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.
"That's extortion!!!!"
Whatta ya gonna do...call Nifong????
:-)
I think so-
Isn't that why Finnerty's was continued until June? His wasn't ready. I'll ping Howlin to this she knows the answer.
Nifong will stall by saying his "investigation isn't complete." It's instructive we mananged to post the breaking news BEFORE FoxNews put it on the air. Which is why "News Reporing is Too Important to be Left to Journalists"....
What did it for me was the still-dirty bathroom with evidence left intact and then the lack of DNA.
Nifong is a fool.
I like it!
I guess he'll be faxing another wussy statement.
Reporters get their news at FR, it seems.....and we only sit at our computers in our pajamas doing the work that reporters won't do. (Hmmm, that line sounds familiar. :))
I haven't a clue. Too funny IF the cousin is a transvestite. LOL
Did you see the TV picture of cousin Jakki (sp?) w/the white female reporter? Jakki was tall, big boned, and looked huge beside the reporter....a really BIG person.
(No link.)
Column: Duke tries to shift the blame
by John Schelp, guest columnist
Herald-Sun, 16 May 2006
Durham City Manager Patrick Baker is a profile in
courage. And Duke administrators should be ashamed of
themselves for trying to shift public attention away
from their incompetence by blaming the Durham police
for Duke's mishandling of the lacrosse case.
It's irresponsible for Duke officials to suggest that
the Durham Police Department was not taking the sexual
assault allegations very seriously. The well-known
facts say otherwise. Durham police immediately
launched a full investigation into the allegations.
For Duke officials to claim it took them weeks realize
how serious the situation was, when the investigation
was being reported in both the local and national
press means they're either clueless -- or having
difficulty with truthfulness.
This is not the first time Duke officials have tried
to shift the blame when they get in trouble. Sadly,
Duke often tries to shift the blame to the city:
After some of the infamous out-of-control parties a
few years ago, newspaper and listserv accounts
described Duke students vomiting and urinating in
yards, yelling curses at neighbors, kicking down
neighbors' doors and throwing beer bottles at pregnant
women. In response, Duke's PR official John Burness
blamed the Durham police for not being aggressive
enough in their policing of the students' behavior and
added that the police had apologized for this. Burness
said nothing about the behavior of the students or of
any responses Duke would be taking to curb the
behavior.
After Duke's efforts to secretly buy Erwin Field were
exposed, Burness was quoted in the newspaper blaming
the city for not talking with surrounding
neighborhoods about Duke's campus land-use plans.
Ironically, at the time, Duke officials (including
Burness) were engaged in discussions with surrounding
neighborhoods about their campus land-use plans. But
at no point during these discussions did Duke
officials mention its plans for the soccer field next
to Central Campus.
After a Duke official got caught trying to change the
university-college ordinance to allow unlimited retail
on Central Campus, Burness told a reporter that what
upset the neighbors was an e-mail from the City-County
Planning Department.
What in fact upset the neighbors was a university
official going behind our backs to change a critical
element of the ordinance that we were led to believe
was already settled.
The Bowen-Chambers report does reach a very important
conclusion: "it is a mistake to have responsibility
for Duke outreach efforts into the community overseen
by the Vice President for Public Affairs. The effect,
as one person put it, is to think of everthing Duke
does as motivated by PR concerns rather than by a
genuine interest in the welfare of the community." The
sooner President Brodhead moves the Neighborhood
Partnership Initiative out of Duke's PR office the
better.
To Baker: Keep up the good work. Ask Duke why
administrators sat on their report for four days
before its release? Why didn't they give you a
heads-up on what it said about the investigation?
Are they sitting on any other reports we should know
about?
To senior Duke officials: How dare you talk publicly
about healing between town and gown -- while trying to
shift the blame for your incompetence to the City of
Durham?
>>Did you see the TV picture of cousin Jakki (sp?) w/the white female reporter? Jakki was tall, big boned, and looked huge beside the reporter....a really BIG person.<<
If it's true that Jakki is really Jack, I'm going to be LMAO!!
Perfect fact for this wacky case.
ltc, you are right about community service hours. Full time students are required to complete 15 hours per semester. Part time are required to do at least 4 per semester. She did none. Maybe she was going to try to claim "artistic dancing" for the frat house at NCCU she entertained as well as the Lacrosse house. Probably got so drunk she couldn't remember why she went to either one.
I would love to see for the next 40 days EVERY lacrosse player take and give the reults to a lie-detector until Nifong raises the white flag.
Full time students are required to complete 15 hours per semester.
________________________________________________________
Actually 12 semmester hours is pretty standard around the country to be a full time student. It meets federal regulations and I would bet that NCCU uses the same standard.
The company he worked for went under in Dec.
(my sister's husband owned it; he payed for their lifestyle by skimming off the top; I have anger issues, my sister says...Gee.Ya think?)
Sissy, I love the man, but he is here all the damned time! Everytime I turn around, there he is!!!
But you know what really kills me??? I am always hearing how many clean towels, clean socks, clean underwear, clean whatever we have left. OVER & OVER & OVER He will not relax until that washing machine is spinning.
LOL! SO I'll wait another day to do any laundry. I can wait my husband & sons out everytime. They still haven't learned.
Any pics of Jakki beside the reporter? I was astonished to see the difference in their sizes. Of course, there ARE big and diminitive women, but the contrast was startling.
SO sad. Three boys lives have been destroyed and Patrick Baker is playing the blame game.
I don't recall seeing another image of Jackie.
Reckon what the Nancy Grace bitch is gonna have to say about all this?
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