This book has been a labor of love in large part because of the many wonderful people who were victims of or otherwise affected by this false rape accusation, and with whom we have had the great pleasure of becoming friendly.
Most of our research and writing took place as the legal case progressed. Even so, we benefited from the extraordinary cooperation of all three defendants legal teams, consistent with their ethical constraints as lawyers in a pending case. Counselors to clients they knew to be innocent, Joe Cheshire, Brad Bannon, Kirk Osborn, Jim Cooney, Wade Smith, and Doug Kingsbery shared with us every aspect of the defense files and thinking except for matters that had been placed under seal by the court or were confidential as a matter of law or professional ethics. Brad Bannon, in particular, went above and beyond the call of duty to answer dozens of our questions, however minor the detail. Steve McCool was also most helpful.
Dave Evans, Reade Seligmann, and Collin Finnertythe three falsely accused playerstheir parents, and other family members patiently answered our numerous questions over a several-months period. They gave willingly of their time even as charges were still hanging over them.
Bob Ekstrand and Bill Thomas, who represented unindicted players, spent many long hours responding to our questions and were immensely helpful as well as courageous in speaking out against the abuses of a district attorney who had a great deal of power to hurt their practices. Stef Sparks also spent many hours tirelessly educating us on details of the case.
District Attorney Mike Nifong and the police officers discussed herein did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
We conducted dozens of interviews, either in person or via e-mail, with current and former members of the Duke mens and womens lacrosse teams, their families, and their coaches. Not one request for information was denied. We would especially like to acknowledge assistance from Mike and Sue Pressler, Larry Lamade, Jerry Crotty, Bruce Thompson, Thom Mayer, Bob Wellington, Sally Fogarty, Ben and Tricia Dowd, Everett and Rita Flannery, Steve Henkelman, and Bill and Tara Nick. Also the current and former players who agreed to interviews: Danny Flannery, Peter Lamade, Devon Sherwood, Bo Carrington, Tony McDevitt, Jay Jennison, Ryan McFadyen, BradRoss, and Michael Catalino. We also thank Taylor Price for insights into his friends Reade and Collin.
Duke President Richard Brodhead, Chairman Robert Steel, Provost Peter Lange, and Senior Vice President John Burness were responsive to our questions and generous with their time even though aware that we might well be critical of their actions. We appreciate their professionalism and civility.
For background on Durham politics, we are especially grateful to guidance from Jackie Brown. For background on Duke, we benefited from students including Kristin Butler, Stephen Miller, and Seyward Darby; 2006 graduates, including Adam Chandler; and a number of people who, troubled by the direction their university took in this affair, gave off-the-record assistance.
Robin Muller provided outstanding research and memoranda concerning media coverage, other unjust prosecutions, and rape law. Among several astute bloggers who helped inform us via private exchanges as well as the Internet, special thanks to the Liestoppers crew, to Bill Anderson, and to Mike Gaynor.
We are grateful to the dozens of people who read drafts of portions of the manuscript. Their suggestions dramatically improved the final product. Special thanks to the Presslers, Harvey Silverglate, Peter Berkowitz, Bill Bryson, Barry Scheck, Margaret King, Steve Remy, Kristin Butler, Danny Flannery, William Wolcott, Eric Ferrero, and (again) Bob Ekstrand and Stef Sparks.
Stuart thanks Charlie Green and his colleagues at National Journal for their patience with his long absences and his wife, Sally, for her patience with his long presence and her moral support. KC thanks his department chairman, David Troyansky, for agreeing to a last-minute course release, freeing time to complete the manuscript.
We are also grateful to Gail Ross, who was immensely helpful in finding a publisher for the book and ironing out various problems, and to Tom Dunne and John Parsley of St. Martins Press for giving our book a home and helping us make it better.
We invite readers who are concerned about the legal injustices detailed in these pages to visit the Association for Truth and Fairness at http://www.truthandfairness.org/ . The Association was formed to help defray the more than $5 million in legal fees associated with defending against the injustices visited by law enforcement officials upon the three defendants and their teammates.
A RECKONING
I N LIGHT OF ROY COOPERS unequivocal declaration of innocence, a handful of journalists (but no professors) who had rushed to judgment issued apologies. The most heartfelt came from ESPNs Jemele Hill.
In an open letter to Seligmann, Finnerty, and Evans posted at espn.com , Hill fully understood that an apology was not enough For the last year, your lives and those of your families have been more difficult than any of us can possibly imagine. Ill never know what it was like walking around normal society labeled a rapist. Ill never know what its like to lose everythingyour school, your program, and your lifebecause of one unproven accusation . I cant deny that your race, gender, and class have everything to do with how you were treated then and how you are treated now. Some people believe white men are exempt from sympathy and incapable of being maligned, so they will not swallow their pride and offer you the decency you should have received in the first place.
Though she had never written that the players were guilty, Hill admitted that she had felt it, which is just as bad. Actually, its not nearly as bad. And many Nifong enablers in the media and the academy who had suggested guilt simply refused to face the fact of innocence. They ignored or downplayed Roy Coopers all-but-unprecedented announcement completely clearing the players. Sportswriter John Feinstein saw nothing wrong with his prior comment that Evans, Seligmann, and Finnerty were probably guilty of everything but rape, he told a California radio station. He offered no evidence to corroborate this calumny.
In a commentary for CBS, Andrew Cohen ungraciously conceded that it looked like the players were innocent of Nifongs chargesjust as the defense lawyers for the young men had screeched for a year. But the washingtonpost. com columnist still implied that something deep and dark had happened. Perhaps at some point, he mused, the falsely accused studentswill disclose to the rest of us what really happened that night last year at that off-campus apartment, when a large group of student athletes hired two strippers to come over for a party. He also wondered whether Mangum was a victim, too, a victim of her status as a stripper and a hazy memory. Cohen never revealed what he found wanting in the attorney generals minute-by-minute recapitulation of the party or how a fictional thirty-minute gang rape could be attributed to hazy memory.
Wendy Murphy, meanwhile, speculated to New England Cable News that the accuser must have been bribed to ask Cooper to drop the charges. The remark once again showed Murphys profound ignorance of the publicly available evidence: In fact Mangum had wanted to go forward with yet another wild fabrication. In a subsequent interview with American Journalism Review, the adjunct law professor rationalized her parade of flat-out false statements by claiming you have to appreciate my role as a pundit is to draw inferences and make arguments on behalf of the side which Im assigned.
