Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case | 
| Authors: Stuart Taylor, Kc Johnson
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
Category: Book
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Avg. Customer Rating:  72 reviews
Sales Rank: 9333
Media: Hardcover
Edition: First Edition
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 432
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.5
ISBN: 0312369123
Dewey Decimal Number: 364.15320922756563
EAN: 9780312369125
ASIN: 0312369123
Publication Date: September 4, 2007
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Product Description
What began that night shocked Duke University and Durham, North Carolina.
And it continues to captivate the nation: the Duke lacrosse team members‘ alleged rape of an African-American stripper and the unraveling of the case against them.
In this ever-deepening American tragedy, Stuart Taylor Jr. and KC Johnson argue, law enforcement, a campaigning prosecutor, biased journalists, and left-leaning academics repeatedly refused to pursue the truth while scapegoats were made of these young men, recklessly tarnishing their lives.
The story harbors multiple dramas, including the actions of a DA running for office; the inappropriate charges that should have been apparent to academics at Duke many months ago; the local and national media, who were so slow to take account of the publicly available evidence; and the appalling reactions of law enforcement, academia, and many black leaders.
Until Proven Innocent is the only book that covers all five aspects of the case (personal, legal, academic, political, and media) in a comprehensive fashion. Based on interviews with key members of the defense team, many of the unindicted lacrosse players, and Duke officials, it is also the only book to include interviews with all three of the defendants, their families, and their legal teams.
Taylor and Johnson‘s coverage of the Duke case was the earliest, most honest, and most comprehensive in the country, and here they take the idiocies and dishonesty of right- and left-wingers alike head on, shedding new light on the dangers of rogue prosecutors and police and a cultural tendency toward media-fueled travesties of justice. The context of the Duke case has vast import and contains likable heroes, unfortunate victims, and memorable villains—and in its full telling, it is captivating nonfiction with broad political, racial, and cultural relevance to our times.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 67 more reviews...
 The devastating results of totalitarian 'liberalism' April 29, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Perhaps the clearest picture of the insidious forces of illiberalism that tried their best to deprive these young men of their freedom is obtained by drawing analogies with the McCarthyism of the 50s, as the authors do. It is frighteningly easy the way some people can change from persecutee to persecutor in such a short time. What is just as worrying is that this illiberal bloc that has developed in the States is mirrored all over the western world by similar forces in each country, which have spread like a particularly virulent fungus to wherever democracy has taken root, and which all guarantee the continuation of similar injustices, while the individuals involved continue their backpatting, under the illusion that they are fighting for freedom rather than against it. Well, this book is a wake-up call for you guys - the party's over, or at least winding down. For so long, critics of illiberalism have been branded right wing conservatives, fundamentalists, etc. if they so much as raised a voice in protest. It is important to all reading this review for you to know that by buying and reading this book, and throwing in your weight against these disturbing forces in our society, you are not throwing yourself in with conservative, reactionary, forces, but are in fact, taking a stand against them. This book is a Godsend to all who have suffered from today's McCarthyists, be they in America or around the world, because it gives an insight into the kind of minds that are ruining any hope of a decent society for our descendants to grow up in, and it is to these innocents that every thinking man and woman is morally obliged to ensure that those who have perverted the names of equality and correctness fail to reach the misty, utopian goals they have set for all of us.
Pulitzer Prize; National Book Award March 25, 2008
So many of the other reviewers have so forcefully and eloquently expressed my feeling about the book, I need hardly add to them. But my "heading" is quite serious: This book is worthy of a Pulitzer and a National Book Award -- non-fiction, investigative reporting, whatever the categories. (I believe the Pulitzers are to be announced in early April.)
Bob
 A Parable for Our Times March 8, 2008
It is quite likely that the infamous Duke rape case chronicled in Taylor and Johnson's book will one day be regarded as the emblematic parable of our time - in much the same way that the McCarthy hearings have become the emblematic episode of the early 1950s Cold War. It is difficult to conceive of an event that could more starkly highlight the societal dysfunctions of our era.
Taylor and Johnson's book amply demonstrates the incompleteness of viewing the Duke rape case simply as a rogue prosecutor running amok, unfairly targeting three boys despite profuse evidence of their innocence, and getting his comeuppance in the end. However unethical his conduct, DA Nifong could not by himself have catapulted these young men to national infamy. That sorry result required the active collaboration of countless accomplices: in the media, on the Duke faculty and administration, and within associations dedicated to the propagation of identity-politics grievance-mongering.
Indeed, the distinguishing aspect of this case is not that a prosecutor attempted to wrongfully charge three boys with rape -- for it seems sadly inevitable that somewhere, sometime across this nation, some such prosecutorial misconduct will recur. What distinguishes the Duke case is the ease with which so many attempted to shoehorn the events into a preconceived narrative of race- and sex-based exploitation (a narrative further spiced with an element of "revenge of the nerds" (faculty and press) against the "jocks" they resented.)
It is daunting enough that so many would jump to completely unsubstantiated conclusions before all the facts were out. The even greater tragedy is that once the facts were known, many people in positions of power and influence simply chose to disregard them insofar as they were inconvenient to the fantasy narrative in which they had invested so much of their professional identity. Perhaps the most egregious example of this is the disgraced "Group of 88" Duke faculty, who published an ad that presumed the fact of a sexual assault, contained a series of anonymous, unsubstantiated race-baiting quotes, and which encouraged the noise of the mob over the dispassionate evaluation of the evidence. Sadly, most of the Group of 88 has failed to apologize for their contribution to the hysterical atmosphere that gave momentum to the wrongful prosecution, but has since portrayed themselves as victims rather than transgressors, and misrepresented the plain language and intent of their own published statements. The juvenility of the Group of 88's methods of processing information has been on public display, and it has been an ugly sight to behold.
The stubborn refusal of so many in academia and the press to recognize factual reality even in the face of overwhelming evidence rightly calls into question the states of both competence and ethics in America's universities and in press rooms. As one example, noted sports journalist John Feinstein, we now know, was exactly wrong in his initial written interpretations of events, yet still had the audacity to write an article well after the resolution of the case, decrying the continuing lack of accountability in the Duke athletic department, while himself once again getting the facts wrong, and oblivious to the irony of his own calls for accountability in others. That so many in academia and journalism could sail blithely through this episode without looking themselves in the mirror and acknowledging their own pivotal roles in a gross injustice, sadly, speaks volumes about the state of both professions, and greatly explains growing public cynicism about each. Nifong was prosecuted for his misconduct, but Feinstein, Nancy Grace, and the Group of 88, among others, are still paid handsomely to prattle on as though their credibility is intact.
Taylor and Johnson relate the facts of the case in vivid, gripping detail. I give the book four stars rather than five because at places the text veers unattractively into an overheated blog style. The story is damning enough without this occasionally hamhanded commentary by the authors. But this is a minor sour note in the book; the reader is likely to be so incensed by the facts of the case, of which this is the best available history, that they will be unperturbed by stylistic imperfections.
 Until Proven Innocent March 3, 2008
0 out of 9 found this review helpful
I did not like the way the book was written, for this reason I did not finish it, Maybe later I will get back to it, But I don't think so
To many small details that were not interesting however I am glad these young men were found innocent and politic correctness got a black eye from this incident.
Think twice about sending your child to an "elite" school March 1, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The authors of this definitive book on the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case (one a Democrat and one an independent) literally blow away the the church of political correctness that rules over most elite American universities, such as Duke. The authors clearly demonstrate the shocking lack of political diversity within the arts and humanities faculty at Duke, and shows how the steadfast refusal of the "Group of 88" to apologize to the Duke lacrosse team for their rush to judgment in light of overwhelming evidence clearly highlights the lack of character present among most of these individuals. The authors also point out how a number of these academics have dubious academic credentials at best, yet the tenure system guarantees these individuals more job security than a Supreme Court justice. Because all the people at Duke were so enamored with the concept of the case (a bunch of rich white guys taking advantage of a poor black woman), any concept of fairness or adherence to the American concept of "innocent until proven guilty" has been thrown out of the window.
What is more troubling is that had the "colors been reversed," i.e. black members of the basketball team accused of raping a white stripper, then it is also quite likely the "Group of 88" would have stood by the athletes, and likely have prevented the rush to judgment that occurred with the lacrosse team from ever happening. Perhaps it is no surprise to find that the average tuition over the last 30 years at private colleges has increased at double the rate of inflation, while the quality of education has clearly deteriorated.
If you are a parent with a child approaching college age, I strongly advise you to obtain a copy of the book, "Choosing the Right College, 2008-2009" published by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. In it, you will find many examples of the intellectual trash being dumped on students at Duke and many other "elite" universities. The book highlights a number of fine universities that do not worship at the altar of political correctness and actually require students to study a broad spectrum of the greatest works of Western civilization. If the universities of America required the same diversity of their faculty members with respect to their political beliefs that they demand when it comes to race, color, sex, etc., then the students would only benefit. Thanks to the authors for this wonderful book. I am only sad that when all the lacrosse players eventually collect their well-deserved damages from Duke for having "thrown them under the bus," the school administration will likely smile, deny guilt, and pay for it with more massive tuition increases.
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