Duke Lacrosse Rape Case

[eleanor]

[color=dimgray] For those of you who don't know, members of the Duke Lacrosse team have been accussed of rape by a stripper hired by three of the lacrosse team's captains. I've inserted a recent Newsweek article to inform everyone:[/color]

[i][b]Justice: Off Message[/b]
As the probe of a rape claim unfolds, a vile e-mail roils Duke.
by Susannah Meadows and Evan Thomas
Newsweek

April 17, 2006 issue - The e-mail was sent at 1:58 a.m. on March 14, about two hours after the alleged crime. A stripper would later tell police that she had been raped, sodomized and strangled by three men at a house rented by Duke lacrosse players near the university campus. The message, rife with misspellings and typos, is shockingly crude, even by the low standards of college boys immersed in a debased popular culture: "tommrow night, after tonights show, ive decided to have some strippers over to edens 2c. All are welcome.. However there will be no nudity. I plan on killing the b----es as soon as the[y] walk in and proceding to cut their skin off while [ejaculating] in my duke issue spandex.." The e-mail was signed "41," the jersey number of Ryan McFadyen, a sophomore on the Duke team.

Released by authorities last week, the e-mail was the last straw for Duke University president Richard Brodhead. He canceled the lacrosse team's season, accepted the resignation of the coach, suspended McFadyen and appointed five different committees to look into undergraduate social life, the culture of the Duke lacrosse team and the university's handling of the incident. Brodhead said he found the e-mail "sickening."

Lawyers for members of the team portray it as exculpatory. "When people do something bad, they wouldn't be writing e-mails about it," said Joseph Cheshire, a lawyer for one of the team captains. The players maintain that there was no sex, forced or consensual, that night with the stripper?whom they had hired, along with another "exotic dancer," to perform at a house rented by three of the team's captains. Two sources close to the team, who asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that the e-mail was a reference to a movie called "American Psycho." In the movie, which the sources described as a cult favorite that had been viewed by a number of players on the team, a Wall Street banker goes crazy and kills several women, though possibly only in his dreams. After seeing the e-mail, sent on McFadyen's e-mail account, one of the team members remarked, "I'll bring the Phil Collins music," the sources said. In "American Psycho," the killer delivers a tribute to the music of pop singer Collins as he cavorts with intended victims.

The sources suggested that the e-mail was intended as an ironic joke. If so, that may say something about the humor of Duke lacrosse players. College students, and not just athletes, can be astonishingly raunchy and degraded in their recreational behavior. Interestingly, McFadyen was seen at a Take Back the Night rally held by Duke students protesting sexual violence and the alleged rape itself two weeks after the incident.

As early as this week, authorities will get back the results of DNA tests admin-istered to 46 of 47 players (the one black player was not tested because the accuser told police her assailants were white). The accuser has a criminal record (examined by NEWSWEEK, which does not identify alleged rape victims). In 2002, she was accused of stealing a taxicab and trying to run over a police officer (but pleaded guilty to lesser charges). Two weeks ago she called her former lawyer, Woody Vann, for advice. "She was calm but wanting to get some help. She was feeling overwhelmed," Vann told NEWSWEEK. Vann says he told her not to talk to reporters. "She never gave me any reason not to think of her as a credible person," says Vann, who describes his former client as a mother of two. The woman's father told Vann that she is recovering physically, though she is "still beaten up emotionally." As the case drags on, the players' camp has an obvious interest in courting public opinion. The latest example: an individual on the defense team, who requests anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, claims to have photographic evidence he believes will help the team's case?by showing that the woman was already cut and bruised when she arrived at the party. District Attorney Mike Nifong did not return phone calls seeking comment.[/i]

[url]http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12225699/site/newsweek/from/RL.1/[/url]

[color=dimgray]Very very recently (like, 15 minutes ago) the DNA results were [URL=http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/14304522.htm]confirmed[/URL]. However, they currently aren't being released to the public.

I've been pretty disappointed by the whole thing ever since it started. I'm a fan of Duke, and I've been there three times already during the summer partaking in one of their academic camps, and this whole thing is sort of lame for them. So far, I think everything is 'he says, she says', which doesn't help the matter. In another article by Newsweek presented in their previous issue, some students were afraid that this would stain Duke's reputation, especially after they just sent their acceptance letters out.

Comments?

Edit: [URL=http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/more/04/10/duke.lacrosse.ap/index.html?section=cnn_topstories]DNA results[/URL] [/color]

[ChibiHorsewoman]

[color=#9933ff]I'm sorry to say this, but I think that the team mates who did this will get off really easy in this case. I immagine when it goes to trial even with the evidence the jury will also (sadly) take this woman's profession into consideration.

Even if they didn't rapists get off too easy in most cases.

This whole event disturbed me greatly. I have luckily never had to experiance what that woman went through and God willing I never will. ButI immagine that she'll never forget it.[/color]