Duke Case: My Conclusions about that Summary of Conclusions
A criminal justice system that discriminates on the basis of color or race is a disgrace.
I have read and reread the North Carolina Attorney General’s Summary of Conclusions with respect to the Duke case and concluded that Attorney General Roy Cooper’s decision not to prosecute false accuser Crystal Gail Mangum has much more to do with politics than with justice and North Carolina's crimina justice system remains fundamentally flawed.
Yes, the North Carolina State Bar is moving against Durham County, North Carolina District Attorney Michael B. Nifong and he will be punished, perhaps not as severely as he should (what’s the right punishment for trying to send three innocent young men to prison for thirty years each?).
But false accuser Crystal Gail Mangum got a pass from the North Carolina Attorney General.
But for her, Mr. Nifong would not have been tempted.
And she is still claiming to be a gang-rape victim.
The Summary states: “In agreeing to accept the cases, [Attorney General Cooper] promised a new review of the evidence and additional investigation, and that ‘the path that these cases travel will be lighted by the law and the evidence alone.”
Reality: Ms. Mangum will not be prosecuted because Attorney General Cooper does not want to offend North Carolina black voters.
Attorney General Cooper suggested Ms. Mangum really believes her false and contradictory claims and admitted that racial considerations affected his decision.
Make no mistake: trying to frame innocent folks is much, much worse than declining to prosecute a false accuser because she is black.
But, Attorney General Cooper is not a fair and objective minister of justice whose decisions are based on “the law and the evidence alone.”
Like the original Tawana Brawley, Tawana Brawley Two will not be prosecuted for filing a false report.
That’s Democrat politics still at work.
I invite you to read the Special Prosecutors’ Meeting With the Accusing Witness section of the Summary, set forth below:
“The special prosecutors met with the accusing witness a number of times and questioned her about inconsistencies that existed at the time the Attorney General’s office accepted the case, as well as other inconsistencies that had arisen since then. This was apparently the first time these questions of inconsistencies had been asked formally.
“In meetings with the special prosecutors, the accusing witness, when recounting the events of that night, changed her story on so many important issues as to give the impression that she was improvising as the interviews progressed, even when she was faced with irrefutable evidence that what she was saying was not credible. The accusing witness attempted to avoid the contradictions by changing her story, contradicting previous stories or alleging the evidence had been fabricated.
“During the March 29, 2007 interview of the accusing witness by the special prosecutors and SBI investigators she made several new statements that she had never made before including:
1. She was not with ‘Nikki’ when the 911 call regarding the racial comments outside 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. was made;
2. She and ‘Nikki’ left 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. in ‘Nikki’s’ car at 11:50 p.m.;
3. She and ‘Nikki’ rode around for an hour after leaving the house;
4. Evans and Seligmann threw her onto the back porch after the alleged assault;
5. Evans, Seligmann and Finnerty kicked her in the neck while she was on the back porch after the alleged assault;
6. Ten party attendees assaulted her in the back yard by pushing her around;
7. Evans and Finnerty put her in ‘Nikki’s’ car.
“Verified and credible photographic, documentary and testimonial evidence contradicts each of these seven statements.
“In addition to these new statements, the accusing witness made other statements to the special prosecutors during the interview on March 29, 2007 that raise doubts about her credibility concerning the events on the night in question.
“For example, the accusing witness admitted she feigned unconsciousness during the early morning hours of March 14, 2006, She claimed she arrived at the parry at 11:10 p.m. and dancing started shortly thereafter. When shown credible photographic evidence to the contrary, she claimed that the pictures had been altered, She stated that they danced in a bedroom not the living room. When confronted with credible photographic evidence to the contrary, she claimed Duke paid someone to alter the photos. She routinely denied she made various earlier statements that were attributed to her by law enforcement officials. She denied that she had made statements attributed to her in medical reports both the night of the alleged attack and in the ensuing days. The accusing witness claimed that the photograph of her on the back porch at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd., time-stamped at 12:30 a,m. and in which she is smiling broadly, is a picture of her arriving at the party. When the special prosecutors pointed out that she was wearing only one shoe, she persisted in her position that the picture was taken when she arrived at the house.
“In the same interview, the credibility of the accusing witness’s ability to identify the alleged attackers was further called into doubt. When asked how she could recall with such certainty who allegedly attacked her she claimed she was good at remembering faces. When the special prosecutors brought Officer Gwen Sutton of the Durham Police Department into the interview room, the accusing witness claimed she did not know Officer Sutton and had not seen her before that day. Officer Sutton had spent more than five hours with the accusing witness during the early morning hours of March 14, 2006.
“Similarly, when the special prosecutors asked her about her behavior during the party that suggested impairment, the accusing witness stated that she was dizzy and fuzzy when the two women began dancing that night. She said she was dizzy after the alleged assault, and that was why she was stumbling in the backyard. When asked how she could be certain of her identifications of her attackers, she said she was dizzy when the dancing started, she ‘woke up’ in the bathroom, and then was dizzy afterward.
“In a meeting with the special prosecutors on April 4, 2007 the accusing witness demonstrated unsteady gait, slurred speech and other mannerisms that were consistent with behaviors observed by numerous witnesses who were at the party the night in question and confirmed through a video taken that night. The special prosecutors confirmed that the accusing witness had taken Ambien, methadone, Paxil and amitriptyline, for which she had prescriptions, prior to meeting with the special prosecutors that day."
A criminal justice system that discriminates on the basis of color or race is a disgrace.
Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.
Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.
The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.
Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.
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