Most people remember the Duke Lacrosse team for perpetrating horrible acts against a young woman. They were suspended from the university, publicly shamed, stripped of their reputations, and treated as criminals before a trial ever reached a courtroom. Their lives were effectively ruined.
Yes, most people who were alive at the time remember that version of the story. And most people who are alive today still assume their guilt.
They were innocent.
Framed from the start.
False witness tattooed a stain on them that has lasted far longer in public memory than their vindication ever did.
Why is that? Why do so many people still remember them as guilty? I don’t think the answer is simply that the media under-publicized their innocence. I think it runs deeper than that.
My dad and I recently watched the documentary The Devil Next Door about the accused Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk—known in the 1980s as “Ivan the Terrible.” His trial drew out dozens of witnesses, many of whom stood and testified falsely with absolute certainty that he was the man who committed unspeakable atrocities.
At one point my dad asked, “How could they just stand up there and lie with such passion and resolve?”
It was the perfect question.
My first-blush response was this: their hunger for justice was so intense that they needed their testimony to be true—and eventually it became true to them. Their desire for justice reshaped memory, emotion, and conviction until sincerity replaced accuracy.
The same thing happened in the Duke Lacrosse case. People’s hunger for justice for the “victim” permanently branded guilt onto the accused, regardless of the facts.
One of the Ten Commandments—often treated as one of the “lesser” ones—is this: You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. I believe there are two forces in our culture that make this commandment not minor at all, but one of the most grievous.
The first is social media. False witness now has more power than it has at any point in human history. Everyone has access to everyone. Accusation travels faster than truth, and retraction travels nowhere.
The second is victim identity. We live in a culture that increasingly defines itself by whatever oppression that has been perpetrated upon us. We are victims of systems, structures, ideologies, institutions, traditions—real or perceived. Victimhood now carries moral authority, and moral authority often silences scrutiny and overrides truth.
If you doubt that, ask why questioning an accusation or speaking out against an ideology is now treated as an act of hate.
When you combine social media, victim identity, and humanity’s natural thirst for justice, you create the perfect breeding ground for the devastation of false witness. “Believe the accuser” has become the rallying cry of the age and that is a deadly mantra.
How many of you know people who have been falsely accused by an ex-spouse, an ex-employee, or a former friend?
We should all have our hands raised.
False accusation is so common that it made the Big Ten. It is so common that the justice system in the free world was deliberately designed to assume innocence and demand proof beyond a reasonable doubt from twelve people who must be convinced together.
What’s my point?
Our culture needs to be reminded of this. And we need to remind ourselves. Bearing false witness is devastating.
We have witnessed enough false accusations in our lifetimes to know that not everything we read—especially online—is true. Much of it is not just an innocent mistake, but deliberately false.
Test the spirits. Understand human nature. Don’t rush to judgment. Don’t let your desire for justice override your commitment to truth.
Justice is coming. It's coming for us all!
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