[monday]

“Assume that you are Joe Lunchbox, a minority blue color Durham resident. Plaintiff is a white college boy with a bright future. How much do you give him for his year of hell? Million? Probably not.”

You are dreaming if you think Duke and Durham are going to get off cheap. That time has come and gone. Hell, these kids legal fees alone are going to be in the tens of millions by the time all the criminal, and civil cases and their respective appeals are completed.

I imagine both Duke and Durham are frantically trying to make a deal at this point, but as the article stated, there are still criminal charges to be decided. Even if Nifong avoids jail time on the prosecutorial misconduct and civil rights charges, it’s almost certain he will plead guilty to lesser charges in a plea bargain in order to do so.

This means that any civil charges brought by the kids will be a slam dunk. They are anyway, but the criminal charges will significantly up the damages. White kids or not, they are going to get millions each. If there is one thing Joe Lunchbox likes even more than slamming rich white kids, it's sticking it to the 'man'. The 'man' in this case is Duke University and Durham County. Faceless institutions are never as sympathetic in court as living human beings.

How much depends on how long they hold out. I would guess a couple of million each if they take a settlement right away, as much as 5 million each of they wait and settle after Nifong goes to trial on criminal charges, and who knows? anything from one to one hundred million if they refuse to settle and wait the ten to fifteen years for all the various trials and appeals to run their course.

Judicial awards in the US are more like lottery winnings than anything to do with justice. There is no logic to them. Your idea that a judge or jury will act rationally is painfully naive. In the US they hardly ever do.

The lawyers will make even more than the kids, whatever happens, but then thats the way it always is. The judicial system is rigged so that society always loses and lawyers always win.

[anton]

When you say I am “painfully naive,” I doubt that you really have much of a sense of my experience and credentials. Of course you are entitled to your opinions as I am, but please don’t pigeonhole me.

By the way, if you really want an objective view of jury verdicts on tort cases, Most states have jury verdict reporters. Occasionally, you can find these online for free because somebody has posted an excerpt. In Ohio, our firm subscribes to the Ohio Trial Reports which summarizes jury verdicts for each type of case. We pay a lot for that service and it just one of the reasons that I doubt that a blue color (and likely mostly minority jury) would award much to these fine young men.

Of course, mine is only an opinion, but it is not “painfully naive.”