape.” Here are three typical examples of his remarks:

March 29, MSNBC:“The circumstances of the case are not suggestive of the alternate explanation that has been suggested by some of the members of the situation. There is evidence of trauma in the victim’s vaginal area that was noted when she was examined by a nurse at the hospital.”

March 29, WRAL: “My reading of the report of the emergency room nurse would indicate that some type of sexual assault did in fact take place.”

March 30, CBS News: "The victim was examined at Duke University Medical Center by a nurse who was specially trained in sexual assault cases. And the investigation at that time was certainly consistent with a sexual assault having taken place.”

Yet, days after Nifong made these and other similar statements, Soucie recorded the following, according to the memo the N&O uncovered: "Mike Nifong stated that: Also need documentation on escort service and how they do business. Need to nail down what victim did on the day before arriving at 610 N. Buchanan so we can show that she did not receive trauma prior to the incident—with witnesses."

Neff’s original conclusion is correct: Nifong “had said repeatedly on national television that he was certain the dancer had been raped.

Yet the prosecutor was still trying to rule out other explanations for the vaginal swelling a hospital noted in its examination of the accuser. The words and actions of police and prosecutors had outpaced the facts in the file, and not for the first time.”

This memo, in short, is the clearest example to date of misconduct by Nifong in his public remarks.

Not only was he violating the state bar’s prohibition against statements “that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused,” he was, to put it bluntly, dissembling.

KC Johnson says a lot more in the post, all of it consistent with what Neff said and, if anything, even more damaging to what shreds are left of the "case" and Nifong's reputation.

Melanie, There’s a lot more to the post. I hope you and other N&O editors read it.

The N&O needs to issue an immediate front page correction of today’s erroneous correction.

I’ll be asking public editor Ted Vaden to read KC’s post after which I hope he also requests a correction of today’s erroneous post.

While we’re on the subject of KC, why haven’t you interviewed him for a major story?

Not only is KC one of America’s most distinguished historians, he’s published extensively on the Duke lacrosse hoax, including the many procedural errors and false statements made by DA Nifong and some Durham police investigators.

You’ve published many statements and op-eds by members of the now discredited, widely ridiculed Duke faculty Group of 88 and other academics of similar liberal/leftist ideological bent.

I think your sensible readers would welcome an interview story featuring someone like KC Johnson. And a little change might be good for the N&O.

Thank you for providing a means for me to comment.

John
www.johnincarolina.com

Duke lacrosse: Neff’s story looks even stronger now

Today’s Raleigh N&O has a front page correction of a dating error in reporter Joe Neff’s Sunday, Aug. 6, story, "Lacrosse files show gaps in DA's case."

Neff said a memorandum by Durham PD Inv. Michelle Soucie was written on April 17. In fact, the memorandum was actually written of April 4.

In its correction, "Story on Duke case erred on DA's order,"the N&O says:

“This error changes the implication of the first five paragraphs of the story: that the conversation between Nifong and Soucie was an example of the words and actions of police and persecutors outpacing the facts in the file.”

No, the dating error doesn’t do that. As historian and blogger KC Johnson points out :

“[I]n fact, as Neff’s original article claimed, “the conversation between Nifong and Soucie was an example of the words and actions of police and prosecutors outpacing the facts in the file.” (bold KC’s)

Look at just some of what KC lays out to contradict the N&O's correction and demonstrating that Neff's article is far more damning of Nifong's conduct than many people, including me, realized. An excerpt from KC post, “The Soucie Memo:”

Neff made a rare error, however, in the story, inaccurately describing a memorandum by Durham PD Investigator Michelle Soucie as having been penned on April 17, when actually the memo was written on April 4. The N&O promptly issued a correction.

The error, however, meant only that Neff’s story was excessively kind to Nifong, and affected none of the story’s conclusions. The material in the excerpted portions of the Soucie memo, in combination with other facts and documents already publicly available, reinforces the pattern of this case: the more material released, the more indefensible Nifong’s behavior appears.

The previously unreleased Soucie memorandum brought four items to light. In its correction statement, the N&O writes that the corrected date for the memorandum (from April 17 to April 4) “changes the implication of the first five paragraphs of the story: that the conversation between Nifong and Soucie was an example of the words and actions of police and prosecutors outpacing the facts in the file.”

The words of the correction were poorly chosen. For, in fact, as Neff’s original article claimed, “the conversation between Nifong and Soucie was an example of the words and actions of police and prosecutors outpacing the facts in the file.”

Before April 4, Nifong gave dozens of interviews to the state and national media commenting with certainty on the “events” of the “rape.” Here are three typical examples of his remarks:

March 29, MSNBC:“The circumstances of the case are not suggestive of the alternate explanation that has been suggested by some of the members of the situation. There is evidence of trauma in the victim’s vaginal area that was noted when she was examined by a nurse at the hospital.”

March 29, WRAL: “My reading of the report of the emergency room nurse would indicate that some type of sexual assault did in fact take place.”

March 30, CBS News: "The victim was examined at Duke University Medical Center by a nurse who was specially trained in sexual assault cases. And the investigation at that time was certainly consistent with a sexual assault having taken place.”

Yet, days after Nifong made these and other similar statements, Soucie recorded the following, according to the memo the N&O uncovered: "Mike Nifong stated that: Also need documentation on escort service and how they do business. Need to nail down what victim did on the day before arriving at 610 N. Buchanan so we can show that she did not receive trauma prior to the incident—with witnesses."

Neff’s original conclusion is correct: Nifong “had said repeatedly on national television that he was certain the dancer had been raped. Yet the prosecutor was still trying to rule out other explanations for the vaginal swelling a hospital noted in its examination of the accuser. The words and actions of police and prosecutors had outpaced the facts in the file, and not for the first time.”(Bold added)

This memo, in short, is the clearest example to date of misconduct by Nifong in his public remarks. Not only was he violating the state bar’s prohibition against statements “that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused,” he was, to put it bluntly, dissembling.

Shortly after he dismissed “the alternate explanation” for the accuser’s alleged injuries (which, as things turned out, were far less severe than the D.A. claimed) to MSNBC, Nifong admitted to Soucie that he wasn’t sure if an “alternate explanation” did exist—namely, that “what [the alleged] victim did on the day before arriving at 610 N. Buchanan” could explain her trauma.

Neff’s words—“the words and actions of police and prosecutors had outpaced the facts in the file”—are charitable in describing the misconduct here.

The N&O obviously had to issue a correction regarding the date of the Soucie memorandum, pointing out that it was written before Nifong sought indictments. But, contrary to the insinuation of the correction text, the memo’s earlier date actually raises more questions about Nifong’s conduct, rather than weakening any of the article’s conclusions.

Three matters are immediately apparent.

First, the order contained in the Soucie memo had one immediate effect: the obtaining of the statement of Jarriel Johnson, the figure generally described as the accuser’s “driver.” Johnson provided his statement to police two days after Nifong instructed Soucie “to nail down what victim did on the day before arriving at 610 N. Buchanan.”

Unfortunately for the district attorney, however, Johnson’s affidavit - reproduced at page 27 of this motion (I was unable to access the motion - JinC)- provided no help in showing “that [the accuser] did not receive trauma prior to the incident.”

Johnson revealed that the accuser had engaged in a variety of private “events” in the hours before the lacrosse party, including at least one that involved use of a vibrator. As Liestoppers blog explained yesterday, “While Nifong instructed DPD to find witnesses to show that the accuser's nether region was unswollen, instead they found him Jarriel Johnson whose description of accuser's activities seemed to do the exact opposite. Nifong asked for proof that the swelling couldn't have been caused by the accuser's escort service activities, and instead found proof that it could very well have.”

Yet [Nifong] sought indictments anyway. The correct dating of the Soucie memo thus shows Nifong’s closed-mindedness to any evidence contradicting his theories as early as April 6. So much for his duty, under the state bar’s ethics code, to serve as “a minister of justice.”

There is a lot more in KC's post, all of it just as devastating to Nifong's "case."

When you finish KC's post, I hope you agree that the N&O needs to correct today's correction. As the N&O's correction now stands, it tells readers something KC's post demonstrates is not true.

I'm going to make a comment at the N&O exec editor for news Melanie Sill's Editor's Blog. I intend to ask Sill to read KC's post and than prepare a much needed correction of the N&O's erroneous statement today that a simple dating error:

“changes the implication of the first five paragraphs of the story: that the conversation between Nifong and Soucie was an example of the words and actions of police and persecutors outpacing the facts in the file.”

I'll also will request the N&O conduct and publish a major interview with KC.

I hope many of you do the same.

Throughout the Duke lacrosse hoax the N&O has served readers anonymous interviews with the woman it called "the victim" and some of her family members. It's also served up interviews and op-ed columns from members of the now discredited and widely-ridiculed Duke faculty Group of 88.

The N&O should now give readers something very different: a major story/interview with a distinguished historian who's remarkably well-informed about Nifong's actions and how they violated investigative procedures and bar association ethics and guidelines.

If you want to email Sill it's: melanie.sill@newsobserver.com

N&O's public editor Ted Vaden's email is: ted.vaden@newsobserver.com

I hope you all make your voices heard.

No Churchill Series post - Aug. 7, 2006

Folks,

I'm sorry there'll be no Churchill Series post today.

It's the workload.

I'll be posting tomorrow.

I hope you all visit.

Best,

John

Duke lacrosse: KC Johnson operates on DA Nifong

Some surgeons use laser instruments to cut and dissolve tissue.

I kept thinking about that as I read KC Johnson’s latest post: “Boasting of Closed-Mindedness.”

If you’ve scrubbed, you’re welcome to join the rest of us who in a few minutes will go into the O.R. to observe KC.

According to the schedule, when we enter KC should be making a few, quick, final cuts into Duke President Richard H. Brodhead’s large spineless area. Brodhead is under general anesthesia, so of course he can’t say anything about Duke lacrosse.

KC will next turn to the patient scheduled for major surgery today, Michael Nifong of Durham, North Carolina. For part of the operation KC will team with another fine surgeon who recently joined us, Jason Trumpbour of Friends of Duke University.

Patient Nifong has been rushed to surgery because of severe credibility problems and hemorrhaging indictments. Most people think Nifong is a hopeless case, but with surgeons like KC and Trumpbour, I guess we can always hope.

Let’s go in.

Look, there’s KC. And Trumpbour will join KC once he's finished putting on his gloves and mask :

Duke president Richard Brodhead—having declined to protest a system in which local authorities refuse to follow their own procedures when investigating his own institution's students—now has publicly claimed that three Duke students will have the opportunity “to be proved innocent” in a situation that “only the criminal justice system can resolve.”

In the Alice-in-Wonderland world that is Durham justice, such sentiments, which turn American judicial philosophy on its head, are all too common—as in a peculiar editorial from the Durham Herald-Sun, which praised D.A. Mike Nifong for stating at a recent press conference,“I have not backed off from my initial assessment of the case.” This comment provided a “boost of confidence” to those, like the Herald-Sun editorial board, who support Nifong.

Following up on several posts from John in Carolina, which have raised serious doubts about the Herald-Sun’s journalistic integrity, a recent letter to the editor by Friends of Duke University spokesperson Jason Trumpbour eviscerated the editorial. As Trumpbour noted, the editors “stated that Nifong ‘still believes he has a good case’ and find that significant for some reason. Yet, Nifong apparently lacks the courage of those convictions.

After ramrodding evidence through a hopelessly backlogged SBI crime lab and racing to get indictments before the election, Nifong is now trying to postpone the day of reckoning until next spring. Nifong refused to even look at any of the exculpatory evidence proffered to him by the defense.

This action violated North Carolina Rule of Professional Conduct 3.8 which prohibits a prosecutor from avoiding ‘pursuit of evidence merely because he or she believes it will damage the prosecutor's case.’ In hiding his eyes from that evidence, Nifong abdicated the responsibilities of the office to which he was appointed and should have no further claim to it.”

Isn't that great work Drs. Johnson and Trumpbour are doing!

You can watch the rest of "the operation" here.

I'm sorry but I have to go now. I want to watch some JinC Regulars do out-patient truth implants at the Editor's Blog clinic.

Come over later and watch some of that here.

Before you go, a final word: Blog "medical" ethics require that I tell you KC and Friends of Duke University frequently link to JinC

Talking to JinC Regulars and Commenters – 8-6-06

Readers’ Note: This will be rough, with unproofed items. Unless you’re the occasional troll, you’ll understand and catch on quickly.

John
_________________________________________

First, a special welcome to those showing up here recently who are civilly and thoughtfully critical of what I and others are saying.

Let’s “talk.” Except for occasional trolls, everyone who comments here is the way you all are being.

When I say that about you who are critical I have in mind commenters like Michael, who self-describes as a Duke faculty member and asserts points supportive of President Brodhead’s leadership, with particular reference to Brodhead’s DL related decisions.

I wish I could respond to Michael and those like him in the detailed, thoughtful way Michael’s comments merit.

I hope to soon put up a few posts responding to some of what Michael and other reasonable critics are saying, especially about the university’s response/non-response.

Now, a very important “Good News” item that reflects on the quality of the comments you folks make here.

You’ve no doubt read JinC posts reporting on attorney Alex Charns’ representation of an unindicted Duke lacrosse player. Charns maintains that player and the rest of the Duke Men’s lacrosse team were libeled by a Durahm CrimeStoppers poster telling the community a horrific crime had been committed in the house on N. Buchanan Blvd. the night of Mar. 13/14.

The CS story has continued to grow since I started following it. And now, in my opinion, it’s gotten “too big” for this “pajama blogger.”

So I talked to Charns and historian and blogger KC Johnson.

My point: KC should take over interviewing Charns and reporting to you. He’s a smarter and better blogger than I am.

Charns CS claims and his client(s) need and deserve a blogger who’s a first-rate researcher, knows and teaches the law, writes well and, most important, cares about right.

(“John, Will you please hurry up and tell us what Charns and KC said?” - “Of course, I’ll be happy to. I didn’t realize I was holding things up.”)

Charns said: “Whatever will help my client.”

KC said, “Yes.”

It’s wonderful news, isn’t it!

Folks, You helped bring about how KC will take on CS reporting and publish here at JinC. And I’m not just “PRing” when I say that.

KC and I have talked about how I’ll “hand-off” to him. We looked at whether he would put CS posts at his blog, with my linking there, or post here and then link back to his blog.

I made the case that his blog posts drew interesting comments but the JinC comments came from a very special and well-informed group of people, the occasional trolls excepted.

I had an easy sell because KC has been a regular here for a while and has read your comments.

Of course, I had enough sense to also say to KC that the quality of commenters has nothing to do with the quality of the blogger.

Look for KC to post here very soon.

The synergy of KC and Alex working together will be great for so many reasons that you all know.

I’ll put up a link tomorrow to KC’s CV and his previous DL posts, things I should have done some time ago.

For those of you who don’t know about KC and his work, I’ll just say here what I said to Alex when he said he was fine with KC taking on the CS blogging: “You just traded in your old Chevy for a new Lexus.”

I’ll wrap up my part in CS matters in a few days with two posts.

One will be a summary of my current thoughts on CS matters.

The other post will be a “Thank you” to Charns, an attorney I’ve respected as I read over the years about his work, and who I’ve now grown to further respect as I’ve worked with him on the CS case.

Whoever decided to retain Charns to represent that unindicted Duke lacrosse player choose very wisely.

Another matter ---

So the N&O isn’t saying much about the “fat, bald cop” at Blinco’s.

That gives a whole new meaning to journalists' use of the term "cover" as in: "Don't worry, Sgt Gottlieb, the N&O will cover you just the way we cover oursleves when we're stopped for DUIs. And thank you for helping out with that accident report involving my editor."

But it seems the N&O may not be able to "cover" Gottlieb as fully as he’d like.

Apparently there’s something in the law the N&O hasn’t mentioned. It has to do with police officers being always "on duty" when a crime is being committed and also being responsible to render aid, such as first aid or calling for an ambulance, when someone is, for example, assaulted. Imagine that!

But it makes sense, doesn’t it?

I’m going to try to learn more about all of that. I'm also going to ask KC to “take a look.”

One of us will get back to you soon. And, yes, I also hope it will be KC.

Responding to a critic:

John, When you listed the blogs that give us information about the DL case months before the N&O and the rest of MSM, you should have mentioned Liestoppers.com

Yes, I should have. I’ll correct that tomorrow. Look for a short post with a title like: “Here’s some truth about Liestoppers.”

Also, I should have mentioned Lew Rockwell.com He’s done some fine work.

I’m putting together a major post listing bloggers who are working the DL case within boundries I agree with (by “boundries I agree with” I mean blogs making the case on due process, equity and fact-based issues. The race obsessed blogs, the ones savaging the accuser, etc are not for me.)

If you know of some blogs you think I should have mentioned, please let me know.

I may not list the blog right off. That could be because I just want time to take a look at it for a few months. Or maybe I don’t agree with you. But I will look

The hour is late and this post has gotten too long. There’s more information I want to share.

I’ll let this post sit on the main page for most of tomorrow, Monday, Aug 7.

Then I’ll post another Talking w. Reg & Com.very early Tuesday morning.

Sorry this got so long. There’s a lot happening.

John

Duke lacrosse: Wrong N&O headline with Neff's story

If you looked at reporter Joe Neff’s front page story in today’s Raleigh News & Observer, you know it was headlined:

Lacrosse files show gaps in DA's case

A review of prosecution documents in the rape investigation reveals that the district attorney's public statements promised more than the evidence released so far indicates

If you read the story at least once or maybe twice because you couldn’t believe “with all that was wrong somebody could be indicted,” I'll bet you agree the story had the wrong headline.

Today’s N&O should have headlined Neff's story :

EVIDENCE CONTRADICTS NIFONG, INDICATES DUKE STUDENTS FRAMED

Now being kind people, many of you may be saying something like: “ Well maybe the N&O editors just don’t know how to write headlines.”

Folks, I hate to fuss with you but the N&O editors know how to produce all kinds of headlines. They're MSM journalists. They can even produce hard-hitting headlines without having any evidence for them.

You don't believe me?

Then take a look at the headlines the N&O ran above the fold, five columns wide on the front page of its Mar. 25 edition:

DANCER GIVES DETAILS OF ORDEAL

A woman hired to dance for the Duke lacrosse team describes a night of racial slurs, growing fear and, finally, sexual violence.

Now those are some hard-hitting headlines, aren’t they?

All the N&O needed to run those headlines was a little cooperation between a false-story telling “frightened young mother” and some agenda driven, "may PC rule the world" reporters and editors eager to claim an obvious hoax was true.

I hope you send the N&O’s executive editor for news, Melanie Sill, an email telling her that Neff’s story is a good start, but that the N&O has some huge explaining to do and much that it needs to correct.

Sill's email: melanie.sill@newsobserver.com

Don’t let the N&O “abandon the sinking Nifong and jump into the lifeboat” without giving an accounting of its role in taking what should have been a fair, thorough police investigation and turning it into a witch hunt that led to monumental injustices and damaged the community.

Don’t let the N&O “jump into the lifeboat” without telling us “the back story” and what its done to make sure it won't again victimize innocent people and endanger the community with the kind of “news coverage” it inflicted on all of us starting on March 24 and continuing for many weeks thereafter.

For over a century the N&O has played race against race, class against class, and basically decent people against other basically decent people. In the process it grew rich and powerful, but it's done great harm to the state with its "old Red Rooster" tactics.

It’s time the N&O stopped.

Duke lacrosse: A "first take" on Joe Neff 's N&O story

In today’s Raleigh News & Observer, reporter Joe Neff provides a lengthy, well-organized story, “Duke lacrosse files show gaps in DA’s case,” that’s a “must read” account of: 1) some of the many stories the accuser told; 2) the actions of some, but by no means all, Durham police officers who violated procedures and undoubtedly their oaths in order to “produce” evidence and cooperate in a frame-up; and 3) DA Mike Nifong’s “Stop at Nothing” campaign to secure indictments of any three lacrosse players by any means, legal or otherwise.

In a few days I’ll say something more organized about Neff’s story, but for now a few “first-take” thoughts:

While a lot of Neff’s story will be “news” to N&O readers, most, if not all, of it is familiar stuff to people who read blogs such as KC Johnson, La Shawn Barber, Johnsville News, Betsy Newmark, Friends of Duke University, and Renew America. But it’s important to have this kind of story out before a larger segment of the public.

Many readers will say something about “finally having the story.” No, we don’t. There is much more to come. Almost all of it will help the players and hurt Nifong and those in the police force, media, the community, and Duke University who enabled him and, in some cases, continue doing so.

Example: Neff makes only a passing reference to Nifong’s refusal to meet with defense attorneys in order to view and discuss exculpatory evidence. If you’re shocked now by what you’ve learned about Nifong, wait until you read the letters attorneys wrote him offering to meet and present exculpatory evidence.

For anyone who still hasn’t connected the dots, Neff makes it real easy to go from (1) the accuser’s “difficulty” describing her “gang-rapists;” to (2) Nifong and the police’s need to fish for DNA from all 46 lacrosse players when they were saying only 3 committed the rapes; to (3) their need to keep trying again and again for some kind of visual ID; to (4) Nifong and the police’s finally concluding that they would have to violate their own ID procedures; to (5) Nifong and the police setting up an ID procedure in which, in the words of Duke Law Professor James Coleman: “Any three students would do; there could be no wrong choice.”

If anyone can go from 1 to 5 and then not be able to read “FRAME UP,” I’m betting that person is a member of Duke’s faculty Group of 88 or just like “the 88.”

Neff’s story will make it much harder for the “we’re only getting fragments from the defense attorneys” choir to sing its song. What’s most damning in Neff’s story comes from police records, Nifong’s statements and the many and varied accuser and “second dancer” accounts of the events of the night of Mar. 13/14.

Neff doesn’t quote a single defense attorney in his more than 3,700 word story.

The story will help build public pressure for the replacement of Nifong ASAP and at least a review of the indictments by an ethical prosecutor; although I think most of the public will soon come to feel the indictments should be thrown out entirely.

I doubt many North Carolinians, regardless of race, will finish the story and seriously ask themselves: “Why isn’t the state ACLU speaking up about this?” or “How can the NAACP stay silent in the face of injustices like this?”

That most people don’t expect either organization to be part of an important fight to undue police and prosecutorial injustice suggests the irrelevancy of both organizations to the achievement of the lofty goals they constantly proclaim.

However, many people finishing the story will be asking questions about Duke: “How come more professors at Duke’s Law School aren’t speaking out about this stuff? They’ve got to know it’s wrong.” and “Why doesn’t Brodhead do something for these kids indicted? He made that apology to the other dancer. Why not speak up for his students?”

One reason I’m sure N&O readers will ask such questions is that I get asked questions like that everyday here in Durham by people who know I’m a Duke alum.

A PLEA TO PRESIDENT BRODHEAD AND THE FACULTY: Don’t let Duke slide the way the ACLU and NAACP have. Speak up for justice. In the face of obvious investigative and legal travesties you no more need to “wait for the trial” now than you did during the 60s when students were unfairly arrested and charged.

Join with the growing numbers of people who are demanding Nifong’s replacement with an ethical prosecutor and the review of indictments that are products of travesties.

“I really want to wait for the trial” is a shriveling fig leaf as Neff’s story today makes clear.