It was just over ten years ago that the Duke lacrosse case finally dragged its weary way across the finish line. That case was a storm petrel, flying before the thunder. We should have watched its course more carefully, because it was about to become a paradigm of what was to follow.
First there was first an accusation -- that a black woman had been raped by more than 20 white men at a party. After changing her story a few times -- maybe it was only five men; or two -- the accuser finally settled on three.
The police investigated, but kept no records. That should have been a clue -- not to the case, but to where our justice system was headed. Officers normally carry notebooks or pads on which they write down pertinent information. For the Duke case, the officers involved kept no notes at all (aside from the single exception of a couple of flimsy pages, with two or three scribbles).
Neither did they use dry-erase boards. An investigation's progress is commonly charted on a dry-erase board, and each day's board is photographed to retain a record of how the investigation is proceeding. None were used or photographed in the Duke case.
Nor were the suspects, after arrest, ever questioned by police. Understand: the case wallowed for a year, but the suspects were never interrogated. No sit-down with detectives in a squalid enclosed room. No video taped sessions. No attorney advising them not to answer that next question -- because there were no questions asked, ever. The prosecution even refused repeated offers by the defendants to provide statements on their own. The goal seemingly was not to investigate, but to prevent any opportunity for the accused to formally present proof of their innocence.
The defendants were denied a probable cause hearing, because the prosecutor delayed arresting them until after he had a Grand Jury indict them. No one knows what was alleged against them there, because no records were kept of what was presented to the Jury. The Jury which heard their case also heard 80 other cases that day -- allowing on average perhaps five minutes for each case.
When attorneys for the accused asked in court for copies of police radio tapes, the police promptly destroyed those tapes. After DNA testing twice cleared the entire lacrosse team of any contact with their accuser, the prosecutor switched from justifying the tests because they "would immediately rule out the innocent", to declaring that the results were irrelevant and he would ignore them.
And all that -- and very much more -- took place in full view of the media, which was baying for conviction from the moment the accusation first broke; and turned a blind eye to anything which might have derailed it thereafter. Vox media vox populi vox dei. Is there any distance between the three?
If Kafka lived in our era, he would be writing fact, not fiction. In 21st century America one can be charged with a crime one didn't commit -- which didn't even happen -- and be not allowed to present proof of your innocence.
We sacrificed the individual to satiate the appetite of the mob
How did we arrive at this situation? As Simone Weil said, the future is made of the same stuff as the present. And so was the past. We've progressed back to the medieval notion of guilt by ethnicity. (Could an accused gypsy or a Jew ever be considered innocent in the Middle Ages? Or a black man in the Old South? Ask the Scottsboro kids. How about any male in the modern South? Ask the lacrosse kids.)
And so we stumble on without understanding why we once believed that the rule of innocence until proven guilty was necessary. Or that if we sacrificed the individual to satiate the appetite of the mob, we gave up everything that was worth preserving in society anyway.
Good luck to any innocent who will be accused today. And if by some tiny miracle (as happened with the Duke case) you do manage to slip the bonds of assured conviction, you may still be considered criminal, because your very innocence contributed to the disruption of society's inner peace. You have created turmoil by raising doubts about the politically-correct world view.
And in our modern world, it's always the masses that are important, not the individual.
Randolph Parrish is the author of "The Duke Lacrosse Case: A Documentary History and Analysis of the Modern Scottsboro"
“Randolph Parrish is the author of “The Duke Lacrosse Case: A Documentary History and Analysis of the Modern Scottsboro”(2009); “Cancionero”, a teen novel; and editor of a one-volume edition of Graetz’s “History of the Jews”.
It was just over ten years ago that the Duke lacrosse case finally dragged its weary way across the finish line. That case was a storm petrel, flying before the thunder. We should have watched its course more carefully, because it was about to become a paradigm of what was to follow.
First there was first an accusation -- that a black woman had been raped by more than 20 white men at a party. After changing her story a few times -- maybe it was only five men; or two -- the accuser finally settled on three.
The police investigated, but kept no records. That should have been a clue -- not to the case, but to where our justice system was headed. Officers normally carry notebooks or pads on which they write down pertinent information. For the Duke case, the officers involved kept no notes at all (aside from the single exception of a couple of flimsy pages, with two or three scribbles). 
