In Durham, North Carolina, it appears as though the public furor and media frenzy will finally be put to rest, but the tragic consequences of the Duke lacrosse rape case will sadly endure for decades. The prosecution was botched, mishandled by most of its participants and, blown wildly out of proportion by an overeager media. And worst of all, the case’s disastrous disintegration does violence to the atmosphere of discourse and privacy with regard to sexual abuse accusations in America.

While accusations of rape on the part of an alleged victim must always be taken seriously, here that respect dissolved into unquestioning credulity. As power left the hands of the accuser and passed into the hands of District Attorney Mike Nifong, another series of unprofessional misjudgments began. Nifong allegedly demonstrated personal disdain for the attorneys representing the accused, appeared to have violated the policies of Durham Police Department in conducting a lineup, and ultimately pursued a case rife with holes and hearsay, an abject abuse of the district attorney’s fundamental task of pursuing justice and justice alone.

The American legal system, convoluted though it may be, is bound at its axis to the idea of finding and reaching justice while taking into account the lives and livelihoods of both accuser and accused. The Duke lacrosse players who were named saw a raucous media circus form up around them, and their identities were made known around the world. The notion of being innocent until proven guilty was polluted, and the stigma of the accusations—false though they may have been—is permanently grafted to their names.

Even beyond the gnarled ruins this case made of its participants, there lies on its behalf a lasting scar on the American attitude toward sexual assault. The discussion of the crime here was undermined by the fervor about the case and its ensuing collapse. This dilutes the public understanding of the crime and its pervasiveness, and represents a strike against the just resolution of genuine instances of sexual assault.

Of course, what’s done is done, and there exists only the opportunity to do no further damage. We hope that the media does not delve into a critique of the revealed identity of the players’ accuser. While the charges brought by the accuser are now false in the eyes of the law, she deserves no further assault upon her character. Further dissection will only deter women who actually weathered sexual assault from coming forward, both on college campuses and across the country.

The aftermath in Durham is devastating, and there appears only one benefit left within the wreckage: a lesson about how to better manage and approach accusations of rape and how to maintain respect and dignity for everyone involved.