Arrests in Duke Case — the Travesty Continues

Police have arrested two Duke LAX players, making sure that there would be the noxious “perp walk” with players in handcuffs being paraded before news cameras. Bond was set at $400,000, which is very difficult to make.

The purpose of the high bond is not to “protect” the community, but rather to make sure that the players will sit in jail for a while, and then be wearing the orange jumpsuits at their preliminary hearings instead of their regular clothes. All this is to maximize their supposed guilt to a lapdog press that is little more than the publicity arm for an out-of-control prosecutor.

Defense attorneys with whom I have spoken say that this is a very weak case that almost surely will fall apart at some time. Most likely the first thing defense attorneys will ask is for a change of venue, since Durham, given how both the local black ministers and the Duke University faculty have worked hand-in-glove with the prosecutor to poison the local jury pool.

Now, I would not leave out the possibility of a wrongful conviction, as the prisons are full of people who have been convicted when they have committed no crimes. If anyone tells you that the judicial system is “stacked” in favor of the defense, that person is dead wrong. Prosecutors are the single most powerful class of people in this country, and one of the evil legacies of Republicans has been the systematic weakening of defendants’ rights in favor of the prosecution, all in the name of “law and order” and “protecting the public,” of course.

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7:55 am on April 18, 2006