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| Blog and Media Roundup - Saturday, Arpil 2, 2011; News Roundup | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Apr 2 2011, 06:14 AM (1,074 Views) | |
| abb | Apr 2 2011, 06:14 AM Post #1 |
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http://www.heraldsun.com/view/full_story_news_durham/12600152/article-City-happy-with-lacrosse-ruling?instance=main_article City happy with lacrosse ruling The Herald Sun 04.01.11 - 11:58 pm By Ray Gronberg gronberg@heraldsun.com; 419-6648 DURHAM -- City officials are voicing happiness with a federal judge's ruling that their government isn't at risk of having to pay punitive damages to members of Duke University's 2005-06 men's lacrosse team. The ruling, issued Thursday, narrowed the city's potential liability in three lawsuits that challenge the Durham Police Department's handling of the 2006 investigation of stripper Crystal Mangum's false report that she'd been raped at a lacrosse team party. U.S. District Court Judge James Beaty Jr. held that the city could be held liable only for any actual damages the players suffered, assuming they can prove officials violated their rights, obstructed justice or failed to properly supervise the detectives who conducted the probe. Beaty held that precedents from his district, a 1981 U.S. Supreme Court case and a 1982 N.C. Supreme Court case ruled out punitive damages -- and at a stroke reduced the potential monetary risk to taxpayers. "We believe the court correctly dismissed the punitive-damage claims against the city and are pleased and encouraged by that favorable determination," city spokeswoman Beverly Thompson said, relaying her government's official response to the decision. Each of the three lawsuits the city faces sought both actual and punitive damages. Actual damages, generally speaking, are compensation for direct economic losses, such as lost wages or educational opportunities. Punitive damages in civil cases are, as the term implies, an additional punishment to losing defendants. Beaty did, however, appear to leave open the possibility that two groups of players could someday obtain punitive-damage payments from Duke University. He allowed them to proceed with evidence-gathering on several claims against Duke -- most notably concerning the supervision of a trainee sexual-assault nurse, an alleged cover-up of Duke's moves to share with police the data it had on the players' movements, and the face-to-face dealings school President Richard Brodhead and two other campus officials had with players. Duke officials, like the city's, said Beaty had helped matters by narrowing the issues lawyers have to address. That played out "as we had hoped," Duke Vice President for Public Affairs and Government Relations Michael Schoenfeld said, adding that the school "will continue to vigorously defend" itself against the remaining claims. Duke is party to only two of the three lawsuits because it reached an out-of-court settlement in 2007 with the players involved in the third, David Evans, Colin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann. Those three were the only players actually charged with raping Mangum. State Attorney General Roy Cooper later exonerated them, saying they'd been the innocent victims of a "tragic rush to accuse." Evans, Finnerty and Seligmann in addition to seeking monetary damages have asked Beaty to put the Durham Police Department under the practical control of an independent monitor for 10 years. Beaty on Thursday didn't close the door to that idea. But to justify that move, the three because of U.S. Supreme Court precedent will have to prove they face a "real and immediate threat of repeated injury" that's more than speculative, he said. He added that he would "resolve the availability" of the requested injunction once lawyers finish gathering evidence. Lawyers for the players also signaled satisfaction with the judge's ruling, which threw out some of their claims but allowed them to probe major allegations against both the city and Duke. Seligmann's attorney, Richard Emery, told the Associated Press he considered Beaty's decisions "a ringing success for the boys." He could not be reached Friday for additional comment. Charles Cooper, lead lawyer for the largest group of unindicted players suing the city and Duke, said he and his clients were "heartened by the judge's carefully considered decision" and will "immediately begin taking discovery and preparing the case for trial." Mayor Bill Bell said he's expecting the city's lawyers to brief elected officials on the ruling at a closed-door meeting next week. |
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| abb | Apr 2 2011, 06:15 AM Post #2 |
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http://dukefactchecker.blogspot.com/2011/04/fctoo-on-sidelines-coach-surpasses.html Lacrosse litigation. Charles Cooper, lead attorney for the players who were not indicted, says he will immediately begin discovery, now that a federal judge has ruled on a tangled batch of motions filed by the defense. Translation: immediate subpoenas for President Richard Brodhead, former trustee chair Robert King Steel in the days ahead. Duke has pledged it will "vigorously" fight. |
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| abb | Apr 2 2011, 06:34 AM Post #3 |
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http://www.sportsmyriad.com/2011/04/former-duke-lacrosse-players-win-a-couple-lose-many/ Former Duke lacrosse players win a couple, lose many By Beau Dure Being a Duke grad in sports media was quite uncomfortable during the days of the Duke lacrosse saga, in which a stripper wrongly accused three players of rape and the media tore Duke one way, then the other. (I’d say my employer was fairer than most.) Early on, I had the sense that the accusations were flawed. Brendan Nyhan, the blogger behind the terrific rhetoric-busting blog Spinsanity and then a grad student at Duke, cataloged some of the problems, even as the talking-head media ranted itself silly about the culture at Duke. Didn’t matter that the talking-head media didn’t know a damn thing about Duke. Of course, neither did KC Johnson, a then-unknown history professor, but he got a good head start delving deeper into the problems with the case. The Chronicle, my proud student paper, did a fine job with it. (Johnson, much to his credit, acknowledges their fairness.) Eventually, the accusations were doubted. Then dismissed. Not just “not guilty,” but “innocent.” Simply put: They did not do it. No one did. The irony about Johnson’s blog was this: Johnson was exposing the dangers of groupthink, yet simultaneously demonstrating them. He showed that rape accusations that get a lot of play in the media can lead many to a rush to judgment. Absolutely. And then his commenters, a band with various grudges against Duke, urged him to take it further and turn the screws on Duke itself. They weren’t entirely wrong — a group of 88 faculty members, including a classmate and a former professor of mine but no one else I knew, took out an ad that didn’t explicitly say, “Yay, let’s go get the lacrosse players,” but it could’ve been more tactful. (I did show the ad once to a neutral party, who wondered what the fuss was all about.) Johnson did his best to distance himself from the most extreme elements in his comments. A black accuser against a mostly white team can bring out the worst in a lot of anonymous people, and Johnson rightfully wanted no part of that. But after one howling mob departed Duke, exhausting its tired stereotypes of a rich white school in a poor black state, Johnson had another mob on his blog. (And the comments on any Chronicle story that had anything to do with lacrosse. Or sports. Or nearly anything.) The mob wanted to paint Duke as anti-jock, incompetent, arrogant and so on. Duke was in an impossible situation. A rogue prosecutor, Mike Nifong, had indicted three lacrosse players on rape charges stemming from a party that made the whole team look awful. Keeping the whole team away from anyone who was about to rush to judgment was an impossible task. Imagine if the lacrosse season had gone forward and the team had been attacked at an away game. Johnson and company had little sympathy. They kept the pressure on Duke. Even after the three accused players were exonerated and settled out of court with Duke before any accusations could be stated in court, even after everyone justifiably sued Nifong back to the Stone Age, the remaining players and parents sued Duke and Durham for anything and everything. Repeat: These are NOT the players who were accused of rape. (A separate lawsuit by those three against many people in Durham had several counts survive summary judgment this week.) That led to the unusual sight last spring, when Duke won the NCAA lacrosse title led by a band of seniors who still had an active lawsuit against the school. After nearly two years, the court has ruled on motions to dismiss. The headline: Motion denied; suits go forward. The details: Not so fast … Read through the 150-plus pages of the ruling in Carrington v Duke, and you’ll see lot of the phrase “the motion to dismiss is granted.” As far as Duke officials are concerned, most of it is gone. The people you’d typically meet as an undergraduate have little left to face in court other than Count 11, a tricky legal argument over school administrators’ fiduciary responsibilities. It could be an interesting test case. The rest of it has been tossed aside. And as if the message wasn’t clear, the court included this message: Having undertaken this comprehensive review of the claims asserted in this case, the Court is compelled to note that while § 1983 cases are often complex and involve multiple Defendants, Plaintiffs in this case have exceeded all reasonable bounds with respect to the length of their Complaint and the breadth of claims and assertions contained therein. So my alma mater can be somewhat relieved that much of this awful matter can be laid to rest. I’ve actually wondered if Duke could sue Nifong for putting the school in a position in which they were going to get taken to court and defamed in the media no matter what school administrators did, but I’m saying that as a philosopher/journalist/alumnus rather than as a lawyer (which I’m not). And still, the school loses. If you want to think of Duke as a place that attracts people with entitlement mentalities, the judge’s comments support your case. So will golfer Andrew Giuliani’s since-dismissed lawsuit. So when it comes to national championships worth celebrating, I’ll stick with the basketball team. And Becca Ward. |
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| abb | Apr 2 2011, 06:35 AM Post #4 |
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http://home1.gte.net/vze493kv/resume/resume.htm Preston Kendrick "Beau" Dure Fairfax, VA |
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| abb | Apr 2 2011, 06:39 AM Post #5 |
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/beau-dure Beau Dure is a freelance sports writer based in Vienna, Va. His first book, "Long-Range Goals: The Success Story of Major League Soccer," will be published by Potomac Books in May 2010. He spent 10 years at USA TODAY, where he covered soccer, Olympic sports and mixed martial arts. Before that, he worked for the Wilmington (N.C.) Star-News, the News & Record (Greensboro, N.C.) and Knight Ridder Tribune News Service. He graduated from Duke the year the men's basketball team won its first national title and got his masters in liberal studies from Duke the year before the team won its third. He recently launched a new blog, sportsmyriad.com, which specializes in sports that don't usually make ESPN and talk radio -- everything from soccer to chess, biathlon to darts. |
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| cks | Apr 2 2011, 06:47 AM Post #6 |
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It would seem that Mr. Dure has engaged in some selective reading of Beaty's ruling. It would also seem that logic was not his strong suit in his philosophic training. |
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| abb | Apr 2 2011, 06:56 AM Post #7 |
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Check out his bio at the link. That reveals all you need to know. |
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| abb | Apr 2 2011, 08:16 AM Post #8 |
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Nerve struck!! I've been in contact, too. They'll have it Monday. They weren't around when all this happened - lots of background to research. Maybe still too slow, but your conspiracy theory is rather silly. Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry -----Original Message----- From: "Walter Abbott" <wabbott@suddenlinkmail.com> Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2011 08:04:43 To: <duresport@gmail.com> Subject: RE: Lacrosse and Chronicle The ruling was released at about 4 PM, EDT on Thursday and was available online shortly thereafter. The Chronicle had time to report on a rap star performance that took place Thursday night, so they can't say no one was on duty. See link here. http://www.dukechronicle.com/article/despite-weather-show-goes Also, Duke.Fact.Checker reports on his blog that he corresponded with editors of The Chronicle late Thursday afternoon and into the night - they were well aware of the story. See link here. http://dukefactchecker.blogspot.com/2011/03/brodhead-steel-under-court-order -to.html From his post: "FC note: It is beyond my comprehension that the Chronicle does not report on this in its Friday edition. Even more so, because from the moment that a Loyal Reader first tipped FC about the federal court's rulings, FC sent the Chronicle editors e-mail advisories of the unfolding story. The news editor acknowledged the first by asking for more details. This spoon-feeding continued through-out the evening, and included the full text of the judge's orders as soon as each was sent to Fact Checker. The e-mail with the most important text was at 7:20 PM -- more than enough time for today's edition (as coverage of the rap singer at a later hour proves). This is a disgrace; the newspaper's editors -- who on the March anniversary of the start of the hoax offered extensive coverage of the fine journalistic work of their predecessors -- owe readers an explanation." -----Original Message----- From: duresport@gmail.com [mailto:duresport@gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, April 02, 2011 7:51 AM To: wabbott@suddenlinkmail.com Subject: Lacrosse and Chronicle Your theory will be proved wrong on Monday. Chronicle doesn't publish on weekends. Not sure what time ruling came out on Thursday. Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry No virus found in this incoming message. |
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| Joan Foster | Apr 2 2011, 08:35 AM Post #9 |
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Well said, cks. What could poor Duke have done...(wringing hands) Met with the families. Read the case file as offered to them (and refused) before Brodhead began public appearances that apologized for a rape that never happened...and that intensified the rancor against these kids by using phrases like the "commandeering of Black women" and intensified the public opinion that these kids must be guilty. Followed the law...and not allow Nifong access he was not entitled to have...and create a courtroom sham as they did over the FERPA material. What was the big deal about 88 faculty members thanking "CASTRATE" sign-carrying protesters for "not waiting" and rushing into a highly volatile LEGAL situation...where three students of theirs had the REST OF THEIR LIVES on the line... to publish their "support" for the idea that a heinous racially motivated crime had taken place. I guess Dure has no issue with the Chair of Duke BOT stating that these kids should stand trial because "it was best for Duke." And objectifying these kids like they were useful PR hires for school spirit...that they should head off to a Federal Penitentiary if necessary...because "it will all be sorted out on appeal." Is there a level of entitlement in the human spirit that exceeds THOSE attitudes? |
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| nyesq83 | Apr 2 2011, 08:43 AM Post #10 |
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Soccer fanatic. Disses lacrosse. Doesn't understand or is blind to what really is going on in Durham. |
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| cks | Apr 2 2011, 08:45 AM Post #11 |
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It is one thing to feel a strong sense of loyalty to one's school, it is quite another to wear blinders where that institution and its actions are concerned. Mr. Dure professes the former but engages in the latter. He believes that his facility with words can convince those who read his postings that this was only a minor event which should be laid to rest. Once again demonstrating why it has been so important that the civil suits be allowed to procede.
Edited by cks, Apr 2 2011, 08:50 AM.
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| Bill Anderson | Apr 2 2011, 08:46 AM Post #12 |
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Please correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think that any of the players on last year's championship team are parties to the lawsuit. If he blew that one, then we know about the guy's adherence to accuracy.
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| abb | Apr 2 2011, 08:49 AM Post #13 |
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Exactly. As my 96 year-old mamma used to tell me, "Some folks you just can't reason with. They have to be cited." |
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| cks | Apr 2 2011, 08:49 AM Post #14 |
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BTW - checked in at the justice4nifong site - still no mention of Thursday's ruling. |
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| abb | Apr 2 2011, 08:53 AM Post #15 |
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Here's the roster from last year. Quas can prolly off the top of his head name the plaintiffs. http://www.goduke.com/SportSelect.dbml?SPSID=25941&SPID=2027&DB_OEM_ID=4200&Q_SEASON=2009 |
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3:31 AM Jul 11