"Lost" and Won...

The long-running TV series "Lost" wrapped up last week, and... this weekend, the "lost" Duke Lacrosse season of 2006 finally had its finale too.

What a moment to watch...when.. in a thrilling game with Notre Dame...before the last few members of that 2006 team would leave the field forever...Duke won the NCAA Lacrosse National championship!!!

The coveted title... that might have been theirs in 2006...(but that their season was lost to lies, hypocrisy, and "wolves in...um-m-m darks suits and robes" in the courtrooms of Durham)...was finally achieved!

Who can forget the "games" of 2006? At first a team of college boys seemed no match for D.A. Nifong and teammate Brian Meehan...with hometown judges refereeing and the stands filled with shouting, bleating media, agenda-istas, the NCNAACP. Cheerleading Duke professors turned verbal damning cartwheels on the field and anywhere else they could attract an audience. It was quite a spectacle. But in a tough game....resilience, intense resolve and reliance on all you know best...often determine the outcome. These kids relied on their strong families, their excellent attorneys, but above all, the moral certainty of their complete innocence... to stay the course and secure the most important victory of a single word..."INNOCENT."

The win on the field this Memorial Day weekend was more than a great athletic match. It memorialized that moral strength of the young men of that much-maligned 2006 team. How fitting that preceding the Victory game...both Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty graduated from their respective schools and were named Scholar All Americans! Collin also received from Loyola the John R. Moller award for achievement in academics, athletics and character. These are truly high caliber, outstanding, first-rate young men. They are now and they always have been.

And, yes, Michael Nifong.. YOU, the disbarred and disgraced, barely adequate prosecutor...WE KNOW YOU KNOW. You knew even then. But there was an election to be won, and your own retirement income to consider. At some point you were just "in it to win it" regardless of the truth, of innocence, or thirty years of these kids lives. Your conduct resulted in more than a season of Lacrosse being forfeited, more than even a year of the Collin, Reade, and Dave's lives being squandered...it resulted in the very sanctity of our trust in our judicial system being LOST.

LOST and not yet to be restored.

Like the "Lost" finale...it cannot be said that there has been a satisfying closure, or any sensible ending. Confusion (perhaps deliberately) still clouds, in both cases, even the most determined observers attempt to understand. All of us, far beyond just the families of those accused...need a full and open accounting. Who? What? Why? Years have passed...we still understand so little of what happened on the "Island"..or what is happening in the delay in the civil suits? In both cases, who can be blamed for feeling a bit uneasy and somewhat suspiciously...unsatisfied.

A television series survives on drama.

Political and judicial corruption survive on compliant secrecy, disruption, and the fog of delay.

Millions were drawn to see the conclusion of a fictional series, and no doubt would have raised loud protest if it had ended without attempt at explanation. Yet, an outrageous false political prosecution...with tentacles in many troubled areas of our legal and judicial system...is shamefully allowed to deliberately fade from public eye and interest. Why? This should have been an "AHA!" moment when those most often targeted for false prosecution... joined with innocent defendants who had, for many reasons, garnered intense public interest to their case. Think of what might have been accomplished if justice and reform had trumped sleazy politics, racism, and sickening self-interest! This should have been, and still might be...an opportunity to educate and eradicate evil, corruption and intolerable tactics. But to do that... the civil cases must advance, discovery must proceed, lies must be unraveled and true accountability assigned.

Nifong played in the game, but it took teamwork.

We want to meet the "Team."

We want to understand their playbook.

We want justice.

.And to the legal and judicial communities of Durham and North Carolina...this case crashed and burned years ago. We been milling around "lost" in the legal sand dunes with you long enough. Some of you have "disappeared; one of you has died. But the storyline has not advanced. You've obfuscated, delayed and denied the truth for far too long. Your "show" should have run its course. Perhaps you think you are writing it's finale as we speak.

But while it is true, that many of us may be watching from different places now, never delude yourself that you have "lost" your faithful audience. No matter how the civil suits play out, we assure you we'll see to it that the Duke Lacrosse Frame lives in "reruns" and you receive residual "credit" whenever and wherever opportunities arise.

In the meanwhile, with the small glimmer of our Faith that remains, we hope to see the Civil Suits go forward and...soon.

As we wait, we say to the Duke Lacrosse Team of 2010....congratulations! It was a brilliant game...a breathtaking win!

And to the Duke Lacrosse team of 2006...celebrate!...your 2006 season has been vindicated, restored! This is your victory too, every one of you. Your victory...once stolen...once. "lost"...is now won. May this victory be but a harbinger of other things to come.

Hat Tip: C.J. Costabile & his Teammates. Thanks from all of us!