Race to Injustice: Lessons Learned from the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case.

• Author: Pudlow, Jan
• Position: Book review

Race to Injustice: Lessons Learned from the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case

Edited by Michael L. Seigel

If we should learn from our mistakes, there's ample opportunity for enlightenment in the notoriously botched Duke lacrosse players' rape case.

This scholarly, yet easy to read, tome is edited by Michael L. Seigel, a professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, who assembled the insights of 15 experts in criminal law, First Amendment rights, sociology, psychology, race relations, and the sexual objectification of black women.

From divergent vantage points, they dissect all that went wrong after a group of alcohol-fueled white lacrosse players hired two black exotic dancers to their house party, tempers flared, racial slurs spewed, and prosecutorial misconduct and a multi-million-dollar dream team defense played out under the bright lights of a national media feeding frenzy.

As Seigel writes: "The Duke lacrosse case presents the opportunity to consider a wide range of issues, including alcohol consumption on college campuses; the impact of race, gender, and class on the criminal-justice system and perceptions thereof; the use of DNA evidence and eyewitness-identification procedures in criminal cases; prosecutorial ethics; and even academic freedom. This book aims to capitalize on this unique academic opportunity."

Besides Seigel's own chapters, two other UF law professors, Michelle S. Jacobs and Sharon E. Rush, as well as Southern District Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert L. Luck, bring Florida legal voices into the mix.

Seigel--who graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and teaches evidence, criminal law, and white collar crime at UF--said the "book is designed for use mostly in connections with criminal justice or related seminars at the third-year law school or even graduate school level. It could also be used as a supplemental text in criminal law, evidence, or race and the law courses."

But you don't have to be a legal scholar to appreciate the outrageous injustice that allowed a rape case to go forward, despite DNA evidence to the contrary. Finally, amid...