Posted on 05/15/2006 7:14:12 AM PDT by pissant
DURHAM - A Durham grand jury is scheduled to meet today, and the session could mean new charges in the investigation of a reported rape at a Duke lacrosse team party.
Two of the team's players were indicted in April on charges of first degree rape, first degree sex offense and first degree kidnapping. They are accused of assaulting an escort service dancer in a bathroom of a house at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. Their lawyers say the men are innocent, and lawyers representing dozens of team members say that no sex or assault occurred at the March 13 party.
But the woman says she was attacked by three men, and Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong said he has been working on bringing charges against a third person.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN TODAY? If Nifong decides to submit the case, police investigators and possibly other witnesses will try to convince grand jurors in a secret session that the state has probable cause to bring a case forward. Grand jurors will hear only the prosecution's side of the case. The standard required for a true bill of indictment is far lower than the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard required for a conviction.
IF INDICTMENTS ARE ISSUED, WHEN WILL THEY BECOME PUBLIC? On April 17, a judge ordered the indictments in the lacrosse case sealed. The names of the players who were indicted were not released until 5 a.m. the next day when the players surrendered at the Durham County jail. If Nifong again requests that the indictments be sealed, the law allows a judge to keep them secret until the person is arrested or appears in court.
WHEN WILL ALL THE EVIDENCE BE REVEALED? State law requires prosecutors to turn over all of their case files to defense lawyers, but nothing requires the evidence to be turned over to the public. In open court hearings, lawyers often discuss some of the evidence, but the state's case may not be revealed until trial. No trial dates have been set. When a report on the DNA testing is complete, Nifong is required by law to turn it over to all 46 members of the lacrosse team who submitted DNA samples.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? The cases against Reade William Seligmann, 20, of Essex Fells, N.J., and Collin Finnerty, 19, of Garden City, N.Y., are moving forward. Finnerty has a court date in June. Seligmann is scheduled to appear in court Thursday. His attorney, Kirk Osborn, has filed a series of motions challenging Nifong's handling of the case and asking a judge to bar the prosecutor from further involvement.
Yes, that is significant. I was just saying that the nail doesn't help the prosectuion at all, if you have a brain. No blood, first of all, but if there was truly this violent attack, and you concocted some crazy explanation as to why your supersensitive DNA test could not detect any on her or on the scene when they were examined shortly afterwards, that explanation is blown our of the water if it turns out that the nail in the garbage has the dna from multiple sources. The better conclusion, in fact the only conclusion, is that the nail picked up dna from multiple people from casual contact. If you read DNA testing protocols, they instruct the investigators to be extra-careful of contamination, wearing gloves and so forth. One would expect then that a half hour long violent rape in an enclose space would leave some trace.
EVEN IF she was able to dig into him, which would be possible at a certain angle, it would have driven the nail back into her cuticle and drawn HER blood. I can tell you...it's very painful.
We scratch like a claw because there is "power" in a claw. (Try it!) All the nails would have popped and or a combination of falling off and "jamming".
Defending a spurious charge is usually ideologically driven. It is my assertion that this is spurious based on the facts of the case to date, including evidence of prosecutorial abuse.
If gender and race was removed, IMO you would have no dog in this fight. Your contrariness is either ideological or just plain obnoxious. A distinction without a difference.
They would almost have to use his DNA as a control.
They often use the detectives DNA.
Is it possible they had his DNA from his "rowdy" arrest?? I'd sure like to know that because of the way this is going.
You're absolutely right. No trace of the victims sexual fluids in the bathroom. Hell, that's on CSI every other week.
How would she explain to police that she arrived with over $1000 at a strange house where she would be leaving that cash in an unsecured area? The $2000 is a red flag.
I am a male so I have never wore any of these. When my nails start getting longer I start having problems with them. I don't know how people can function with really long nails.
Isn't that the truth. It's ridiculous.
The DPD were fishing for drugs with iteam #11, I bet.
Nancy Grace kept speaking last night about the FLESH under her nail.
I had the damn nails on. All I had to do was get my jeans zipped and button the old "Navy" button. I tried laying my petite 100 pound body down on the bed to shrink my belly into oblivian.
I wound up taking 4 nails off to do the button. Of course I laughed at myself!! It was Ridiculous!!...but I was oh soooo TRES CHIC!!
Yeah, but I thought warrants had to be specific. You can't go fishing with a warrant as far as I know.
Lawyers love this line!!
Yesterday Cheshire chastised the press by saying (paraphrasing, but the basic points) "And why are you all reporting that the DNA was UNDERNEATH the plastic nail? You know why? You heard DNA and fingernail and you just assumed it had to be underneath and went off chasing that theory like rabbits." Then he later said, "In fact when you see this fingernail, you are going to be very surprised." Hinting that possibly it had never been applied. I would take that to mean that he was trying to quash the "she scratched them and her nails came off." theory.
Thanks but no thanks. I think these guys have attorneys who will ask much better questions on cross than I could come up with.
Boy this top of the nail DNA is yet another bombshell in my mind.
Also letting Evans graduate before indicting him is quite interesting. That probably saved Durham $1,000,000 in the suit against Durham that may yet reach seven figures anyway. I wonder why they did that? As Thomas Sowell suggested, we may just be in the "cooling the mark" stage, Nifong knows this is going now where and he is now biding his time to have a reason to drop the case.
Actually item 11 is boilerplate. In the course of executing a search, the police are allowed to seize any other contraband or evidence of a crime, even if not the subject of a warrant. For example, if the police are executing a warrant to search for evidence of a sexual assault, and happen to come across a bag of cocaine, they are allowed to seize the cocaine and investigate that as a separate crime, no matter what the search warrant specified. In fact, in general, as long as a police officer's presence in a particular place is lawful, he is allowed to seize and investigate any evidence of crime that is in plain view.
I just re-watched the press conference from yesterday... this is what Cheshire said...
I don't have to get into transference with you....... You all just wait until you see the fingernail and match it up to this false accurser's statement. It will show you a tremendous amount.Sounds like he's putting some doubt out there without actually saying it wasn't under the nail.
snip...
In other words his only additional new evidence is she had sex other with somebody other than Dave Evans so Dave Evans gets indicted...
snip...
And first of all this has been reported as being found underneath the nail.. I don't know where you all get that. I mean I assume you would get that becaue you would think that if somebody's scratched that there would be something underneath the nail, that is something that is just put out and y'all just grabbed and ran like rabbits with... there's no evidence of that as far as I know..
But I will say this about underneath a nail.. Every expert we've talked to said if there was something that happened the way this false accuser described it that there would be blood under the nail, and there is no blood.
Unfortunately the photo has been cropped. I can't see her foot to know if there is a shoe on it or not. Also can not see if the driver has a bra strap showing.
I'd love to see the uncropped version. Anybody have it???
My theory is that they're just playing with the location of the DNA on the nail.....ignoring the fact that it was HIS bathroom. How could they even consider a DNA sample as not being contaminated?? Impossible!
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