It seemed clear to me that in referencing discovery, he was pointing out that the City and PD had a disincentive to find and document what went wrong in allowing this prosecution to go forward. If they did find out what they should have done differently, discovery for the civil suit would turn their work against them. It would be fiscally, if not morally, better for them to not find and correct their mistakes. Or at least not to DOCUMENT that discovery.

HOWEVER, that doesn’t mean that it HAS been changed, or that the INNOCENT in such a case should be bearing the exorbitant cost.

Secondly, as lrbinfrisco pointed out, “This isn’t about rewarding the Duke boys, but about punishing Durham.”

Thirdly, as has been repeatedly pointed out, no one with an ounce of sanity would want to be in the position the Duke 3 were in LAST year… only now, when we now how it turned out.

The “I would do that for $X million” applies quite well in certain cases (being “verbally abused” by one’s supervisor comes to mind), but this is not one of them.

Please tell me how not holding the City of Durham accountable for this illegal behavior and makeing it pay a significant punnishment isn’t an offensive joke? This isn’t about the Duke players getting their just rewards, it’s about Durham getting it’s just punishment. I’m pretty sure that most of that money is earmarked to pay for lobbying efforts and other law suits to effect reforms in the corrupt NC and Durham legal systems. Currently you have no right to a speedy trial in Durham or NC unless you consider waiting several years for a trial is speedy. The boys expressly were denied their request for an immediate evidential hearing and had to wait almost 1 year before the charges were dropped. Maybe you don’t believe in a right to a speedy trial. They had police create false evidence to frame them and the police still haven’t apologized or done anything to change this. That’s hardly temporary. And they faced the very real possiblity that they could have spend the rest of their lives behind bars for a fictious crime that the DA and the police knew never happened. I suppose you’d take a 50/50 shot at getting $30 million if you won but getting nothing and spending the rest of you life in jail if you lost. It was a very close thing that they weren’t convicted.

Maybe you think that attempted murder shouldn’t be punished severely just because the assailant failed. This isn’t about rewarding the Duke boys, but about punishing Durham.

Don’t change the argument–we are talking about a TEMPORARY loss of some rights through abuse by a prosecutor, not the right to love free and own property. These players were not falsely imprisoned, they did not suffer physical harm. In fact, they didn’t lose their other constitutional rights. Please, tell me how awarding these men $30 million isn’t an offensive joke.

(Even taking my statement completely out of context, it would be a given that I would keep the $30 million. If you believe most people wouldn’t make that trade, you are in queue for purchasing that bridge.)

So you would trade your right to live free and own property for $30 million. Now that is stupid. You get your $30 million and the government immediately takes it away from you and you can’t do a damn thing about it because you just gave up you constitutional rights. Let me tell you about a bridge that I have for sale.

Someone asked if I would give up my constitutional rights for $30 million. Damn right I would and so would most people. Please get real. These demands are outrageous and should be roundly condemned by everyone concerned with a legal system run a muck.

(Plus, there is definitely something wrong with a system that can allegedly create $1 million in legal fees in such a short period of time.)

Don’t you know that NOTHING like that occured in the Brawley case? That it was simply kooks making wild accusations that had no force of law?