Hard Lessons from the Duke Rape Case

That would close what has to be one of the dreariest episodes in the history of rape and racial victimization cases. But Nifong has given no hint that he has learned any lesson from the fiasco. Whether it’s ego, to save face, or just plain bull headness, he’s determined to barge ahead and pile more embarrassment on himself with a prosecution. But there are compelling lessons that can be learned from the aborted rape case even if Nifong hasn’t learned them.

It leaves rape victims of any color and income wide open to the charge
that they will falsely shout rape to cover up their sexual misdeeds.
That could make police more hesitant to make arrests and prosecutors
even more gun shy about vigorously prosecuting rape cases. It also
makes black leaders, who are mostly male, more reluctant to vigorously
denounce genuine sexual victimization crimes. That puts women,
particularly black women, at greater risk from sexual attack. That’s a
tragedy because sexual victimization is a deadly fact of life for
countless numbers of women.

The next lesson is that in a racially charged and politically tainted
rape cases the battle lines will quickly form. That happened almost the
instant the charges were filed in the Duke case. Black and women’s
groups squared off against a legion of coaches, sports jocks, and a
deeply skeptical public.

One side screamed that it was a case of elite,
privileged white males victimizing a black woman, while the other side
screamed that the athletes were legally victimized because they were
white and athletes.

The scream that the case was a bogus racial hit by an overly ambitious
district attorney, or that the case proved how badly black women are
victimized grew louder at each new revelation in the tortured case. The
confusing and contradictory statements that the alleged victim gave
about the attack, the failure of DNA tests to match the alleged
assailants to the alleged victim, the infamous public recant by the
principal witness on 60 Minutes, and the disclosure that the alleged
victim had sexual contact with others immediately prior to the alleged
assault stoked public fury.

The three players indicted in the case and their attorney quickly
pounced on each new revelation and loudly shouted that the players were
innocent and demanded that the charges be dropped. They also protested
that the case had irreparably damaged the good names and reputations of
the athletes. They were right and that engendered even more sympathy
public.

There was a lesson too for black leaders. To their credit, Al Sharpton
and Jesse Jackson didn’t stampede to the barricades and demand
conviction and severe punishment for the accused assailants. In the
past they have done that in other hot ticket racially tinged cases. Who
can forget Tawana Brawley and the black students that tore up a
football stadium in Decatur, Illinois a few years back?

Sharpton and
Jackson instantly screamed racism. Every time they did, they hopelessly
muddled the case, and inflame racial tensions.

In the Duke case, a reflexive shout of racism would have further
discredited the legitimate fight against sexual victimization. Because
of that, black leaders should have gone one step further and urged the
Duke protestors to cool their rhetoric until all the facts were in.
They didn’t. Black leader’s great fear is that if they rebuke blacks
that abuse race to grab headlines that would be tantamount to race
treason.

Then there’s Nifong. He was roundly denounced for rushing to judgment
on the case to curry favor with blacks and women’s groups, and to boost
his reelection chances. There’s no evidence that Nifong purposely used
the case to do that. But there’s no doubt that politics and race badly
clouded the case from the start.

Whether it’s O.J. Simpson, Michael Jackson, or any other high profile
racially charged case, prosecutors are sorely tempted to pander to
public passions and engage in media posturing. That’s a fatal mistake.
If the evidence is there that should be the only thing that prosecutors
pay attention to.

When they don’t they risk a humiliating loss. That
fuels public cynicism that justice is for sale, and that the system is
hopelessly flawed.

The Duke case bruised lives, gave the justice system a momentary black
eye, stirred racial divisions on one of America’s elite campuses and
riled the public. The final lesson is that when politics, race and
passions collide in a questionable case, caution and good sense go out
the window. The Duke case proved that.