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Blog and Media Roundup - Tuesday, March 29, 2011; News Roundup
Topic Started: Mar 29 2011, 04:11 AM (690 Views)
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http://www.heraldsun.com/view/full_story_news_durham/12533652/article-Little-admits-forging-email?instance=main_article

Little admits forging email
The Herald Sun
03.28.11 - 10:05 pm
4Q7Z_15056504_LittlePic.JPG
By Ray Gronberg

gronberg@heraldsun.com; 419-6648

DURHAM -- A former City Council candidate admitted to County Manager Mike Ruffin that he forged an email purporting to be from a county staffer to support a claim for a utility-bill exemption.

The one-time candidate, Darius Little, "accepted total responsibility" for the email and apologized for writing it, Ruffin said, adding that he didn't plan any further action in response to the admission.

The email in question, purportedly from a "Janet T. Gray," surfaced last September as Little was attempting to convince a landlord he was entitled to some a utility discount for being a city employee.

Little isn't a city employee, and neither the city nor county had a Janet Gray on staff. But the email claimed several officials, including Mayor Bill Bell, were trying to help Little obtain the discount.

City officials eventually deflected the claim when the landlord, UNC pharmacy student Donald "Trey" Thompson III, asked them about it. Bell denied any involvement, saying his name had been "misrepresented."

Ruffin, meanwhile, learned of the email from The Herald-Sun early in March and immediately pointed out that the "durhamcounty.nc.us" return address it gave for Gray didn't follow the county's standard format.

The county manager promised a follow-up probe, in consultation with his government's IT staff. He also said March 14 that he might submit his findings to the Durham County Sheriff's Office.

But Little called Ruffin later that week. "I asked him directly if the email came from him and he said yes," Ruffin said.

Little on Monday confirmed his exchange with Ruffin.

He said he'd been having a dispute with his former landlord and "to get back at him," refused to pay utilities and "lied about a discount I'd be receiving, in an effort to avoid him."

"It was wrong, I admitted to it, and that was that," Little added. "And yes, out of respect for the manager, who is a pastor, I did call him and notify him of my actions. I received no benefit, so again, it was a bad decision I made last year."

He added that he thought The Herald-Sun's only interest in him is a "desire to focus on negative things related to a young black man."

Little ran unsuccessfully for City Council in 2009 and has remained active in politics since, first trying for a seat on the Durham Planning Commission and this year helping lead efforts to oust Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People Chairwoman Lavonia Allison.

He has a criminal record stemming from his involvement in a number of swindles. His most recent conviction came last summer after he admitted taking $760 from a man who wanted legal help.

Court documents indicate Thompson in December won the right to evict Little from a home on Catskill Court. Thompson told court officials Little was past due on $1,602.50 in rent and also owed $255.82 in damage and pay-per-view cable TV charges.

Little also tried in February and March to obtain no-contact restraining orders against Allison and Richard Carew, the victim in the $760 case Little pleaded guilty to last summer.

A judge dismissed the requested order against Carew on March 17 after Little failed to appear in court.

Little claimed that Allison had willfully slandered and harassed him because he'd been elected an officer of the Durham Committee. But Allison's attorney, James "Butch" Williams, responded by telling court officials that Little "had made false allegations" against the chairwoman.

A judge on March 15 denied the order against Allison and dismissed the case at Little's request.
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http://williamlanderson.blogspot.com/2011/03/false-accusation-industry-and-why-i.html

Monday, March 28, 2011
The False Accusation Industry and Why I Write about It
For the most part, this blog deals with individuals who have been falsely accused of sex crimes. Its genesis comes long before blogging even existed, with the starting point being a PBS Frontline broadcast of the the Little Rascals case in North Carolina.

As I watched the series, I realized that there was no way -- no way -- that the charges could be true, yet so many people seemed inclined to believe them. People went to prison only to have convictions overturned; lives were ruined, and it became obvious that if the authorities wanted to convict someone on the basis of, frankly, coached testimony from children, it was not difficult to do so.

For whatever reasons, I came to see these kinds of cases as a symbol of what American "justice" was becoming, and as more and more cases, like that in Wenatchee, came about, I realized that when it comes to these kinds of accusations, the authorities seem to lose all sanity and the ability to reason. Dorothy Rabinowitz of the Wall Street Journal picked up on the subject and wrote a number of columns and editorials excoriating police, prosecutors, and judges for going along with the scam, winning a Pulitzer Prize and writing an excellent book, No Crueler Tyrannies.

At the time, I had no forum to stand up for people falsely accused, but my opportunity finally came when Lew Rockwell gave me near carte blanche on his blog in the infamous Duke Lacrosse Case of 2006-07. In response, over the next year, I would write nearly 70 articles on his blog about the case, the lies being told by prosecutor Mike Nifong, and the misconduct of the Duke University faculty and administration.

The Duke case was a watershed for me, as I came to understand that the Progressive institutions in this country are built and primed for false accusations in sexually-charged situations. The problem, as I came to see it, was not "overzealousness," "mistaken identity," or even "insanity" or "misunderstandings."

No, the problem is systematic and it is built into the very laws passed supposedly to protect "victims" of these crimes. The formula for tyranny came about innocuously and innocently enough; Congress passed laws to aid local law enforcement in order to stop sexual crimes against children and women. The formula, whether it was contained in the Mondale Act of 1974 (and subsequent such acts) or the Violence Against Women Act, went as such:

* The nation faced a "crisis," whether it was children being abused or women being the victims of rape and other violence;

* The federal government would provide financial and other assistance to state and local governments in exchange for those entities aggressively pursuing those kinds of charges.

In order to successfully prosecute such cases, however, the feds also made states change the rules of evidence to make the job easier for prosecutors. For example, if a woman claims to any "first responder" that she has been raped or sexually assaulted, by law she MUST have a medical "rape" exam by a qualified medical professional and have a forensic interview. In other words, the authorities are to assume that the original accusation is true, no matter how off base it might seem.

The same is true regarding any claim of child molestation, "inappropriate" touching, or anything of the sort, and the charges MUST be investigated as though they were true. Furthermore, in the case of children, the various federally-created (and often funded) agencies like Child Protective Services and the Children's Advocacy Center become involved in the investigations and the interviews with children.

One easily can spot the bias for assuming guilt in such situations. In the Duke Case, Tara Levicy, a hardcore feminist who was seeking her certification to be a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE), was involved in the investigation and ultimately fabricated material and lied to the police in an attempt to frame the three defendants. It is clear that Levicy was not interested in the facts, but rather promoting her "women never lie about rape" ideology that is common among many (but certainly not all) feminists.

In Tonya Craft's case, we saw not only just how the Children's Advocacy Center "interviewers" acted unprofessionally while testifying (giggling, shrugging their shoulders, rolling their eyes, and sighing out loud). Even a cursory look at the transcripts of their interviews with the child accusers demonstrates just how they broke every rule of forensic interviewing, yet were treated by the court as "experts" in investigating "child molestation."

Combined with the federal money that comes to states and localities for pursuing such accusations, as well as the built-in bias that comes into the way the authorities are to pursue such cases, it is no wonder that people are easily railroaded into prison even if they are innocent.

There are other factors at work, too. First, defending oneself is an expensive proposition, and very few people have six figures of spare change needed to have the kind of legal representation that will effectively deal with false allegations. Second, the authorities are spending other people's money and have nothing of their own at stake, which means that the odds are against the person falsely accused.

Third, the media often jumps on the "Guilty!" bandwagon early. There is the use of the mug shot, which exists ONLY to make someone look guilty. Second, because media sources usually are concentrated in the government sector, prosecutors and police are first in line to undermine the defendant's case, and most reporters (but not all) gladly go along with the scam.

To me, this not only is wrong, but it is immoral and has no place in a free society. (Of course, ours no longer is a "free society," but we like to pretend that it is.) People who are falsely accused -- and it is not difficult to see that many of those charged with the "crimes" I have mentioned -- are demonized unfairly in the media and have a huge battle to fight just to win their freedom. I believe that fighting for the rights of the accused is a battle worth fighting, especially since the so-called gatekeepers of our rights -- the news media -- for the most part have decided that helping to deny the rights of the accused is more fun and more profitable.

In future posts, I will cover things one should do if falsely accused, and I will write on things that one might do in order to avoid false accusations, at least in some circumstances.
Posted by William L. Anderson at 1:56 PM
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http://www.dukechronicle.com/article/duke-end-pay-freeze-fiscal-year-11

Duke to end pay freeze for fiscal year ’11
By Matthew Chase
March 29, 2011

University employees meeting certain performance qualifications will receive pay raises starting in the 2011-2012 fiscal year, President Richard Brodhead officially announced Monday.

The raises will go into effect July 1, Brodhead wrote in a Monday email to University faculty and staff, who have not received salary increases since 2009, when Duke froze salaries across the University.

“The suspension of the annual pay raise for the last two years protected hundreds of jobs at Duke and prevented the widespread layoffs suffered elsewhere,” Brodhead said. “But it’s time to return to a more normal approach to recognizing the good work of Duke employees.”

Each school within the University will receive a 3 percent increase in funding that deans can use for salary increases and other expenditures, such as promotions and faculty retention efforts, said Provost Peter Lange. Individual employee raises will be at the discretion of each school’s dean and will be based on performance evaluations.

“What we announced was that a 3 percent pool would be available as a minimum within each school,” Lange said. “Different deans are approaching this differently.”

The process for instituting salary increases for University staff will be similar. Administrative managers—who will also receive a 3 percent increase in their funding pool—will be able to determine individual pay raises for administrative staff, said Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations.

The announcement does not pertain to Duke University Health System employees—whose pay operates on a different calendar—or to employees covered by collective bargaining agreements.

The announcement of the increase comes almost two months before the Board of Trustees meeting in May, when Trustees will officially approve the pay raise. The University received pre-approval for the increase during the Trustees’ February meeting in order to give administrators time to plan for the change, Schoenfeld said.

“Since salary increases are effective July 1, the work and recommendations have to come soon,” he noted.

No University employees have received raises since the suspension announced in March 2009 with the exception of a select group of employees below a certain pay grade. Those who made $50,000 or less in fiscal year 2010 and $80,000 or less in fiscal year 2011 were granted one-time payments of $1,000 in each respective year if they received satisfactory performance reviews.

Although Brodhead’s email officially announced the salary increase, public talk of pay raises began in the Fall. Brodhead referenced plans for a “modest salary increase” in a Sept. 22 email to employees when he also revealed the 13 percent return of the University’s endowment in fiscal year 2009-2010.

“Everybody is feeling very pleased that we’re in a position, based on all the aggressive cost management that’s gone on over the past two years, to reinstate our performance-based salary increases,” said Vice President for Human Resources Kyle Cavanaugh, who came to Duke in February 2009, shortly before the suspension of pay raises. “Now we’ll return to the more normal, performance-based system.”

The combination of “reviving financial markets” and cost-cutting measures led to the increase, Brodhead wrote in his email, adding that the University will still need to be cautious in the future due to the uncertain nature of its revenue sources.

“It is appropriate that the whole Duke community should benefit from our improving financial circumstances, since you helped to create the improvement,” he said.

Zachary Tracer contributed reporting.
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http://www.dukechronicle.com/node/155046/talk

2:57 AM
March 29, 2011
Fact Checker

* reply

✔✔✔✔ President Brodhead's raised two questions -- and answered none -- with his e-mail on the two-year-old wage freeze.

First, he said the financial meltdown "brought us a period of profound uncertainty."

That's a radically different assessment than he has offered stakeholders before, and you have to wonder why he did not level with us earlier:

✔ December 21, 2008 Press Release: ".... Duke continues to enjoy 'great strength and stability'...”

“Duke is fortunate to have responsible, prudent and creative leadership of both our investments and operations, which has shielded us from some of the worst aspects of this crisis and makes it possible to continue our forward momentum.”

“All of us have been through a mix of better times and leaner times,” Brodhead said.

✔ March 1, 2009 e-mail: "Duke faces financial challenges and constraints..."

"I am confident that Duke will be able to navigate through these difficulties..."

✔ April 21, 2010 message to alumni at their reunions: "... I am pleased to report that we have made significant progress in meeting our economic challenge. As the economy has strengthened, our endowment has returned to a positive performance and in the first nine months of the fiscal year has recovered a considerable portion of the previous year's decline, thus reducing the size of our anticipated deficit."

✔✔✔ The second question that Brodhead raised is one that every employee might ask himself or herself: "Hey, am I going to get a raise or not?"

Brodhead said there would be merit raises, the details announced in the coming months. Boy, what a hornet's nest, trying to evaluate a professor!

In speaking to the Chronicle, Peter the Provost was also vague, saying each school and department would get a three percent increase in its budget for salaries and other expenditures. It's unclear, for example, if only a few employees -- including faculty -- in the Law School, for example, qualified if individual raises could then be greater.

The President did not say if lower paid and higher paid employees who qualify will all get the same percentage increase, which is a key moral issue on this campus. The financial meltdown has squeezed some employees far more than others, some being in a position to be more flexible in their personal finances and tolerate the disruption.

We are also left guessing about university-wide benefit plans -- most notably the gold plated medical insurance -- which will be devouring most of the money available for employees. There was also no indication of reform in the most abusive of the fringe benefits, extra payments of tens of thousands of dollars -- regardless of income level -- if the employee has a kid in college. These payments should be indexed to Duke's need blind admissions policy, with a cut-off for people making more than $120,000.

Have a good day.
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http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20110328/APN/1103281726?p=all&tc=pgall

NC crime lab changes heading to governor's desk
By GARY D. ROBERTSON Associated Press
Published: Monday, March 28, 2011 at 10:13 p.m.
Last Modified: Monday, March 28, 2011 at 10:13 p.m.

( page all of 2 )

Legislation to overhaul North Carolina's state crime laboratory after the lab's troubled past practices became public is heading to Gov. Beverly Perdue's desk after final passage Monday night by the General Assembly.

The House voted 117-0 in favor of its measure, with minor amendments by the Senate, which also approved the bill unanimously last week. The bill now goes to Perdue, who can sign the bill into law. Spokesman Mark Johnson said Perdue will review the bill.

The measure grew out of the work of a commission that met last year after an outside review uncovered more than 200 cases at the State Bureau of Investigation Crime Laboratory were improperly handled during a 16-year period ending in 2003. The report found the problems were often due to misrepresented blood work and keeping notes from defense attorneys. The commission examined ways to improve the crime lab's credibility and to ensure its work meets high standards.

The SBI also announced last week it had found 74 additional cases in the 1990s in which blood evidence was mishandled.

The legislation will help ensure that "what occurred between 1987 and 2003 doesn't occur again," said Rep. Rick Glazier, D-Cumberland, one of the bill's primary sponsor and a co-chairman of the commission. "Nothing's going to be hidden any longer."

Lab workers or anyone who willfully omits or misrepresents evidence such as lab results, notes or other materials that should have been in the case file woluld face a felony charge if the bill becomes law. It also makes simple changes that the sponsors hope will improve the standing of the lab, such as changing its name to the North Carolina State Crime Laboratory and making clear that it serves the criminal justice system, not just prosecutors, as the current law indicates.

Attorney General Roy Cooper asked for the outside review after an innocence hearing for Greg Taylor, who was wrongly imprisoned nearly 17 years for a murder conviction. During Taylor's hearing, an SBI agent testified that agents were told to cite initial tests showing chemical indications for the presence of blood even when a follow-up test was negative. Taylor was exonerated and freed.

The legislation requires the creation of a standing advisory panel of scientists to review the lab's scientific work and the position of ombudsman, who would listen to complaints about the SBI lab from the public, attorneys and law enforcement.

Cooper recommended the panel and already had created the ombudsman's post. A spokeswoman for Cooper, whose office oversees the lab, didn't immediately return a phone call seeking comment on the bill's final passage.

While the lab's operations have changed since 2003, the SBI also has made changes on its own. Other sections of the lab beyond the blood-work office have been audited.

The additional 74 cases are being referred to local prosecutors for closer inspection. District attorneys who reviewed about 150 cases in which someone was convicted have concluded that each conviction was supported by other evidence.

The measure also allows allow other accreditation agencies to certify labs that perform forensic work for the state. Individual lab scientists also would have to get certified in scientific fields by June 1, 2012.
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http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/03/29/2179835/foye-case-emphasizes-full-disclosure.html

Posted: Tuesday, Mar. 29, 2011
Foye case emphasizes full disclosure need
Published in: Opinion
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FOYE05.NE.032411.ASR

Here we go again. Less than a week after the state's district attorneys announced there were no questions about the guilt of defendants in an audit of hundreds of blood cases last summer by a former FBI agent, reporters Joseph Neff and Mandy Locke wrote about the disturbing case of Chris Foye.

Foye has spent 19 years behind bars for a murder he says he did not commit and for which he accepted a prison sentence because he was told his only other option was execution. What neither Foye nor his lawyers knew was that the State Bureau of Investigation had found another man's DNA in the victim's panties and that there were other suspects law enforcement agencies did not pursue.

Had Foye's lawyers known about the other man's DNA on Bobbie Jean Morgan's underwear in 1991, they say, they would not have allowed him to enter a plea that acknowledged there was evidence that could convict him.

This is just the latest indication of how out of whack the state's justice system is. After news reports last year about mishandled blood work at the SBI crime lab and about agents concealing test results that might have helped defendants, N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper asked former FBI agent Chris Swecker to audit the lab's work. His report concluded that the crime lab had either not reported or failed to disclose accurately the results of blood tests in 229 cases. Since then the SBI has identified dozens more such cases.

Morgan was found in a pool of blood and tests showed that footprints left by a socked foot in Morgan's apartment could have been Foye's. But, the reporters wrote, "the SBI failed to report that a confirmatory test for blood was inconclusive." The audit also took note of the DNA evidence belonging to another man, which had not been given to Foye's lawyers.

The district attorney in the case, now retired, insists the DNA report was in the case file. He said all his files after 1975 were open to defense lawyers. Foye's lawyers say they never saw the DNA report and that if they had, they would not have allowed Foye to accept a deal that has kept him in prison for nearly two decades.

This case obviously cries out for further investigation. It's not a matter of legal procedure and hair-splitting. It's a matter of right and wrong, and it appears that Chris Foye was wronged when law enforcement officials did not ensure that he was informed of all the evidence. Foye was convicted long before a 2004 full disclosure law was adopted, but his case underscores its importance.

That's all the more reason for state legislators to reject a House bill that would relieve prosecutors of the duty to make sure defense attorneys have all investigative files, including police reports. The 2004 open discovery law - adopted after news reports exposed misconduct and illegal withholding of evidence - made prosecutors responsible for providing that information, but now prosecutors want to be relieved of that duty.

Prosecutors evidently worry they'll be hauled up on charges before the State Bar if they miss the existence of police reports they knew nothing about. Yet defense attorneys say there's no known case of the bar sanctioning a prosecutor for failing to get that information into defense attorneys' hands.

Granting defendants full access to investigative and prosecutorial files is all about fairness. As we have too often seen in North Carolina's criminal justice system the right information doesn't always get where it belongs. Leave the law alone.
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Quasimodo

Quote:
 
Individual employee raises will be at the discretion of each school’s dean and will be based on performance evaluations.


Want to bet the Gang of 88 all get raises (and anyone who criticized Duke's response in the lax case, doesn't)?
Edited by Quasimodo, Mar 29 2011, 08:03 AM.
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Quasimodo

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http://www.centredaily.com/2011/03/29/2612082/duke-students-identified-charged.html

Duke students identified, charged with theft

March 29, 2011


[Penn] State College police on Monday released the names of four Duke University students arrested Saturday and charged with theft.
K____ K____, 19; B____ S____, 20; P______ S_____, 18; and A______S_____, 19, were visiting State College when they were found in Sunset Park with a borough stop sign and a $4,000 Walmart scanner, police said.




(full names omitted here (but not in article) in deference to the innocent until proven guilty principle)
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Quasimodo

http://dukefactchecker.blogspot.com/

Quote:
 


Duke PR is spinning this story, hillarious, as a big positive step forward: 24 hour machines will vend stamps and let you weigh mail, how convenient, at the Duke South post office in the medical center's Green Zone. (Near Medical Records.) What's really happening is the branch is closing effective June 30, to be replaced by a kiosk.

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sceptical

No. 3 Blue Devils Beat Brown to Win 7th Straight
:lax P:
DURHAM, N.C. - Five different Blue Devils registered a multiple-point game to lead third-ranked Duke to a 12-7 non-conference victory over Brown this afternoon at Koskinen Stadium. Eleven players notched at least one point in the game for the Blue Devils, and Duke had eight different goal scorers.

Duke (8-2) pushes its win streak to seven games and its home win streak to 14. The 14-game run at home currently is the longest active streak in Division I lacrosse.

Senior Zach Howell and freshman Jordan Wolf both contributed three points from two goals and an assist, while junior Robert Rotanz and Christian Walsh also chipped in two-goal efforts. Sophomore defenseman Bill Conners registered his first career goal as well.

Brown, which falls to 3-4 on the season, was led by David Hawley's three goals. Andrew Feinberg put away two scores, while Parker Brown added two assists.
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