Michael Byron Nifong is a disbarred American prosecutor who formerly served as the Durham County District Attorney. He was removed from this position, disbarred, and jailed following court findings concerning his conduct in the Duke lacrosse case, primarily his conspiring with the DNA lab director to withhold exculpatory DNA evidence that could have acquitted the defendants.
The Duke lacrosse case was a widely reported 2006 criminal case hoax 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 were David Evans, Collin Finnerty, and Reade Seligmann. The accuser, Crystal Mangum, a student at North Carolina Central University and part-time striptease dancer, alleged that the rape occurred at the Durham residence of two of the team's captains, where she had worked on March 13, 2006. Investigation and resolution of the case sparked public discussion of racism, sexual violence, media bias, and due process on campuses. The former lead prosecutor, Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong, ultimately resigned in disgrace, and was disbarred and briefly imprisoned for violating ethics standards. In December 2024, Mangum admitted to fabricating the assault.
Frederick Corbet "Fred" Davison was the President of the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens. He served in that capacity from 1967 until his resignation in 1986.
Eddie Lee Long was an American pastor who served as the senior pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, a megachurch in unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, from 1987 until his death in 2017.
David James Shafer is an American politician who is a former chairman of the Georgia Republican Party. From 2002 to 2019, Shafer was a Republican member of the Georgia State Senate from Senate District 48, a suburban district located north of Atlanta that includes portions of Fulton County and Gwinnett County.
Lucian Lincoln Wood Jr. is an American former attorney who made claims about the existence of widespread election fraud during the 2020 US presidential election. He has faced legal sanctions for lawsuits made in furtherance of these claims in the state of Michigan. In July 2023, while facing investigation and possible disciplinary action by the State Bar of Georgia for violating the Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct, Wood surrendered his law license and asked to retire rather than face disbarment.
Orly Taitz is an Israeli-American political conspiracy theorist and political candidate. A dentist, lawyer, and former real estate agent, Taitz was a figure in the "birther" movement, which promoted the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not a natural-born citizen eligible to serve as president of the United States. Taitz also promotes other conspiracy theories both related and unrelated to Obama. Taitz has initiated lawsuits on behalf of the "birther" movement; all were dismissed by the courts, and on one occasion Taitz was ordered to pay $20,000 as a sanction for misconduct in filing frivolous claims. Taitz has unsuccessfully run in statewide elections in California three times.
Donald Clement Klosterman was an American professional football player and executive. Klosterman was known for building teams in three different leagues after his career as a professional quarterback was cut short by a serious accident.
Brian Porter Kemp is an American politician serving since 2019 as the 83rd governor of Georgia. A member of the Republican Party, Kemp served as the state's 27th Secretary of State from 2010 to 2018, and as a member of the Georgia State Senate from 2003 to 2007.
Numerous lawsuits and ballot challenges, based on conspiracy theories related to Barack Obama's eligibility for the United States presidency, were filed following his first election in 2008 and over the course of his two terms as president. These actions sought to have Obama disqualified from running for, or being confirmed for, the Presidency of the United States, to declare his actions in office to be null and void, or to compel him to release additional documentation related to his U.S. citizenship.
Virginia Yapp Trotter was Assistant Secretary of Education from 1974 to 1977, under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. The position was included in the Department of Health, Education and Welfare at the time. Trotter was the first woman to hold the U.S. government's highest education post, although the position did not become cabinet-level until 1979.
Trouble with the Curve is a 2012 American sports drama film directed by Robert Lorenz and starring Clint Eastwood, Amy Adams, Justin Timberlake, Matthew Lillard, and John Goodman. The film revolves around an aging baseball scout whose daughter joins him on a scouting trip. Filming began in March 2012, and the film was released on September 21, 2012.
Derrick Deshaun Watson is an American professional football quarterback for the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Clemson Tigers, leading the team to a national championship in 2016. Watson was selected in the first round of the 2017 NFL draft by the Houston Texans.
Leslie Carol Rutledge is an American attorney and politician who has served as the 21st lieutenant governor of Arkansas since 2023. A member of the Republican Party, she was previously the 56th attorney general of Arkansas from 2015 to 2023.
In 2014, multiple allegations emerged that Bill Cosby, an American media personality, had sexually assaulted dozens of women throughout his career. Cosby was well known in the United States for his eccentric image, and gained a reputation as "America's Dad" for his portrayal of Cliff Huxtable on The Cosby Show (1984–1992). He received numerous awards and honorary degrees throughout his career, many of which have since been revoked. There had been previous allegations against Cosby, but they were dismissed and accusers were ignored or disbelieved.
The Baylor University sexual assault scandal concerned numerous sexual and non-sexual assaults by Baylor University students, mostly players on the school's football team, and efforts by school officials to conceal them, from about 2012 to 2016.
On August 5, 2016, Jamarion Rashad Robinson, a 26-year-old African American man who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, was shot 59 times and killed in a police raid in East Point, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. The shooting occurred when at least 14 officers of a Southeast Regional Fugitive Taskforce from at least seven different agencies, led by U.S. Marshals, forcibly entered the apartment of Robinson's girlfriend to serve a warrant for his arrest. The officers were heavily armed, including with submachine guns. The warrant was being served on behalf of the Gwinnett County police and the Atlanta Police Department, and authorities said they had sought his arrest for attempted arson and aggravated assault of a police officer. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) stated that Robinson had been repeatedly ordered to put down a weapon and that officers who had been involved in the shooting reported Robinson fired at them three times.
Mary Lea Trump is an American psychologist and writer. A member of the Trump family, she has been critical of her uncle, U.S. president-elect Donald Trump. Her 2020 book about him and the family, Too Much and Never Enough, sold nearly one million copies on the day of its release. Two further books followed, The Reckoning (2021) and Who Could Ever Love You (2024).
Sidney Katherine Powell is an American attorney and former federal prosecutor. In August 2023, she was indicted along with Donald Trump and eighteen others in the Georgia election case. In October 2023, she pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts of conspiring to intentionally interfere with the performance of election duties. She was sentenced to six years of probation and agreed to testify against the other defendants.
In direct response to election changes related to the COVID-19 pandemic and 2020 United States presidential election in Georgia; the Donald Trump 2020 presidential campaign launched numerous civil lawsuits contesting the election processes of Georgia. All of these were either dismissed or dropped.
