Newsweek Goes To Duke (Again)

Newsweek takes a long look at the Duke lacrosse debacle.  Well, fair's fair, since they tell us this:

NEWSWEEK put the mug shots of two of the players—Reade Seligmann, 20, and Collin Finnerty, 19—on its cover the week after they were indicted.

This week's cover looks like a shot of Johnny Depp; I can't tell from the website whether they mention the Duke case on the cover.

Eventually Newsweek gets to the political benefit Nifong may have realized from this case:

Nifong's motives may have been political as well. He was six weeks away from an election when the Duke case came up. Durham voters are almost evenly divided between black and white. One of Nifong's opponents was black and the other was white, but the white lawyer was much better known in the community, thanks to winning a high-profile murder case. (That opponent, former assistant D.A. Freda Black, became a bitter enemy of Nifong's after, she claims, Nifong fired her.) Nifong promised black voters that he would not let the Duke case drop. He indicted two of the players two weeks before the election. He won narrowly, taking a larger share of the black vote than the other white candidate.

After you get past the misleading headline, this story has useful details on the racial breakdown of voting for the Durham DA race:

Grose’s precinct-by-precinct analysis showed that Nifong received 44 percent of the black vote and 46.2 percent of the white/nonblack vote.

Just over half (50.6 percent) of the total number of white voters cast their ballots for Freda Black, the other white candidate in the race. She also received support from 25.2 percent of the black voters. Meanwhile, the only African-American candidate in the race for district attorney, Keith Bishop, received 30.8 percent of the black vote and 3.2 percent of the white/nonblack vote. “Bishop was endorsed by the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, a powerful African-American group for endorsements,” said Grose, a Duke University graduate. “Many times, although not in this DA election, the committee can guarantee much black voter support.”

Nifong received a larger percentage of the black vote than the other two contenders, but he did not get a majority of the black vote. His percentage of the white vote was slightly less than 50 percent. “Nifong basically did well among both blacks and whites, demonstrating that Durham voters do not seem to be polarized along racial lines, at least on this issue,” Grose said. “In addition, the voting results suggest that Nifong’s high-profile attention to this case could have helped him with black voters.”

Justice delayed is justice denied, but the Republicans have decided to field an opponent to Nifong this November:

The Durham Republican Party will field a candidate to run against the district attorney leading the investigation in the Duke lacrosse rape case in the November election, ABC News' Law & Justice Unit has learned.

Durham Republican County Chairman Steve Monks told ABC News that he will announce his intention to challenge Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong in a press conference at 4 p.m. ET today. Monks and Durham County Republicans acknowledged that the Duke rape investigation weighed heavily in their decision to field a GOP candidate in a traditionally Democratic county.

"People feel [Nifong] totally sold out the people of Durham,'' Monks said. "They don't feel comfortable with this case. They feel like it was a sellout, that he pandered to the people of Durham.''

Nifong sold out the people of Durham by pandering to them?  Pretty abstract - is he telling us that Nifong pandered when he should have delivered tough love?  That sound-bite needs a bit of work.

UPDATE:  Here is another detailed analysis of how the voting broke for Nifong.

Comments

[Gary Maxwell]

Clearly he lost the race among white voters to Freda. His only hope was to get enough black votes to make up the deficit. And if you start looking at timelines of his statements versus dates on subpoenas, it starts become clear that he was speaking without having some items in hand, while making it seem to the press and therefore the voters of Durham that he did have it. A shameful performance that only a Ronnie Earle could admire.

[Monkey Trainer]

Totally OT, but weren't we supposed to have some kind of accounting from truthout today?

- MT

[megapotamus]

I'm betting that even with the Nifong controversy that turnout for this off-year and out of sync election was miniscule. Outside a Presidential election it always is. How many of Nifong's margin would even have known an election was being held absent this one case? How many will remember to vote absent such an inducement? In a general election I'm pretty sure the Reps or Dems could run Larry Fine against Nifong at this point and Larry would be a more able, reasoned and sober fiduciary for the jurisdiction, by far, though long dead and never known for his jurisprudence.

[Geek, Esq.]

I hope Nifong knows a good civil defense lawyer. He's going to need one once this traveshamockery of a case gets tossed.

[Gary Maxwell]

Blue Moon time again Geek. One of those rare timese when we agree on anything other than the time of day.

[Carol Herman]

There's enough shame in this to go around. The real harm, over the long haul, will be to Duke's LAW School! How so? It's not bad enough it handed Nixon a credential, it did not come to the aid of the LaCrosse Team at all. When they were in dire straights. And, the Administration has been handing out bogus PC papers, these kids have been forced to sign.

Plus, you believe "zero tolerance" for alcohol at any American college? These kids have nothing to thank Duke for, when it comes to the "memories."

Nifong's bad enough, but the Duke administrators are hip-deep in awful.

[Richard Aubrey]

It has been said that lacrosse players are privileged. Indeed, watching the NCAAs leads one to note that far more players did their high-school ("prep") playing at someplace that sounded like "St. John's Academy" rather than "Skaneateles Consolidated". The spread of high-school lax notwithstanding.

These guys, and their families, were, in the aggregate, going to have money. People who have a good, involved time at college tend to give money as alums.

Not this bunch. Not their families. Not their friends. Not their families' friends. And not a bunch of other folks who have finally noticed that, even at Duke as elsewhere, the primary requirement for being a college administrator is to have no spine and no morals and no judgment.

Who'd want to give that place the big bucks?

This is going to cost.

[sophy]

Please do not hesitate to have knight gold . It is funny.

[buy isk]

Which decision to buy isk,