Old News at Duke
Three Duke lacrosse players. An exotic dancer. A party.
Wrongly accused? It appears so.
Outrageous? If true, yes.
News? No.
It happens every day in this country. And it’s been happening since the first gavel hit the bench.
To young men of the working class. To young men of color. To young Hispanic men. To young men without the financial resources to hire the best that money can buy.
Darryl Hunt. North Carolina. 19 years old. Life sentence for the rape and murder of a 25-year-old woman. Imprisoned 18 years before being exonerated in 2004.
Alan Gell. North Carolina. 20 years old. Sentenced to death for the murder of a 56-year-old man. Imprisoned 9 years - half of those on death row - until a jury acquitted him in a retrial.
Brandon Moon. Texas. 25 years old. Imprisoned 16 years for the rape of a woman in El Paso before being exonerated.
Ronnie Bullock. Illinois. 27 years old. Imprisoned for almost 11 years for the rape of a 9-year-old Chicago girl before being exonerated.
Where were their headlines?
Where were their mothers’ appearances on CBS’ 60 Minutes and the morning talk show circuit?
Where were the state bar associations investigating those prosecuting attorneys?
Where were the state attorneys general to conduct reviews of the criminal charges against those young men?
Why is it news now?
Perhaps because now it’s happened to some upper middle class young white men.
Michigan Shames Supreme
Shame on you, Michigan Supreme Court.
In the respect and trust categories, the legal profession has long ranked up there with used car sales people and the IRS.
Sadly, the justices on the Michigan Supreme Court are seeing to it that we stay there.
20,000 Plus
More than 20,000 additional American troops. Soldiers.
Men. Women.
Sons. Fathers. Brothers. Uncles.
Daughters. Mothers. Sisters. Aunts.
Friends.
Ours.
Theirs.
On Top
It took 143 years and the state of Montana to get into the room and another 90 years of working the room, but there’s finally a woman on top.
George, John, Sam and the boys jawed and threw back a few in September 1774 at the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia.
In 1917 they let Jeannette Rankin in the Sixty-fifth Congress.
And as the 110th Congress kicks off, 233 years in the making, Nancy Pelosi will lead the House of Representatives.
233 years. Work it, honey.
