My Way

     There are two issues I want to address tonight. First is that Mike Nifong, the now former DA in Durham County, North Carolina, resigned publicly on Court TV today. Honestly, for the hell he put those boys through, I don't think it's enough.

     For those of you who don't know what I'm rambling on about, it's the Duke lacrosse team rape case. When Nifong decided to press charges on four of the lacrosse players, he did so with the attitude of a man taking out the trash that has been allowed to rot in the corner for weeks. He talked about the spoiled, rich white kids that would pay for the insult they passed onto a racially divided area. For once the African American community would not be overlooked by the law.

     A full year passed while these boys languished. During that time, Nifong ran for reelection and won.

     It was after he was back in office that we found out that one of the young men accused wasn't even at the party where the stripper was suppose to be raped. She identified one of the young man as having a beard on the night he helped to rape her, even though he had never worn a beard. The woman changed her testimony several times, once claiming penetration, and the next claiming none. Her partner had no idea what she was talking about as both women stayed together in the same room during the entire evening. DNA tests were conducted, and lost. Later it was learned that there was semen left behind, but that it didn’t belong to the four accused. It even became evident that the young woman had serious emotional issues. Mr. Nifong dropped the charges after the election.

     Today he had his day in court. He is being investigated for abuses of his office. The young man who did not attend the party took the stand. He described how he tried to tell Mr. Nifong where he was, but was rebuffed. Nifong did not want to hear any more 'fiction.' He described how devastated his family was over this. Nifong took the stand and described how thick this file was and how evidence, such as the DNA tests had gotten misplaced. He didn’t interview any of the young men as he didn’t see what it was he could learn from them. He then apologized for the missteps his office had taken and that he was responsible for this mess. He finished off by resigning.

    As Bill and I watched this, it occurred to me that these young men had good attorneys. "Can you imagine," I said, "How it would be if these guys couldn't afford attorneys? They might rot in jail for this."

     That had me thinking about something else. I've written about how Governor George Ryan of Illinois commuted 160 plus death sentences. It began when students from Northwestern and their professor researched cases that had already been settled and sentencing had been completed. The very first case they made public was an African American man who spent better than 20 years on death row for a triple murder and rape. I don't remember the man's name, but I do remember that the crime happened in a gas station in a town now called Ford Heights. The attendant and two customers were shot during a robbery. One customer, a young woman, was raped. The accused always held that he was innocent, but of course no one paid attention to him.

     The next case the students studied was that of a teenage girl who was raped and murder while babysitting. The man accused served ten years. Again, the students' investigation proved that he did not do it.

     Several more cases were studied and decisions were overturned. It was decided that there was an over zealous DA in a collar county involved in several cases. He was more interested in pinning crimes on someone, than he was in actually finding the killers. It was also decided that many of the public defenders were either completely overloaded or totally inept.

     These studies resulted in Governor Ryan first declaring a moratorium on capitol punishment and then commuting death sentences. Sadly a lot of really bad people wound up on the streets. Many returned to prison very soon after, for committing other crimes.

     I'm not trying to say anything more here than either situation bothers me. I don't want to see people suffering for crimes the did not commit, and I don't want scum walking the streets. It bothers me when I see that Illinois DA still active and running for office. And it bothers me that Mike Nifong had so little moral fiber that he could run off the back of these young men. I can't see him just walking away from this. If he's not guilty of malfeasance, he's guilty of incompetence. I hope he's disbarred.

     Now, for something else. I do not want to hear about Paris Hilton being in the hospital and how much that cost. And I don't care that she's been moved back to her 5x8 cell, or that it costs $.18 per meal per inmate in L.A.County Twin Towers Correctional Facility. And I don't want to know her who visited her. Give us a break already. The coverage is worse than what we saw with Anna Nicole Smith. Paris will be out too soon, and I have no doubt she'll land a great big hulking book deal for her jail diary.

     Now as for her friends. Nicole Richie was on Letterman last week, talking about how she's expecting to serve jail time for the same offense. She almost seemed pleased by it.