Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case [Hardcover]

Stuart Taylor (Author), KC Johnson (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 4, 2007 | ISBN-10: 0312369123 | ISBN-13: 978-0312369125 | Edition: 1st

What began that night shocked Duke University and Durham, North Carolina.
      And it continues to captivate the nation:  the Duke lacrosse team members' alleged rape of an African-American stripper and the unraveling of the case against them.
      In this ever-deepening American tragedy, Stuart Taylor Jr. and KC Johnson argue, law enforcement, a campaigning prosecutor, biased journalists, and left-leaning academics repeatedly refused to pursue the truth while scapegoats were made of these young men, recklessly tarnishing their lives.
      The story harbors multiple dramas, including the actions of a DA running for office; the inappropriate charges that should have been apparent to academics at Duke many months ago; the local and national media, who were so slow to take account of the publicly available evidence; and the appalling reactions of law enforcement, academia, and many black leaders.
      Until Proven Innocent is the only book that covers all five aspects of the case (personal, legal, academic, political, and media) in a comprehensive fashion. Based on interviews with key members of the defense team, many of the unindicted lacrosse players, and Duke officials, it is also the only book to include interviews with all three of the defendants, their families, and their legal teams.
            Taylor and Johnson's coverage of the Duke case was the earliest, most honest, and most comprehensive in the country, and here they take the idiocies and dishonesty of right- and left-wingers alike head on, shedding new light on the dangers of rogue prosecutors and police and a cultural tendency toward media-fueled travesties of justice. The context of the Duke case has vast import and contains likable heroes, unfortunate victims, and memorable villains--and in its full telling, it is captivating nonfiction with broad political, racial, and cultural relevance to our times.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Guilty until proven innocent was a concept expressed by Duke University's president Richard Brodhead, among others, betraying a stunning misapprehension of America's justice system in the case of the Duke lacrosse players wrongfully indicted for raping a black stripper in 2006. As well reported in detail by respected legal journalist Taylor and Brooklyn College historian Johnson, the facts of the case speak for themselves: rogue prosecutor Mike Nifong willfully disregarded evidence of the boys' innocence; Duke administrators hung the team members out to dry; much of Duke's faculty and the media rushed to assume guilt in the racially charged case (the New York Times comes in for special opprobrium). But these facts are embedded in repetitiously hammering home the basic points, sarcasm and ranting against the political correctness (i.e., obsession with the race-class-gender triad) of academia and the media. The authors challenge the academic credentials of the black faculty members who attacked the team and criticize the Times's Selena Roberts for choosing to live in lily white Westport, Conn. In total contrast, the closing chapters offer balanced, tautly argued discussions of, and remedies for, the central problems: prosecutorial abuse, the frequency of false rape accusations and academic groupthink. 8 pages of color photos. (Oct. 1)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

Praise for Until Proven Innocent

Written by Stuart Taylor Jr. and K.C. Johnson, Until Proven Innocent is the most compelling true crime book of the year. Its immersion into the case and access to the major players makes the reader feel like an insider. The book is crammed full of salacious details, scientific details, background details, etc., but it never feels overwhelming. After reading the book, though, you will feel disgusted, if not outraged. -Amanda Barrett, The Chicago Sun-Times

In their vivid, at times chilling account, the authors are contemptuous of prosecutor Mike Nifong, whom the North Carolina legal establishment disbarred for his by now well-documented misconduct. But their most biting scorn is aimed at the "academic McCarthyism" that they say has infected top-rated American universities like Duke. -Evan Thomas, Newsweek

A superb new book… a book that not only reads like a legal thriller, but also exposes deep problems with America's legal system and academic culture. -The Economist

From the Scottsboro Boys to Clarence Gideon, some of the most memorable legal narratives have been tales of the wrongly accused. Now Until Proven Innocent, a new book about the false allegations of rape against three Duke lacrosse players, can join these galvanizing cautionary tales. Taylor and Johnson have made a gripping contribution to the literature of the wrongly accused. They remind us of the importance of constitutional checks on prosecutorial abuse. And they emphasize the lesson that Duke callously advised its own students to ignore: if you're unjustly suspected of any crime, immediately call the best lawyer you can afford. -Jeffrey Rosen, The New York Times Book Review

“Brutally honest, unflinching, exhaustively researched, and compulsively readable, Until Proven Innocent excoriates those who led the stampede—the prosecutor, the cops, the media—but it also exposes the cowardice of Duke’s administration and faculty. Until Proven Innocent smothers any lingering doubts that in this country the presumption of innocence is dead, dead, dead.”
—John Grisham
 
“This compelling narrative dramatizes the fearsome power of unscrupulous police and prosecutors to wreck the lives of innocent people, especially when the media and many in the community rush to presume guilt. The inspiring story of how the defense lawyers turned the tables on a dishonest DA points to the crying need for reforms to give defendants of modest means a fighting chance when law enforcement goes bad.”
—Nadine Strossen, president of the American Civil Liberties Union and professor of law at the New York Law School
 
“In what surely is this year’s most revealing, scalding and disturbing book on America’s civic culture, the authors demonstrate that the Duke case was symptomatic of the dangerous decay of important institutions—legal, academic, and journalistic. . . . With this meticulous report, the guilty have at last been indicted and convicted.”
—George F. Will  
 
“A gripping, meticulous, blow-by-blow account of the whole grotesque affair. It is beautifully written, dramatic, and full of insights, exposing how vulnerable the prosecutorial system is to abuse and how ready the liberal media and PC academics are to serve as leaders of the lynch mob. A must read for anyone who cares about individual rights and justice.”
—William P. Barr, former attorney general of the United States
 
“A chilling, gripping account of how our judicial system can go terribly wrong. This is an important book that brings the Duke story to life and exposes troubling facts about our justice system and our citadels of higher learning. You may think you know the Duke story—but you don’t until you read this book.”
—Jan Crawford Greenberg, ABC News legal correspondent and author of Supreme Conflict
 
“The analysis of the notorious Duke rape case in this book is hard to accept. According to Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, this episode was not just a terrible injustice to three young men. It exposed a fever of political correctness that is more virulent than ever on American campuses and throughout society. . . . Unfortunately for doubts, the authors lay out the facts with scrupulous care. This is a thorough and absorbing history of a shameful episode. ”—Michael Kinsley, columnist for Time magazine

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; 1st edition (September 4, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312369123
• ISBN-13: 978-0312369125
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (94 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #664,275 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #48 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Other Team Sports > Lacrosse

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

122 of 128 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The must have book for those interested in the Duke case September 5, 2007

By Naz

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is truly the definitive book for those looking to get the entire story of the despicable Duke rape hoax. Perhaps even more scary than the book's depiction of disgraced DA Nifong, are the sections on the Duke professors and officials who were so willing to destroy (i.e. send to prison for 30 years) 3 innocent boys in the name of political correctness. It makes you wonder if these people have a conscience and how they are in charge of teaching young people. The authors present very granular evidence of the incomptence of Duke President Brodhead, who comes across as a coward, and also the group of 88 "professors" who still teach at the school. These folks, plus the DA and police have made the name "Duke" soiled. This book makes sure that they will be remembered for the cruel fools they are for eternity.

121 of 128 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Such a pleasant read from a nasty affair. September 5, 2007

By Lauren Gale

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I've been captivated by the Duke Lacrosse Scandal since the indictments were first handed down. I found KC's blog in August and looked forward to reading his insightful, intelligent, and down-to-earth posts every day. I hoped his book would be just as organized and fun to read as his blog, and I must say it hasn't let me down.

It arrived yesterday and I muted everything to curl up with it after school. It went very fast and had noticeable bits of KC's dry humor. It appropriately skewers the right villains: the Gang of 88(+23) - there's no shortage of fodder here, revealed to be pseudo-intellects (and scared punks unwilling to defend their words in unstaged public forums); Duke administration - specifically Broadhead; the media - the NYT and Nancy Grace; and Nifong. It does not skewer the NC politicians who sat back and did nothing as much as I think they deserve.

My *only* issue with the book, as well as in his blog, is the Steve Monks affair. The book has speculated, without any evidence, and none brought to light in the book, that Monks had some ulterior motive for running, other than being a deluded person. I really can't reach that conclusion based on the scant mentionings that KC and Stuart have alluded to. Other than that, I feel that the other speculated motivations put forth in the book are fair (i.e. the motivation of the G88) considering the context.

I think it's fitting that this book was released a few days after Nifong was sentenced to his symbolic stint in jail. The real bottom line of the book is that affects of Nifong's actions reach far beyond the court. Nifong's narcissism exposed the pervasive bias in media, on college campuses, and among our most influential and the unchecked power prosecutors have. It also exposed how quickly some are willing to latch on to a narrative. And instead of admitting that the narrative may be, and can be wrong, are willing to reach intellectual dishonesty to keep it true. KC's blog was a breath of fresh air during the entire affair and this book has immortalized that which I'm sure many want to forget.

__

(This is response to another reviewer primarily, but I think it's helpful to all) This book wasn't meant to tell the story of the three accused as much as it was about exploring the various themes around the events that ultimately ended by vindication. Yes, the three are central to the book, but only as background to the real issues brought up in the book.

The book is timely because all of those properly denounced in the book have yet to revisit what has been proven wrong. All of the allegations that were made in the days after the 'rape' have yet to be addressed.

And more importantly, the sense you get from the book is that there's a frustration there isn't a mechanism to force people, in situations such as this, to 'put up' (for lack of a better word). The very institutions that are supposed to do encourage this kind of dialog, failed miserably. In a perfect world, non-G88 professors would have challenged the G-88 openly. In a perfect world, other prosecutors would have challenged Nifong. In a perfect world, other social rights organizations would have challenged the NCNAACP. I do believe this is the first instance in my lifetime, that so many social pathologies converged to create the real social disaster that is about to cost the city of Durham millions.

In a perfect world, people would learn from this. This is not a perfect world and I have little hope that those vilified in this book will learn anything.

50 of 52 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Justifible outrage leaps from every page September 18, 2007

By Jerry Saperstein HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

This is a story of 21st Century America. A woman claims she was raped and sodomized by three young men. The men are all young, white and members of the Duke University lacrosse team, a sport presumed by many to be played only by the rich. Their accuser is black, the unmarried mother of two children, a stripper and perhaps a prostitute as well.

Within days, a large swath of the left-leaning mainstream media, left-wing Duke faculty and an aggressive white District Attorney seeking the votes of a largely black population are declaring the guilt of the three Duke lacrosse players. Justice be damned; this to them is an issue of class, race and gender.

KC Johnson is a history professor at Brooklyn College and CUNY. Thousands of people, including myself, became familiar with him through his blog, Durham-in-Wonderland, which chronicled the events in this outrageous travesty of twisted law enforcement, political correctness, biased reportage and racial politics.

Stuart Taylor, Jr. is a columnist for the National Journal and a contributing editor for Newsweek.

Outrage is present on every page in measured tones as the authors outline the depradations of Mike Nifong, the man who willingly incited Durham's black population in a quest for their votes by referring to the victim's allegations as true, by calling the Duke lacrosse players "privileged white boys", by asking why would the targets of a rampaging DA hire lawyers if they had done nothing wrong, publicizing untrue details of a non-existent crime and worse.

But Nifong, who was ultimately disbarred for his prejudicial comments and his subsequent withholding of exculpatory evidence is only part of the story. Nifong was helped by apparently dishonest or incompetent police officers, by the Duke Medical Center which hired a feminist idelogue as a Sexual Assault Nurse trainee and who changed her stories to fit changing needs, by a gospel singing investigator who thought nothing of intimidating defense witnesses and helping the alleged victim change her story (again) to smooth over the gaping holes in the prosecution case.

It would be awful enough if the story was just about this cast of people who wanted to railroad three young men into thirty year prison terms to serve their narrow, selfish interests.

But there was the Duke faculty, particularly those who taught in African-American, women's studies and similar departments. Before any evidence was available, 88 of these faculty members (Group of 88) signed an ad that essentally presumed guilt. All of them were left-wing activists who saw everything as a matter of race, class and gender. To them this was a case made in heaven. There could be no doubt about the accuser's shifting stories because the accused were rich white boys.

The well justified and supremely well documented outrage pours from every page as the authors examine these left-wing activists and their impact on the case, Duke and academia as a whole.

How any one can read this book and not wonder how to rid academia of its rot is beyond me.

Finally the book takes to task the largely left-wing oriented media who seized upon the race, class and gender issue and pilloried the three defendants without questioning the increasingly shaky case. The treatment of these boys at the hands of the media was deplorable, especially from the New York Times, which as could be expected has failed to apologize.

If the reader begins this book with the naive presumption that the press can be trusted, that illusion will be destroyed by the last page.

Most people know that the North Carolina Attorney General took the extraordinary step of declaring all three defendants innocent and further declaring that no criminal acts of any kind took place. The whole thing was a farce cooked up by Mike Nifong and his enablers to win an election. Too bad if three innocent kids had gone to prison for thirty years.

So far only Mike Nifong has been punished in any way. Maybe there will be a criminal investigation for violation of civil rights. Duke's record in the affair is absolutely shameful, its President, board and faculty caving into the left-wing agenda. None of the faculty members who prejudged the defendants has been disciplined. Some have moved on to even loftier positions. Their racist statements will chill the reader and leave one wondering why they are in positions of trust, teaching young adults at a university where the tuition is $44,000 annually.

This is an important book about an major abuse of the judiciary, police, press and academy. Hopefully it will serve to wake many people up to what has been happening since the 1960s. If nothing more, "Until Proven Innocent" demonstrates what happens when the presumption of innocence is tossed on the trash heap in pursuit of a poltical agenda.

Jerry