How many of you know anything about the name “James Giles?”

Answer, then click “more.”

Giles is a Texas man who served 10 years in prison, as well as an additional 14 years on probation and as a registered sex offender, for a rape committed in 1982.

Last week–the same week the Duke lacrosse team was exonerated–Giles too was exonerated, thanks to DNA evidence.

I’m guessing not many of you have heard of Giles. And I’m guessing just about all of you have heard of Reade Seligmann, David Evans, and Collin Finnerty.

This isn’t to diminish what happened to the Duke players. It’s to demonstrate the selective outrage on display from some of their defenders. The Duke guys didn’t do a day of hard time. Giles did 10 years. The Duke guys were wrongfully labeled rapists for a little more than a year. Giles, for 24 years.

Google News count for “Duke lacrosse:” 4,168.

Google News count for “James Giles:” 418.

Google Blog Search hits for “Duke lacrosse:” 32,227.

Google Blog Search hits for “James Giles:” 180.

I’m just sayin’.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 14th, 2007 at 11:07 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.