Duke Lacrosse --What have we learned?

1) The Charges will be dismissed today.

2) You reap what you sow:

Attorneys for District Attorney Mike Nifong acknowledged that he made many of the comments the state bar deemed misleading and inflammatory. But they denied that Nifong intentionally withheld DNA evidence from defense attorneys -- the most serious of the ethics charges faced by the veteran prosecutor.

"A lot of people have been rushing to judgment on both the underlying case and this case," attorney Dudley Witt said. "And after you allow someone to have a full hearing, I think you will find that he didn't do anything wrong." link

3) The media let it's bias and its perception of the public's bias drive the early story.

Rich kids raping a lower class minority. The Media stampeded through the protests to be the first to tar and feather the kids.

4) Beware the media focus:

Now the media has turned its considerable power on toppling Nilfong. From Good Morning America interviewing Grand Jurors who now doubt the indictments to digging into every aspect of the case, the media is digging into every aspect of the case to show Nilfong was the bad guy. Lesson here is don't fool the media. . .

5) Our court system is supposed to be about truth and justice, but it really isn't. We had protest rallies to show outrage before we really knew if their was a crime. And we have had the lives of the dancer and the Lacrosse players destroyed by the media. The three families recently asked Duke to cover their legal costs; the amount was $3 million! My family could not afford that. Yup, it was easy to be outraged when we all thought some rich kids had done this. But the flip side is that justice was abandoned in a process that would destroy anyone's reputation and most families financial means.

We need to examine our court system, our media, and how we respond to incidents like this. In the Duke LaCrosse case, we all pursued a scorched earth policy that left nothing undamaged. . .