clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

The Accuser

You may have noticed that, with all charges being dropped and the Attorney General declaring that the accused in the Duke lacrosse case are innocent, we for the first time used the accuser's name. With there no longer being a case, there's no longer any particular logic in shielding her name, and in any event, once you have a page on Wikipedia dedicated to you, our policy on using her name or not is irrelevant.

But we don't do so with any sense of glee or happiness. In his comments today, the Attorney General said "it was not in the interest of justice" to file charges against her, that she "may actually believe" some of her accounts, and made reference to some sealed files, which are presumably medical files. There have been oblique references to serious disorders previously.

So given all that it's understandable charges against Ms. Mangum won't be filed. She is, it would appear, to be pitied rather than scorned. There are a lot of things to set right in this case. One of them may be to get her the help she would seem to need.