Today, the three Duke lacrosse players were acquitted of all charges that they sexually assaulted a stripper. The legal expenses are estimated at three million. This psycho justice wasted not only a year of the players’ lives, but a year of the lives of their mothers, fathers, friends, and relatives as well. Collectively, perhaps 30 man-years were wasted. If Americans only knew how this affects all those even remotely connected to the victims.
The three white Duke Lacrosse players were indicted last spring on charges of rape, kidnapping and sexual offense after a black stripper from a nearby University told police she was assaulted in the bathroom at an off-campus house during a team party where she had been hired to perform. The rape charges were dropped months ago; the other charges remained until Wednesday.
The eyewitness identification procedures were unreliable, no DNA supported the stripper’s story, no other witness corroborated it, and the woman contradicted herself. DNA failed to connect any of the athletes to the 28-year-old stripper. One of the athletes claimed to have ATM receipts and time-stamped photos that provided an alibi. It was also learned that the stripper had leveled similar gang-rape allegations a decade ago, and no charges resulted.
The lacrosse players faced 30 years in prison.
In December, The first state prosecutor dropped the rape charges after the woman said she was no longer certain she was penetrated.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/lacrosse/2007-04-11-duke-caseclosed_N.htm?csp=34
The loss to the men and the families was three million dollars plus thirty man-years worth of intense suffering due to the torturous threat of fifteen-year jail sentences, a lifetime of irreparably tarnished reputations plus the loss of affinity and respect for the college, state and government. At least thirty people are in need of intense therapy to lessen the effects of suppression by government.
What did the stripper suffer due to the actions of the boys? Speculatively the biggest threat may have been the potential for disease (if there was any contact with the men.) Speculatively there may also been some mental anguish – but healthy people tolerate mental anguish sloughing it off as a defect on their tormentor and not as any frailty on their part. Many have suffered worse in auto accidents or on the field of play without recompense.
This society is guilty of not only tremendously disproportionate punishment, but the threat of disproportionate punishment. This society is also guilty of an extremely expensive and dragged out legal process that can, and probably does kill (stress related diseases like heart attacks and suicide). According to my calculations, government should be required to pay at least five million in damages. However, according to a TV lawyer, government is immune from prosecution.
“If police officers and a district attorney can systematically railroad us with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, I can’t imagine what they would do to people who do not have the resources to defend themselves.” Another of the players, Collin Finnerty, said he would use this experience to stop “this ever happening again”.