Sunday, August 26, 2007

New suits in Durham?

No, this post is not about clothing.

It’s about the Aug. 25 Durham Herald Sun story which begins:

Two of the country's best-known lawyers are representing three former Duke University lacrosse players falsely accused of rape and may file a federal civil-rights lawsuit against the city next month, multiple sources say.

The players have hired Washington, D.C., lawyer Brendan Sullivan and New York City litigator Barry Scheck to represent them in the pending civil case.

Sullivan -- who gained fame in the 1980s while representing former Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North -- is working for lacrosse players David Evans and Collin Finnerty.

Confirmation of that came Friday from Chris Manning, a law partner of Sullivan's in the Washington firm Williams & Connolly.

Manning said that Scheck -- a member of O.J. Simpson's legal "dream team" in the 1990s -- is representing the third falsely accused player, Reade Seligmann.

Sources say Sullivan and Scheck contacted the city's lawyers recently and told them Durham faces litigation over how police handled the Duke lacrosse case.

Their move prompted City Council members, senior administrators, City Attorney Henry Blinder and a private-practice attorney retained by the city, Joel Craig, to huddle behind closed doors twice this week for consultations.

Blinder and Craig are supposed to attend a face-to-face meeting with the players' attorneys sometime in the next few days to hear them describe the basis for a lawsuit and perhaps terms for an out-of-court settlement.

The council has scheduled a closed-door meeting on Sept. 6 to hear a report from Blinder and Craig on the results of that meeting.
You can read the H-S story here.

Comments for those who appreciate irony:

1) The H-S story ran 17 months to the day the Raleigh News & Observer published a front-page story with headlines that gave no indication the facts of the story were in dispute:
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
For any readers who didn't “get it” from the headlines, the N&O’s uncritical reporting of “the victim’s” story and its reporting of what the N&O knew then was a lie about the players not cooperating with police, the N&O told readers:
It is The News & Observer's policy not to identify the victims of sex crimes.

2) The H-S story ran one year to the day the NY Times published "Files From Duke Rape Case Give Details but No Answers.”

A better headline would have been: “Times Hypes Gottlieb Notes Meant to Bolster Frame-up.”

Within a few hours of its appearance, Liestoppers.com had shredded the Times’ story (I'm not kidding about the “few hours". The NYT story appeared on the net a little after midnight; Liestoppers posted a little after 3 A. M. ).

Other bloggers and journalists added to Liestoppers' shredding so that within a few days the Times’ story had little or no credibility with informed, fair-minded people.

What a difference from the public's and media’s largely credulous reactions to the N&O’s fraudulent March 25 story about "the victim's" "ordeal" during a night that ended "finally" in “sexual violence.”

We'd learned a lot in the five months between the N&O’s story and the Times’ story.

By August 25, 2006 I’ll bet even many of Duke faculty’s Group of 88 and the NAACP’s state leadership knew Nifong’s “case” was really a frame-up.

That brings us to the next irony.

3) A year ago most city council members who’ll meet behind closed-doors on Sept. 6 to hear what will surely be a “bad news” report were supporting Mike Nifong for Durham DA. Also, most, if not all, of them had up until then said nothing I can recall critical of the DPD.

Bonus irony:

Councilwoman Diane Catotti’s supporters will surely agree she did all she could last Fall to help elect her friend, Mike Nifong.

Of course, they’ll add she didn’t do it because she and Nifong are friends.

I won't question that.

I’m sure Catotti, who’s up for re-election this year, backed Nifong because after following the Duke Hoax case closely for five months, she felt Nifong was the right person to be DA.

I also don’t doubt Catotti had her reasons a few months back for opposing an outside review of police conduct in the frame-up and ongoing cover-up of same.

Catotti is regarded as the most liberal and/or progressive member of the city council ( No, I don’t know the difference between “liberal” and “progressive,” either. But it seems to be important, at least to "progressives" who just hate, hate being called "liberals." ).

In any case, don't both "liberals" and "progressives" tell us they're all about justice and opposed to rogue prosecutors and police who violate the rights of citizens?

I’ve got to end this now, but I’ll soon post again concerning the H-S’s story.

I hope you read the entire H-S story.

The Raleigh News & Observer has so far reported nothing that I could find on the possible lawsuits.

KC Johnson and Liestoppers posted on the H-S story.

The Johnsville News has a comprehensive post updating on the Duke Hoax case, including a part it titles: Durham in Legal Crosshairs. That really says it, doesn't it?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hope the players win after a long, protracted discovery process that embarrasses the city and all the Hoax enablers at DPD and Duke. After there has been much blood spilled and some of the thugs that orchestrated this FRAME are indicted due to said discovery, I hope the players walk away with much, much more than the 5 million that Durm has for insurance. I further hope that some way to extract new taxes to pay for the settlement comes exclusively from the hater/fools that voted for the Fong and the continuation of the FRAME to satisfy their racist bloodlust.

Eat sh!t and die,corrupt Durmites.

Anonymous said...

"But it seems to be important, at least to "progressives" who just hate, hate being called "liberals." )."

Doesn't that hark back to Lenin, or some other hard-core Communists, who felt that 'liberals' were a worse enemy than bourgeoisie or conservatives? Then the lefties who needed to conceal their purposes needed a whole new term that wouldn't draw immediate attacks from left or right, and came up with 'progressives'. Yes! They're on the side of history! No dustbin for them, nosiree.

Since then, a 'progressive' has been for 'social change' - that is, progress in a hard-left direction. But don't call them 'liberals', because then they'd be lefterly insufficient.

Anonymous said...

There is a fair amount of evidence that suggests that Durham authorities conspired, at some level,with Duke officials to deny the lacrosse players their constitutional rights to due process. Under the legal concept of " joint enterprise ", both Duke and Durham would be liable for these unlawful activities. Because of the settlements that the indicted players and their families reached with Duke, it may well be the unindicted players who pursue these legal actions.

WFN

Anonymous said...

John,
" Progressive "is believed to be a form of mimicry-think Monarch and Viceroy butterflies.(Although I have heard birds don't recognize the difference.)And who is aagainst progress?
Corwin

Anonymous said...

Please pardon this racially/ PC inappropriate observation... but do you really think that the Durham voters who put Nifong in offce are the ones who will pay the bulk of the taxes?

I suspect that the tax bill will be footed by NIFONG's opposition. The ones the Gang of 88 most hate. I mean the WHITE, hardworking, MEN and WOMEN of Durham with GOOD PAYING JOBS, who pay taxes.

When stupid people rule, even the innocent suffer.

What the GOOD people of Durham did to earn this punishment is that they did NOT show up and defeat NIFONG at the ballot box.

Durham got bad "leadership" the same way the US has sometimes gotten bad "leadership".

Good people who were too lazy to get themselves to the precinct and vote, or even run for office.

Democracy only works if everybody plays the game.

Otherwise, the innocent suffer with the guilty.

Take a lesson, Durham.

Show up and vote next time. And vote for the people you want to PROTECT ALL the people, not just a few.

After all, even the wealthy white folks deserve protection too. Well, we used to think that until the Gang of 88 and their French Revolution buddies took over the halls of the universities.

Now, I'm not so sure. Perhaps diversity means that only the sexually frustrated, the Afro-Americans, the women, and the intellectualy challenged have rights.

The pseudo-intellectuals at Duke have set us back at least a decade in TRUE civil rights.

Anonymous said...

For all of us who have been waiting anxiously for the second shoe to drop--it just landed with a resounding thud. The venal clowns in Durham--and the G88 wackos--are only now suddenly realizing the truly dire financial straits that their conduct has imposed upon Durham taxpayers.

The Lax 3--as well as the remaining Lax 43--will soon, and quite literally--*own* Bull City and its tax base. The notice the city received from its liability carrier (AIG) evidently caught someone's attention.

Folks, if people thought things have been ugly in Durham thus far, well, strap yourselves in. You're not going to believe what's soon going to happen as Durham/Duke/G88 fully digests the financial/legal storm that is about to alter their lives forever.

Couldn't happen to a better bunch of losers. It can't wait; I'm just giddy with anticipation for how this will roll out.