Two question for the N&O’s Saunders & Durham DA Cline

In Spring 2006 Raleigh News & Observer news columnist Barry Saunders wrote a series of columns hyping Crystal Mangum’s hoax, trashing the Duke lacrosse players and cheer leading for what many people recognized even then was a frame-up attempt led my now disbarred Mike Nifong.

Saunders even wrote a column urging the Durham city council to appoint Ron Hodge, the man who as deputy chief led the DPD Duke lacrosse “investigation,” the new police chief.

That was after we learned DPD spokespersons had lied to the public, incriminating evidence had been manufactured, and exculpatory evidence withheld.

When the students subsequently sued Durham city, DPD and others, Saunders said all each should receive was a fish sandwich, a pop drink and a one-way bus ticket out of town.

Although he never used his column to condemn those who waved the CASTRATE banner, shouted death threats at one of the innocent men in a courtroom or circulated Vigilante posters, Saunders sure wrote a lot about the Duke lacrosse case.

But now, when there’s a good chance that with the discovery and trial portions of the players suits looming, we'll learn much more about the gross injustices, including very likely crimes committed by some involved in it, Saunders wants to move on and forget about the injustices. so does Durham’s new DA, Tracey Cline, who served as a top ADA to Nifong during the frame-up attempt and its cover-up.

In a recent column Saunders offered readers an admiring portrait of Cline. Here’s the last part of it:

Cline didn't say what she would've done differently, but she insists that neither Durham County nor she is obsessed with the case that focused international attention on the job she now holds.

"The bottom line is, we all know [that] that one case out of 70,000 damaged Durham. Not just the DA's office, but all of the citizens, too. It wounded us, but it's a wound that will heal. When I go out and speak to residents, not one of them has ever asked me about" it.

"They want to know," she said, "how we're going to deal with the gangs, the habitual offenders and the break-ins" plaguing the city.

"I want to ensure the criminal justice system works for everybody," she said. "The first thing I need to do is make sure I have a team of prosecutors who share the same goals I have. ... I want -- and have -- prosecutors who're committed to justice every day, not just when the cameras are rolling. I don't want to just be a prosecutor who sends people to jail."

We have relegated the case to the trash cans of our memory, but not everyone has -- as I found out when visiting my dad in Washington, D.C., last month. His retiring next-door neighbor came over to show off a farewell card he'd received that day -- his last -- as a U.S. Department of Defense attorney. The card was signed by dozens of his employees and the dude had that mellow, unflappable glow you get from knowing you'll never have to punch another clock.

This soft-spoken, gentle man became enraged -- to put it mildly -- as he told what he'd like to do to Nifong.

He was on such a roll that I didn't bother telling him that the new DA is named Cline, not Nifong. If you doubt it, just ask anybody in Durham.
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I’ve two questions for Saunders and Cline:

1) The testimony under oath of the case’s two principal DPD investigating officers, Sgt. Gottlieb and Inv. Himan, directly contradicts DA Cline’s public statements regarding her role in securing of the NTO.

See Who owns that “toxic” NTO?(1/13/08), NTO battle - Durham DA v. Police (1/17/08),and Durham ADA changes NTO story.(2/2/08)

Doesn’t the Durham public need to know who’s lying?

2) In a few days we’ll honor the life and memory of Dr. Martin Luther King. Do you agree he’d want us to uncover the facts of the frame-up attempt and the cover-up its spawned instead of dismissing the victims with “a fish sandwich, a Yoo-hoo and a one-way Greyhound bus ticket?”