Sandy Slaga

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.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 25th, 2007 at 3:33 pm and is filed under Daily Klatsch, Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.