DUKE RAPE HOAX ENDS TODAY

Durham, NC (TLS). At 2:30 PM, EDT, the Duke lacrosse rape hoax was brought to an abrupt end as North Carolina Attorney-General Roy Cooper announced that the remaining charges against the three falsely accused students were being dropped.

Cooper stated that after a three-month examination of documents, evidence, statements, and prosecutorial conduct, there is no credible evidence that the case should have been tried in the first place, and that continuing to try the case would lead to 'a bad result.'

In a stark reminder of the torture that the three students and their families have had to endure for over a year, Cooper stated that 'many owe apologies' to those whose lives were wrecked in this entire scandalous affair.

Although Cooper did not specify those who owe the apologies, the list is rather lengthy, from Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong, to the Durham Police Department, to the administration of Duke University, to the 'group of 88' Duke faculty members, and to the countless groups of race-baiters, special interest groups, and biased news organizations that proclaimed the guilt of three innocent students in order to advance their agenda.

This would include those who maintained, 'It doesn't matter if they are guilty or not. The issue is revenge for the years Black people were mistreated by whites in the criminal justice system.'

Such stupidity was the fuel that kept the locomotive of the hoax moving, despite some of the most flimsy evidence ever put forth by a prosecutor in the history of American jurisprudence.

Legal action is in order for those whose lives were brought to the brink of ruin in this case. Apologies are not enough. Ample restitution must be made in order for their to be absolution granted to a corrupt system of justice. And even then, it won't be absolution. The only redemption for a system that allowed this travesty to take place is a complete overhaul from top to bottom, routing out the stench of corruption at its core.

However, before we get down to the business of bringing the guilty to justice in North Carolina state government, this is truly a day of celebration for the three students whose lives were put on hold for the past year. This is their day in the sun. Their names have been cleared. This is a day of liberty for them and their families, and that liberty is sweet.

A word of sincere gratitude must go to those within the media and the blogosphere that worked endlessly and tirelessly to see that the lives of these three innocent young men were snatched from the jaws of ruin. At the forefront was Liestoppers. To Joan Foster and her colleagues at Liestoppers goes a tip of the hat for a job marvelously done.

There were others who blew the whistle on the corruption as well, such as K.C. Johnson, John in Carolina, The Johnsville News, and others. Many thanks for your wonderful work as well.

It is to be hoped that the nation will learn a valuable lesson from this despicable display of government corruption...that never again will we allow the innocent to be so treated in a system that supposedly presumes the accused to be innocent until PROVEN guilty in a COURT OF LAW.

This all-important precept is quickly being lost in America today. Perhaps the Duke case can serve as a corrective to a dangerous slippery slope that contends that anyone accused is assumed to be guilty and that the burden of proof is on them to establish their innocence.

In the United States of America, if we are to remain truly free, we MUST continue to assume that the accused are INNOCENT and that the burden of proof is on the state to establish their guilt. Without this vital distinction, no citizen is safe from having their lives ruined and their reputations dragged through the mud by an unfettered government that is bereft of any restraint.