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Jurors still undecided in home invasion trial

By John Stevenson : The Herald-Sun, Oct 26, 2006 : 8:21 pm ET

DURHAM -- Jurors deliberated all afternoon Thursday without reaching a verdict on whether Thaddius Wright participated in a northern Durham home invasion in which a man was seriously wounded and a dog was shot dead.

Deliberations will continue today.

Wright is accused of first-degree burglary, attempted murder, cruelty to animals and felonious speeding to elude arrest as a result of the November 2004 incident at Foxfire Apartments.

Rueben Garnett shared an apartment with his paraplegic cousin, the cousin's girlfriend and a dog named Jigger. Garnett was shot four or five times in the midsection and the dog was killed by intruders who barged into the residence with guns blazing.

Garnett testified that he could not identify the gunmen.

In a confession, Wright admitted he went to the apartment with two others and helped kick the door open. But he said he ran back to a car before the shooting started.

Prosecutor Stormy Ellis hopes to convict him of all the crimes under a legal theory known as "acting in concert." It holds that someone who shares a "common scheme, plan or purpose" with a criminal is as guilty as the actual perpetrator.

"If you run with the pack, you're responsible for the kill," Ellis told jurors in a closing argument Thursday. "There is strength and bravado in numbers. This is about three men plotting and committing a serious crime, a serious crime against man and beast."

After the home invasion, the three suspects led police on a chase from Durham to Hillsborough and back at speeds of up to 80 mph, Ellis said.

The chase ended when a van collided with the suspects' car at Roxboro and Horton roads. Ellis said officers had to pull Wright from the wrecked car because he "was not getting out."

The officers found a gun near where Wright had been sitting in the rear passenger area, Ellis added.

But defense lawyer Woodrena Baker-Harrell said in a closing argument that Wright's confession was not believable.

She cited evidence that Wright gave officers a false name as he made the statement, calling himself Lee Hawkins.

"He lied," Baker-Harrell said. "He even lied about his name. You think that's the only lie in that statement? That confession is not worth much of anything.

She conceded Wright was in the car but that it wasn't established that he went with the others into the apartment.

"We don't have him in that home," she said. " Mr. Wright was not the shooter. He wasn't the driver. He wasn't part of the plan. That's why Mr. Wright is not guilty."

http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-782264.html

* Typical Durham jury trial. Mountains of evidence. Dead bodies and lengthy rap sheets. Everybody's lying.
Who is the jury to believe? This thug may walk. These trials don't take long though.

Nifong says he didn't talk to accuser in rape case

By Michael Biesecker, Staff Writer, N&O, Published: Oct 27, 2006 11:15 AM

DURHAM -- Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong said today that he has had no direct discussions with the accuser in the Duke lacrosse case about what happened to her the night she says she was raped.

The statement came at a pre-trail hearing where lawyers for the three lacrosse players charged with rape and assault had asked a judge to order Nifong to produce notes about his conversations with the woman as part of the discovery information prosecutors are to provide to the defense.

Nifong and Durham police detectives met with the accuser April 11 to discuss the mechanics of how the criminal case would proceed, but the woman was still too distraught to talk about what had happened to her at a March 23 party where she was hired to dance. The News & Observer does not typically identify the alleged victims of sexual assault.

"She probably did not speak 15 words," Nifong said of the woman's emotional state. "She had trouble making eye contact. She looked like she was going to cry."

Besides that meeting, Nifong also disclosed a phone call he made to the accuser after an attorney for an unindicted lacrosse player told him the woman had been using the drug ecstasy the night of the party.

"I asked her if she was taking ecstasy that night and she said, 'I have never taken ecstasy in my life,'" Nifong said.

Other than that, Nifong said he had only talked with the accuser to check in on how she and her children were doing. There was no further information to provide to the defense, Nifong said, because there was no further information to give. But even if there were such information in his possession, the prosecutor argued he might not necessarily be required by state law to disclose it.

"She was still too traumatized for any meaningful discussion to take place," Nifong said of the April 11 meeting with the accuser. "They seem not to be satisfied by that, but no matter how many times they ask the answer will be the [same]" sic.

http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/503439.html