Durham should not settle with the lacrosse players

I have wanted to talk about the Duke lacrosse case, one of the biggest controversies in Durham in the past few years, but I was not following the case closely enough to say much.  I also trusted the judicial system to tell us the facts. This is not to say that justice is impartial in the US, or that it is honest.  As Lenin and others have said, justice is biased by class, and also by ethnicity, culture, and other factors.  I did sympathize with the prosecution, though in general I am suspicious of prosecutors.  There was an accusation and based on what I knew at the time, I thought that it should be investigated.  There are also the issues of how stopping the investigation earlier would have affected race relations and the reporting of sexual violence in the Triangle. It also seems like many of the biggest supporters of the defendants are white conservatives.        

 

I'm saying this because I plan to blog more on this if Durham is sued by the three former players.  The City should not settle with them for $30 million dollars.  They should not get more than people who have been wrongfully imprisoned in North Carolina for years, or the surviving kin of innocent people killed by the government. The players might deserve some compensation, and I feel some sympathy for people like their former coach and players who were disgraced by this investigation.  The justice system should not be used to transfer wealth to people who can afford powerful attorneys and seem to want to punish the people of Durham (as many of our neighbors in Wake County and elsewhere want, judging by their letters to the News & Observer).  I'm not sure Duke was wise in settling with them, and it was a stepping stone to coming after Durham.