Posted on 05/19/2006 7:17:27 AM PDT by Perdogg
DURHAM, N.C.—One of three Duke University lacrosse players charged with rape wants the case resolved in time for the next school year, his lawyer said in court yesterday. But the judge warned he will not fast-track the proceedings.
The case "is not going to jump ahead of the line and be handled any differently," Superior Court Judge Ronald L. Stephens said at a hearing for sophomore Reade Seligmann.
After the brief hearing, District Attorney Mike Nifong said he does not expect any trial to begin before next year.
(Excerpt) Read more at thestar.com ...
NC Court site - upcoming court dates
full names, DOB's, charges/Case #
(lots of mangums in Durham County courts here)
http://www1.aoc.state.nc.us/www/calendars/CriminalQuery.html
Durham cops and prosecutors are quite aware of what an investigative tool a cellphone and its data is....
Raleigh, NC – News & Observer, December 16, 2001
Petersons' phone calls studied
Husband's attorney asks news media not to make assumptions
By AISLING SWIFT, Staff Writer
DURHAM - Police seized telephone and cellular phone records belonging to Kathleen and Mike Peterson to analyze incoming and outgoing calls during a two-week period before and after her death, according to search warrants made public Saturday. The search, conducted by Detective D.W. Addison and returned Saturday afternoon to Magistrate Jackie Henderson, was conducted Friday and involved calls from 12:01 a.m. Nov. 26 through 12:01 a.m. Wednesday -- three days after Kathleen Peterson was found dead at the bottom of a roughly 20-step back staircase in her Forest Hills estate.
Friends, family and Mike Peterson's attorneys, Kerry Sutton and Barry Winston, call Kathleen Peterson's death a tragic accident, while warrants filed Friday show police have now branded the investigation a murder probe. Addison's affidavit says investigators are looking for the duration of calls from the Petersons' home phone and three cellular phones as well as determining whether the calls were incoming or outgoing. The significance of Nov. 26 isn't detailed, and the calls aren't required to be detailed on an inventory list so what police learned isn't known.
Kerry-Sutton-in-the-news article here:
http://suttonlawoffice.com/_wsn/page10.html
I guess "right away" is a relative term, but the initial police report indicates she was robbed of $2000 and a $300 Sanyo cellular phone...
If she had missed it instantly "right away" she never would have left the house w/o it....
If the cell phone was examined for evidence, shouldn't that have been included in the 1200+ pages that Nifong gave to the defense?
If it was not examined, then he needs to be asked why the hell not.
I believe Nifong said in court that he hadn't examined the phone.
Ken... Nifong's action in court with respect to the cell phone were comical if not totally unbelievable..
The judge asked him if the cell phone was evidence.. He replies with "not the contents of the phone, only the fact that it was found at the house to validate the AV's story"..
He knows exactly what is and is not on the cellular phone... If the AV had taken a time stamped picture of RS or CF at times that conflicted with their alibi they would have been arrested long before the photo lineup...
So his statement to the judge that he didn't know what was on the phone was a bald faced lie, in my opinion...
"NIFONG: Well, Your Honor we have our own, dare I use the term, expert, at the police department who is reviewing the cell phones that were seized, computer disks and things of that nature. And he has not processed this yet, to my knowledge."
From the court transcript. Sounds like the person "processing" the evidence isn't any sort of expert at all....
Or in any hurry.....
Lets see:
1. Vn_survivor_67-68, I do not blame the Durham cops in this case. There behavior indicates they took her claim seriously, transported her to the appropriate medical care, but pretty quickly doubted her story. I would guess like with the photo array, Nifong directed what the police would do with the cell phone.
2. darbymcgill, Certainly she missed it pretty soon after dropping it but not immediately. I think that indicates her state and what we would expect her to be able to remember.
3. Ken H, the cell phone was the big argument of the first setting last week for one of the indicted. Nifong claimed he did not have it, then admitted the police did, but claimed they had not looked at it yet. The defense of course demanded access to it.
Nifong is treading through a minefield of evidence, because if he steps on the wrong thing, he is at risk of legal action against him or his office. With some of the evidence , he needs plausible deniability.
I heard Kimberly Gilfoil on the Radio today - on someone else's show. The guest asked her about the changing of her position on the Duke Case. She said two things have her questioning what is going on in this case:
1) Nifong's refusal to view evidence
2) Nifong's willingness to hear this case in 1 year
She said a DA that is confident would've NEVER let a victim set out there for a year and twist in the wind. She said second year law students know that delays in trials benefit the Defense.
Like most of the news Corpse though, she pointed at Finnerty and said things don't look too good for him.
I have noticed this trend. The News Heads that have come around still want Finnerity's head. Finnerty has almost become a symbol. Seems he represents to some the Racist Rich White boys that thought they were untouchable. Seems some are willing to admit Nifong is unethical or incompetent in exhange for Finnerty's Head on a platter.
(at least I don't think he has, else he would have the photos)
All Right, I don't know anything about Cell phones.
I saw on a TV Crime show where the local hoods automatically erase their call log after each call and that they use stolen phones or pre-paid phones registered to someone else.
The Judge telegraphed that this phone was registered to a third party and not the AVs: Judge Stephens cited privacy concerns.
If the call log was erased by habit, is it still retrievable? Even if there are other methods of getting records unrelated to the phone, the Defense seems to want data from the phone itself. Does anyone know if after the call logs have been erased, can be they be retrieved from the phone?
addendum to post 731: I forgot to mention the players' cameras, in addition to their cell phones. Same thing applies-- if he has the cameras, he should have the photos, and apparently he does not.
The Photos the the Defense has with the Time stamps were not confisicated by the Police or investigators.
Nifong didn't get them. It's not known that they were taken with a cell-phone or Camera.
It's a camera or Cell-phone that wasn't in the house at the time the search warrants were executed. It could've been a a players car that didn't live at the Buchanan house and there are still persistent rumors that there were people that attended the party that were not on the team.
Abrams said the Lead investigator approached NBC about viewing the time-stamped photos, but they wanted to see them unaltered and the NBC affilate only had altered photos. Abrams was allowed to view UNaltered photos, but only the altered photos were left for NBC to disseminate.
The cell phone I was discussing that came up in court last week was said to be hers by the defense and hinted at being a third party's by the judge. It was the cell phone the police gathered persuant the warrant executed at the house a couple of days after the stripper claimed rape.
It seems to me the lead investigator would have no trouble obtaining either a subpoena or search warrant for such critical evidence. For that matter, the defense offered them to the DA, and he refused.
Sounds like Nifong wanted to know if he could use anything against the players, without being in a position of having to acknowledge exculpatory evidence.
Someone said if it was a Tracfone no. But if it is a normal phone yes. Some bloggers paid to get a hold of Wesley Clark's phone records. I think the defense already knows who she called and when. They are just waiting for the DA to turn it over to them so they don't have to say they paid for the records.
I kind of switched horses on you there! It just struck me while reading your post what a glaring omission it was for the DA to seize their computer disks, but not their phones and cameras. This numnuts of a DA has deliberately ignored ALL cell phone and photographic evidence.
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