Here's a preview of Bob Wilson's column coming Sunday in the Durham News. Tell us what you think below (with your name if you'd like your comments published in the paper) or in a letter to the editor at editor@newsobserver.com

By Bob Wilson

Now I ain’t talking ’bout the roaring West
This is 1975 at its most oppressive best.
North Carolina state the pride of this land
Made her an outlaw hunted on every hand

North Carolinians of a certain age – middle age and beyond, that is – will recognize those lyrics written by Bernice Reagon, founder of Sweet Honey in the Rock. Reagon was celebrating Joan (pronounced Jo-Ann) Little, darling of feminists and leftists for the self-defense killing of a white Beaufort County jailer who had forced her to commit a sex act.

In 1975, the Joan Little affair was a national and international cause celebre, similar in many respects to the 2006 Duke lacrosse uproar.

I thought about Reagon’s ditty when Crystal Gail Mangum, who falsely accused three of the lacrosse players of rape at an off-campus team party, surfaced again. Mangum does so periodically at the behest of those who won’t let her slip into the shadows.

A Wake County jury found Joan Little not guilty of murder. Last I heard of Little, she was living in New York City. Mangum has taken up temporary residence once more in the Durham County Jail.

She’s awaiting trial in the stabbing death of her boyfriend Reginald Daye. Trust me, it takes a strong dose of whiskey courage to be Mangum’s boyfriend: You put your life expectancy at risk.

But did Mangum really cure Daye’s ills with a sharp blade, as Sir Walter Raleigh might have noted? (Raleigh should know, having lost his head for crossing Queen Elizabeth.)

No, according to a retired emergency room physician and self-described socialist, Sidney Harr. He says Daye died because of an improperly placed tracheal tube at Duke Hospital. This is at stark odds with the medical examiner’s report, which found the 46-year-old Daye died from the stab wounds and nothing more.

Maybe Harr’s right. He’s a physician, and besides my knowledge of medicine stops at Band-Aids.

Still, Harr’s credibility pales beside that of the medical examiner’s office. Its pathologists examined the body; Harr examined the reports.

Moreover, Harr has been active in a strange pastiche, the Committee on Justice for Mike Nifong. Really, that’s the name. Harr and a few other eccentrics argue – if you let them get close enough – that Nifong didn’t frame the Duke lacrosse players. No, he was the victim.

OK, take that up with Attorney General Roy Cooper, who declared the Duke Three innocent after a lengthy investigation.

If Crystal Gail Mangum or Joan Little had been white, you would have heard virtually nothing about them, then or now.

But Little’s race and a white jailer found ventilated by an ice pick in her cell ago were Southern Gothic distilled. So were Mangum’s lurid allegations of gang rape, though no evidence was ever found of such violence against her.

Poor black women vs. the reviled white establishment always make sensational copy. But do they really face a hostile criminal justice system here?

I don’t think so. Joan Little walked, and Crystal Mangum has had more court breaks than Humpty Dumpty. She will walk, too, if a jury believes her.

As for Sidney Harr and the Committee on Justice for Mike Nifong, even the disgraced former prosecutor keeps his distance from that outfit. No wonder.

Bob Wilson lives in southwest Durham.
 

By Virginia Bridges

Medical Examiner Clay Nichols said he stands by his report concluding that the man whom Crystal Mangum is charged with murdering died from a stab wound.

Mangum, 33, is charged with the murder of Reginald Daye, 46. Police found Daye with one stab wound in the torso April 3, 2011 at Mangum’s 3507 Century Oaks Drive apartment. Mangum was charged with murder after Daye died April 13.

The Committee on Justice for Mike Nifong has said the report is “fraudulent.” (See story here.)

Committee member Sidney Harr, a retired physician, contends that Daye died after Duke University Medical Center made a “mistake” and incorrectly placed a tracheal tube in Daye, which led to cardiac arrest. The tube was removed and another was inserted in the correct position, Harr said. Daye was resuscitated, but his brain cells had been deprived of oxygen for too long. He died after being taken off life support, Harr said, citing hospital records that the committee has placed on its website.

Nichols, however, said Thursday that Daye’s death is directly linked to the stab wound.

“He was stabbed. He was treated, and as a direct result of his stab wound he died,” Nichols said. 

Mangum was the accuser in the Duke Lacrosse case. Her supporters say the criminal justice system is punishing her for accusing three university students of rape. The case led to the disbarment of former District Attorney Mike Nifong.   

We've gone to a new way of posting stories that makes it easier to get stories on  www.thedurhamnews.com. Today online you'll find the latest on Crystal Mangum's murder case, which happened yesterday, too late for today's print edition. (Read it here.)

And in the print Durham News:

SUPER PAC COMPLAINTS: Blog readers saw this first here. The county has received complaints of candidates colluding with the new Southern Durham Development-backed PAC. The candidates and the PAC says it isn't true. Virginia Bridges has our story.

PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS: It's not official yet, but folks are lining up from the reveue that would be generated by a one-cent city tax-rate increase for housing Jim Wise has that story.

CHUCK'S COOL PICTURES: I didn't make it out to Bennett Place this past weekend. Fortunately N&O photographer Chuck Liddy did and came back with some cool pictures of Civil War re-enactors. Check out the one with the soldier in a bonnet and find out what that meant 150 years ago.

Michelle Laws says woman must be on guard, D.G. Martin says Amemdment One could be good for Obama and Carol Young, Dan McShea, George Brine, Katherine Register, Jim DiGuiseppi and Matthew Morin all have letters in today's DN. Tell us what's on your mind at editor@newsobserver.com

And thanks for reading,

Mark 

The hearing on whether Durham District Attorney Tracey Cline keeps her job continues tomorrow. Here is an early look at Bob Wilson's column coming Sunday in The Durham News.

BY BOB WILSON

There is something of Mattie Ross in Durham defense attorney Kerry Sutton.
You remember Mattie Ross, if not from Charles Portis’ novel “True Grit” then from the John Wayne or Coen Brothers films. Mattie Ross of Yell County, Ark., was a never-say-die heroine of the golden west, and even the Duke came to admire her, though it wasn’t easy.

Kerry Sutton isn’t on a quest to find the outlaw Tom Chaney, but she is determined to apply the best of her ability to unseat Durham County District Attorney Tracey Cline. This hasn’t come easy, either. Cline, who has been waging a nasty war against her one-time mentor, Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson (“he has the reprobate mind of a monarch”) for months, is an elected official.

But not just any elected official. Removing a district attorney under General Statute 7A-66 is serious business in the state’s legal community, not to be undertaken lightly. In fact, only one other DA has been removed under the law.

That Cline has dishonored – nay, defiled – the office of public prosecutor with her vile attacks on Judge Hudson because he ruled against her in a couple of hot-button cases is a fact few would dispute. Lawyer Sutton had had her fill last year when she began her blitz against Cline, who was elected DA after the implosion of former DA Mike Nifong, he of the 2006 Duke lacrosse frameup.

BALTIMORE -- Duke’s men’s lacrosse players could barely move a yard without feeling a nudge, push or knock from their Maryland opponents on Saturday evening.

The unseeded Terrapins chased down the No. 5 seed Blue Devils, thwacking arms with sticks and checking with impunity. When junior midfielder Justin Turri slipped inside late in the game, his shifty moves were met with a ferocious blow that forced him to the ground. He never got off a shot.

That hard-hitting, aggressive style led to a 9-4 Maryland victory over the defending national champions at M&T Bank Stadium in the NCAA Division I men’s lacrosse semifinal game.

Crystal Mangum could face up to seven years in prison as a jury decides whether she set her own apartment on fire.

The 12-member panel began deliberating Wednesday after closing arguments by prosecutor Mark McCullough and defense attorney Mani Dexter. Deliberation could continue Thursday, depending on the weather.

Police accuse Mangum of slashing her boyfriend Milton Walker’s tires, smashing his windshield and setting a pile of his clothing on fire in their bathtub while her three children and two police officers were in the apartment. Mangum is charged with arson, injury to personal property and child abuse, along with resisting a public officer for allegedly struggling during her arrest and giving officers her sister’s name and birth date.

Superior Court Judge Abe Jones ruled three charges of contributing to the abuse or neglect of her children would rise and fall on how the jury handled the arson charge. He promised to dismiss the abuse charge if the jury doesn’t find Mangum guilty of arson.

From correspondent Virginia Bridges

Crystal Mangum struggled and resisted arrest until police officers finally were able to get the handcuffs on her, Durham Police Cpl. John Tyler testified this morning.

“As soon as we got her handcuffed, it was almost like a light switch,” Tyler said during the second day of testimony in the case.  “She didn’t say anything else, and she just laid there.”

Tyler said she remained silent after officers smelled smoke and he ran from room to room, searching for the source.  He checked on Mangum’s three children who were huddled on a mattress in their bedroom. He checked Mangum’s bedroom.

And then he opened the bathroom door.

“The whole bathroom appeared that is was on fire,” he said.  “And then of course my next concern was the children.”

Not once did Mangum say “check the bathroom, please get my kids out,” Tyler testified.

“Not once did I hear anything from anybody,” he said.

At that point, Defense Attorney Mani Dexter objected to Tyler’s statement, pointing out that the Mangum had the right to remain silent.

More than one-third of the jury pool in Crystal Mangum's arson trial was excused this morning after saying they couldn't impartially hear the case.

Most of the others acknowledged they knew of Mangum as the accuser in the Duke lacrosse case but said they could still determine her guilt or innocence on the current charges.

"I'm going to take it at face value that you can do that," Superior Court Judge Abe Jones told them, "I can only trust your solemn oath on that."

The prosecutor and the defense lawyer are questioning 28 remaining jurors on their knowledge of the Duke case, in which Mangum accused three players of rape, and their ability to decide fairly on the new case. The arson and other charges stem from a domestic disturbance at Mangum's home in February.

The case at the center of last night's episode of "The Good Wife," had parallels to one of our area's most infamous recent incidents.

Yep, the Duke lacrosse case.

Even the characters on the show acknowledged as much, in explaining their trepidation in accepting the civil suit.

It was a clever way of the writer's noting that they were using the real case as a jumping off point.

The Daily Tar Heel reports that the accuser in the Duke lacrosse case, Crystal Gail Mangum, will speak at 6:30 tonight at the Sonja Haynes Stone Black Cultural Center. (CORRECTION: The name of the center is now the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History, as Fred Black notes in a comment below.)

Mangum will speak on “the harsh realities of minority treatment both in the justice system and the media,” according to the event’s press release. Questions from the audience will be screened to prevent questions being asked about the lacrosse scandal.

Read the DTH story here.