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| Blog and Media Roundup - Monday, April 4, 2011; News Roundup | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Apr 4 2011, 03:32 AM (1,130 Views) | |
| abb | Apr 4 2011, 03:32 AM Post #1 |
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http://www.heraldsun.com/view/full_story/12616164/article-Mangum-arrested--charged-in-stabbing?instance=homefourthleft Mangum arrested, charged in stabbing 04.03.11 - 10:22 pm EP7Y_15593211_Crystal_Gail_Mangum.jpg By Cliff Bellamy cbellamy@heraldsun.com; 419-6755 DURHAM -- Crystal Mangum, who made a false rape claim in 2006 against three Duke University lacrosse players, is in the Durham County Jail on assault charges. Mangum, according to warrants, was charged Sunday with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury. Officers were dispatched to a stabbing call at 3507 Century Oaks Drive at 3:15 a.m. Sunday, according to an email from Durham Police Department spokeswoman Kammie Michael. When they arrived, they found a 46-year-old man had been stabbed in the torso. He was taken to Duke University Hospital for treatment of serious injuries. Officers arrested Mangum, 32, in a nearby apartment. The weapon used was a kitchen knife, according to the warrant. Mangum is the victim's girlfriend, according to investigators, and the stabbing occurred during an argument. Mangum was not released from jail, and her case is scheduled to be heard in District Court today, according to the warrant. The Police Department offered no further comment. Jurors in December found Mangum guilty of three counts of contributing to the abuse and neglect of minors, causing more than $200 in property damage to the car of the man who was her boyfriend, and resisting a police officer. Police have not stated if the same man is the one who was stabbed Sunday. Those were misdemeanor charges. But jurors did not reach consensus on an arson charge -- a felony -- so Superior Court Judge Abraham Jones declared a mistrial. Prosecutors had alleged that Mangum set fire in February 2010 to the clothes of a man who was her boyfriend. In January of this year, the District Attorney's Office decided not to retry the arson charge. |
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| abb | Apr 4 2011, 03:33 AM Post #2 |
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http://www.heraldsun.com/view/full_story_news_durham/12616158/article-Chief-Magistrate-Evans-steps-down?instance=main_article Chief Magistrate Evans steps down 04.03.11 - 10:22 pm By Mark Donovan mdonovan@heraldsun.com; 419-6655 DURHAM -- Durham County Chief Magistrate Elaine Evans submitted her resignation from that post on Friday, according to a source close to the situation. The source said Evans would continue to work as a magistrate, just give up her scheduling duties for the Magistrate's Office. No replacement has been named. Evans was appointed to the post in 2007 after a long career as a magistrate. Evans had replaced the only other person to hold the job here -- Chet Dobies, who died in June 2007. Evans was appointed to the post by Chief Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson, acting on a recommendation of Clerk of Court Archie Smith. Evans is a graduate of N.C. Central University and has a master's degree in business administration from Pfeiffer University. The Chief Magistrate is overseen by the state Administrative Office of the Courts. The post's duties include handling questions and complaints about the office and functioning as the Magistrate's Office's official spokeswoman. |
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| abb | Apr 4 2011, 03:53 AM Post #3 |
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http://www.dukechronicle.com/article/dsg-lacrosse-suits DSG Lacrosse Suits By Zachary Tracer April 4, 2011 A federal judge will allow three lawsuits filed by most of the members of the 2006 men’s lacrosse team to move forward against Duke and Durham. The judge rejected many of the claims made in the two suits against Duke and specific employees, but claims still stand against President Richard Brodhead, Dean of Students Sue Wasiolek, Robert Steel, Trinity ’73 and former chair of the Board of Trustees, and Dr. Victor Dzau, chancellor for health affairs and president and CEO of the Duke University Health System. A substantial number of the claims in all three suits against Durham and its employees were allowed to proceed. The judge’s decision to allow specific claims to proceed does not mean that those claims are true. Lawyers for the players involved in the suits will now be allowed to collect evidence and conduct interviews as they attempt to prove allegations including fabrication of evidence, wrongful searches, fraud and negligence. Two of the three suits were brought against Duke and the City of Durham as well as individuals for their roles in the 2006 lacrosse case, in which exotic dancer Crystal Mangum falsely accused three Duke men’s lacrosse players of rape. Mangum is not named as a defendant in the cases. The individuals bringing these suits were never charged with any crimes. “We are heartened by the judge’s carefully considered decision permitting the lacrosse players’ primary claims to move forward,” attorney Charles Cooper, who represents 38 of the unindicted players, said in a statement. “We will immediately begin taking extensive discovery and preparing the case for trial.” Robert Ekstrand, an attorney for three other unindicted players, did not respond to requests for comment. The third suit, brought by the three players who were wrongly charged with rape and other crimes, is directed at the City of Durham and related individuals. The players—David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann—were ultimately declared innocent and Mike Nifong, the district attorney who bungled the case, was disbarred and jailed for a day. The three have already settled with the University, so Duke is not a defendant in their suit. Robert Cary, an attorney for the three wrongly indicted players, declined to comment on the judge’s decision. ‘Abuses of government power’ Judge James Beaty allowed many of the claims against the City of Durham and its employees to proceed. His decisions in the three cases, totaling 499 pages, were released Thursday. Beaty focused in particular on the players’ arguments that Durham police and former district attorney Mike Nifong indicted the players by fabricating evidence and hiding information that contradicted his claim. “The intentional use of false or misleading evidence before a grand jury to obtain an indictment and arrest without probable cause is exactly the type of unreasonable search and seizure that the Fourth Amendment was designed to protect against, and would violate the most fundamental concepts of due process,” Beaty wrote in that case. Beaty noted in the case of the 38 unindicted players that requiring the teammates to submit DNA evidence may have violated their constitutional rights. The players contend that the order was obtained using false information. The judge allowed several claims to proceed relating to Durham Police Department Sgt. Mark Gottlieb’s conduct in the case. Gottlieb was responsible for the investigation, and the players say he made up evidence. Beaty allowed claims to proceed against Gottlieb for violating the players’ Fourth Amendment rights, obstruction of justice and making false public statements. The players also said Gottlieb should not have investigated the lacrosse case because he had a pattern of violating the constitutional rights of Duke students, such as by manufacturing evidence and filing false police reports. Beaty rejected claims for punitive damages against Durham, though the city may still eventually have to pay the players for actual damages that they suffered. Beaty also threw out the players’ emotional distress claims in all three cases, saying they presented no specific evidence of emotional or mental harm. Thomas Metzloff, a professor in the School of Law who specializes in civil suits, said the City of Durham still faces substantial claims. “This is still, even without punitive damages, potentially high-stakes litigation for the city,” he said. Beverly Thompson, Durham’s public affairs director, said in a statement that the city is hopeful the cases will ultimately be decided in its favor. “The city is gratified that the court has dismissed many of the plaintiffs’ claims and has narrowed the issues raised in these cases,” she wrote. “We believe the court correctly dismissed the punitive damages claims against the city and are pleased and encouraged by that favorable determination.” Claims narrowed against Duke The judge rejected many of the claims made by the unindicted players in their two suits against Duke, including all claims against Provost Peter Lange and Vice President for Student Affair Larry Moneta, who both declined to comment. He also threw out all claims made by the players’ parents. Duke will “continue to vigorously defend” the remaining claims in the suits, Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations, wrote in a statement. “Many of the claims in the lawsuit have been dismissed and the few claims remaining are substantially narrowed, as we had hoped,” he wrote. Many of the remaining claims against Duke, DUHS and individual administrators relate to the alleged conduct of the nurse who examined Mangum. According to the players’ suits, the nurse, Tara Levicy, said Mangum showed physical signs of rape, although no such evidence was present. In addition, the suits state that Levicy altered the examination report to support Mangum’s claim that she was raped. The judge allowed claims related to Levicy’s alleged conduct to proceed on grounds including obstruction of justice and negligent hiring, training and supervision of an employee. According to the obstruction of justice claim, Steel and Dzau allegedly helped create false reports and the two men—in addition to Brodhead and John Burness, former senior vice president for public affairs and government relations—then allegedly attempted to conceal the acts. ‘Relationship of trust’ Brodhead, Executive Vice President Tallman Trask and Wasiolek face a claim brought by the 38 unindicted players of constructive fraud, which is deception without intent. The players say the three administrators created a “relationship of trust” with them by encouraging them to discuss details of the situation under promises of confidentiality and then disclosed that information to the Durham police. The players also state that Wasiolek, who holds a law degree, told them not to hire a lawyer or discuss the case with their families. Instead, she recommended that they consult with a lawyer selected by Duke, the players state. “An administrator who is a lawyer, who discusses pending criminal charges with her students, who affirmatively cuts them off from other advice by telling them not to seek legal advice and not to tell their parents, and who then directs them to the institution’s attorney in an effort to protect the institution at the students’ expense, could plausibly be liable for constructive fraud under state law,” the judge wrote regarding Wasiolek’s alleged actions. He added that the plaintiffs will ultimately be responsible for proving these claims. The judge ruled that the administrators’ disclosure of the players’ DukeCard swipe records to Durham police was not a violation of the players’ rights. But subsequent efforts the players say Duke made to conceal this disclosure might constitute fraud. Administrators named in that part of the suit include former Duke Police Chief Robert Dean, former DukeCard office head Matthew Drummond, Aaron Graves, former associate vice president for campus safety and security, and Deputy General Counsel Kate Hendricks. Beaty also said that if Duke failed to follow the disciplinary procedures laid out in the Code of Conduct when it suspended then-sophomore Ryan McFadyen in Spring 2006, the University could be liable for a breach of contract. McFayden, a former lacrosse player, was suspended after sending a vulgar email that mentioned killing strippers in what he later said was a joking film reference. But the judge rejected the portion of the players’ breach of contract claim based on the allegation that Duke faculty and staff harassed the players in violation of University policy. He wrote that the University’s handbook and other policies are not legally enforceable contracts. |
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| abb | Apr 4 2011, 03:56 AM Post #4 |
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4:50 AM April 4, 2011 Fact Checker reply ✔✔✔✔✔ ✔✔✔✔✔ Fact Checker here. To understand this series of decisions last Thursday, we have to roll the clock back to the day in 2006 that former Senior Vice President John Burness smeared the fired lacrosse coach Mike Pressler. The liability was clear, with the judge in a defamation lawsuit that Pressler brought even remarking out loud that he could not understand how anyone could be "so dumb" to make the remarks that Burness did. The "so dumb case" -- as it became known -- dragged on and on. But on the eve of discovery -- that is, just hours before Burness was being forced to face questions in a sworn pre-trial deposition and to deliver documents that had been demanded -- Duke put serious money -- and more in the form of certain concessions -- on the table and Pressler settled. Serious money. The settlement is confidential. FC confirms it was serious money and much more. Silence. No depositions, no subpoenas. This is the goal of this University at any cost in the three lawsuits pending before Judge Beaty. Silence. At any cost. Duke will continue to incur massive bills "vigorously" appealing portions of Judge Beaty's orders. Anything to put off and avoid the day that a renowned lawyer for the plaintiffs, Charles Cooper, has promised will come immediately: subpoenas for Brodhead and former Trustee chair Robert King Steel. Beaty is one of the nation's most respected and long serving Federal Judges. There were no surprises at all in any of his orders. The plaintiffs filed their complaints with a giant sweep, indeed the judge groused about this in each of his three related decisions, and the judge properly narrowed and focused the complaints, throwing out some counts. Routine stuff. Expected stuff. As another of the great litigators representing plaintiffs, Richard Emery, said, the plaintiffs scored "a ringing victory." (Full disclosure: Emery has represented Fact Checker and is a friend.) ✔✔✔ Duke will fight and appeal and procrastinate and try to wear the plaintiffs down. But remember, please, the mother of David Evans, one of the players who was indicted on false charges. She said on the day David and his teammates were declared "innocent," that the prosecutor Mike Nifong picked on the wrong people. In other words, we have a group of people of remarkable inner strength, who support each other to a uncanny -- I use this word in its best sense -- degree, and who are not going to be worn down and go away. Loyal Readers, make no mistake. There is money at stake here, yes, but that is not the prime motivation. The lacrosse players and their families want justice. They want people held accountable, but even above that, they want the facts to be known, facts of the scandalous and disgraceful response of Brodhead and Steel to a crisis. "We must know," as one parent told FC. ✔ With respect to the city of Durham, the plaintiffs want a court to supervise the police department for ten years, so that there is no repeat of the rampant violation of fundamental Constitutional rights that Judge Beaty discussed in his 499 pages. Yes 499 pages in his decision, something like 24,000 pages of legal maneuvering filed so far. Durham is also facing huge financial liability for actual damages (even though the judge barred punative damages) and later this week its Mayor has called a conference of everyone involved on the defense side. We will have analysis afterward. ✔✔✔ Judge Beaty gave us some hints of the kind of disclosure that Duke cringes at: An e-mail advising administrators to "get their stories straight," and advising also to destroy the e-mail. The judge said this may be conspiracy to obstruct justice and the plaintiffs have a right to inquire. ✔ Silence. In a part of the University response that the Chronicle did not print, Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public relations and obfuscation, reveals Duke has been upping the ante -- translation putting more and more cash on the table -- to get a settlement in at least one of these cases. So far, no deal. Duke's offer included paying for all the plaintiffs' legal fees -- huge huge -- and all their out of pocket costs -- huge huge. It said nothing about truth. The litigation goes on. We shall not forget 6 and 13 and 45. ---------------------- ---------------------- ✔✔✔✔✔ Crystal Gail Mangum, the go-go dancer hired to perform at a 2006 lacrosse team party, whose lies about being raped touched off the lacrosse hoax, was arrested again this weekend. She is due in court for the first time on Monday morning. The charges are violent felonies: deadly weapon used in a robbery, attempt to kill and stabbing a 46 year old man repeatedly. This is the third time that she has faced similar charges of attempted murder. A neighbor says the victim met Mangum, dated her a few times, and then she and her three kids moved in. The victim is in Duke Hospital, which has a policy of not disclosing the condition of victims of serious crimes. Miss Mangum's elevator does not stop at every floor, and we can only hope that this time she will be treated more firmly in the past, and that her kids too will be looked after. ✔ Thank you for reading FC. Far more than money, the lax players and their families want justice: they want to hear each of this men admit their role in the hoax, to set the record clear. |
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| abb | Apr 4 2011, 04:00 AM Post #5 |
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http://www.dukechronicle.com/article/crystal-mangum-arrested-alleged-stabbing Crystal Mangum arrested in alleged stabbing By Chronicle Staff April 4, 2011 Crystal Mangum, the Durham woman who falsely accused three Duke lacrosse players of rape in 2006, was arrested in a North Carolina home on assault charges early Sunday morning, NBC17 reported. Mangum, 32, is accused of stabbing her 46-year-old boyfriend during an argument, Durham police said. She is being charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, authorities noted. Mangum is being held without bond in the Durham County Jail, and it is unknown if she has an attorney. This is not Mangum’s first run-in with the law since the 2006 case. In Feb. 2010, Mangum was charged with attempted murder and arson—among other charges—after, police said, she lit her boyfriend’s clothes on fire in a bathtub and continued to assault him in front of her children. She also threatened at the time to stab her boyfriend, according to a court document. In December, Mangum was convicted of three counts of child abuse, injury to personal property and resisting a public officer. Her sentence was 88 days in jail; however she had already served this time while awaiting trial. |
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| abb | Apr 4 2011, 04:02 AM Post #6 |
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http://dukechronicle.com/article/blue-devils-fall-big-city-classic Blue Devils fall in Big City Classic By Jacob Levitt April 4, 2011 Blue Devils fall in Big City Classic Danielle Parhizkaran/The Chronicle: The Orange ran out to an early 8-1 lead, and held a commanding seven-goal advantage at halftime. The Orange ran out to an early 8-1 lead, and held a commanding seven-goal advantage at halftime. By Jacob Levitt [4] April 4, 2011 Duke finds itself in early 8-1 hole, but battles back late After falling into an 8-1 hole in the game’s first 20 minutes, Duke nearly managed a comeback against No. 1 Syracuse (8-0) last night. But it was not to be, and the No. 3 Blue Devils (8-3) eventually fell 13-11 in the Big City Classic at New Meadowlands Stadium. Despite statistically dominating crucial aspects of the game—faceoffs and ground-balls—from the very beginning, the Blue Devils were unable to break through against Orange goaltender John Galloway, who set an NCAA record by recording his 52nd career victory. And in the early going, Galloway was a cut above his counterpart, Dan Wigrizer. Galloway allowed only two goals in the first half and racked up a save percentage of .778. By contrast, Wigrizer failed to notch a save until 11:37 remained in the second quarter, by which point he had already allowed seven goals. Several of those scores came on unsettled opportunities, as the Blue Devils managed only four successful clears out of nine attempts in the first half, including a dismal 1-of-3 in the first period. “I’m not sure whether people were making mistakes in the first half because of the big stage,” senior attacker Zach Howell said in the postgame press conference. “I’m not sure you could attribute it to any one thing, but we did make a lot of mistakes in the first half. Not just young guys, old guys too. So I’m not sure we could chalk that up to freshmen being scared or something like that.” The lopsided 9-2 halftime margin was particularly strange, because Duke was so successful in the faceoff circle (9-for-13) and was able corral a majority of ground balls. In the third period, the Blue Devils extended their dominance in the hustle statistics by collecting 11 ground balls to only four for the Orange, while also winning 6-of-8 faceoffs. Still, the effort was only enough for the two teams to trade goals, and Syracuse kept a seven-goal lead as the final period began. In the last quarter, Duke was finally able to parlay its dominance of possession into goal-scoring opportunities, out-shooting Syracuse 12-2. Although the Blue Devils took at least as many shots as their opponent in each of the first three quarters as well, the offense only started seeing quality looks toward the end of the game. Those chances helped Duke score four goals in just over eight minutes to cut the lead to 13-10 with around three minutes remaining. Freshman Brandon Fowler won the ensuing faceoff and junior CJ Costabile picked up one of his 10 ground balls for the day. After racing into the attacking half to set up an unsettled opportunity for the Blue Devils, the ball ended up in the stick of Howell, who had scored the previous two goals and assisted on the two prior scores. Howell shot and missed high. Duke retained possession, but Syracuse was able to force a Josh Dionne turnover and, following a successful clear, was able to draw a one-minute holding penalty against freshman defenseman Luke Duprey. The ensuing extra-man opportunity allowed the Orange to effectively kill the clock. The Blue Devils lost, but the furious comeback has to give the young team some confidence moving forward. Wigrizer ended the game much improved on his start, saving 60 percent of the shots he faced after the initial seven-goal outburst he allowed in the game’s first 20 minutes. The offense, after scoring only twice and failing on all four man-up situations in the first half, scored nine goals in the second half while going 3-for-5 on extra-man opportunities. The offense benefited enormously from the team’s success clearing the ball in the second half. It’s no coincidence that the fourth quarter, which the Blue Devils won 5-0, was the only one in which Duke was successful on all of its clear attempts. Afterward, head coach John Danowski said that while the team clearly had work to do going forward, he was encouraged by its resilience. “Regardless of the outcome of today’s game, we’re going to become a better team,” Danowski said. “But [I’m] really proud of our guys for continuing to play, and play the right way.” |
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| abb | Apr 4 2011, 04:06 AM Post #7 |
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http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2011/04/reflections-on-beaty-rulings.html Monday, April 04, 2011 Reflections on the Beaty Rulings A few comments about last week’s rulings from Judge Beaty. In general, the rulings seemed like very good news for the falsely accused students and a very bad development for the triumvirate of Durham, Nifong, and DNA Security. For Duke and the unindicted lacrosse players, the results were more of a mixed bag. Given that Duke’s pre-March 31 strategy of avoiding good-faith negotiations was based on an apparent confidence in achieving total victory at the motion to dismiss stage, this outcome wasn’t good news for the university. A final broad point: though I disagree strongly with one aspect of Judge Beaty’s ruling (regarding his broadening of the Love precedent), his three memoranda were remarkably thorough and well-reasoned, and suggested he understands the case well. Durham’s Setbacks The basic facts of the criminal case aren’t much in dispute. A woman with a history of criminal behavior and severe mental problems made wild allegations against some Duke students. The Durham police, after improperly turning their investigation over to Mike Nifong, obtained indictments under dubious pretenses (a wildly flawed photo lineup, withholding exculpatory DNA tests from the defense and the court, misleading or outright false testimony to the grand jury). The case eventually collapsed under its own weight, as the false accuser, Crystal Mangum, repeatedly changed her story, and the unethical Nifong desperately tried to alter his timeline and charges to fit whatever story Mangum happened to be offering. The AG’s inquiry eventually concluded that the accused students were innocent, that no objective medical evidence existed to sustain any criminal charges, and that Mangum was an unreliable witness. Those facts come close to a textbook case of malicious prosecution, and considerable available evidence already confirms this narrative. So Durham’s filings focused on three other arguments: (1) Even if true, these facts can’t sustain a civil suit, because a grand jury indicted the lacrosse players; (2) Even if true, these facts can’t sustain a civil suit, because Nifong ran the investigation, and he’s an employee of the state, not the city, and under the 11th amendment, the state can’t be sued in federal court; (3) Even if true, these facts can’t sustain a civil suit, because someone else (Duke employees, Dr. Meehan) is to blame. Argument (3), as Judge Beaty pointed out, isn’t relevant for the motion to dismiss stage. Argument (2) he rejected out of hand, pointing out that while he functioned as a de facto police detective, Mike Nifong (and his underling, Linwood Wilson) didn’t enjoy absolute immunity. And Argument (1) prompted the most passionate section of last week’s rulings: Defendants in this case essentially contend that this Court should take the most restrictive view of the applicable doctrines and should conclude that no provision of the Constitution has been violated, and that no redressable claim can be stated, when government officials intentionally fabricate evidence to frame innocent citizens, even if the evidence is used to indict and arrest those citizens without probable cause. This Court cannot take such a restrictive view of the protections afforded by the Constitution. Durham/Nifong/DSI will have another bite at the apple, of course, when Beaty considers motions for summary judgment, but it seems—having lost the constitutional arguments—highly unlikely that they’ll prevail at that stage. Duke’s Victories Duke already has settled with the three falsely accused players for, according to Raleigh Metro, an eight-figure amount—not exactly an approach a university that doesn’t fear legal liability takes. That said, there’s no evidence that the institution has made any changes to address the kind of problems that mandated this massive settlement. In the Carrington rulings, Duke’s most clear-cut victory also represented a tremendous setback to student rights throughout the 4th Circuit. Citing the precedent of Love (which involved a far, far narrower set of allegations), Beaty dismissed a breach of contract claim to hold Duke liable for failing to enforce the terms of its faculty handbook (all students must be treated with respect) and student bulletin (harassment against students won’t be tolerated). He argued that, under Love, documents like the bulletin and handbook aren’t contracts. In other words: universities can use them to enforce judgments against students, but when universities don’t live up to their provisions, students have no legal recourse. And since it would be hard to imagine a more clear-cut case of lack of respect (the Group of 88 statement with false assertions of departmental endorsements, the Houston Baker letter, Tim Tyson protesting outside the captains' house) or harassment (both in-class and on campus) than the lacrosse case, Beaty’s ruling fortifies and expands the Love precedent, and essentially means that students anywhere in the 4th circuit are out of luck on this line of response when activist faculty or favored elements in the student body go after them. (By the way, historians aren’t supposed to make predictions, but I’ll offer one here: Duke won’t amend its student bulletin or faculty handbook to make clear to current and prospective parents that the university can violate these documents at will, if enforcing their provisions would require the administration to alienate activist faculty members on campus.) Two other aspects of Beaty’s ruling reflected current law, but his findings seemed intellectually counterintuitive. First, he dismissed one claim against Duke on grounds that in North Carolina “no basis to support the contention that a sexual assault nurse examiner owes a duty to the general public, or to individuals who are members of the public who may subsequently be targeted during a police investigation,” on grounds that the SANE nurse has a “primary duty to the patient.” Yet in our legal system, the SANE essentially functions as an agent of the state, with a job of collecting and interpreting evidence for possible use in trial. If, in fact, such a figure owes no duty to the general public, then perhaps the general public should assign to SANEs a less significant role in criminal prosecutions. Second, Beaty dismissed another claim against Duke on grounds that, under relevant case law, students have no expectation of privacy regarding their keycard information. This finding reflects the Supreme Court’s strained interpretation of privacy rights, but my sense is that most students would find it jarring to discover that they have no privacy rights regarding the electronic record of when they come and go from their dorms. Duke’s Defeats Duke’s defeats outweighed their victories—in what senior administrators must have regarded as a premature April Fool’s joke, Beaty allowed multiple claims of conspiracy and obstruction of justice, fraud, and negligent supervision to proceed against the University and its employees. His ruling also offered a rather . . . negative . . . review of how the Duke faculty approached the case. On one fraud claim—which comes out of Duke’s having given the DPD access to its students’ keycard information without a warrant, in apparent violation of FERPA; and then lying about it when Nifong subsequently requested a court order for the information, which Judge Titus denied—Duke seems extremely vulnerable. (Duke has never explained why it didn’t notify the lacrosse players that the university had improperly shared their student data with the DPD.) And whether the university being held civilly liable for violating FERPA would prompt some federal accompanying actions remains an open question. On the medical front, Beaty’s rulings clearly focused attention on former SANE-nurse-in-training Tara Levicy, whose willingness to constantly alter her story to fit Nifong’s needs played such an important role in keeping the case alive. He dismissed claims against Levicy’s supervisors—but they weren’t the figures who obviously committed misconduct in this case. And, perhaps most troublingly for Duke, his ruling invited the plaintiffs to establish a connection between Duke and Levicy’s unusual behavior. Administratively, Duke itself and President William Brodhead as an individual remain potentially liable for fraud and negligent supervision—meaning that depositions and discovery will commence, presumably to include Brodhead’s emails. And Beaty suggested that the negligent supervision claim could provide the avenue he seemingly blocked by dismissing the breach of contract claim to examine why the administration stood aside meekly as activist faculty members chose to exploit their students’ difficulties. A final point: in dismissing a claim for intrusion upon seclusion against Duke administrators, Beaty offered this appraisal of activist members of the Duke faculty: “The Amended Complaint alleges conduct by faculty members [which was based on information that is entirely in the public record] that is certainly questionable.” Another prediction: Duke won’t be broadcasting this evaluation to prospective parents anytime soon. What Discovery Should Reveal The path laid out by Beaty’s rulings strongly suggested that—one way or the other—the discovery process will provide answers to a few lingering questions from the case, namely: (1) When, precisely, did senior members of the Durham Police Department (and City Manager Patrick Baker) elect to allow Mike Nifong to assume personal command of the police investigation? Why did they do so? And why did they not step back in to establish normal processes when Nifong ordered the DPD to violate its own procedures and run a suspects-only lineup? (2) When, precisely, did senior members of the Duke administration, including Brodhead and former BOT chairman Bob Steel, learn of former SANE nurse-in-training Tara Levicy’s involvement in the case? And why did they not step in to establish normal processes when Levicy started violating regular SANE procedures by changing her story to fit Nifong’s tale and providing the police with information not contained in her written report? (3) When, precisely, and for what reason did Duke establish its students’ presumption of innocence as one of the two pillars of the university’s policy, as Brodhead subsequently, and misleadingly, claimed? We know that one senior administrator, Larry Moneta, told Samantha Ekstrand on tape that he did not believe the players were innocent; and we know that in his April 5, 2006 open letter, Brodhead made no mention of a presumption of innocence. By June, he would do so: had university counsel grown concerned with the possibility of civil suits? Linwood Wilson Proving yet again the aphorism that a man who represents himself has a fool for a client, Counselor Linwood Wilson’s filings failed to persuade: between the three lawsuits, Wilson is still facing nine separate claims. Duke’s Defenders Perhaps the most revealing—and, unintentionally, critical of Duke’s position—reaction to Judge Beaty’s rulings came from Duke’s official spokesperson and a Duke apologist. Duke spokesperson Michael Schoenfeld commented, "The few claims remaining are substantially narrowed, as we had hoped." [emphasis added] It’s quite true that Beaty “narrowed” claims against Duke. But the “narrowing” consisted of his eliminating mid-level (or in one case all) administrators, while leaving the university itself still potentially liable and the overall claim entirely unaffected; or his eliminating Durham but not Duke from one fraud claim. Duke, as we learned from the AIG lawsuit, has already spent millions of dollars on attorneys. If a ruling that kept the university potentially liable for multiple claims of conspiracy and obstruction of justice, fraud, and negligent supervision is the outcome for which the university leadership “hoped,” what kind of outcome had these high-priced lawyers predicted to Brodhead and the Duke Trustees? Duke alumnus and apologist Beau Dure, meanwhile, produced a post establishing “fair and balanced” bonafides that would make Glenn Beck proud. After a token expression of sympathy with the falsely accused players, Dure asserted that “the people you’d typically meet as an undergraduate have little left to face in court other than Count 11”—an odd formulation, since virtually none of the claims involved people “you’d typically meet as an undergraduate.” The post incorrectly implied (but didn’t state outright) that my initial area of interest was in exposing the media’s rush to judgment on the criminal case—whereas, obviously, my initial focus in the case was exclusively in exploring the motivations for what Judge Beaty termed the “questionable” behavior of the Duke faculty. The post also minimized the Group of 88 statement with this almost hilarious line of argument: “I did show the ad once to a neutral party, who wondered what the fuss was all about.” (Adopting this approach, allow me to pass along the following: I showed Brodhead’s April 5, 2006 statement to a fellow rider on the G-train, who wondered what the fuss was all about.) Some might think that a former Duke student would be troubled by his university affirming that Duke should have no legal obligation to ensure that faculty treat all Duke students with “respect” and that all Duke students shouldn’t be harassed, even though the faculty handbook and the student bulletin appear to promise such a standard. But Dure—as, I suppose, a good Duke apologist must—seemed almost giddy about this development. Dure focused, however, on a peculiar claim: after implying but not quite stating explicitly that Duke’s activist faculty suffer from the effects of groupthink, Dure offered the unsurprising observation that the DIW commentariat (which he darkly described as a “mob”) exhibits symptoms of groupthink. (Dure also, oddly, claimed to have commented at DIW “back in the day” only to have been “shouted down” by DIW commenters, though a blogger.com DIW search, and a Google search for “'Beau Dure’ Durham Wonderland” revealed no comments by Dure on DIW.) In any event, as anyone even remotely familiar with the blogosphere knows, blogs do a lot of good things, but providing comments sections that feature all points of view in significant numbers generally isn’t one of them. University faculties, on the other hand, purport to have higher standards than blog commentariats, especially in ensuring diverse viewpoints among the professoriate. So is this what it’s come to in this case? The university’s spokesperson says Duke “hoped” for an outcome in which multiple claims of conspiracy and obstruction of justice, fraud, and negligent supervision would go forward; and a Duke apologist compares the intellectual diversity of his former university’s activist faculty to that of a blog’s commentariat. Posted by KC Johnson at 12:01 AM |
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| abb | Apr 4 2011, 04:14 AM Post #8 |
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http://www.dukebasketballreport.com/articles/?p=39719 Latest Lacrosse Case Developments by DBR, April 4th, 2011 | Main | To an extent, we feel like anything we had to contribute in the lacrosse case is long ago and so we chose not to link to the news earlier this week about the three former players winning a legal argument about being able to sue former D.A. Mike Nifong and the city of Durham and the police department. But that, coupled with Sunday’s news of Crystal Mangum’s latest arrest, makes it hard to take a pass: this time, Mangum is charged with stabbing her boyfriend, or assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury. She apparently stabbed him “several times,” according to WRAL. Presumably this time the evidence is not in dispute. |
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| abb | Apr 4 2011, 04:15 AM Post #9 |
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1373074/Former-stripper-lied-raped-Duke-University-lacrosse-players-charged-stabbing-boyfriend.html Former stripper who lied about being raped by Duke University lacrosse players charged with stabbing her boyfriend By Simon Neville Last updated at 5:29 AM on 4th April 2011 The woman at the centre of the Duke University lacrosse player rape scandal has been charged with trying to kill her boyfriend, police said. Crystal Mangum is accused of stabbing the man, named locally as Reggie Wilson, in the chest after an argument in the early hours of Sunday morning in the apartment they share in Durham, North Carolina. The 32-year-old was charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, while Wilson was recovering in hospital. Crystal Mangum, the woman who falsely claimed she was raped by a group of Duke lacrosse players in 2006, has now been accused of stabbing her boyfriend Crystal Mangum, the woman who falsely claimed she was raped by a group of Duke lacrosse players in 2006, has now been accused of stabbing her boyfriend According to Anthony McCullough, Wilson’s cousin, he said the couple had only been dating for a few months but that the 46-year-old was excited. He added: ‘I told him, with her background, you should be careful.’ The latest arrest comes a year after Mangum was found guilty of child abuse and resisting arrest, among other charges. She was arrested after smashing the windscreen and slashing the tyres of her then-boyfriend’s car, before going on to set fire to his clothes while her children were in their home. At the time she claimed her then-boyfriend had attacked her, which a jury dismissed, but found her innocent of arson. The 32-year-old was arrested Sunday morning after reportedly seriously injuring her 46-year-old lover at the apartment they share The 32-year-old was arrested Sunday morning after reportedly seriously injuring her 46-year-old lover at the apartment they share In 2006, she hit the headlines when she claimed three Duke Lacrosse players sexually assaulted her at a party Duke University lacrosse players Reade Seligmann, Dave Evans and Collin Finnerty were accused of raping her while she was working as a stripper at a party thrown by the team, the Duke Blue Devils. The case caused a media storm over allegations of racism. It was alleged the players had asked only for white or Hispanic strippers, but became angry when two black dancers turned up. Scandal: Duke lacrosse players Dave Evans, left, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligman were falsely accused of raping Mangum in 2006 Scandal: Duke lacrosse players Dave Evans, left, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligman were falsely accused of raping Mangum in 2006 Prosecutor Mike Nifong indicted the three on charges of rape, sexual assault and kidnapping. The university suspended the players, sacked the team's coach and eventually cancelled the entire lacrosse season. But the case fell apart because of a lack of evidence and Nifong was forced to resign after scathing criticism over his handling of it. car smashed Crystal Mangum Last year Mangum was found guilty of child abuse when she smashed her then-boyfriend's car and burned his clothes while her children were in the house He was convicted for contempt amid accusations he withheld DNA evidence and made false inflammatory statements about the players to the media. State prosecutors who took over the case cleared all three of the charges, saying there had been a 'rush to accuse' by Nifong. Afterwards, the three sued the university over their handling of the scandal, and received an undisclosed settlement. At the time Duke University said it settled to 'eliminate the possibility of future litigation', and said it deeply regretted what the students had gone through. |
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| abb | Apr 4 2011, 04:17 AM Post #10 |
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http://sports-law.blogspot.com/2011/04/upon-actually-reading-opinions-in-evans.html Monday, April 04, 2011 Upon actually reading the opinions in Evans (the indicted players) and Carrington (the unindicted players), it appears (contrary to what news reports and self-interested bloggers suggested) that the indicted players kept most of their case, while the unindicted players have much less left in theirs. Still, there is something left in both cases, particularly in their constitutional claims. 1) In both cases, the court denied dismissal of Fourth Amendment claims based on the intentional or reckless suppression and withholding of evidence and the fabrication or manufacture of false evidence for use in pretrial proceedings (magistrate proceedings producing warrants and grand jury) resulting in a search or seizure--the indictment and arrest of Evans, Finnerty and Seligmann; the photographing and DNA testing of the unindicted players; and the issuance of various warrants. As to the indicted players, the court further predicted that the Fourth Circuit would recognize a Fourth Amendment claim by a person arrested pursuant to a process (including a grand jury indictment) that lacked probable cause, where officials intentionally or recklessly lied or hid facts or fabriacted the evidence used in that process. In addition, the court recognized overlapping Fourteenth Amendment claims for the same conduct (acknowledging the gray area and uncertainty in which various constitutional rights and liberties interact). The problem I had seen with the Fourth Amendment claims was that the indicted players never went to trial and the unindicted players never were involved in any formal processes. But this potentially meant that police and prosecutors could fabricate or withhold evidence at will, as long as the material never was used in any formal proceeding. (Or, at the very least, such a claim would have had to run through catch-all substantive due process and City of Sacramento v. Lewis's shocks-the-conscience test). But if such a claim can stand as to any deprivation of liberty at any stage of the criminal process, it may have some legs. It also may go along way to allowing § 1983 to provide some check on abuses within the criminal-justice process. 2) The court also denied dismissal of Fourteenth Amendment claims by both sets of plaintiffs based on the various false and incriminating media statements by Nifong and the police. This again was a claim that I believed lacked merit, because the making of the statements did not violate any right beyond the players' reputation and the stigma associated with loss of reputation--which does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment under Paul v. Davis. But the court adopted (from other circuits) the "stigma-plus" theory of the Fourteenth Amendment, under which the Fourteenth Amendment is violated by statements that impose a stigma in connection with unlawful arrests, searches, or seizures that violate the Fourth (or, I suppose, the Fourteenth) Amendments. 3) The court rejected in both cases allegations that Duke or its top administrators was a state actor as to the constitutional claims. The only constitutional claim against a Duke person that survived (shockingly) were the claims against Tara Levicy, the ER nurse who examined Crystal Mangum and told officers that Mangum had suffered injuries "consistent with" sexual assault, which lead to the warrants and other investigations. The court accepted that these allegations sufficiently alleged a conspiracy and joint action between Levicy and the police, in part because the officers had tried to shift the blame to Levicy. This one seems wrong to me, at least as alleged. Conspiracy as a test for state action usually requires far more conscious agreement to engage in obviously unlawful conduct. Levicy is alleged to have given the police inaccurate information about the rape-kit exam, information she was neither qualified nor authorized to provide. There are no allegations that she knew this information was wrong or that she did this intended to help the police frame the players. It thus seems a stretch to say that her conduct in speaking with and cooperating with the officers (however much in error) is atrributable to the state. I also thought it odd that the court pointed to the officers' attempts to blame Levicy as somehow relevant to whether she is a state actor. By contrast, the court seems on stronger footing in the indicted players' case in finding thet DNA Security, Inc. (DSI) and its president and lab director were state actors, where they explicitly agreed with Nifong not to fully disclose information from the DNA tests, conduct that is facially and obviously wrongful. 4) The court rejected defenses of prosecutorial immunity by Nifong and his chief investigator and of qualfiied immunity by all public officials. Prosecutorial immunity was not in play because the conduct at issue was investigative, involving the suppression and manufacture of evidence during an investigation, rather than anything as prosecutorial advocate for the state. Qualified immunity was denied because the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights at issue were clearly established. The prosecutorial immunity decision seems right, since most of Nifong's misconduct involved his leadership of the investigation in the case, apart from anything that happened in judicial proceedings. The qualified immunity decision is weaker, I think. The court was very cursory in its analysis, usually simply declaring that the right at issue was clearly established without explaining how it reached that conclusion or analyzing the state of the law to show that the right was clearly established. For example, the court held that the Fourteenth Amendment liberty from false government statements was clearly established, even though the Fourth Circuit never had adopted the stigma-plus theory. Similarly, the court was explicitly predictive in stating its view that "the Fourth Circuit would recognize a potential § 1983 claim for violation of the Fourth Amendment when an individual is arrested pursuant to legal process that was not supported by probable cause." The court used similarly predictive language about a claim based on an official's intentional or reckless fabrication of evidence to present before a magistrate (in seeking a warrant) or a grand jury (in seeking an indictment). But predicting that the Fourth Circuit would recognize such a claim is not the same as saying the Court has recognized such a claim and the latter is necessary to say a right has been clearly established. And the court never tried to classify these claims as "so obviously violative that analogous cases are not required"--although if there is such a claim, suppressing/fabricating evidence would seem to fit. It will be interesting to see what the officer defednants do next. Denial of qualified immuniy is immediately appealable, at least where the denial is based on the purely legal question of whether a right was clearly established. So the government defendants could preempt much of discovery, at least for now (in the face of the crowing of plaintiffs' counsel and PR team in both cases about how they are going to wade hard into discovery) and at least as to the constitutional claims by seeking immediate review as to the legal issue of clearly established. On the other hand, the court took great pains to make clear that it was taking only a preliminary look at the qualified immunity issue and that it fully expected to take another, closer look on subsequent summary judgment motions. 5) The unindicted players brought a number of tort and contract claims against Duke, Duke President Richard Brodhead, a university vice president, and the dean of students, based on interactions the players immediately after the rape charges came out. The upshot of all the claims is that Duke and the administrators sold the players old--they tried to get the players to talk to them in detail about the events; disclosed details of purportedly confidential meetings to the police and DA; tried to strong-arm the players into talking with them and not seeking support from parents or outside counsel; failed to support the players publicly and in fact undermined them by canceling the season and firing Coach Mike Pressler; and failed to protect the players from harassment and criticism. Of these, the one that survived dismissal was a claim for constructive fraud, but based only on the narrow theory that university officials created a confidential relationship with the players by encouraging them to talk openly with university officials once the controversy broke and by trying to close them off from outside assistance from their parents or non-university counsel. The court rejected broader theories of a general special or fiduciary relationship between a university and its students or its student-athletes or of a general duty to protect its students/student-athletes from criticism by other students or faculty. The court also rejected the theory that the anti-harassment policies in the student handbook create a contractual obligation between the university and its students. All in all, a mixed bag. The players are declaring victory here and it is somewhat deserved--not-insignfiicant portions of both cases live another day, although they may run into a new roadblock at summary judgment. In fact, even while denying dismissal of numerous claims, the court used language suggesting his view that this analysis was very temporary and preliminary, that the players continued to beat a weighty burden (with even stronger hints that he questioned whether the unindicted players could show damages), and that most of these legal and factual issues would be revisited, probably more rigorously and strictly, at summary judgment. -- Posted by Howard Wasserman @ 4/04/2011 12:30:00 AM - |
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| abb | Apr 4 2011, 04:30 AM Post #11 |
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http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/04/03/1103748/duke-lacrosse-rally-falls-short.html Published Sun, Apr 03, 2011 10:01 PM Modified Sun, Apr 03, 2011 10:05 PM Duke lacrosse rally falls short against Syracuse By Everett Merrill - CORRESPONDENT Published in: Duke EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. What began as a route ended in a respectable performance for No. 3 Duke against the top lacrosse team in the country. The Blue Devils trailed by as many as eight goals before mounting an impressive late-match rally that ended in a 13-11 Syracuse victory in the third and final game of Sunday’s Big City Classic at the New Meadowlands Stadium. The loss halted Duke’s seven-game win streak. Duke (8-3) struck for five goals in the fourth quarter, two from Zach Howell and one apiece from Tom Rynn, Christian Walsh and Jordan Wolf. Howell, a senior attack, led the Blue Devils with four goals, two assists and eight shots on goal. Sophomore midfielder Jake Tripuka, playing just 25 miles from his hometown of Boonton, added one goal and three assists. “We just kept playing,” said Blue Devil coach John Danowski. “We didn’t do anything special, we didn’t do anything different. We did what we practice everyday. When you dig yourself a hole, winning kind of takes a back-shelf. When you think about just playing, sometimes thinks change a little bit. “Here was the bottom line, regardless of what happened in this game, we’re going to become a better team. Playing in the New Meadowlands, playing the number one team in the country, we knew whether we got whooped or not, we’re going to be a better team in six weeks.” Syracuse (8-0) dominated the first half, taking a 9-2 cushion into the locker room with nine different Orangemen scoring. “Syracuse was tremendously poised, but I thought our guys had their eyes wide open playing on the big stage,” said Danowski about the first half. Duke settled down in the third quarter in this meeting between the two previous national champions. Both squads scored four goals, but Duke held an advantage in shots (13-11) and face-offs won (6-2). The final 15 minutes belonged to the Blue Devils. Showing patience on offense they out-shot the Orangemen, 12-2, but were thwarted by goalie John Galloway’s four saves. Galloway finished with 16 stops in earning his 52nd career win, a new NCAA record. The victory was Syracuse’s fourth against an opponent ranked in the top 10. Duke has the nation’s third-ranked scoring offense, averaging 12.8 goals a game. The Blue Devils are now 5-2 against teams ranked No. 1 since 2007. |
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| abb | Apr 4 2011, 04:31 AM Post #12 |
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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/04/03/2011-04-03_crystal_gail_mangum_former_duke_lacrosse_accuser_arrested_for_allegedly_stabbing.html Crystal Gail Mangum, former Duke lacrosse accuser, arrested for allegedly stabbing boyfriend BY Nina Mandell DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Originally Published:Sunday, April 3rd 2011, 6:37 PM Updated: Sunday, April 3rd 2011, 7:10 PM Crystal Gail Mangum was arrested early Sunday morning. Davis/AP Crystal Gail Mangum was arrested early Sunday morning. Crystal Mangum, the woman who famously claimed she was raped by a group of Duke lacrosse players in 2006, has now been accused of stabbing her boyfriend. The 32-year-old was arrested Sunday morning after reportedly seriously injuring her 46-year-old lover, and was charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury. It's the latest in a long run of legal troubles for the North Carolina resident who was once at the center of one of college sport's biggest scandals. In 2006, Mangum claimed three Duke Lacrosse players sexually assaulted her at a party for the team where she was working as a stripper. The case became one of the most racially-charged trials in recent memory before the prosecutor was ultimately disbarred and the three accused men were declared innocent. Since then, Mangum has been convicted of a series of misdemeanors, including charges of child abuse and resisting arrest in December. Those charges stemmed from a February 2010 incident involving a different boyfriend, in which she was charged with slashing the tires of his car, smashing his windshield and setting a pile of his clothes on fire in his apartment while her children were in the home. The police were also present, having already arrived on the scene. Mangum's latest legal battle began on Sunday morning, when officers responded to reports of a stabbing and found a man with knife wounds his torso, according to the Raleigh News-Observer. Police have not yet released the name of the victim, but said the stabbing occurred during an argument between the two. With News Wire Services nmandell@nydailynews.com |
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| abb | Apr 4 2011, 04:34 AM Post #13 |
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http://www.nunesmagician.com/2011/4/3/2089448/syracuse-13-duke-11-new-meadowlands-same-old-result Syracuse 13 - Duke 11: New Meadowlands, Same Old Result 33427_10150242605905241_697840240_13496832_3163324_n_tiny by Sean Keeley on Apr 3, 2011 11:39 PM EDT If you're just going by the first half of Sunday's 13-11 win over Duke, you'd think the Orange are the most unstoppable force in all of college lacrosse. Nine goals. Eight of them assisted. All nine scored by different players. Meanwhile, John Galloway was a veritable brick wall, stopping seven shots and allowing only two goals. Syracuse 9 - Duke 2. Though, if you're just going by the second half of Sunday's Syracuse-Duke game, you'd think the Orange are in as much deep sh** as any 8-0 team in the history of the sport. To be fair, the Orange still looked solid in the third quarter, ending it with a 13-6 lead. However, the wheels came off in the fourth quarter as Duke scored five goals and, had the game been a minute or so longer, might have pulled even. Hurting matters for the Orange was the injury to defenseman John Lade. It's no coincidence Duke began to roll as Lade was on the sidelines with his ankle iced and taped up. Fingers are crossed for the star player, a critical component if the Orange want to keep up these winning ways. Speaking of winning ways, the Orange are now 8-0 and off to its best start since the 1990 undefeated national championship season. That was a pretty good year. John Galloway was the champion of the day, securing 16 saves in the victory. That's a season-high. It also confirms Galloway's place in history. Galloway eclipsed Scott Bacigalupo’s previous record of 51 career wins for Princeton from 1991-94. He finished with a season-best 16 saves against the Blue Devils to earn Konica Minolta Player of the Game honors. Galloway’s overall record stands at 52-6 in 58 career starts. The Orange now prepare for a road game against lowly Princeton (2-5). Sounds weird that a game against the Tigers could be considered one of the easier ones of the season. Of course, the way Syracuse has been playing all season, they'll find a way to make it interesting. But also the way Syracuse has been playing all season, they'll find a way to win. |
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| abb | Apr 4 2011, 04:37 AM Post #14 |
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http://fragmentsfromawritingdesk.blogspot.com/2011/04/richard-h-brodhead-at-wits-end.html Sunday, April 3, 2011 RICHARD H. BRODHEAD: AT WIT'S END Richard H. Brodhead: At Wit's End Sheela V. Pai in the 2000 YALE HERALD denied that Richard Brodhead was a faceless bureaucrat: "Because of his subtle humor and fun-loving personality, Yale College Dean Richard Brodhead, BR '68, GRD '72, is perhaps the most popular and approachable administrator here. . . . Brodhead enjoys being a public figure; he once dressed up as his wife in a Yale Symphony Orchestra Halloween show and has been known to take a turn in the Spring Fling dunk tank." Who wouldn't want a great guy like that as President of Duke University? And he's not just high spirited, he's bright. "'He may be the smartest person I've ever met,' said John Burness, Duke's senior vice president for public affairs and government relations. 'He is a really deep thinker and it's fascinating to watch how he thinks and how he talks because he starts with the big picture and he works his way down to the points. He is so fast with his wit you just do a double-take sometimes.'" (IT'S NOT ABOUT THE TRUTH, by Don Yaeger with Mike Pressler, pp. 107-108). Born a decade after Teflon was invented and a decade before it hit American kitchens, Brodhead went through his first six decades with a sleek veneer. Everything came easy. After graduation he stayed on at Yale as a graduate student then as an assistant and associate and full professor and Dean of Yale College. He was a known quantity. As the ghoulish black-gowned professors say in W. D. Snodgrass's "The Examination," he was "One of ours; one of ours. Yes. Yes." The down side was that Brodhead was never challenged to think beyond what his teachers taught, and most of them, in the English Department, were New Critics who had never done any archival research such as Yale students of Stanley T. Williams had done in the 1940s. Brodhead could write criticism about as smoothly as his best teachers, but he wrote in a vacuum, since he had never been challenged to think about scholarly problems. All conceivable problems had been identified by 1950, leaving him with a pre-agreed upon body of novels to criticize and no need ever to ask questions about how the works came to exist in the form in which he was handed them or how books by dead white men came to be the books worth writing about. For a long time the wider critical establishment (trained as New Critics, like him) covered up for Brodhead without even realizing they were covering up. None of his peers challenged THE SCHOOL OF HAWTHORNE (1986) on grounds that Brodhead wrote without any idea how big the school was or what students were enrolled in it. For more than two decades no one pointed out just how grotesque it was to jeer wittily at the poet Thomas Bailey Aldrich for becoming obscure, when a real scholar who knew a wide range of once-popular American novels would have put Aldrich into a chapter of the book for his florid homage to Hawthorne in THE STILLWATER TRAGEDY. Like reviewers, Brodhead's institution was prepared to cover up for him. When he showed how fast he could rush to judgment on James Van de Velde, no one at Yale stopped him and asked him to come clean about the peculiar antipathy he was manifesting for the young instructor (so like that of Melville's Radney toward Steelkilt and Claggart toward Billy Budd). Was it because Van de Velde, a scholar-athlete, helmeted in practice of his martial arts, was his intellectual and moral as well as physical superior? Van de Velde's lawsuit against Yale and Brodhead is now reinstated and progressing. As President of Duke University in 2006, Brodhead played Radney-Claggart on a grander scale when lacrosse players were falsely accused of rape. Apparently two factors governed him--first, an apparently irrational loathing of brilliant and handsome helmeted young athletes, and, second, abject terror of the representatives of Political Correctness. Interviewed by 60 Minutes, he declared that the night in question had been "an evening of highly unacceptable behavior whether or not the rape took place." In July 2006, while three lacrosse players were under indictment for rape, Brodhead had regained his zestful humor, seizing a chance to display his powers as a critic. He excitedly told a reporter from the NEW YORKER that "all that had happened" reminded him of Brabantio's words after Roderigo shouts up to him that his daughter and the Moor are now "making the beast with two backs." Brabantio moans that it is not unlike his dream, something he perhaps should have anticipated: “Belief of it oppresses me already.” Brodhead explicated this speech cleverly as explaining how Politically Correct people in Duke and Durham had responded to the accusations against the lacrosse players with the "absolute certainty that derives from the nature of the stereotypes.” His witty implication was that he, the Gang of 88, and all the anti-lacrosse-team marchers were so certain of the latent criminality of the lacrosse team that belief of their guilt suffused them simultaneously with their hearing the accusation of rape. The wording is cleverly couched with some ambiguity, but Brodhead is surely saying that he and the Gang of 88 all leapt instantly to the belief that rich spoiled depraved white lacrosse players had raped an innocent young working mother, a black woman. No wonder marchers carried a wide purple and gold banner saying "CASTRATE": belief in the guilt of the lacrosse players had oppressed the marchers already, as it had Brodhead. Thus brilliantly explicating and expatiating on Shakespeare, Brodhead convinced himself that the Gang of 88 and their supporters revealed "a dimension of our humanity." This was especially delightful to read when it was published, since Brodhead had previously revealed another dimension of his humanity by refusing to look at evidence offered by the players' parents and lawyers--not merely extenuating evidence ("Nothing extenuate," Othello had ordered) but outright exonerating evidence. Belief of the lacrosse players' guilt oppressed Brodhead from the beginning, his clever statements show. For him, the case was about the "dehumanization" of social inferiors by the lacrosse players, all of whom were young men given "inequalities of wealth, privilege, and opportunity," and of course displaying "the attitudes of superiority those inequalities breed" (Until Proven Innocent, 140). Brodhead, of course, displayed no such attitudes of superiority. In his 5 April 2006 "Letter to the Community" Brodhead bemoaned the "concerns of women about sexual coercion and assault" and his own "concerns about the survival of the legacy of racism." Whether or not he knew of the literary allusion to American Psycho, Brodhead denounced Ryan McFadyen's improperly seized e-mail about flaying a stripper (an admittedly stupid joke about a widely assigned book and movie) as "sickening and repulsive" and immediately suspended McFadyen. Most memorably and wittily, in speaking to the Durham Chamber of Commerce (20 April 2006) Brodhead offered his considered judgment that even if lacrosse players had not raped anyone "whatever they did is bad enough"--bad enough to ruin their lives, bad enough that they deserved a 30-year jail sentence. Such mordant humor is in line with Burness's telling parents of lacrosse players, "I know everything I need to know," and, with his own characteristic wit, declaring that there were "two or three real bad actors on that team" (UPI 132). Brodhead has tried to regain his old brilliant jollity. For evidence of his fast wit around the slower Burness, just look at how he described the new lacrosse coach, John Danowski, as a "Mensch" in contrast to Michael Pressler, the coach he arbitrarily fired! What a hoot! But was Burness conspicuously less fast of wit when he violated the confidential settlement agreement with Pressler and gleefully quoted Brodhead to a reporter for NEWSDAY (9 April 2006)? This witty Brodhead-Burness badinage has become legal history! Judge Howard Manning this April expressed himself from the bench as staggered that Burness had been "dumb enough" to violate the agreement this way! Surprisingly, Brodhead may have been reverting to type (that is, to being a critic) by talking faster than he could think. If Burness was not lying, Brodhead really did speak scornfully of Pressler in Burness's presence when he ought to have known that his lieutenant was as loose of lip as at the waistline. The subtle humor of Brodhead and Burness seems to be lost on some people, for at least one dreary fellow (the victim of false accusations by Brodhead in a 23 June 2002 review in the New York TIMES) complains that the Yiddish word "Mensch" coming from the mouth of Richard Brodhead is like the word "Truth" coming out of the mouth Crystal Mangum, the stripper who falsely accused the lacrosse players of rape. And the joke got better when Duke settled Pressler’s suit! It is a bit stunning to go from the high humor of Brodhead to the serious or even dour tone of Professor William L. Anderson in "Duke and Deceit: Brodhead's Folly" (18 October 2006): "While most of my articles have dealt with the misconduct of Durham County District Attorney Michael Nifong and the Durham Police Department, there is another player in this sorry tale who is almost as culpable, that being Duke University President Richard Brodhead. Despite having served time as an administrator at Yale University before coming to Duke, Brodhead has proven that he needs to be sent back to the minors. Furthermore, if federal investigators really cared about investigating crimes, Brodhead could find himself going to federal prison." Anderson went on grimly: "in this piece I wish to concentrate on the behavior of Brodhead himself, who after Nifong is more responsible for this affair than any other person, save the false accuser herself. Moreover, I intend to establish that Brodhead very well might have been involved in the commission of felonies, and while I doubt he will face the kind of hard time that the wrongly-accused lacrosse players are facing, his conduct in this affair at very least should lead to his dismissal from Duke." That was 2006. Anderson--that early--had identified very much the charges that the lawyers for three lacrosse players (Ryan McFadyen, Matthew Wilson, and Breck Archer) formulated in December 2007 in their lawsuit against Durham and Duke employees. They elaborate some serious charges--"BRODHEAD'S ACTS IN FURTHERANCE OF THE CONSPIRACY TO FABRICATE THE 'RACIST' DIMENSIONS TO MANGUM'S FALSE RAPE," for instance, and "BRODHEAD AND [Trustee] STEEL CONSCIOUSLY PARTICIPATING IN THE FRAMING OF THEIR OWN STUDENTS." As I have observed before, these are not accusations that Brodhead drifted and waffled and evaded and dithered like the stereotype of a cosseted professor suddenly dropped from his Ivory Tower. They are charges that he actively, knowingly (and with his subtle humor and usual dry wit?) engaged in criminal actions. The fact that Brodhead will not be brought to trial on these charges does not mean that they were frivolously mustered against him. I must say that Brodhead's humor was undimmed in his belated apology to the long-vindicated lacrosse players (Duke University News & Communications, 29 September 2007). There Brodhead wittily sluffed off personal responsibility: "My colleagues in the Duke administration are going over all our procedures to see what we can learn from our experience. . . . To work through these difficulties and see that their lessons are learned not only here but around the country, we will be hosting a national conference of educators, lawyers and student affairs leaders to discuss best practices in this important field." What delicious humor--he will host a national conference instead of taking blame! I don't think the consequences of his actions have caught up with him, but he was laughing all the way, just then, to reappointment! At last on 31 March 2011 Judge Beaty ruled that Richard H. Brodhead would go to trial on charges not of conspiracy but of the lighter charges of obstruction of justice and constructive fraud. Really low down baddies (perhaps, for instance, some reviewers who end up saying the same lies about a scholar!) commit conspiracy, but cleverer, lighthearted people like Brodhead may like the idea of a touch of obstruction, here and there, or just a little fraud in the failure to perform what was expected by the job definition. What a hoot to play at illegality! Perhaps Brodhead’s belief in his invulnerablity (or belief in the law’s delay) may suffuse him already, but to the rest of us he certainly isn't funny any more. At wit's end, what counts is character. Posted by Hershel Parker at 7:33 PM |
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| ~J~ is in Wonderland | Apr 4 2011, 06:23 AM Post #15 |
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~J~ is in Wonderland
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Offender Name: CRYSTAL GAIL MANGUM Offender ID: A10448 Date of Birth: 07/16/1978 Age: 32 Race: African American Gender: Female Custody Status: In Custody Location of Offender: Durham County Jail Date Confined Date Released Statute Description Bond Type Bond Amount 4/3/2011 [incarcerated] ASSAULT - DEADLY WEAPON WITH INTENT TO KILL INFLICTING SERIOUS INJURY NO BOND $0.00 |
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3:30 AM Jul 11