Nifong ethics trial on Court TV

That is correct, Seligmann did say on the stand that he is thinking of going into law.

 

When he's a public defender in Durham, give me a call.

 

I guess I don't understand the vitriol toward someone who has done nothing other than be wrongly accused of a crime.

If he wants to start a hedge fund and play polo all day, what's it to you?

It's not his fault that this great liberal wet dream in Durham didn't play out as planned.

 

OK, let me explain.
I am glad a renegade prosecutor got his. I wish they all would. I wish this country would stop cheering on politicians and prosecutors -- both in our entertainments and in reality -- who ignore the "loopholes" and the "technicalities" of Amendments Four Through Six. (Mike Lupica was fucking hilarious today in the NYDN, celebrating a triumph for the rule of law and the presumption of innocence, and this from a guy who wants to drug-test everyone, without probable cause, for everything.) Mike Nifong is a creature of our wish for kings, and our distrust of our own rights guaranteed to us under the finest charter of government ever devised, a distrust sown by too many politicians who should know better, and celebrated by all of us good folks who are convinced it will never happen to us.
Well, it happened to Reade Seligman, who was fortunate enough to be able to afford the best legal help he could to correct a monstrous abuse of the process. What I wish is that he dedicates his life to the principles that helped him be free. That's all.

 

I agree with that entirely. There are more Nifongs out there, and I hope this case opened some eyes and changed some perspectives.

Based on interviews, Seligman seems the sharpest and most earnest of the three, so I wouldn't be surprised if he follows through with his comments and actually tries to make a career of righting wrongs in the justice system.

But that's quite a burden to put on a 21-year-old who has just been through a year of hell. I think you're more on track when you bring up the media.

For example, how about the New York Times, which instead of using its enormous prestige to right a wrong, used a front-page article in an attempt to single-handedly revive the failing case? What about (virtually) every newspaper in America that unquestionably reports on the heroic deeds of police and prosecutors and uncritically cheers arrests and long sentences?

 

Yeah, cake, them, too.
My wish? Seligman gets together with James Giles, the Texas guy who got out of prison after doing 25 years on rape charges as phony ang ined up as the ones Nifong brought, and they do a commercial for the ACLU, say, or the federal Legal Services Corporation on the theme, "Think it can't happen to you?"

 

Problem is the ACLU, like you F_B doesn't give too shits about "rich pricks" like Seligmann, whether he was innocent or not. Those are the people they like to shit on for no reason other than their wealth.

But I do like the idea. It is a very good one.

 

I don't buy into the whole "innocent" players wronged by a bogeyman district attorney schtick. Yes, Nifong was completely wrong in his prosecution on spurious evidence. Yes, the players were exonerated of this charge of rape. But let's not forget the team hired a stripper. Let's not forget that one of their teammates wrote a horribly racist e-mail.

Did some kind of sexual assault happen that night? I don't know. We may never know. But did something illegal happen that night? Underage drinking perhaps. A hired stripper, yes. Is it fair to ask some of the tangenital questions that came up when the case was first being discussed, such as the race or class questions that came up? Absolutely.

We know Nifong was wrong. We know the accuser was wrong. But so was Richard Brodhead. So were the faculty and media members who rushed to convict Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans. Many of us effed up to the extent that no amount of apologizing is ever going to make things right.

 

Hiring strippers is illegal?

 

That's absolute nonsense.
The ACLU stands up for everyone. Ask Mr. Limbaugh, to name one.

 

In some states it is, in others not.