A Dishonest Rewrite of the Duke Lacrosse Case

From Dorothy Rabinowitz, at the Wall Street Journal:

In the outpouring of praise for William D. Cohan's new book "The Price of Silence"—a work, remarkably enough, being celebrated as a model of evenhandedness, scrupulous objectivity, etc.—one essential has gone overlooked. Namely, the central point of this tale about the Duke lacrosse case and accusations against three players of rape and assault at a house party. It takes no close reading to see that the book is meant to recast the story so as to nullify the outcome Americans thought they knew—that the players were exonerated and had been falsely accused. In Mr. Cohan's portrayal, the workings of decency and justice were undone by malign forces—among them, it would seem, the ability to hire defense attorneys.

The book's pro forma declarations that the accused were, yes, exonerated come surrounded by a far stronger drumbeat of doubt that their exoneration could conceivably have been just. No surprise the accused beat the charges, Mr. Cohan is regularly at pains to make clear: These were white sons of privilege, from families who could pay for their excellent defense lawyers.

In Mr. Cohan's revisionist history we find a new moral hero—none other than Mr. Nifong, the prosecutor who brought the case and was disbarred for his actions during the investigation. "The Price of Silence" gives us a man mistreated and misunderstood, ruined for his efforts to do justice.

Such is the book's view of the prosecutor whose prime activity, upon taking the case, consisted of nonstop media interviews in which he denounced the evil of this racist sex assault by the lacrosse players—"hoodlums," as he referred to them—whose guilt, he emphasized, was unquestionable.

That this protracted pretrial outpouring might be unwise—in addition to being a clear violation of the requirement that prosecutors make no statements prejudicial to a fair trial—did not apparently trouble Mr. Nifong, who relished his turn on the national stage. Mr. Cohan rationalizes this bizarre prosecutorial behavior as a strategy to pressure members of the lacrosse team who had attended the party to tell what they knew—to break their "wall of silence."

In Mr. Cohan's interviews as he promotes his book, we hear much the same. Along with the author's repeated dark assertions that "something happened in that bathroom," we also hear, ominously, that "we will never know" the facts because "nobody in that bathroom is talking." District Attorney Nifong's career may have been undone but its spirit lives on...

Keep reading.

Rabinowitz is a national treasure. Here's one of her pieces from back in 2007, "The Michael Nifong Scandal."

More at KC Johnson's blog, "Rabinowitz Eviscerates Author Cohan."