I find the notion that the players weren’t hurt too badly by their experience to be remarkably out of touch with what has come out thus far, reinforced by the testimony in the hearing this week, especially today. Furthermore, let us not overlook the political nature of Nifong’s actions, and the legion of supporters and enablers he had. People looking for a way to push their political agendas, including: Nifong’s election campaign, and race / class / gender based identity politics that are commonly accepted by university professors and journalists.

As for the argument that the hurt to the players wasn’t too bad, how about you write a check to cover the millions of dollars the three families paid for attorney fees? They had to borrow much of that money. If they have to sue for recovery, they will get it out of the community’s hide, and taxes will have to go up to cover it. Perhaps higher taxes will hurt low-income folks in Durham, but Durham’s citizens elected Nifong, so they will have to pay the piper along with the better off Duke faculty.

We might actually get some good to come out of this whole mess if we can put an end to the “tough on crime” image to which society seems to hold its prosecutors. When we measure our DAs by sheer quantity of convictions, we should not be surprised when they use underhanded tactics to get those convictions. It backfired on Nifong, because his defendants were wealthy and had a well-prepared defense team. There are many more prosecutors who pull the same stunts against those with public-defender representation, and get rewarded for it.