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May 9, 2024 • 33 mins

The Duke Lacrosse case narrative deepens, unraveling a web of complexities that challenge our understanding of justice and integrity. Join Jay Harris as he navigates the aftermath of a scandal that rocked Duke University, focusing on the contentious actions of DA Mike Nifong and the turbulent path to uncovering the truth.

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome back to Playing Dirty Sports Scandals. I'm Jay Harris,
your host and juicer extraordinary squeezing all the succulent insider
details from sports biggest scandals. Over the past twenty years
of my career as a journalist and sportscaster, I've hosted
ESPN shows from Sports Center to Outside the Lines. But
on Playing Dirty, I'm all about lifting the lid on

(00:29):
what's happened behind the scenes of your favorite games. I
hope you've come thirsty today because we kicked off the
infamous Duke lacrosse scandal last week, and this case gets

(00:50):
darker and dirtier. So quick clean your palate while you
still can, and let's get into it now. When we
left off last week, District Attorney Mike Nifong had obtained
formal indictments against Duke University Blue Devil's lacrosse players Dave Evans,
Read Seligman and Colin Finnerdy, despite their accuser, Crystal Mangam,

(01:12):
having struggled to identify them, her questionable history and mental state,
and the lack of hard evidence that any crime had
actually been committed. We also talked about the Group of
eighty eight statement, where one ninth of Duke University's faculties
signed a letter presuming the guilt of their students in
a triumph of political correctness over legal due process. Dave Evans,

(01:34):
Read Seligman, and Colin Finnerty had been thrust into a nightmare,
and Duke University, an historic bastion of academic and athletic prestige,
was now the epicenter of a national scandal. Duke's president,
Richard Broadhead, tried to head off the national outrage by
decisively suspending the entire lacrosse team, getting in line with

(01:56):
the Group of eighty eight mentality, and in the coming days,
as the investigation progressed, President Broadhead probably thought he'd made
the right call with the suspension, demonstrating to the public
that Duke University would not tolerate indecency. Why because it
came to light that following the party on March thirteen,
two thousand and six, nineteen year old acc honor roll

(02:20):
lacrosse player Ryan McFadden returned to his dorm room and
did something so damning no university would willingly be associated
with the behavior in his room. At one fifty eight am,
Ryan impulsively composed an email to his fellow lacrosse team players.

(02:41):
Now I'm going to read Ryan McFadden's email to you
word for word, and it's appalling, So brace yourself. The
email Ryan sent to his teammates read to whom it
may concern, Tomorrow night. After tonight's show, I've decided to
have some strippers over to Eden's two c all are welcome, However,

(03:05):
there will be no nudity. I plan on killing the
bitches as soon as they walk in and proceeding to
cut their skin off while coming in my Duke issue
spandex all in besides archin Tac please respond. Most people,
myself included, recoil when hearing that email, but Ryan McFadden's

(03:26):
teammate Eric Hinckleman responded by saying due that email was
so funny, in what possible context could such a non
chalant response to that email make sense? While later Ryan
McFadden insisted that the email had been inspired by the
Brad Easton Ellis novel American Psycho, which is read in

(03:48):
some Duke literature courses, and according to Newsweek, two sources
close to the team supported McFadden's insistence, saying that the
email was clearly a reference to the book and later
the movie called The American Psycho. In the movie, a
Wall Street banker played by Christian Bale, goes crazy and
kills several women, though possibly only in his dreams. McFadden's

(04:12):
teammates seemed to immediately catch on to the American Psycho reference,
echoing his claim that the email was not in fact
sinister and had merely been taken out of context. In fact,
one of them had responded to the email with a
direct reference to the film, writing back, I'll bring the
Phil Collins music. In American Psycho, the killer delivers a

(04:32):
tribute to the music of pop singer Collins as he
cavorts with intended victims. But the email chain, which was
shared with the authorities through Crime Stoppers, a program that
allows people to anonymously report concerns, certainly didn't seem harmless,
and the police were not buying the American Psycho references.

(04:52):
The email led to a search warrant for Ryan McFadden's
dorm room. Durham Superior Court Judge Ronald Stevens authorized the search,
which was promptly conducted by six police officers and a
Duke University Police Force member. Durham Police officers Mark Gottlieb
and Benjamin Hyman viewed the message Ryan McFadden has sent
us a possible indication of a conspiracy to commit murder.

(05:16):
After all, the lacrosse players accuser Crystal Magnum had told
the story of being cornered in a bathroom, being beaten
and then raped by three men. In all fairness to
the police, it's not that big of elite from that
level of violence to some sort of plot to commit
a sexually fetishized murder. And so between the menacing email

(05:36):
and disturbing allegations from Crystal already on the table, the
search that ensued was particularly intense and thorough. Ryan McFadden's
room was turned upside down, with furniture destroyed and personal
items scattered. Officers took note of various items in the room,
including hand drawn images on the wall, which they documented.

(05:58):
They also seized various electronic devices belonging to McFadden. Ryan
McFadden was already stunned by the intense police search of
his room, but the situation devolved further on April fifth,
when the warrant for that search was unsealed, revealing his
controversial email to the wider public. McFadden was in the

(06:19):
library working on a history paper when he learned his
email had gone viral, and on the urgent advice of
his attorney, Robert Extrand, McFadden quickly retreated to a safe location.
As the situation escalated, John Burness, Duke's director of communications
brought McFadden's email to the attention of university President Richard Broadhead,

(06:43):
who expressed his revulsion, saying that what had been written
was quote sickening. Fueled by the email, President Broadhead then
doubled down on his presumption of guilt against the lacrosse
team members, launching five commissions to internally investigate and immediately
suspending and removing Ryan McFadden from campus. Even still, some

(07:06):
university staff believed that President Richard Broadhead wasn't going far enough.
Professor Houston Baker, an illustrious teacher whose career was launched
at Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania before his
time teaching English at Duke, went on the record with
CBS News correspondent Trish Reagan calling for changes at the
very top of the schools administration. There's a kind of

(07:29):
macho cock of the walk Boys culture that is characterizing
Duke's administration now. Professor Baker said he continued to tell
Trish Reagan that he hoped, quote there will be purges
in the administration, as there have been voluntarily, we're told
in the sports department, with the resignation of the lacrosse coach.
But had Duke's lacrosse coach, Mike Presler actually resigned voluntarily

(07:53):
amidst the tsunami of accusations being levied at Duke's lacrosse players,
their coach, Mike Presler, stood by them and believed in
their innocence. In an interview with CBS, Presler remembers that
initially he was quote really pissed and really shocked that
they would have this party first and foremost, but anyway,
I asked each of them to their face, one at

(08:15):
a time, the astonishment on their faces, and when you
know your people, I knew exactly from their reaction to
the allegations this was absolutely untrue. Coach Presler was in
the spotlight and under tremendous stress. He was committed to
supporting his team and championing his players presumed innocence, but
equally he was very concerned about his wife and two

(08:38):
young daughters, Janet and Maggie. His family's home had started
to feel unsafe, with vandalism and threats pouring in daily.
Mike Presler remembers, you wake up in the morning, there'll
be signs on your front in our front porch. You know,
I'd get up at five am to take those signs
down because I didn't want the girls to see those things. Now,

(09:00):
one was that just tore me apart, rapist lover, you know.
Another one, do your duty, turn him in those things,
those kind of things, and you know that's very hurtful.
It never leaves you. But even though he was faced
with personal threats, Mike Pressler was unwilling to blatantly abandon

(09:23):
his players, who were being subjected to unrelenting menacing behavior
against them on campus. Protests had erupted daily at Duke,
and even completely unrelated classes and occasions had become a
forum to discuss the ongoing investigation. For example, Ryan McFadden,
who had admittedly sent a debauched email to his teammates,

(09:44):
found himself in the middle of a history of labor
relations class where his professor, Reeve Houston, decided to address
the ongoing lacrosse case imagine a professor launching into subjective
analysis of a student's ongoing case as part of the course. Now,
this particular class only had about fifteen students, of whom

(10:05):
eight were lacrosse players. According to Ryan McFadden, Professor Houston
began his lecture by asserting three supposed facts about the case,
including his conclusion that some sort of sexual activity did
occur and that there was likely the use of a condom.
What this professor's unsubstantiated assertions, charged with random assumptions and accusations,

(10:29):
led Casey Carroll, a junior defenseman who wasn't even at
the party, to abruptly leave the class in protest, followed
by Ryan McFadden and other lacrosse players. The lacrosse team
members had every reason to fear for their well being
as tensions escalated, including a take Back the Night protest
during Duke's Sexual assault Prevention Week. A huge crowd turned out.

(10:52):
Protesters chanted and carried pictures of the lacrosse players, calling
them out as social pariahs, as criminals. How could coach
Mike Presler abandon his players whom everyone else had already
judged and found guilty. He remembers feeling absolutely horrified three
weeks into the scandal, as it was being made increasingly

(11:13):
clear to him by administrators that he had a choice
to make stand by his players or save himself and
his career. And to be clear, Mike Presler had a
lot to lose. His career was remarkable. He had coached
lacrosse at Duke for sixteen seasons, amassing a record of
one fifty three to eighty two. He'd also won three

(11:35):
ACC championships and ten NCAA tournament appearances, and was key
in the run to the national championship game in two
thousand and five. But do wins on the field make
a man? According to Presler, lacrosse wins pale in comparison
to standing up for what you believe is right. He
remembers quote, I was actually advised early on to distance

(11:58):
myself from the players, and at the time I Matt
was like, blasphemy. You you're telling me that we don't run,
we don't quit. You know, that's not how we're made.
Doing what you believe is right is everything. It's everything,
and without that, as a man, you have nothing. Duke

(12:23):
University wouldn't let the lacrosse coach stand his ground. However,
the institution needed a sacrificial lamb to appease protesters and
protect the school's image from further defiling, so coach Presler
was summoned to the office of then athletics director Joe Oliva,
where he was given a lose lose choice resign immediately

(12:43):
or be fired. So on April seventh, two thousand and six,
under the crushing weight of the scandal, and having been
left with no good option, Mike Presler resigned. Duke's director
of Athletics, Joe Oliva, was quick to make the announcement.
Essler offered me his resignation earlier this afternoon, and I
accepted it, Joe Levs stated a lave of further remarked,

(13:07):
I fully support President Broadhead's decision to cancel the remainder
of the season, as well as his outrage at the
latest developments involving the men's lacrosse program. I believe this
is in the best interests of the program, the Department
of Athletics, and the university. Mike Pressler's exit from campus
left to lacrosse players very much alone at Duke in

(13:29):
Durham and in the nation at large. District Attorney Mike
Nifong was fueling the medium mob, and the public, ever
hungry for sensational stories, had latched onto the lacrosse scandal
with a voracious appetite. As the story of the alleged
rape of Crystal Manga by Duke lacrosse players gained a
life of its own. Major news outlets competed for the

(13:51):
most shocking tidbits of the case, often overlooking the journalistic
principle of impartiality. A striking example of this was a
New York Times article with the headline A team's trouble
shock Few at Duke. This piece, like many others, seemed
to take for granted the guilt of the accused players,

(14:11):
painting a picture of a university community unsurprised by such behavior. Similarly,
Newsweek's cover, which read sex lies in Duke, was another
instance where sensationalism took precedence over factual reporting. That author
Susanna Meadows later admitted the only word in the title

(14:31):
that was accurate was Duke. That's a shocking admission of
malfeasance from a storied publication, don't you think. Of Course,
just like coach Mike Pressler, some members of the media
did exercise the courage to stand up for their beliefs
and the integrity of their profession. Dan Oakrin, former public
editor of The New York Times, described the coverage of

(14:53):
the Duke lacrosse scandal as a quote journalistic tragedy, lamenting
how even the most esteemed journalist in the country could
misread and misrepresent the facts so profoundly. And Jay Billis,
an ESPN commentator and Duke basketball alone, penned a letter
to Duke's school magazine openly criticizing university President Richard Brodhead's

(15:14):
actions and calling for his dismissal. Jay Billis's letter, a
passionate appeal for leadership and fairness, criticized President Broadhead from
mishandling the challenges presented by the scandal, accusing him of
fostering an aura of guilt among students and failing to
protect their due process rights. Quote from the beginning, President

(15:35):
Broadhead abdicated his responsibility as Duke's leader to stand up
for fairness and truth. Instead, President Broadhead chose the path
of political expediency. Unquote Billis Rodin, Now I'm going to
drop a proteen scoop and stir this juice with a
fury because you need to power up to wrap your
mind around what happened or didn't happen. Next Jill letter,

(16:01):
which was well founded, intellectual, and a much needed voice
of reason, was never published. Duke Magazine's website touts its
publication as having quote a mission to facilitate and strengthen
alumni engagement. As a champion of the university's vibrant intellectual community.
Our storytelling is in service of the curious minds of

(16:24):
our alumni. Unquote. Huh. That's the exact opposite of what
Jay Billis experienced. He recounted inquiring about the status of
his letter, only to learn that Duke Magazine has been
instructed on how to handle it. Quote. An editor told me, well,
we've had your letter, Billis remembers, and I asked him,

(16:44):
were you given instructions on how to handle it? He
told me yes, they didn't print it. So deeply troubled
was Ja Billis by the unfolding events and treatment of
the scandal by his alma mater that he began his
own independent investigation into the case, seeking to understand the
facts and circumstances from every angle. There were a lot

(17:05):
of questions that needed to be asked, but questions needed
to be asked on both sides, and it was apparent
to me that questions were only being asked on one.
Ja Billis commented in a later documentary filmed about the
Duke lacrosse team case. Despite the efforts of press members
like Jay Billis and Dan Oakrin, balanced stories by the
media were far and few between, and while journalists certainly

(17:29):
do bear blame for their largely biased coverage of the
Duke lacrosse scandal, that the eye of the media storm
driving the onslaught of public outrage at the players was
District Attorney Mike Kniphong. From the get go, da Kniphong
played dirty. There were just no two ways about it.
Clean prosecutors played by the ethics rules of the state

(17:51):
they live and work in. In North Carolina, the ethics
rules for prosecutors made it clear that Mike Kniphong had
a duty to watch what he said in public. He
was absolutely not within his rights as a prosecutor to
publicly proclaim the guilt of the accused trio of players
Dave Evans, Read Seligment and Colin Finnerdy, or to say
things that were designed to prejudice a future jury. Prosecutors

(18:16):
are committed to sticking with facts that are already public
in the form of an indictment or preliminary hearing transcripts,
but Mike Kniphong made all sorts of prejudicial public statements
from day one of the scandal, including calling the accused
lacrosse players by their names to the press. DA Mike
Kniphong's lackadaisical attitude towards the prosecutorial rules about talking to

(18:38):
the press were incredibly daring, especially considering that in the
privacy of his own office he was grappling with a
breakdown in the evidence. Police had taken DNA and photos
of the entire Duke lacrosse team after Crystal Mangum's allegations.
They had collected swabs from the player's mouths and even
cut off bits of their hair and nails. Since Chrystilla

(19:01):
had told the police that she fought against her attackers
viciously and scratched at least one of them, police had
the lacrosse players stripped to their skivies so they could
be meticulously examined and photographed. Of course, many of the
player's bodies were photographed were bruises and scratches because they
played lacrosse. It's a violent sport consisting of very strong

(19:22):
young men swinging around a metal stick, hitting one another often,
and wearing very few pads for protection. Ryan McFadden remembers
what happened. Well, we all got basically naked, and they
took pictures of our bodies. He said, I mean, we're
lacrosse players. We're young, twenty year old guys were covered

(19:43):
in bruises, were scratched up. I remember Reed Seligman had
a bruise down his arm because we beat the shit
out of him in practice. Oh my god. The police said,
take a picture of this, and they're documenting his arm.
And this is a clear example of DA Mike Kniphong's
evidence being circumstantial rather than definitive, because you see what

(20:04):
Ryan McFadden relayed is a classic example of something called
confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is the tendency to seek out
and interpret information in a way that confirms existing beliefs,
and in this case, the existing belief of Da mc niphon.
Confirmation bias is a cognitive bias that can and often does,

(20:29):
lead to inaccurate conclusions. Let's break it down, Crystal told
police that she fought her attackers. Police then found cuts
and bruises on the lacrosse players' bodies, and voila. Her
story is corroborated. But was it? Well, not really, because
here is the second and even more damning issue for

(20:51):
da Mcniphong. At this point in the case, scrapings had
been taken from under Crystal Mangum's nails, as is routine
with a rape kit, so if she had actually scratched
any of the players, it would be logical to expect
the DNA under her nails to match with the DNA
of one of the players. But on April tenth, two

(21:12):
thousand and six, prosecutors and investigators got the news there
was not one single DNA match between the lacrosse players
and the DNA taken from the rape kit, from Crystal's
hospital exam, or from her cell phone or from her clothes,
So even though the photographs of the lacrosse players could

(21:35):
be consistent with an attack, there was no hard DNA
evidence indicating that their injuries had occurred from Crystal instead
of on the lacrosse field. Defense attorneys announced the results
to the public just a few hours after they came
in believing that DA Mike Nifong would back down and
the case against their clients would collapse. After all, there

(21:58):
was still absolutely no evidence that the crime Crystal alleged
had actually been committed. But did the DA back down?
Did the lacrosse team get an apology from Duke president
Richard Broadhead? Was their season suspension lifted? Was their coach
Mike press the reinstated? Nope, Nope, nope, and nope. Instead,

(22:24):
persecution of the Duke lacrosse team players continued, with DA
Mike Kniphong leading the charge. As the DNA results were
made public, a Raleigh newspaper reached out to Mike Kniphong
and he told them, quote, I'm not saying it's over.
If that's what the players expect, they will sadly be disappointed.
So Mike Kniphong now pushed prosecution of the lacrosse players.

(22:48):
Dave Evans read seligment Colin finnerdy forward with no DNA evidence,
circumstantial photos of the players, an illegal identification lineup, and
the word of an alleged victim with her own history
of mental health problems and legal offenses. Why why in
the world would a District Attorney make the call to

(23:09):
continue prosecuting under these circumstances. Because Mike Kniphong's career now
hinged on this high profile case period, he simply couldn't
afford to lose so publicly in the Duke lacrosse case.
When an election on the horizon, he had to come
out on top. This is why the District Attorney's office

(23:31):
moved full steam ahead with its case against the lacrosse
players with absolutely no proof. Crazier than juicing with onions
and horse radish if you ask me, but it happened.
And even crazier was DA Kniphong's ability to convince a
grand jury to formally indict the player's read seligment, Colin Finnerdy,

(23:51):
and finally Dave Evans, for rape and kidnapping, among other charges,
without a shred of hard evidence. But Nifong's problems with
the case continued to escalate. Despite his dubious win with
the indictments. More negative findings were leaking out about the
alleged victim, Crystal Mangum, and there was nothing that DA's

(24:12):
office could do to stop the flood of information. The
first news hit out of Granville County, which is about
thirty minutes northeast of Durham. On April twenty fifth, two
thousand and six, the Granville County Police revealed that Crystal
Mangam had reported another rape ten years earlier. In nineteen
ninety six, when Crystel was just seventeen years old, she

(24:35):
filed a distressing claim that she had been kidnapped by
three men, driven to a house in creed More, North Carolina,
and been raped. Crystal had waited three years to file
this claim, alleging that the rape had occurred when she
was fourteen years old. Among her alleged abductors was her
former boyfriend, seven years her senior, whom she described as abusive.

(24:58):
Underage rape is an extremely serious allegation, but one that
Granville County Police Chief Ted Pollard didn't pursue with an investigation.
Why well, Police Chief Pollard says that Cristal's allegations were
investigated because she promptly withdrew her accusations, saying that she
feared for her life if she sought justice. But it

(25:20):
certainly not standard for police to drop such a serious case,
a case involving the abduction and gang rate of a
fourteen year old girl, more likely, the Granville County Police
had reason to doubt that the crime had actually taken place.
Even within Crystal's own family, there are serious doubts that
her story was accurate. Cristel's mother said that she believed

(25:42):
that Cristel had been raped by someone when she was
seventeen or eighteen years old. Cristel's ex husband, Kenneth Nathaniel McNeil,
said he believed that Cristel had been raped in nineteen
ninety three like she recounted, and Cristel's father insisted that
she hadn't been raped or injured in nineteen ninety three.
With so many confers accounts, and no chance of collecting

(26:02):
physical evidence, how could police separate fact from fiction. The
matter was complicated further by Crystal Mangum's father revealing that
she had undergone psychiatric treatment in nineteen ninety three, including
medication for trauma induced suicidal tendencies. But had Crystal's trauma
been induced by rape, or an abusive relationship, or some

(26:24):
other trigger. No one could say for sure. The only
definite outcome was that Crystal Mangum's previous rape allegation added
a significant layer of complexity and doubt. To her accusations
against the Duke lacrosse players. The revelation of her earlier
rape claim, which so closely mirrored her accusations against Dave Evans,

(26:46):
Reed Seligman, and Colin Finnerdy, raised critical questions about her credibility.
After all, how plausible was it for one woman to
experience two such similar sexual violent attacks in North Carolina,
all before the age of thirty. Each year in North Carolina,
twenty seven out of every one hundred thousand people experience

(27:09):
in report rape. That puts the statistical likelihood of Crystal's
duplicate stories both being factual quite low, and the defense
attorneys for the lacrosse players knew this and would without
a doubt lean into this information at any trial. D A.
Mike Nifong probably felt the water heating up and starting
to boil around him at this point, but he refused

(27:32):
to back down. After all, in for a penny in
four pound, what is that saying? So Nifong fought it out,
even though it was becoming more and more difficult for
him to control the narrative of the case. One of
the indicted players, Dave Evans, confidently told press that the
allegations against him were fantastic lies and with no DNA evidence,

(27:55):
Crystal's prior unpursued rape allegation, and the illegality of the
prosecutor identification lineup. Finally, some members of the public were
starting to wonder if the lacrosse players just might be
telling the truth. Mike Kniphong couldn't bear to lose the
public support and almost certainly realized that he had to
get real evidence and fast to stand a chance at trial,

(28:19):
So he ordered all the DNA that had been taken
from the Duke lacrosse players to be sent to a
private lab in Burlington called DNA Security, Inc. For testing. Again,
this was an incredibly unusual request and lent itself to
a troubling question. Since the state crime lab results had
come back favorable to the defendants. Was the prosecution looking

(28:40):
for a little home cooking in the form of falsified
results at a private lab facility, or did he Mike
Kniphong just need the appearance of being out in actively
collecting evidence during his election campaign to remain district Attorney.
Whatever his motivation, Nifong did get a brief boost in

(29:02):
the public eye from his secondary DNA review. He won
his election and secured another term as district attorney in
November two thousand and six. But he wouldn't enjoy his
political victory for very long. The very next month, the
private lab, DNA Security, Inc. Came back with their report.
Brian Mehan, the head of the lab, confirmed that none

(29:24):
of the Duke lacrosse players matched the DNA taken from
Crystal's rape kit. But what Mihan didn't initially and crucially
put in his report was that his lab, DNA Security, Inc.
Had uncovered a damning detail, a detail which the law
required the District Attorney's office to disclose to the defendants

(29:44):
and their lawyers. So what was this detail? Well, the
DNA results showed there were multiple men who contributed DNA
to Crystal's rape kit, but not one of them were
any of the lacrosse players. Not one. In fact, some
of the DNA discovered on Crystal belonged to her boyfriend

(30:05):
at the time, a man whom the police didn't even
collect DNA from to compare against until after Reed Seligman
and Colin Finnerdy will already indict it. If that's not
playing dirty, I don't know what is. And it gets
worse When Brian Mehan from DNA Security Incorporated reported his
labs finding to District Attorney Mike Kniphong, he was instructed

(30:26):
to leave the detail about other men's DNA being present
on Crystal out of his report. Brian Mihn ultimately came
clean that Niphong had coursed him not to disclose this
vital piece of information, and it's a good thing he did,
because his story laid bare the reality that DA Mike Kniphong,
who was sworn to uphold justice in accordance with the Constitution,

(30:50):
including vindicating the right to the accused when necessary, instead
tried to hide exculpatory evidence. Exculpatory evidence is evidence that
is favorable to the defendant and usually clears them of guilt.
The case against the Duke lacrosse players was now quickly unraveling,
revealing itself to be a house of cards. Surely it

(31:11):
would soon go boom under these latest allegations against the
DA's office of withholding exculpatory evidence and proof that Crystal
had engaged in sex on the night of the ill
fated party, but not with any of the lacrosse players.
If it had been a clean case, then at this
point it would have collapsed immediately, but the prosecutors in

(31:32):
the DA's office were hell bent on playing dirty. They
had one goal, and that goal wasn't justice, It was
conviction at any cost. Back in nineteen thirty five, a
Supreme Court justice said this about prosecutors. He may prosecute
with earnestness and vigor, indeed he should do so. But
while he may strike hard blows, he is not at

(31:54):
liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his
duty to refrain from improper method that's calculated to produce
a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate
means to bring about a just one. DA mc Kniphong
was striking foul blows, using all sorts of improper methods,
and remain determined to get his conviction against the Duke

(32:15):
lacrosse players, even though all the evidence now pointed to
that being an untruthful, unjust outcome. Kniphoon was determined to
carry on. I don't know about you, but I'm going
for some clean, fresh water after all that dirt by
the DA's office. Join me You're behind the scenes, Barista
to find out how this scandal shakes out. On the

(32:37):
next episode, of Playing Dirty Sports Scandals. Playing Dirty Sports
Scandals is a production of Dan Patrick Productions, never Ever Productions,
and Workhouse Media from executive producers Dan Patrick, Paul Anderson,

(32:58):
Nick Panella, Maya Glickman, and Jennifer Clary. Hosted by Jay Harris,
Written and produced by Jen Brown, Francie Haiks, Maya Glickman,
and Jennifer Clary.
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True Crime Tonight

True Crime Tonight

If you eat, sleep, and breathe true crime, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT is serving up your nightly fix. Five nights a week, KT STUDIOS & iHEART RADIO invite listeners to pull up a seat for an unfiltered look at the biggest cases making headlines, celebrity scandals, and the trials everyone is watching. With a mix of expert analysis, hot takes, and listener call-ins, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT goes beyond the headlines to uncover the twists, turns, and unanswered questions that keep us all obsessed—because, at TRUE CRIME TONIGHT, there’s a seat for everyone. Whether breaking down crime scene forensics, scrutinizing serial killers, or debating the most binge-worthy true crime docs, True Crime Tonight is the fresh, fast-paced, and slightly addictive home for true crime lovers.

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