Mike Nifong: guilty of contempt, sentenced to one night in jail

Details here.

I stopped spending a lot of time on the Duke Rape Hoax this spring, after it became clear the three lacrosse players would go free, in part because 1) nothing anyone did could add to the superb work of KC Johnson's Durham in Wonderland, and 2) my forthcoming wedding was consuming every second of my spare time.

The sentence seems abrurdly light, considering the wreckage Nifong wrought on three innocent lives. But a statute is a statute.

With Nifong--like rumpot Otis in "The Andy Griffith Show"--scheduled to spend Friday night in the clink (presumably he won't be allowed to lock himself in his cell), it appears the criminal aspect of the case is over.

All that is left is for the three defendants to reach a settlement with the city of Durham. And then sue Nifong. For everything he has or will ever have.

Finally, this, too, deserves repeating:

The world of information, justice, and public opinion, in the age of the internet, is a far different place than anyone could have expected. This started with Dan Rather's forged memos, and one CBS executive's memorable question: "Who cares about some guy in his pajamas sitting in his living room?" Everyone soon found out; Rather's memos probably cost John Kerry the election.

It is well to remember the great child sexual abuse hoaxes of the middle- and late-1980s, during which demonstrably innocent people were thrown into jail on the flimsiest of evidence--much of it implausible, much of it physically impossible. In the most notorius of these, The McMartin Pre-school Hoax, Ray Buckey spent five years imprisoned without bail awaiting trial before the case collapsed of its own absurdity.

It took years of work by a cadre of tenacious journalists from either end of the political spectrum (most notably Claudia Rosset of The Wall Street Journal and a small group of reporters from The Village Voice) to topple the entire apparatus of lies and improper assumptions of the whole (it deserves to be called) movement. (Does anyone remember the button reading "Kids Don't Lie"--they don't? Ever?) With the benefit of instant commmunication, and the ability of the next KC Johnson to communicate with anyone with a laptop and a link), it will be interesting to see how quickly the next McMartin-style farce will be exposed.