Christine M. Flowers: Crystal Gail Mangum strikes again

IT'S BEEN a long time since I thought about the Duke rape case.

I hesitate to resurrect the story now because the three young men whose lives were shattered by a perfect storm of lies, political ambition and institutional bigotry deserve to be left in peace. But their accuser has struck again, stabbing her most recent boyfriend with, according to the indictment, "intent to kill." So maybe it's time to take a look at Crystal Gail Mangum one more time, a woman who stands as Exhibit A in the case of women who cry rape.

Please spare me the emails about how this woman doesn't represent the majority of sexual- abuse victims. This isn't a column about them. This is about women who decide to manipulate the law because they can, cynically taking advantage of our society's attitudes toward sex crimes and, in Mangum's case, some folks' utter disdain for privileged white men.

IT'S TRUE that, for years, the system was stacked against women. In many states, a man could force himself on his wife, and she couldn't accuse him of rape, even if he held a knife to her throat. In the courtroom, judges like our own Common Pleas Judge Bernard Avellino thought they could get away with wondering out loud why a criminal defendant would even bother raping a woman who was "coyote-ugly."

Clearly, there was a need for reform. But as usually happens, the rectifying pendulum eventually swung too far in the opposite direction, so we now have classes teaching college women how to avoid so-called date rape, and an 18-year-old can be sentenced to decades behind bars for having consensual sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend.

And a stripper is able to mobilize almost the entire upper crust of an elite university and an army of the nation's ultraliberal sports columnists to her defense with a transparent lie.

Mangum was never raped by the Duke lacrosse players she accused in 2006. All charges were dropped by the North Carolina attorney general more than a year later, and the boys were declared "actually innocent." Those unfamiliar with the criminal system need to know how rare it is to be found "innocent." Many defendants get off on doubt and technicalities, procedural irregularities that force a judge to dismiss the charges.

Not here. The three athletes were absolved of all guilt by the state's highest prosecutor.

And it never should've taken a year to clear them.

But that's what happens when the system believes a poor black woman over rich white men simply because she's poor, black and a woman, and they're rich, white and male.

Mangum was never indicted for any crime. Even after she'd been proven to be a liar, there was an unwillingness to criminalize her behavior. And that's because we've become completely brainwashed into believing that women, even ones who make up horrific rape stories, are still victims.

Some even argued that what Mangum and her sister in arms Tawana Brawley had done was simply payback for all the years that white women had lied about being raped by black men, cases that often ended up in the death of innocents.

But two wrongs, as they say, can violate your rights.

Any time a false accusation of rape is made, a life is destroyed. It's impossible to escape the label of "accused rapist." No matter how many years pass or how many times someone's innocence is declared, there will always be the suspicion that there is fire behind that smoke.

And lest you think this is about race or privilege, it's just as easy for an upper-middle-class white woman to cry rape as it is for a destitute minority. A few months ago, a weathercaster in New York who had a part-time gig on "Good Morning America" admitted she'd made up a rape story to get some attention.

Apparently, she suffered from depression, and being the focus of a police investigation helped raise her self-esteem. She should've tried lithium; it would have cost the Big Apple taxpayers a lot less.

These aren't isolated stories, despite the protests of feminists who think that you should always give sisters the benefit of the doubt.

They seem to fear that holding women accountable for their fabrications will make it harder for legitimate victims of abuse.

But it's exactly the opposite. Every time a woman lies about being raped, she makes it that much harder for the next person to be believed. And when she lies, she should be prosecuted with swift and certain justice.

The kind denied the Durham Three.

Christine M. Flowers is a lawyer. E-mail cflowers1961@yahoo.com. She blogs at philly.com/philly/blogs/flowersshow.