Duke lacrosse files show gaps in DA's case (DukeLax - NandO FINALLY tells the story)

Raleigh News & Observer ^ | August 6, 2006 | Joseph Neff

[abb]

DURHAM - Investigator Michelle Soucie of the Durham Police Department was working the phones the afternoon of April 17, trying to set up DNA tests on evidence in the Duke lacrosse case. A private laboratory in Burlington gave a price, and Soucie immediately contacted District Attorney Mike Nifong.

- snip -

In examining the files Nifong has produced in the case, The News & Observer found that the accuser gave at least five different versions of the alleged assault to different police and medical interviewers and made shaky identifications of suspects. To get warrants, police made statements that weren't supported by information in their files.

- snip -

Much of the district attorney's evidence is contained in more than 1,800 pages of documents he has made available to the defense under a recent state law requiring prosecutors to open their files before trial. Those documents are only part of the evidence that could be introduced in a criminal trial. They do not include information still being gathered or testimony that might occur under oath.

But they offer the most complete picture thus far of evidence in the case that has put Durham and Duke in the national spotlight. The documents -- police notes, court orders, DNA tests, interviews and handwritten statements -- show what the prosecution has learned and how it conducted itself in State of North Carolina vs. Collin Finnerty, Reade W. Seligmann and David Forker Evans, who could face decades in prison if convicted.

[SarahUSC]

That is damning. Nifong was geared towards getting indictments all along. He didn't care about investigating.

[Protect the Bill of Rights]

I'm just wondering if the name "Matt" came out because there was a Matt at the party or if it was some sort of freudian slip.

(I hated psych nursing with a passion)

[abb]

PING! This just in!

Duke's Trial by Media
Why the seamy lacrosse scandal may be too hot to be true
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060806/14duke.htm

[Protect the Bill of Rights]

Oh God please, let this be the beginning of "Nifong Exposed!"

[abb]

also new
http://www.dukenewsense.com/blog/2006/08/another-sexual-assault.html

[jennyd]

Who knows? Why Bret? Why Adam? Why Matt?
Presumably Dan used the name Adam.
Dan was not arrested. Bret was not arrested, and somebody she identified as Bret (who sort of looked like a man she claimed assaulted her) was ignored during the line up.
Matt was not arrested.
Even though his DNA is apparently found in the bathroom.
Dave, Reade and Collin were arrested.
Is there a manner to this madness? I don't think so.

[maggief]

Still, some aren't buying. Grace, a controversial victim's advocate with a nightly CNN show, dismisses the new story line. "These are guys partying at their house with strippers? And they're angels? I'm not buying that," Grace tells U.S.News. "But I've also made no bones about it: If [the alleged victim] has lied, she must be prosecuted for making a false report."

B!tch!

[maggief]

Looks like there was a bit of truth to the "rumor." I hope we can anticipate more. :)

[JLS]

Here's one other thing I didn't know - at Durham Access someone asked Precious if she had been raped and she said yes. She never volunteered that herself. I wonder if that planted the idea in her head?

Yep that was the one new bit of information to me. Someone at Durham Access suggested that something happened to a person with a history of filing false claims with the police. So she cried rape, what a surprise.

[jennyd]

What exactly is Grace not buying? That they are angels?
I don't think anyone claimed they are actually angels.

[maggief]

I believe she is implying that something must have happened.

[abb]

CTV boards still shut down... ROFLMAO!!!

[Mad-Margaret]

Jezebelle: I don't see where they performed any actual investigation.

abb: Precisely. There's not a single bit of information in this article that we here didn't already know. And now the N&O has finally caught up to the 21st century...

Me: I agree with both of you. I didn't see anything new in here that we haven't known for at least two months. And if we knew it, then the N&O could (and should) have known it.

First, the N&O could have interviewed Abrams, who had reviewed all 1800 pages of the discovery documents. There's nothing "unjournalistic" about following a story that has been broken by another reporter. You attribute the source. It's done all the time. Instead, we had the MSM, including the N&O, ignoring Abrams' report as if it didn't exist. How many times did we hear: "We don't know what Nifong has"? Well, yes we did. And this is the whole case.

According to N&O: Much of the district attorney's evidence is contained in more than 1,800 pages of documents he has made available to the defense under a recent state law requiring prosecutors to open their files before trial. Those documents are only part of the evidence that could be introduced in a criminal trial. They do not include information still being gathered or testimony that might occur under oath.

Information still being gathered? This is a five-month old rape case. Ain't no more information to be gathered at this point.

Testimony under oath? And if any testimony under oath contradicts statements already given, that testimony isn't going to carry much weight -- under oath or not.

Second, the N&O could have found this information if it had bothered to read the defense motions. It was all in the supporting documents filed two months ago.

Yep, jezebelle and abb, I agree. This was hardly "investigative reporting." However, let's give the N&O credit for compiling this information and slapping it in its Sunday edition. For many in Durham, this IS new information.

hich brings me to the key question: Why now? Granted, it's August -- the slowest news month of the year. Although with the mideast and Mel Gibson, there is other news out there.

So why now? And how did the N&O get its hands on the 1800 pages of discovery? What about that quasi-gag order?

Anyone think that the N&O is preparing its readership for the dismissal of this case? And anyone think that that dismissal is very soon at hand? Sorry this was long.

[abb]

Floor plan of 610 Buchanan

From abc11tv.com
http://forums.go.com/abclocal/WTVD/thread?threadID=125962

This is interesting...

A poster on La Shawn's blog describes the layout of 610 N. Buchanan...the site of the rape that never was.

---

Dear La Shawn,

There has been a lot of topographical confusion (deliberate confusion) by the prosecution in the Duke case. I believe I was the first to point this out yesterday (August 4th) on the Talk Left site (There are a lot of conservatives over there right now and Talk Left is being a very good sport about this as, I believe, you and she were the first bloggers to come the defense of the embattled boys.)

Anyway here’s the deal. The Dukie house is very small,only fourteen hundred square feet,built around the turn of the twentieth century with a comparatively remote small bedroom and adjoining small bathroom that,at most, holds two average size people comfortably. This is the bathroom where the accuser eventually settled as the site on which the non-rape allegedly occurred.

There is further a very large living room which can accommodate over forty and still allow space for the now infamous four minute dance which the False Accuser claims led immediately to a thirty minute assault by twenty, five (two separate groups of), three, two or no athletes as the spirit moves her.

Off the living room is what may very loosely be termed the Master bedroom and another small bathroom. It sleeps two of the three other captains,Dave Evans and, presumably, Dan Flaherty.

The Master bedroom holds twenty,if you want to cram twenty two hundred pounders into a telephone booth. On the night in question ten or more of the boys were watching a perfectly unobjectionable television show in that bedroom.Further the photographs taken between midnight and 12:07 clearly show the False Accuser
in the living room with well over twenty team members.The second dancer also states the dance occurred in the living room,the only physically possible spot in the house.

Now here’s the rub.The search warrant on which the “incriminating” towel and rug were seized states that the dance was held in the Master bedroom(which was fully occupied).If the dance was held in the Master bedroom,the “rapists” would immediately have carried her into the adjacent bathroom rather than back through the (empty??) living room,across the entire length of the house,and into the minuscule bathroom on the far side.

This entire case is,of course,on the far side;but there is no doubt about what the false accuser was claiming.She was not misquoted by the cops on the search warrant.On April 4th when she finally(after five previous identification parades) identified Collin and Reade and no less than fifteen more kids,she repeatedly identified them as all being in the Master bedroom,not the living room.Again from the Master bedroom one proceeds to Dave’s bathroom not Matt’s. No major newspaper or tv service has caught on to the fact that she and the Nifong controlled cops have her dancing in two different places with two different bathrooms.

So they found Matt’s semen on his bathroom rug and Dave’s semen,at the other end of the house, on a towel outside his bathroom.No one else’s semen is anywhere. Could it be that these kids lead much less fascinating lives than Al Sharpton and the New Black Panthers imagine?

Sydney Carton

Comment by Sydney Carton — 08.05.06 @ 11:55 am

http://lashawnbarber.com/archives/2006/08/04/semen-in-the-house/

Comment #20

[CondorFlight]

"Is there a manner to this madness? I don't think so"

Finnerty and Evans happen to be the wealthiest; and
Finnerty had the DC strike against him.

[maggief]

http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/gaynor/060806


Doomsday is coming for Durham's diabolical duo


Michael Gaynor
August 6, 2006

[abb]

MM, in the article Neff says, "...the N & O found..."

Jezebelle and I thought the term "admitted" would fit better, lol...

[RecallMoran]

NG is an idiot and rhetorical bomb-thrower, nothing more. SHe is one of the fools that invested herself with the FA's story because she so desparately believed that men are presumably rapists, and is now concerned about the consequences of her boneheaded decision early on.

Watch for the remaining FA supporters to start heading for the hills.

[CondorFlight]

"Anyone think that the N&O is preparing its readership for the dismissal of this case? And anyone think that that dismissal is very soon at hand?"

Maybe. But let's make sure that by the time the next "setting" in August rolls around, any judge who wants to let this case continue
another minute, is going to look like a fool idiot with
donkey ears pinned on him; because by then everyone
will/should know just how vacuous this case realy is.

[CondorFlight]

Good article.

"The North Carolina Democrat establishment has to cut its losses. Mr. Nifong, don't expect continued protection from the big bosses. The abomination gag order was your last gift. In the future, it will be short shrift. You can't justify what you did, so, of you, they must be rid. "

Maybe pretty soon Easley and the AG will decide that they can move in and appear to be the rescuers. Look for the FBI (late!) and the DOJ (late!) and all your congressmen and senators to start claiming credit (for doing nothing); and even the Duke Law Faculty and Brodhead to assert they are pleased the players were "proven innocent" and are eager
to welcome them back to Duke.

And even the media will try and take a bow.

(But it'll be worth the price to have this thing tossed in the dust bin where it belongs.)