Posted on 10/27/2006 5:00:15 AM PDT by abb
Nifong to give up more documents to defense
By John Stevenson, The Herald-Sun October 26, 2006 9:44 pm
DURHAM -- District Attorney Mike Nifong today will give defense lawyers about 2,000 additional pages of information about the Duke University lacrosse rape case -- the largest single batch of documentation he has surrendered so far.
Nifong turned over some 1,800 pages of information in one previous court hearing and another 615 pages last month.
After they receive today's batch, defense attorneys will have roughly 4,500 pages of documentation about the case that has polarized Durham, brought intense national publicity to the community and sparked a movement to oust Nifong as chief prosecutor.
In addition to paperwork, defense lawyers will receive 3 DVDs from Nifong today. Among other things, they reportedly contain e-mails generated by Duke students and lacrosse players.
The information will be surrendered in a hearing before Judge Osmond Smith, who was specially assigned by the N.C. Supreme Court to shepherd the controversial lacrosse case to completion.
Three suspects in the case, Collin Finnerty, Reade Seligmann and David Evans, are not required to be present today. They are free under $100,000 bonds as they await a trial that is expected to occur next year.
The three are accused of raping and sodomizing an exotic dancer during an off-campus lacrosse party at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. in mid-March.
All have professed their innocence.
Other than the surrender of information by Nifong, no major developments are expected during today's hearing.
"I don't think anyone knows exactly what will happen, but I don't believe there will be much to it," said one lawyer, asking not to be identified.
Critical defense motions in the case have yet to be heard, but they will not be argued today.
Among other things, those motions accuse police of misleading a judge to obtain a search warrant, and of devising an unconstitutional photo lineup -- a lineup that allegedly was too suggestive because it included only pictures of Duke lacrosse players.
Several national television pundits, along with a host of Internet chatters, have blasted Nifong for allegedly rushing to judgment in the case and getting the three suspects indicted on insufficient evidence.
In addition, the lacrosse incident is responsible for an anti-Nifong movement in the Nov. 7 election.
Voters are being urged to cast their ballots for County Commissioner Lewis Cheek as part of an effort to recall Nifong.
However, Cheek has said he would not serve as district attorney if elected, meaning the governor would have to choose a replacement for him.
Another anti-Nifong faction is led by local Republican Party Chairman Steve Monks, who is running for the chief prosecutor's seat on an unaffiliated write-in basis.
Monks said in an interview this week that a combined oust-Nifong effort would be better than two fragmented ones.
"It is probable that one of us has to withdraw," he said. "It has to happen. Someone has to be the frontrunner for the anti-Nifong movement. Otherwise, Mike will continue to be DA?. I can't scream from the highest mountain loudly enough that we need a combined effort."
And Charlotte Woods, a campaign leader for Monks, said she had told Cheek "a multiplicity of times" that Monks would withdraw from the race if Cheek agreed to serve as district attorney if elected.
"We have made it plain over and over again," she said. "We've told him and told him."
But Cheek said Thursday that, "Service as DA is not an option for me."
He said he made it clear earlier that responsibilities to partners and employees prevented him from leaving his private law firm
"Nothing has changed," he added.
Meanwhile, Nifong said Thursday that he continued to stand by the rape case, and he denied he was responsible for polarizing the community.
"This particular case has not divided the community," he said. "It has pointed to divisions that already existed. It is a signal to us that we need to address these underlying divisions."
Nifong would not be specific, but he apparently referred to town-gown issues and racial issues, among others.
The accuser in the rape case is black. The three suspects are white.
"Another prosecutor might make the case go away, but he can't make the underlying issues go away," said Nifong.
The district attorney, who has been a prosecutor in Durham for 27 years and head of his office since April 2005, said he wasn't withering under a storm of adverse criticism about the lacrosse incident.
"It's the difference between character and reputation," he said. "Character is what you are. Reputation is what people say you are. As long as you know who you are, you don't have to worry over what people say about you. ?
"I might be better off if I wasn't DA," Nifong acknowledged. "It certainly would be less stressful. But this is a path I have chosen to take in my life. I'm seeing some of the not-so-fun part of the job right now, but you can't take a job and just do it when it's easy and fun. URL for this article: http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-782289.html
DA's Defeat Won't Spell End of Duke Case
By AARON BEARD 10.27.06, 4:19 PM ET, Associated Press, [analysis]
The race for district attorney in Durham is shaping up as a referendum on the Duke lacrosse rape case. But a defeat for D.A. Mike Nifong would not necessarily spell the end of the case.
Neither challenger has definitively said the charges against the three players will be dropped in the event of an upset victory on Election Day.
"You gather the evidence and you see where that leads you. That process isn't over even right now," said Durham County commissioner Lewis Cheek, who collected enough signatures to win a place on the ballot as an unaffiliated candidate.
Both Cheek and write-in candidate Steve Monks, a Republican lawyer, are running on an "anyone but Nifong" platform. But unlike many of the D.A.'s critics, who have bitterly criticized the case against the athletes as pitifully weak, they have not offered their opinion on the strength of the evidence.
Instead, they have faulted Nifong for the way he has handled the case - particularly his aggressive public remarks about the team and the course of the investigation.
"It had to do with making statements about evidence when an investigation is still being conducted," Cheek said. "It had to do with making statements that indicated a prejudgment of guilt or innocence."
Cheek has pledged not to serve if elected - his goal is only to remove Nifong. If he wins, Gov. Mike Easley will have to appoint a new district attorney.
Less than two weeks before Election Day, Nifong appears to have the edge. In a poll commissioned by The News & Observer of Raleigh and WRAL-TV, 46 percent of likely voters backed Nifong. Cheek had 28 percent, Monks, a Republican in a heavily Democratic county, had just 2 percent, while 24 percent were undecided.
"I'd love 100 percent of the vote and have everyone think I'm doing a wonderful job," Nifong said in an interview this week. "But that's unrealistic." He added: "As long as I'm doing what I believe is right, I'm willing to accept whatever judgment anybody has on that."
Nifong emerged as the center of the investigation not long after a black student at North Carolina Central University told police she was raped in a bathroom by three white men at a March 13 team party where she performed as a stripper.
The district attorney initially granted dozens of news interviews, at one point calling the lacrosse players "hooligans," and declared DNA would identify the guilty. But DNA testing failed to connect any of the players to the accuser.
Nevertheless, after the test results became known, Nifong stood before a mostly black audience and vowed, "This case is not going away."
Defense attorneys and others have charged that Nifong pressed forward with the case to win favor with Durham's black community before May's Democratic primary.
Nifong went on to win nomination with 45 percent of the vote in a three-way contest in a town split evenly between black and white. Cheek and Monks emerged after the primary to challenge him.
"Here's the point: The people who ultimately feel that Mike's blown it ... at the end of the day they don't want a specific result. At the end of the day, they want to know that the process was fairly and objectively done. That's all they're interested in," Monks said. "What they're not confident in is whether or not Mike has appropriately or objectively reviewed the case in the first place."
Should he win, Monks pledges to do just that, appointing an experienced prosecutor in the district attorney's office to review the case from scratch.
Cheek's campaign is seen by many as a more direct rebuke of Nifong, since he doesn't actually want the job.
"The people that are going to the polls are aware of the situation," said Hunter Bacot, director of Elon University's Center for Public Opinion Polling. "They know that voting for Cheek is a vote against Nifong."
If he does remain in office, Nifong will still have a case with numerous problems, including a lack of DNA evidence; possible alibis for two of the players; a myriad of inconsistencies in the accuser's story; and questions about the fairness of the photo lineup that was shown to the woman.
To the surprise of defense attorneys, Nifong said during a court hearing Friday that no one from his office has even discussed the facts of the case with the accuser, deciding instead to leave that to police investigators.
http://www.forbes.com/business/commerce/feeds/ap/2006/10/27/ap3126668.html
Give credit to Nifong.
He is running a brilliant second
election campaign. The opposition
looks disorganized and silly.
Of course it helps greatly that the DA
has the solid support of Mayor Bell and
the Committee, Ms. Couch and the Durham
Bar Association, the ever so helpful Ashley
and the Herald-Sun.
Plus the tens of thousands of Durhamites
and their families who do a regular business
at the courthouse and jail in this criminal
friendly township.
Think it is about time for Cheshire and Co.
to counterattack.
Don't know the numbers,but I bet traffic court was a great "Meet, Greet & Ingratiate"
Think it is about time for Cheshire and Co. to counterattack.
Any theories???
nb:
Main Entry: in·gra·ti·ate
Pronunciation: in-'grA-shE-"At
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): -at·ed; -at·ing
Etymology: 2in- + Latin gratia grace
Date: 1622
: to gain favor or favorable acceptance for by deliberate effort -- usually used with with
Must see video clip at WRAL
from tonights broadcast:
Former Prosecutor 'Stunned'
http://www.wral.com/index.html
Justice Shall Be Done.
Guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer.
Great stuff. That dog don't hunt. That's the quote of the day.
WRAL had an interview with
a Federal Prosecuter tonight
at 11 pm, which was even tougher.
Local TV is hammering today's
news hard... at least for one
news cycle.
Off Topic-------
CARDS WIN!!! CARDS WIN!!! CARDS WIN!!!!
and your point is?
:-)
Sorry, just couldn't help myself.
LOL! Me neither!
I wonder when Crystal identified the source of the DNA found inside her? She told someone, sometime.Could that have been the true purpose of the April 11 meeting? I can't find my timeline on the DNA stuff.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1631677/posts
Duke Lacrosse DNA: Mystery Man Revealed (Accuser's Boyfriend!!!)
You would have prosecutors afraid to file about 90% of charges because the "might" lose. There is no way you can force the state to reimburse defendants in every dismissed or not guilty case. Maybe there should be an automatic review to determine if there was a basis for the charges, or if they were dropped as soon as it was determined there was no basis. In this case it is painfully obvious that there was no rape, therefore should not have been charges, but, do you want the state of California to reimburse OJ, or Michael Jackson? The thought is a nice one, but in the broad spectrum, unrealistic.
I think several of the pictures we have seen are stills from a digital video camera's recording of the party.
That's why there seem to be so many shots in sequence, imo.
Oh man. At the same time that a very limber Precious was pole dancing her butt off, she was running to the hospital claiming intense pain. It's all here. One doctor refused to give her any medication due to her "long psychological history".
Video may aid players defense
http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/503820.html
Let's ping this one...
http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/503820.html
Video may aid players' defense
Club tape surfaces in Duke rape case
Joseph Neff and Benjamin Niolet, Staff Writers
A woman identified as the accuser in the Duke lacrosse rape case performed an athletic pole dance at a Hillsborough strip club at the same time that the accuser was visiting hospitals complaining of intense pain from being assaulted.
A time-stamped video shows a woman at The Platinum Club on March 26. The club's former security manager, H.P. Thomas, identified her as the accuser.
The video, reviewed by The News & Observer, shows a limber performer. The same woman told doctors at UNC and Duke hospitals around that time that she had been beaten and assaulted and was racked with pain.
The accuser, a single mother enrolled at N.C. Central University, charged that three men gang raped, assaulted and choked her in a bathroom at a lacrosse team party that began late on the night of March 13.
Three lacrosse players were charged with rape, sexual assault and kidnapping: David Evans, 23, of Bethesda, Md; Collin Finnerty, 20, of Garden City, N.Y.; and Reade Seligmann, 20, of Essex Fells, N.J.
All players have strongly maintained they are innocent and have called the woman's accusations lies.
Linwood Wilson, the investigator for District Attorney Mike Nifong, said Friday that he has watched the video but could not say with certainty that it was the accuser dancing.
At trial, defense lawyers could show the March 26 video to jurors to undercut what the accuser told doctors and nurses in the days and weeks after the party.
The woman has not spoken publicly since an interview with The N&O in March. The newspaper does not name people listed on police reports as victims of sexual assaults. The following account of the woman's visits with doctors, nurses and police is based on documents from Nifong's investigative files that have been turned over to the defense.
Reports of pain
The woman was seen in the Duke Hospital emergency room the morning of March 14. She said she was gang raped but not hit or struck. She reported that she was in excruciating pain, rating it a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10. Nurses and doctors, however, found no obvious discomfort and no associated symptoms of pain, such as grimacing, sweating, or changes in vital signs or posture.
The next evening, March 15, a friend drove the woman to UNC Hospitals where she told doctors that she had been gang raped and knocked to the floor several times, at one point hitting her head on a sink. She said the men assaulted her with hands and fists. She said that she was very drunk that evening and that her neck was very painful when she sobered up, and her legs were wobbly. She reported neck pain of 7 on a scale of 1 to 10.
One physician wrote, "Due to the patient's long psychological history, she is at very high risk of narcotic abuse, and at clinic, we have recommended not to prescribe the patient any narcotics."
A second physician prescribed the muscle relaxant Flexeril and 15 doses of Percocet, a powerful narcotic painkiller.
On March 16, two Durham police officers interviewed her at her home.
Police narrative
In a typewritten narrative of the interview produced in July, Sgt. Mark Gottlieb gave a detailed portrait of a woman in excruciating pain: "The victim had a very slow gate [sic] that was obviously painful while she was walking. Her facial expressions conveyed her pain as she ambulated. ... The victim had to take time to position herself carefully on the sofa so that her exterior portion of either hip was making contact with the cushion. Anytime her bottom touched the sofa cushion while repositioning during our visit, she groaned and had a facial expression consistent with pain."
Nine days after that interview, according to the security manager Thomas, the woman was filmed dancing at the same club she had performed at the weekend before the lacrosse party. A three-second clip of the video was first shown on the CBS show "60 Minutes." The News & Observer viewed a copy of the entire pole dance segment.
The video segment, about a minute long, shows the woman, introduced as Precious, as she approached a floor-to-ceiling pole on a stage, dressed in a thong and skimpy top. She grasped the pole and lowered herself into a squatting position, so that her buttocks almost touched the floor. With her hands on the floor, she stretched out her right leg vertically, as though she was kicking to the ceiling while squatting, and waved her leg several times to either side of the pole.
The accuser's appearance was part of a longer recording documenting an event at the club that began March 25 and continued past midnight.
Thomas said that an acquaintance of his filmed the evening and that the dancer seemed fine throughout the night.
"She was regular. She danced like she always danced, good old Precious." He said he has known her since the beginning of the year.
On March 28, she returned to UNC Hospitals complaining of pain in her neck, back and knees, according to documents in the investigative file. The doctor noted that she was in no obvious distress and did not renew the prescription for narcotics.
She returned to UNC Hospitals on April 3, again complaining of neck pain of 10 on a scale of 1 to 10. "The patient is a well-appearing African-American female in no apparent distress," the doctor wrote.
On April 11, the accuser met with Nifong and several investigators. Nifong said the woman was still so traumatized at this meeting that she barely spoke and did not discuss the alleged assault of one month earlier.
"She probably did not speak 15 words," Nifong said in court Friday. "She had trouble making eye contact. She looked like she was going to cry."
Staff writer Joseph Neff can be reached at 829-4516 or jneff@newsobserver.com.
http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/503627.html
DA: I haven't heard accuser's account
Benjamin Niolet and Michael Biesecker, Staff Writers
DURHAM - District Attorney Mike Nifong indicted three Duke University lacrosse players for rape without ever hearing the accuser's account of the incident, he said in a hearing Friday.
Nifong has still not heard the woman's story and is not likely to before the case goes to trial, he said during another in a series of contentious court appearances in which he and defense lawyers battled over evidence in the case.
Nifong turned over nearly 2,000 pages of documents to the lawyers, bringing the case file to more than 4,400 pages. But as usual, it was what the lawyers did not have that dominated the hearing. The defense had again asked for a written report of anything the accuser has said to Nifong about the facts of the case. Nifong has said he has no such report to turn over, but lawyers pointed out that one of Nifong's own filings states that he asked the accuser whether she had taken ecstasy the night of the party.
Nifong has championed the rape case against Dave Evans, 23, Collin Finnerty, 20, and Reade Seligmann, 20. Even as weaknesses in the case have emerged, Nifong has pressed ahead because, he has said, he thinks the woman was sexually assaulted.
Bradley Bannon, a lawyer for Dave Evans, said that beginning March 24, a police official ordered the detectives in the case to report directly to Nifong, making him the lead investigator. It was "stretching the bounds of credulity" that one question is all that Nifong asked her, Bannon said.
But Nifong said he would say under oath that the discussion about ecstasy was the only conversation he had with her about the facts of the case. The News & Observer generally does not identify complainants in sexual assault cases.
"I've had conversations with [the accuser] about how she's doing. I've had conversations with [the accuser] about seeing her kids. I have not had any conversations with [the accuser] about this case," Nifong said. "This is another false issue to make it look like I call her up and say, 'Tell me more about this case.' "
Nifong and detectives met with the woman April 11. No questions were asked of her, and she said nothing about the March lacrosse party where she said she was raped, Nifong said. He also said that during that meeting, the woman appeared still upset about the incident. She was unable to make eye contact and seemed on the verge of tears, he said.
When the trial date approaches, Nifong said, he may have someone in his office interview the woman.
Nifong said if he talked to a witness, he could risk becoming a witness in the case himself. He said that is why he rebuffed defense lawyers when they wanted to set up a meeting to show that the lacrosse players were innocent. He did not refuse to meet with them, he said, but he told the lawyers to have the players talk to investigators. Nifong said that if the players had told him they were innocent, their attorneys could have called Nifong to the witness stand to testify, and he could have been barred from trying the case.
"I can't think of any prosecutor who would fall for that," Nifong said. "Because I'm not stupid, I would not have done what they continue to accuse me of doing."
Joseph B. Cheshire V, another of Evans' attorneys, said that the lawyers tried to meet with Nifong and that they never tried to have their clients speak to the prosecutor.
Lawyer Kirk Osborn, who represents Seligmann, disputed Nifong's memory of the days after the first indictments in April. Osborn said that when he went to see Nifong to show him evidence of Seligmann's alibi, through an assistant, Nifong's response was, "I saw you on TV proclaiming your client's innocence, so what is there to talk about?"
Nifong said the investigation has largely come to an end. Nifong told the judge that Sgt. Mark Gottlieb, who ran several key elements of the inquiry, had been on sick leave and other than being called to testify would likely have no further involvement in the case.
The next hearing is scheduled for Dec. 15.
Duke Lacrosse
Staff writer Benjamin Niolet can be reached at 919-956-2404 or bniolet@newsobserver.com.
Nifong never discussed case with dancer
By John Stevenson, The Herald-Sun
October 27, 2006 9:55 pm
DURHAM -- District Attorney Mike Nifong said in court Friday that he has never talked with the accuser about the Duke lacrosse rape case, an admission defense lawyers called incredible and "stunning."
"He has absolutely no idea what her story is and yet he has chosen to go on with this case," said one member of the defense team, Raleigh attorney Joe Cheshire.
Nifong made his comment in response to repeated defense demands that he divulge whatever the accuser, an exotic dancer, had told him about the alleged rape.
According to Nifong, an April 11 meeting with the woman centered only on "what course we would be taking, what steps we would be taking" as the investigation progressed.
"No statements were made about the case by her," Nifong added. "No questions about the case were asked of her."
Nifong said defense attorneys "seem not to be satisfied with that answer, but it's the only answer I can give. No matter how many times they ask the question, the answer will be the same. ... Integrity requires that I tell them the truth. ... There is nothing to provide involving the April 11 conversation."
Nifong said the woman appeared to be too traumatized to discuss matters of evidence.
"She possibly did not speak 15 words during the whole conversation," he said. "She had difficulty making eye contact. She looked like she was going to cry."
As a result, Nifong so far has spoken with the dancer only about how she and her children were faring and not about the rape allegations, he told Superior Court Judge Osmond Smith.
But investigators reportedly have talked to the woman at length and passed along their findings to Nifong.
Friday's dialogue took place during an on-the-record planning session involving Nifong, Smith and lawyers for the defendants: Collin Finnerty, Reade Seligmann and David Evans.
The three are accused of raping and sodomizing the dancer during an off-campus lacrosse party at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. in mid-March. All are free under $100,000 bonds as they await a trial that is expected to occur next year. All say they are innocent.
At first, defense attorney Brad Bannon didn't accept Nifong's assertion that he had not spoken about the case with the alleged victim.
"We have asked time and again," Bannon said. "We want the issue resolved today. What did [the accuser] say to Mr. Nifong and when did she say it? She has spoken to him, and we know that."
Bannon said he was certain Nifong and the woman had talked because, in court documents, Nifong quoted her as saying she did not take the drug Ecstasy on the night in question.
In response, Nifong said he was told the dancer might have used Ecstasy, so he called her to find out.
"She said, 'I've never taken Ecstasy,'" Nifong added. "That was the end of that conversation."
"It is what it is," Bannon said.
In other business Friday, Nifong responded to defense complaints that he had refused to speak with Finnerty, Seligmann and Evans.
He said he told their lawyers they should talk to investigators instead.
Nifong said that if he personally spoke to a defendant, he might become a witness in his own case and have to be removed as prosecutor -- depending on what the defendant told him.
"I can't think of any prosecutor who would fall for that," Nifong added. "I'm not stupid."
Also during Friday's court hearing, Nifong surrendered 1,964 pages of documentation to defense lawyers, along with a CD and three DVDs.
Some of the documentation involved sophisticated scientific testing that showed no DNA from any of the three defendants in or on the alleged rape victim's body.
Also included were handwritten notes made by police investigator Benjamin Himan through Sept. 28, along with text and image files taken from the defendants' computers.
Nifong said the investigation is winding down.
"Although there are still some loose ends to be tied up, there is not a whole lot of investigation going on at this point," he said.
In fact, a second police investigator has been removed from the case, leaving Himan to do the remaining work alone, Nifong said.
Another court hearing was set for Dec. 15, when it is possible that a trial date might be set.
The three defendants did not attend Friday's session.
But Finnerty's father, Kevin Finnerty, was present with other family members, supporters and friends. They wore buttons proclaiming "Innocent Until Proven Innocent."
The elder Finnerty said he was "listening and taking notes" during the hearing.
"It's pretty difficult on our family," he said.
Cheshire said after the hearing that he thought "some progress" had been made.
"It is a very emotional case," he said. "The feelings run very high. The lawyers on the side of the young men are very committed to their innocence. This is an immense travesty of justice."
URL for this article: http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-782608.html
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