Roy Cooper: On Jan 13 I agreed to take over the cases, promising a fresh and thorough review of the facts and recommend the best way to proceed.

During the past 12 weeks, we have reviewed the remaining allegations of sexual assault and kidnapping. We reviewed the DA's and police evidence and conducted our own investigation.

We've interviewed people at the party, the DA, police officers, the accuser on several occasions, revieweed dna evidence and records.

The result shows clearly there is insufficient evidence on any the charges. We are filing dismissal of all charges against the three defendants. The cases are over and no more criminal proceedings will occurs.

The cases were the result of a tragic rush to accuse. There are significant discrepancies in the evidence.

We believe the three individuals are innocent of the charges.

The inconsistencies were so significant that we have no credible evidence that an attack occurred in that house that night.

The accuser wanted to go forward, but the contradictions in her account and the physical evidence could not be reconciled.

No evidence supports her version. The evidence contradicts her. She contradicts herself.

The eyewitness identification process was flawed.

The DA went ahead unchecked. Caution would have been better than bravado. He lost the ability to see clearly.

Whatever the reasons the case was pushed forward, the result was wrong. We must make sure it doesn't happen again.

That's a strawman.

No one is indicting all of feminism. Some of us suggest that feminism take a long hard look at itself and see if there are portions that are promoting gender inequality and looking to replace one oppressor with another.

Are there feminists that turned a positive sum game into a zero sum game? Is that why feminism smells like bullshit and rings hollow to so many women?

Well if you look at two of Broadsheet's favorite bloggers, Amanda Marcotte and Jessica Valenti, maybe you can see why. (Valenti has a byline on the blog report at Salon, and both bloggers have their blogs blogrolled by broadsheet)

On December 21, 2006, the rape charges were dropped against the Duke students.

But that wasn't good enough for Valenti who got all lathery when an opponent feminist suggested that even Valenti's blog could no longer call it a rape case. In fact, Valenti wanted everyone to know, they didn't say that, a commenter did, and when pressed as to whether she thought it was still a rape case, Valenti just wouldn't answer the question.

http://feministing.com/archives/006442.html

And then there's Marcotte who famously said this in reaction to the rape charge being dropped:

"In the meantime, I’ve been sort of casually listening to CNN blaring throughout the waiting area and good fucking god is that channel pure evil. For awhile, I had to listen to how the poor dear lacrosse players at Duke are being persecuted just because they held someone down and fucked her against her will — not rape, of course, because the charges have been thrown out. Can’t a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all wound up about it? So unfair."

She deleted the post when people called her on her bullshit and replaced it with this:

"Since people are determined to make hay over this quick shot of a post, I’m deleting it and here’s my official stance. The prosecution in the Duke case fumbled the ball. The prosecutor was too eager to get a speedy case and make a name for himself. That is my final word."

So there you have it, there is no reason at all to think that feminists pushed this nonsense.

"or that accusers should be silenced because they might be lying."

In the words of the Stephen Colbert, this smells of wikiality and truthiness. Citation needed.

It's true that false accusations happen; worse still, false convictions happen. At the same time, sexual assault is an underreported. As a savvy reader noted in response to an earlier post about the dropped charges, future rape survivors may be unintended victims in this case. Those who see every rape charge as a probable false accusation may read the Duke case outcome as validating their position; assault survivors may worry that the Duke case outcome erodes their credibility.

You make it sound as though the two positions here are mutually exclusive. In fact, both sides benefit when rapes are reported accurately and the possibility of false accusations is treated seriously. Which is why Broadsheet should be the first to call out the nonsense of feminists that claim either that the falsely accused are insignificant in numbers, or that they need to be more worried about the underreported rapes.

Also, I completely object to your blatant crap that portray two populations "those that see every rape charge as a probable false accusation" versus "assault survivors."

Please show me "those that see every rape charge as a *probable* false accusation." And when you are done with that please see if you can find any assault survivors that think that some rape charges may be false accusations.

Broadsheet, you don't do yourself any credit when you take some sort of pious attitude and then proceed to smear and smear again.

Sexist much?

So far, even though we have their blog posts to show that long past the rape charge being dropped the three blogs up above still considered the students guilty of rape, so far, they haven't mentioned today's turn of events.

It's eerily quiet.

At least Broadsheet at enough cojones to fess up in some degree to its role in this lynch action.

But for Broadsheet's blogroll? They ain't having it. They'll just pretend the whole thing never happened. If they can pretend it didn't happen, then they won't have to see how they were wrong, and they can go on tomorrow, business as usual, blaming men for all the woes in the world.

Crickets from the Broadsheet blogroll.