Posted on 04/11/2006 12:16:48 PM PDT by Perdogg
DURHAM -- The Duke lacrosse team rape investigation will continue until all three attackers are identified, District Attorney Mike Nifong told an N.C. Central University audience Tuesday.
Nifong, who was added late Monday to a previously scheduled panel to discuss the investigation with NCCU students and faculty, countered arguments made Monday by Duke lacrosse players' lawyers, who said DNA test results cleared all 46 team members.
Nifong said further DNA tests are being conducted and that the woman making the allegations has identified at least one lacrosse player as an attacker.
"I hope you will understand by my presence here this morning that the case is not going away," Nifong said. DNA results can be helpful, but DNA evidence is absent in 75 to 80 percent of cases, he said. They also can clear the innocent, which remains an important consideration, after the March 13 team party at which team members admit hiring two exotic dancers. One of them told police three men took her into a bathroom of the house at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd., where they beat and raped her.
"Until we identify all three of those people, that means some of these young men are going to be walking around under a cloud," Nifong said.
But, he said later, in response to a comment in a question-and-answer that police and prosecutors arrest black suspects more quickly than whites in such cases: "There was no identification of any member of the lacrosse team until last week" and that identification of an attacker in this case will be a question for a jury to decide.
Also Tuesday, prominent Washington, D.C., attorney Bob Bennett stepped into the case, saying he has been retained by the Committee for Fairness to Duke Families, an newly formed organization of university supporters affiliated with major contributors, athletes and students.
Bennett told the Associated Press that members of the Duke community are being judged "before all the facts are in."
"It is grossly unfair, and cool heads must prevail," he said. "It is important to await the outcome of any investigations that are taking place. Facts are important and should not be disregarded."
The NCCU panel included Durham Mayor Bill Bell, City Councilman Howard Clement, Duke Student Government Association President Jesse Longoria and NCCU student Deondra Ramsey.
Wont he be tossed out of office next month?
I don't know that he can do a perjury trap. The kids new they were under investigation quickly and lawyered up right away.
GOOD FOR THEM!!!
Absolutely. But some people thought this was their attempt to avoid cooperating. From what I could tell they did cooperate other than being interviewed with their lawyers.
LAX ping...this must feel Kafka-esque to those guys.
What does he think he has?
Tell that to Gloria Allred. She's already got the Duke lacrosse team convicted.
Mike Nifong sounds like a Patrick Fitzgerald wannabe.
Don't lacrosse players wear gloves? < /sarc>
"Uncle Bob" is showing up! Well, well.
He does have quiet the experience with perjury defenses, doesn't he?
I'm calling this, "The Rush Limbaugh Treatment."
I'm not sure what will happen, but IF the team is not guilty, I hope they sue Duke for millions.
There was a boyfriend with her at the hospital I heard at one point. I was suspicious then--what kind of boyfriend who respects himself and his girlfriend sticks with a woman who sells herself? And if he doesn't respect either one of them, what is he capable of?
But in thise case, of she said/he said... The DA OF DURHAM is saying? Who cares about DNA?
There have been eggregious lawsuits and extortion of men who are PROVEN BY DNA to not have a fathered a child but are being forced by the courts to pay child support. The legal feministas demand it under the rubric "for the child". No penalties to the mother who LIED about the paternity.
This case, to NIFONG, is about DOLLARS (and votes). He's going to use this case to begin his fundraising/massmailing agenda and using state/county "official" dollars, possibly, to do so? Under the cover of the "IF THE DNA ACQUITS/WE MUST CONVICT" mantra?
Do yourselves a quick spin on the SEARCH engine of FREEREPUBLIC. Search for "DNA". It's quite an education and posters have posted some fantastic info about HOW AND WHEN DNA IS USED, WHAT TYPES OF DNA ARE COLLECTED (SKIN CELLS?), etc.
And while this "case" continues keep your eyes peeled for another arm of the socialist Democratic wing to wage another type of warfare. It's right from their SOP political handbook; a pincer move. Watch the arising of MSM bringing us newer and newer "factual" scientific data about... men's sports, women's sports, DNA, fathering, mothering, the poverty stricken prostitute and why prostitution should be made legal, ad nauseum. My very, very velocitied, two cents.
This is a presser for another purpose; not this case directly. IME. It's a stage setting.
For some reason they weren't allowed to do this.
The DA told them it wasn't necessary at that time.
" So, DNA can be used to free a man from death row. '
How about this for situational hypocrisy ?
Barry Scheck and Peter Nuefeld ( of the OJ Dream Team ) founded Project Innocence. They use DNA evidence to free wrongly convicted rapists and murderers. DNA is their touchstone , unless one plays lacrosse for Duke.
" However, Peter Neufeld, co-founder of The Innocence Project, which focuses on DNA as a way to clear wrongly convicted defendants, says a condom could have been used. And he said that in rape cases, "there is an expectation of DNA but, like many expectations, often it is misplaced."
"The truth is," said Neufeld, "if you speak to crime lab directors, they will tell you that in only a relatively small number of cases is there any DNA evidence."
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