:smack: I forgot that, I guess that makes here 200% certain, right?
Prosecutors frequently pursue cases for their deterrent value. Given the high profile of this case, that does not seem inappropriate.
If Mangum is indeed mentally ill, a judge could reduce, set aside, suspend or otherwise mitigate her punishment.
**Rick **(and anyone else who is interested in knowing the full story of the case) here is the beginning of what promises to be an informative series in The Raleigh News and Observer. One nugget:
This meeting happened in early April. Nifong would later go on to tell a Judge in December that he had never spoken to her, and to give multiple explanations why.
When the whole story comes out, I suspect it will be even more outrageous than it seems now.
Thanks for the link.
You may be right. It’s just my opinion. I think, however, that what would come out at trial would be a lot of evidence that Nifong enabled her lies. He is clearly the real bad guy here, and perhaps she would end up being portrayed as a victim, herself.
Her latest account has her suspended in mid-air while she was being raped!
Read this account of her life. Would you want to prosecute? Remember, the NC AG, after indepth interviews with her, declined, and strongly suggested that her mental condition was the reason.
Here’s another I just stumbled upon. Could be interesting. I’m going to check it out now. (The NBC 17 video.)
Hmm. It appears not to be up yet. I’ll check back.
And if so, so much the better. In return, I’m sure Nifong’s defense will involve him saying it was all her fault.
ISTM this is why we have courts, to sort it all out.
As I understand it, prosecutors can make sentencing recommendations. I would prosecute and then recommend a mitigated sentence.
Since the chief prosecutor in North Carolina declined prosecution, and he is privy to information we may never see, I am going to assume that the case is a non-starter. However, if you know anything about the law, you probably know more than I do.
Really, read the article about her. She is clearly mentally unstable. What would she be charged with? Filing a false report? And the message of her conviction would be that crazy people should not do crazy things?
I have my own theory about why she did what she did, and I am sure that colors my view. I think she concocted the rape story in order to avoid mandatory confinement in a detox center. She had no fucking clue how huge this story would become. (When interviewed a few days after the incident, she was astounded that the press was even interested. She had been using the report to cadge drugs at local ERs.) Nifong saw the story as a chance to win an election and secure his pension (according to his former campaign manager.) Any other DA in the world would have declined prosecution, but by going forward, and depending on her story as the sole evidence in the case, he effectively trapped her into maintaining it. Over time, she began to believe it herself.
She is delusional. We have not yet seen the full effect of this case. What’s the point of punishing her? So she filed a false report. The DA knew it was false and indicted anyway! He knew it was false. The time to charge her was back in April, not a year later after Nifong has turned what should have been a nothing incident into a disgrace on a national scale.
Exactly the sort of logic that led people to endorse Nifong. “He must know something, right?”
He may not be prosecuting because he has some knowledge we don’t. It may because she’s nuts. It also may be for any number of reasons in addition to or in place of that.
– He wants this thing to just be over ASAP
– He doesn’t want any more embarrassing info to come out about NC justice than need to
– He is fearful of antagonizing the black community (like Nifong, he is elected)
etc.
I don’t pretend to know his reasons. You asked me what I would do, so I told you.
Thousands of mentally unstable people are prosecuted for crimes every week. Mental illness is not a blank check.
I read the article the first time. If it is to be believed (and frankly, there is no reason to believe anything that newspaper says on this case – it has effectively been Nifong’s willing tool for the last year) she may well be nuttier than a shithouse rat. If so, it should be taken into consideration when deciding what to actually sentence her with. She could be sentenced to inpatient psychiatric care if that’s what she needs. She could be given probation, etc.
NOT prosecuting sends the message that filing a false report isn’t a serious crime. Giving the extensive coverage of this case (and minimal coverage of any mental instability) this is a very bad thing IMO. Judging by the fact that you dismiss it with
“So she filed a false report,” you may disagree.
I do not minimize or excuse Nifong at all. IMO he deserves a long jail term. As you pointed out yourself:
If one wants to get Nifong, prosecuting (or at least threatening to prosecute) Mangum would help.
I would be okay with plea bargaining her down to a minor misdemeanor in return for her testimony against Nifong. I am not okay with her facing no legal consequences whatsoever, largely for the message it sends to others.
And this is why it sucks that this thing has been tried in the court of public opinion. It shouldn’t matter what people on the sidelines think. Black outrage, white outrage, purple outrage…none of that should determine whether the accuser in this case should be charged with making false claims.
Courts should not be in the business of “sending messages”.
This is exactly why the Founding Fathers thought “innocent until proven guilty” was a good idea. When the awesome power of the State goes up against an individual (even a rich individual), the results can be incredibly unjust.
The other potential victims here are future rape victims, who may worry that they will not be taken seriously.
I 100% agree with this. And unfortunately people who have had to deal with false accusers may not take true victims as seriously.
Courts, theoretically, no.
Prosecutors, however, are. DAs are charged with enforcing the law, and from time to time that means making sure high-profile criminals are seen as being punished.
I’ll agree that Ms. Mangum could have avoided being the poster child for false accusers had Nifong not hyped the case … all the more reason to encourage her to roll on the bastard.
DAs are part of the justice system and are supposed to be impartial to the whims of the public. One could very well argue the reason why the guys got charged with rape is because a DA saw fit to “send a message”. As their case shows, the risk of injustice increases the more prosecutors do this.
Oh, please. The Attorney General of North Carolina has seen every scrap of evidence, including her sealed medical records. Comparing a false report charge to a rape/assault/kidnapping charge is just silly.
Then why take over three months to review the case file?
That horse is way out of the barn,
He is elected to the state, not the city of Durham. Big, big, big, big difference. So big as to be useless as a comparison.
Thousands of mentally unstable people are prosecuted for crimes every week. Mental illness is not a blank check.
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Never said it was. But considering the fact that the Durham County DA chose not to file charges, even though he had a year to do so, and considering the fact that he was the driving force behind the prosecution, without which the report would have hit the circular file, no prosecutor would think of taking this to court. To what purpose? How often does filing a false report end in prosecution? I don’t know. Do you?
You are thinking of the Durham Herald-Sun. Check your sources.
To be accurate, you should include my entire quote. She filed a false report that the* DA knew was false.* He prosecuted anyway. If it goes to court, she walks, and the city of Durham looks like a triple dumbass. Especially considering that the NC AG has passed. Not only passed, but specifically stated that prosecution is pointless.
Crazy people make “false” reports all the time. Does the DA prosecute when Joe Batshit reports that aliens have stolen his brain? Or does the DA never hear of it, because the police shitcan it the minute JB leaves the building?
He is fucked into the next century. Her report is a matter of record. There is no need for her to testify, or be prosecuted, for Nifong to go down. Any prosecution of her would be extremely mean spirited. The ones who have suffered the most have no desire for her to got to trial. The matter needs to rest here.
No need to argue the point. He has overtly stated as much.
I have to admit I do wish Magnum would be charged, her mental issues notwithstanding. This case received so much national publicity that IMO it sends the wrong signals to others - that filing a false report of rape carries no consequences.
Do I think she should go to jail? No. I think she needs help, and most likely the only way she will submit to it is if it is court-ordered.
I used to feel that way. I was angry with her, very angry. Now, I see her as a dupe; a pawn of Nifong and his ambition.
I suspect she has suffered enough over the past year. Pure speculation on my part, of course, but I cannot believe that, given the chance to re-wind time, she would do the same things. There have been plenty of consequences for her.
I understand the need to emphasize that false claims of rape damage real rape victims. It just seems to me that this case is so bizarre, and so far out on the tail of the Bell curve, that it isn’t really about false claims of rape. The DA should have dismissed it out of hand. Her claim should have never met the public eye.
The 3 accused “rapists” are on “60 Minutes” at the moment.
(Wish I posted this sooner).
Well, I don’t wnat her to suffer; however, it bothered me how the media was ready to canonize her, using phrases like “hard-working single mother”, and glossing over her criminal record like it didn’t mean anything.
She’s a hooker, a liar, and a person who has a long history of making bad decisions - I don’t condemn her, but I’m not ready to join the fan club either.