Posted on 06/22/2006 2:23:47 AM PDT by abb
DURHAM -- District Attorney Mike Nifong plans to give defense lawyers at least 300 additional pages of information about the Duke University lacrosse rape case, adding to 1,298 pages of documentation surrendered previously.
Without describing their contents, Nifong said the new documents would be handed over during a preliminary hearing today for three recently indicted lacrosse players: Collin Finnerty, Reade Seligmann and David Evans.
The three are accused of raping, sodomizing and restraining an exotic dancer in a bathroom during an off-campus party at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. in mid-March.
All are free under $400,000 bonds as they await a trial that, according to Nifong, might begin next spring.
None is expected to attend today's hearing.
In addition to a transfer of documents, the hearing will include a request from Seligmann's lawyers that his bond be lowered to roughly one-tenth its current level. The lawyers filed an affidavit in support of that request Wednesday.
Signed by Philip Seligmann, the defendant's father, the affidavit said that Seligmann had been recruited by every Ivy League university to play football or lacrosse, and that he accepted a 90-percent scholarship to be on the Duke lacrosse team.
"This case has taken an unbelievable and horrendous emotional toll on all my family, especially my wife," the elder Seligmann wrote. "We are committed as a family, along with Reade, to do everything necessary to restore our good name."
According to the affidavit, Seligmann's bail money was provided by a family friend whose "loss of income is substantial" as a result.
In a related matter, the News and Observer Publishing Co. moved Wednesday to make public certain documents -- reportedly pertaining to the alleged rape victim's medical records -- that were filed by defense lawyers under seal.
"In this case, the fact that there are charges of sexual assault is unfortunate and controversial -- either because a woman has been sexually violated or because the defendants have been wrongfully accused -- but neither is a justification for sealing a court proceeding," a lawyer for the newspaper wrote.
The lawyer, Hugh Stevens, also said the sealed documents raised questions about Nifong's handling of the case. He said that when the conduct of public officials is at issue, it is an added reason for making the pertinent files public.
Meanwhile, several defense lawyers predicted Wednesday that Nifong's latest 300-plus pages of documentation would do little to help him, since earlier paperwork -- in their view -- was more beneficial to the defense than the prosecution.
For example, attorneys Joe Cheshire and Brad Bannon have said the earlier documents showed a "very significant and disturbing deficiency" in Nifong's evidence.
Specifically, there were indications that Nifong began making public statements about the accuser's medical records even before they were in his possession, according to the two lawyers, who represent Evans.
Cheshire and Bannon said the District Attorney's Office subpoenaed the accuser's medical files from Duke Hospital on March 20 -- six days after the alleged rape.
However, the files were not printed out in compliance with the subpoena until March 30, and Police Investigator Benjamin Himan didn't pick them up until April 5, Cheshire and Bannon wrote in court paperwork last week.
But the lawyers said Nifong told a local television station on March 27 that he had no doubt the exotic dancer was raped, based on a "personal review" of her medical records. They quoted the district attorney as saying, "My reading of the report of the emergency room nurse would indicate that some type of sexual assault did in fact take place."
Citing the 1,298 pages of documentation given them by Nifong earlier, various defense lawyers also have contended there were numerous inconsistencies in the accuser's version of events, along with unacceptable omissions in a sworn affidavit prepared by police. The affidavit was used by Himan to obtain judicial permission for his evidence-gathering efforts.
Among other things, Himan failed to mention that a co-dancer had described the rape allegation as "a crock," even though she was with the accuser for all but about five minutes on the night in question, according to defense lawyers.
Nifong has bristled at that and other defense characterizations of his evidence, while attacking the national press corps for -- in his opinion -- blindly reporting the characterizations without checking their accuracy.
"Is anyone surprised that the defense attorneys are spinning this case in such a way that things do not look good for the prosecution?" Nifong wrote in an e-mail to Newsweek magazine last week.
"Their job, after all, is to create reasonable doubt, a task made all the easier by an uncritical national press corps desperate for any reportable detail, regardless of its veracity," the district attorney said.
The e-mail traffic was made public by Nifong on Monday.
URL for this article: http://www.herald-sun.com/durham/4-746370.html
Thanks, guess I'd better get to the store now. The good part is husband and sons will be gone, out of the house, out of my hair!
This could be important...
Not if you can recognize it when you see it and post on a forum like FreeRepublic and thereby cause the eyes of the world to focus on the situation. In time, even the "pod people", as one of our dear FRiends has called them, will get the message. It will be a long and tedious struggle, but we fiddled while Rome burned for a few decades and let this get out of control. The bill, when it comes due, is always a shock. Honest, decent people will see that it gets paid and work hard to see it never gets out of their control again. It's not like we can sleep through and wake up on the other side in Paradise. We need to stay awake and plant for a harvest now.
Believe me I have. I know some of the people on this last committee they've formed.
What committee is that? Are you talking about the people with the blue wristbands? The name escapes me at the moment.
...and so He is if Mr. Nifong's motives are pure, his integrity intact, and his understanding of the law is sound. On the other hand, if all or some of those things are not the case, Mr. Nifong will fall as we all have fallen when we get it wrong. I don't know Mike Nifong. I have no dog in this fight, but I have experienced the system's malfunction and refuse to allow it to continue unabaited. How 'bout it?
exactly, nobody is spinning anything. the da said the dna would clear, the dna cleared. the da and the city denied that the fa had told multiple stories, the police notes show that she did and so on. the defense has not been heard from at all.
What time is the hearing?
In the Duke Chronicle today:
http://www.dukechronicle.com/media/storage/paper884/news/2006/06/22/Letters/Faculty.Administration.Rushed.To.Judgements-2117949.shtml?norewrite200606221251&sourcedomain=www.dukechronicle.com
http://media.www.dukechronicle.com/media/storage/paper884/news/2006/06/22/News/Controversial.Article.Targets.Social.Scene-2117925.shtml?sourcedomain=www.dukechronicle.com&MIIHost=media.collegepublisher.com
Someone said 3 pm Eastern but I can't vouch for that.
A sandwich-board size vigilante poster with all 88 of the sanctimonious profs names and faces should be worn by someone strategically placed behind the cameras at today's hearing.
From President Pind*ck's letter:
"When the Campus Culture Initiative was announced, I mentioned that I would establish a Presidential Council to act as a sounding board for our efforts, critiquing our recommendations and setting an appropriately high standard for our work. I’m pleased to announce the membership of this group. It will be co-chaired by former trustees Wilhelmina Reuben-Cooke ‘67, a member of the first cohort of African American undergraduates admitted to Duke and now Provost of the University of the District of Columbia, and Roy Bostock ‘62, who has led a distinguished business career and now chairs the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. Judy Woodruff ‘68, the respected broadcast journalist and another former trustee, will serve as well, as will three leaders in higher education: Shirley Tilghman, President of Princeton University; Morton Schapiro, President of Williams College; and Phail Wynn, a notable Durhamite and President of the Durham Technical Community College. Four younger alumni have also agreed to serve: Adam Silver ’84 (NBA Deputy Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer, effective July 1), Sarah Dodds-Brown ‘95 (currently counsel for the American Express Company and a former young trustee), Julian Harris ‘00 (a medical student at the University of Pennsylvania and former head of the Duke Honor Council), and Katie Laidlaw ‘04 (associate with The Parthenon Group in Boston and currently a young trustee)."
These people are more related than they appear. They appear to all have been selected by Bostock. Not only is he a huge donor his buddies have been the root of most of Duke's fundraising. He was on, I believe, Duke's best football team in the 1950s and I have it on very good authority that he has some familiarity with "partying" students.
This could be interesting...
Freda Black is commentator on Duke case for Court TV!
Author: hazend
reply
Nifong should be squirming. Wonder if she wil be part of their regular team.
Posted: 6/22/06 10:34 AM
http://forums.go.com/abclocal/WTVD/thread?threadID=121252
You are right, it could be quite interesting to hear what Black has to say.
Now THAT could be fun.
Who is this jerk attorney on Fox? The guy is absolutely misrepresenting the facts.
"Why did Duke hang these students out to dry and suspend the LAX program? There is evidence here of something."
"It's the blue wall of silence."
We gotta raise the standard on admission to the bar. Too many dummies are passing the exams because it's too d@mn easy.
What's DBM?
John Bourlon, member in good standing of the Durham CourtHouse Crowd was just on Dayside. Lots and lots of Koolaid. Sounded like a male version of Wendy Murphy...
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