1) In our criminal justice system, you’re either guilty beyond a reasonably doubt or there is a reasonable doubt that you’re guilty and thus there’s not sufficient evidence to find you guilty. The choice isn’t either “guilty” or “innocent” – it’s “guilty” or “not guilty.” So does the fact that the prosecution dropped the charges against the Duke 3 mean they’re innocent? Doesn’t it just mean that they’re not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?

No. It means they’re innocent. Did you listen to what the Attorney General said? He called the three players “innocent.” Lawyers who practice criminal law don’t toss such terms around lightly, and they don’t consider “innocent” the same thing as “not guilty.”

2) So you’re honestly telling me it’s a big deal that the Attorney General called them “innocent” instead of “not guilty”?

Yes. It’s a huge deal. Lawyers, like members of any other profession, tend to protect their own. For instance, if a particular surgeon botches your surgery, good luck getting the surgeon you hire to fix you to say his predecessor screwed up. It’s not how professionals roll. So the fact that the Attorney General threw Nifong under the bus is pretty momentous.

3) With the simple phrase “innocent” he threw Nifong under the bus?

Yes. But there was more. Let’s not forget that the A.G. proposed a law to deal with “rogue prosecutors” specifically in response to this case. While he pulled up short of explicitly referring to Nifong as a rogue prosecutor, he came pretty darn close to doing so.

4) And yet some people don’t want admit that the accused are innocent. Why?

Because the Duke lacrosse team as a collection represented the perfect stereotype of privileged white male testosterone running amuck. The social behavior pattern of some of the team members apparently went beyond the realm of tomfoolery and shenanigans and was downright cretinous. And let’s not forget, the “victim” in her idealized form was perfect, too; a poor black woman who was a plaything for privileged white males. For some people of a certain ideological bent who are inclined to view justice through a political prism, the Duke lacrosse scandal had to be sheer perfection. One doesn’t give up such a thing easily.

5) So what do we learn about these people who still won’t admit the players are innocent?

They are obviously people for whom facts have no meaning. The three perpetrators may as well been chosen out of a hat. There was no physical evidence where there would have been if the “victim’s” charges were true. Her stories contradicted themselves and those of every other witness.

People who still cling to the notion that the accused are guilty are people who don’t mind using the justice system as a means to settle political scores. (Can anyone say “Fitzmas”?)

6) How common are prosecutors like Nifong?

I don’t know. There are tens of thousands of prosecutor out there. There has to be some rotten apples in the batch. Yesterday I got an email from a reader whose life was turned upside down by an aggressive and unscrupulous prosecutor the past several months. The charges were dropped earlier this week, but not before her life was ruined. Prosecutors have such power. And such power in the hands of unscrupulous people will inevitably be abused. The vast majority of prosecutors are good people doing a hard job. But the minority of Nifongs out there is the sole reason I oppose the death penalty.

7) Where do the Duke players go to get redress for the damage done to them?

That’s the bitch of it. This ordeal will leave scars that will never heal. And as we’ve seen on The View, there will be some people who will forever cling to the notion that these three kids are rapists. No matter what happens to Nifong and what kind of financial compensation the Duke players may get, they don’t come out even from this. No way.

8) What happens to Nifong?

It’s hard to imagine he won’t be disbarred. If he has any brains (admittedly a highly dubious notion), he’ll remove himself from the bar and pursue his lifelong passion of plucking the wings off live butterflies on a full-time basis. Conceivably, given the likely magnitude of his transgressions, he could be put up on criminal charges. Given the fact that he knowingly tried to imprison three innocent men, that would be the only fitting conclusion to this drama.

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