The situation continues to be volatile. Yesterday the DNA results came back and the defense attorneys for the players have announced that every test came back negative. This would seem to be damning for the prosecution, but the DA (who is up for re-election and epitomizes the concept of "camera whore;" I thus see no need to feed the beast by naming him) has drawn his line on the lacrosse field -- he still believes that assault happened at the infamous lacrosse house at Duke.
At this point it is all idle speculation, but to my mind there are three situations that are most likely:
(1) The DA has decided that this is his fast track to re-election. District Attrorney is one of those positions in which name recognition means everything. He has found his horse -- now he is going to ride it as far as it will take him. Justice thus is secondary on the agenda. (By the way, let me reiterate what a bad idea it is to elect judges, DAs and the like. certain aspects of society really ought to be beyond the scope of electoral politics).
(2) Despite the seemingly exculpatory DNA evidence, there still remains evidence of serious crimes at that house. Sexual assault is not the only possible assault that the players could have committed.
(3) The DA wants to hang the more serious charges over the players' heads like a Domocles sword while pursuing lesser charges. There is a pretty big gap between guilty of rape and guilty of nothing. Perhaps the DA is trying to split this gap.
There may well be practical reasons for the DA to be careful about simply dropping charges. All signs point to a Durham community, and especially a black community, that is prepared for outrage. Now if the Duke players did nothing illegal, it is not the job of the DA's office to make an example of them. But at the same time, this is not a time for the DA to use kid gloves on these young men.
What I hope, what most of us hope, is that when this all plays out, the Duke and Durham communities handle it responsibly. This case has been on the razor's edge for two weeks now, and it combines a combustible mixture -- race, class, sex, priviledge, elitism. There is still plenty of room for this to get ugly.
Let's also be clear what the recent DNA tests do not do: They do not in any way, shape, or form absolve the players of collossal bad judgment, serious misbehavior, and maybe worse. Independent of allegations of sexual assault, Duke lacrosse players existed within a little bubble of priviledge and self indulgence, and almost surely sexism, classism, and racism. The situation in Durham is rife with losers. There are no winners.
9 comments:
Excellent post. As I've said before, the thing that is really bothering me about this case right now is the DA. Most of the legal experts I've seen on TV talking about this case say that as a DA you should not say a thing until you've seen the evidence and know what charges, if any, will be brought. From Day 1, this guy has said that he belives the sexual assault happened and he's now built up that expectation. What if it didn't happen? What if she made it all up? At this point, the guy has to deliver. He can't watch this stuff about the 911 call inconsistencies, the DNA and the photos of this stripper come in and say "maybe this isn't a substantiated claim." Maybe he knows of evidence that nobody else knows about. But right now it certainly looks like he's pandering to the Durham community that is going to be responsible for re-electing him. I would bet that this case lingers (apparently now samples are being sent out for more sophisticated DNA tests--as a biochemist, I'd love to know what these are) with this DA telling everyone that something happened and he's going to get to the bottom of it for the next three weeks until he's re-elected and then, if the totality of the evidence is what we've seen in the press, he'll start backing off. I hope this isn't what he's doing, but I am worried he is. Because if after 2 months of saying that something happened and then not filing any charges there is going to be anger from the Duke community for the way the guy handled it and there is going to be anger from the Durham community who will assume that these kids got off because they are white/rich/athletes/men. I fear given how volatile the situation has become, that this could spill over into violence and then this guy will have done not only damage to Duke and to Durham but to the already no-ideal relationship between the two for his own political gain.
Exactly -- it seems possible, and indeed likely, that the DA's interests and the interests of everyone else are in direct opposition to one another, yet the DA has the power to protect his interests and not the general welfare.
dcat
I am suggesting a whole host of possibilities -- underage drinking? Non-sexual assault and/or battery? Contributing to the delinquency of minors? Propositioning for the purpose of engaging in lewd behavior? Sexual misconduct not involving rape? Criminal threatening?
And as for non-crimes, well, it is pretty obvious that the use of racial epithets is on the table. A crime? No. But if they did it they pass my asshole test: They are assholes, and we can ostracize them just for that.
What I'm suggesting, as I thought the post made clear, was that the options available are surely not rape or nothing.
I also think that I have been clear that the process exists as it does largely to protect these guys, as well it should, which is why I think this grandstanding jackass of a DA is helping no one but a grandstanding jackass of a DA.
dcat
I think Duke-and-duke's second post makes a number of important points. I think his defenses are fair, even if I do not agree with all of them. I think Duke lax alums have plenty of room to be furious with what has obviously happened with the program, and also with the treatment from without, that obviously also has not been fair. But let's face it -- a former Duke lacrosse player circling the wagons around his own, while a wholly valid source, is hardly an objective one.
dcat
Well, I can't say I know any of the lax players on the team now. My freshman roommate was a lax player and I was friends with him throughout my time at Duke and knew some of his friends and I didn't have a problem with them. And I'm by no means on campus often now. I go down once or twice a year for football or basketball games and for whatever reunion event may be going on. I've only had minor interactions with the current players--they have been negative though. In order to encourage students to go to football games, Duke now hosts a pregame tailgate. One of the asst deans of students is a friend of mine and I know that the university has a representative assigned to each tailgate with the specific assignment of keeping an eye on the lax players who aren't hard to pick out since they are usually dressed head to toe in black leather. They have come by the tailgates I've been at and on every occassion have been excessively drunk and in one case attempted to steal our keg while only two girls were present around the area where we had set up--despite the objections of the girls, they continued to cart off the keg, only being stopped because 6 of us were returning and saw them and addressed it. These guys seemed different from the lax players who I knew when I was at Duke in the mid-90s who fit the more jock stereotype which I don't consider a positive or a negative. I can't speak to their coursework (the rule of thumb at Duke is if you are sociology major, you aren't taking difficult coursework--don't know how many are soc majors) and I have no idea where they went to high school, but I was not impressed with their behavior and even if the rape allegations aren't true, their behavior is still extremely poor.
I have no problem with them cancelling the lax season. The underage drinking doesn't bother me--the only reason I don't have 50 citations for underage drinking is because there wasn't a cop present when I was drinking. But the behavior of this team had raised enough red flags that the university is specifically watching them at school functions like football games and as we've seen in the news, the university is buying the house this occurred in after this year because of numerous complaints to the authorities. Whether or not anything happened, the racial slurs have witnesses and hiring two strippers for an off campus party is terrible and I'm fine with Duke cancelling the season to say "this kind of behavior, whether a rape happened or not, will not be tolerated."
What's unfortunate is that we don't know if this is a few kids spoiling for the rest. I can't imagine that every one of the 46 kids is a bad kid. Duke_and_duke seemed impressed with them and surely if you are on a team and a party like this occurs, we all know how it is--you can't walk out. There's too much peer pressure. But there are some bad seeds here (for instance that kid that wrote that vile email--I'm going to assume he wasn't one of the players you met that you claim "anyone would be proud to be associated with"--I'm glad he's gone from campus and I'll be upset if he's ever let back on). What is still to be decided is how many kids did bad things. The team is I'm sure taking the best legal strategy by not saying anything, but it reeks of guilt by association--racial slurs were yelled and by protecting who said those almost endorses it in my book.
Personally, I don't think these kids are guilty of anything but bad judgment and bad taste. While my limited interactions and understanding of the lax culture is not favorable I don't believe those kids are capable of criminal behavior. But if they are shown to be, I hope they are put in jail for a long, long time. I think there are way too many questions around the stripper's story to believe it at this point. But I'm glad the team is being punished for racial slurs and hiring a stripper in the first place and even for underage drinking because as much as I did it, you know if you get caught you have to pay the penalty.
I had heard this weekend that that email was an almost verbatim copy of a passage from American Psycho. In fact, I talked to my friend in the Duke administration this weekend who informed that the American Psycho movie is apparently worshipped by the Duke lax team--a movie and book that I found to be interesting although I wouldn't consider Patrick Bateman a role model as he is apparently held by the lax team (I don't know this for certain--I'm getting it secondhand--take it for what it's worth). For the record, the kid that wrote this email hasn't actually been suspended officially by the school, but was sent home for his own safety. At this point, I think he should stay there until the outcome of this case. If this rape actually did happen, I think he should be kicked out because to make light of the situation by quoting such a passage from a movie or a book after such an occurence is reprehensible. If this rape didn't occur and he was making a joke after a party in which strippers showed up, I think it's in pretty bad taste, but bad taste is not against the law and he should be let into school.
As for you Bogan--I don't know what your background is and what you've studied, but I am not an english major by any stretch although I have read American Psycho and two of the other three works that you cite. I'm sorry that I don't have the texts memorized. Maybe you are that type of person that really enjoys such things and that's great. But I'm getting my information from the media and my friends still down at Duke here and I have to make my decisions on that. I am sorry if that makes me "stupid" to you. I get the information that's available to me--I don't think anyone that didn't know the text of American Psycho would hear about that email in the context of these allegations and say "well, maybe he's just making a joke." But, I'm more than willing to be informed of such information and rethink my stance and I welcome anyone who would like to offer such info so I can become better educated on a particular subject that I may not be well versed in. This is actually why I feel that I am not a "stupid" person. I have a PhD in biophysics and biochemistry and I work for a biotech company that makes therapeutics. If you came on here and made some assertion about any of those fields that I thought was uninformed or incorrect, I would offer up what information I could to help better educate you on the subject--but I would never call you "stupid" because you didn't know it-that would only make me classless.
Hopefully this will all pass with convincing evidence of innocence on the part of the lax players.
- I hope this on behalf of the players, their families, and DU
- I hope this on behalf of the entire Durham community
With this full assumption, work with me, I think we'll end up with the now realized conclusion that we live in "eHooterville"
With 24/7 cable news and the Internet - the human inclination to gossip has expanded well beyond the "small town" and is now officially global.
With gossip, arrives a host of any and all human frailties - along with discussions of race, jealousies of perceived privledge, and sexual crimes - maybe there will be a discussion of the fact that we've become a nation of gossip
IMO
I too would like to respond to Bogan. Let's establish something, and let's assume that this is a universally true assertion: Being able to catch references to the ouevre of Bret Easton Ellis is not a guage of one's intellect or literary aptitude. American Psycho is a marginal work. Anyone who would judge someone's intelligence based on their capacity to pick up an American Psycho reference is a fuckwit and we should all treat them as such.
Furthermore, so what? Is the email somehow more acceptable because the sender cribbed his words from someone else? For me, the fact that the loathsome email stole loathsome material from a loathsome source for a loathsome purpose ought not to redound to his benefit. the question is one of intent: Is the intent of the email impugnable. It seems that it is. That he was citing Ellis is of no moment. And given the topic of American psycho, the reference might be more, and not less damning.
Finally, while Thunderstick hardly needs defending, I should also point out that the guy has a PhD in biochem from a major university that followed his successful undergrad experience at Duke. he was wswooped up even before finishing his PhD by a biotech firm in the Boston area. I know an awful lot of incredibly smart people, and even in that crowd, TS is one of the smartest. I would place a bet that any time Rob eats a lot of fiber at breakfast, he craps out little turds like Bogan by lunchtime.
dcat
In response to the most recent anonymous comment -- If they are innocent, I hope they are absolved of everything. If they are not, I hope that they face severe punishment.
I actually like your concept of eHooterville. It is a bit shocking how big a story this has become, and obviously the 24/7 news cycle and all of the sources you mention are hugely responsible.
dcat
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