Duke lacrosse case
The Duke lacrosse case was a widely reported 2006 criminal case in Durham, North Carolina, United States in which three members of the Duke University men's lacrosse team were falsely accused of rape. The three students all white were David Evans, Collin Finnerty, and Reade Seligmann. The accuser was Crystal Mangum, a black student at North Carolina Central University who worked as a stripper and dancer. The rape was alleged to have occurred at a party hosted by the lacrosse team, held at the Durham residence of two of the team's captains on March 13, 2006. The case's resolution sparked public discussion of racism, sexual violence, media bias, and due process on campuses, and ultimately led to the resignation and disbarment of the lead prosecutor, Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong.

On April 11, 2007, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper dropped all charges, declaring the three lacrosse players "innocent" and victims of a "tragic rush to accuse". Nifong, who was labeled a "rogue prosecutor" by Cooper, withdrew from the case in January 2007 after the North Carolina State Bar filed ethics charges against him. In June 2007, Nifong was disbarred for "dishonesty, fraud, deceit and misrepresentation", making him the first prosecutor in North Carolina disbarred for trial conduct. Nifong served one day in jail for lying about sharing DNA tests (criminal contempt); the lab director said it was a misunderstanding and Nifong claimed it was due to weak memory. Mangum maintained her insistence that she was sexually assaulted that night. She faced no charges.

Cooper noted several inconsistencies between Mangum's accounts of the evening, and Seligmann and Finnerty's alibi evidence. The Durham Police Department came under fire for violating their own policies by allowing Nifong to act as the "de facto" head of the investigation; using an unreliable suspect-only photo identification procedure with Mangum; pursuing the case despite vast discrepancies in notes taken by Investigator Benjamin Himan and Sgt. Mark Gottlieb; and distributing a poster presuming the suspects' guilt shortly after the allegations. Seligmann, Finnerty, and Evans sought unspecified damages and called for criminal justice reform laws in a federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of Durham.
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