Kim Roberts, the stripper who accompanied the alleged victim in the Duke rape case, initially described the accuser’s story as “a crock!” For what it’s worth, as more information from police and medical documents is released, many of us are beginning to agree.  A recent article in Newsweek magazine proclaimed “the available evidence is so thin or contradictory that it seems fair to ask what [Durham District Attorney Mike] Nifong could have been thinking when he confidently told reporters that there was 'no doubt' in his mind that the woman had been raped at the party held by the lacrosse team.”

Of course, contradictory statements by the accuser and lack of evidence do not necessarily mean she is lying. But as they sometimes say at the ballpark, it doesn’t look good for the home team. 

Nifong has been steadfast, offering that “None of the ‘facts’ I know at this time, indeed, none of the evidence I have seen from any source, has changed the opinion that I expressed initially.” It is unlikely Nifong is holding some trump card, and he is not delusional. It may be that he has simply set himself on a course to exact some form of cosmic justice.

Black women falling victim to the uninvited lusts of White men is not new. One need only look at the variety of skin tone in the black community to know that a little cream has been poured into the coffee over the years. And the mixing wasn’t always consensual.

It's not unreasonable to think that Nifong is keenly aware that the charges of black women against white men have been ignored throughout the years and decided such would not be the case on his watch. He would give voice to past victims by giving this accuser every benefit of the doubt. It would be admirable was it not for the fact that the American judicial system is set up to give every benefit of the doubt to the accused. The burden of proof rests with the accuser.

A lack of evidence, however, is not a stumbling block when one is pursuing justice that exists in the nether regions of ethereal reality. The lives of real people become abstractions, as agendas trump facts and the merits of a case take a back seat to good intentions. Alas, such noble ambitions are cut from the same corrupt cloth as those that deny justice for less righteous reasons. 

Let us consider for a moment the number of black men lynched following false allegations of rape. Similar to the justice Nifong seeks to render in Durham, in those instances, the accuser received the benefit of the doubt.  In fact, so weighted was the benefit that often doubt was withheld, even as the evidence clearly pointed in the direction of innocence. The mere existence of the charge was enough to give it veracity, and not even the testimony of God Himself was enough to stay the hand of execution.

The duty of any prosecutor is to seek justice. Decisions must be made with an eye towards fairness, towards advocating on behalf of the state without regard to race or history.  There was nothing noble in black men being lynched on trumped-up charges. Neither is there any redemptive power in the railroading of three young white men in the hopes of correcting an historic wrong. 

Try as we might, we cannot visit 21st century justice on those guilty of crimes in days long gone by. Attempting such cosmic maneuvering simply heaps injustice upon injustice. And in the final analysis, that makes Mike Nifong as irresponsible as politicians fanning the flames of racial discord for votes or as wicked as racist jurists, puffed-up with the dangerous and misguided notion that they alone are the arbiters of the beneficiaries of justice.