Posted on 10/11/2006 1:52:56 AM PDT by abb
Kim will not be a prosecution witness. She's a hindrance, not a help, to Liefong's so-called "case" against the boys.
As long as Kim's faux pas list doesn't get much longer, she will be an acceptable, but controversial witness, for the defense. She has several strikes against her, with her criminal history - not the 911 call or the phony story about where she picked Mangum up - being the most troublesome, but none that can't be overcome to an acceptable (believable) presentation with the right rehabilitation by the defense. On a scale of 1 - 10, the value of her testimony is about a 9; her quality as a witness is about a 4 right now, although she could be bumped up to a 5 with some intensive work by the defense. They have to put her flaws and failures up front and square, then move on. That means the jury won't like her much, but they may mostly believe her and somewhat forgive her criminal conduct when she was younger (she never physically injured anyone - non-violent thief), especially if she has caught her restitution payments up and is working at a legitimate job. If her kid is doing well in school and not in trouble, all that sort of thing, enures to her benefit if those things can be honestly demonstrated. Remember, Kim was a military brat, and there may be more structure in her life than we are aware of at this time. Anyway, this is not an unusual situation with many witnesses, all of whom have barnacles and warts. It's all a matter of degree. Kim has plenty, but she's hardly hopeless. There are jurors who wouldn't even like the pope or Mother Theresa. Look at Amber Frey. Dumb as a brick, several illegitimate kids, posed nude for "modeling" photos, dated several married men, and so on, and she was turned into an angel on the stand, unimpeachable, impeccable integrity, all because she told the truth with her head held high. Granted, she didn't stumble out of the gate as Kim has, and her baggage wasn't as heavy as Kim's is, and she was younger at the time with a shorter track record, but the point is that people can be rehabilitated if their background isn't marred with violent acts or repeated serious criminal acts, and the lies they told were minor and not directly germaine to the case, especially when it's coming from somebody in a class of somewhat low expectations in the first place. Kim apparently isn't well educated or trained ina professional field. Kim's lie about how she came to have Mangum in the car won't be held against her when it's pointed out that she could have completely insulated herself against the warrant issue by simply dumping Mangum somewhere or leaving her at the party. That's rehabilitation of a witness.
For all we know, she may have. If she told Liefong she was bailing on him, do you think he would act on that now, before the election? I don't. I think he would keep it to himself. She isn't going to go public. Maybe he's the one she's hiding out from?
You're right - Liefong didn't force her to make the accusation, but he is responsible for where it went from the accusation stage. He has had full control of this from the time she signed on the dotted line. If she really wanted to go forward with this case from the start, the photo line-ups would not have been done the way they were. There are other indicators that Nifong led her by the nose rather than letting her back out through what had been her established M.O. in the past when she pulled a false accusation to save her own butt.
How would the photo line ups be done? She kept picking people.
If she didn't want to go forward, what exactly kept her from saying she couldn't recognize anyone?
Yep, and not only that, he's getting PAID to carry out the responsibilities of his oath of office under established, professional standards - standards that Mangum isn't obligated to as a private citizen.
I agree. Crystal could have stopped this at any time by just refusing to ID anyone. Instead she picked out three people whose lives are now in turmoil.
I blame Nifong more because he is clearly the driving force behind this. And of course he is a DA and is supposed to seek justice. I don't think Crystal intended for this to blow up into the national spectacle it became. I think she made the charges to get out of a bad situation and never intended to follow up on them as she has in the past. But she had a big moment of truth at that final line-up and she failed miserably as a human being.
Anonymous said... [JinC blog]
John,
There's too much to cover in one segment, so there will be at least
two segments, only the first of which will be shown Sunday night.
The first challenge is to show the Durham County voters that electing
Nifong would be a crime.
The second is to let accuser Crystal Gail Mangum know that admitting
that there was no rape is the right way to go.
And "60" is privy to info that has not appeared in blogs,* hard as that may
be to imagine. (NONE of it good news for Nifong or Crystal, of course.)
Michael J. Gaynor
8:27 AM [Oct. 14, 2006]
http://johninnorthcarolina.blogspot.com/2006/10/60-minutes-six-sure-bets.html
* Extortion, set-ups, and scams.
Nifong: "The allegation that I've heard that this is all some kind of a setup
is quite an elaborate allegation, and I haven't heard any convincing
circumstances being discussed about not only who would do such
a thing, but why such an elaborate plan would have been discussed.
And whether or not the people that are supposedly involved were
even capable of such an elaborate deception,....."
* Is this why the DA reads the blogs?
What ever happened to that old white car?
She picked bunches of people in the first couple line-ups in numbers that didn't comport with her final version of the story of 3 guys gang-raping her, or she picked people who could not have possibly been there which means she had never seen them before, and before that she gave descriptions that didn't fit any of the players she eventually did pick. That points to a person who didn't want to make a viable identification in my book. If you finally settle on saying 3 guys did it, and you pick 20, then next time you pick 12, then 15, or then 4, to me it looks like you're being pressured to pick someone, but you can't, so you just pick a bunch to meet the pressure but in such a way that the choices are not useful.
The photo line-ups did not meet the state criminal justice system's protocols in any way, shape or form, and probably did not meet USSC case law precedent which requires that the photos and the presentation not be unduly suggestive or biased, which these clearly were.
They don't fit? Really? Three people have been indicted based on those line ups that don't fit. How much do you want to bet the judge is not going to throw the IDs out?
If she didn't want to go forward, all she had to say she can't recognize anyone. But she kept picking and picking.
Well, the worst that would have happened is that he would have gone back to his old job as a flunky prosecuting parking tickets and red-light violations. I don't know that he would have been out of a job, but maybe someone here from the area knows the answer for sure. If he would have reverted back to his old job, I'm sure the pay increase of being DA was certainly more desirable, but I tend to think it was the power of the position he coveted most.
And what would have happened if Crystal spent a night in Durham Access?
Yet a lot of you seem to excuse her accusations because she just had to get out of the difficult situation.
I don't disagree that the local judge might not throw the IDs out. Sadly, I see that happening more so on appeal, which will set another bad precedent for NC if the IDs stay and then Liefong loses the case. I hope there's a friend of the court or an interested public policy NGO that picks up that ball and runs with it if that happens. It should not stand, even if the boys are acquitted (assuming this ever gets to trial).
jenny, what in the world are you talking about? I don't excuse her one little bit. I'm afraid you're misunderstanding "reason" as "excuse." Let me illustrate it this way: if a man gets hit by a bus because the busdriver was drunk, and the mans ends up in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, the "reason", not "excuse", for him being in a wheelchair is because he got hit by a bus, right? We have a situation here in which there is plenty of blame to spread around, but the fact remains that Mangum could stand on a street corner with every media camera trained on her for 6 months crying rape, and if a responsible, honest DA did not think there was any case to prosecute, he would let her stand there screeching until the cows came home but there would be no prosecution of those boys, period. Her power stops with her mouth. Liefong's power does not stop. He had the authority to nip this in the bud. Instead, he chose to use his powers and authority to run with it for his own political purposes. Mangum didn't walk into that grand jury and present a case. Liefong did.
These days Liefong is defending motions in court. We have no idea when the last time he or any of his minions had contact with her was. We don't know that she hasn't bailed on him and he just refuses to announce that, again for political purposes.
Oops, make that "the man was drunk", not the busdriver.
I would love to be a fly on the wall of the Nifong abode for the next 24 hours. Do you think he will watch "60" tomorrow?
As far as who bears the brunt of responsibilty for this horror, I pick Mike.
jennyd was commenting that Crystal could have simply refused to identify anyone. I recall that there was some blog chatter about friends and/or relatives possibly finding themselves incarcerated during the time the various "id" sessions were held. If that was the case, it may have been a reason for her to "cooperate." (This is speculation on my part - I do not know for a fact that any of her people were, in fact, in jail.) But, in general, I do agree that Crystal is, most likely, a weak person. I don't think she has the capacity to think far enough ahead to realize that her actions have consequences; much less to have a viable understanding of just what those consequences might be.
Those arrest came away after the line ups, so I am not sure what it is you recall.
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