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
While I agree that a December dismissal is logical, keep in mind a summer dismissal was possibly even more logical:
1. It would have preempted the Cheek and Monks petition drives and would have assured Nifong of winning.
2. It would have minimized Evans', Finnerty's and Seligmann's damage claims in any future tort action.
So is Nifong such a hard leftist that he is going to bring any claim of rape to trial? Or does he know he has committed a crime and is going to jail? Neither the state nor the federal government are going to investigate this while the trial is on going. So perhaps Nifong is stringing this along to forestall investigations of him?
LIEfong knows the truth. There is no way he can believe this lying slut. He just doesn't care about it because he is obsessed with power and with winning this election.
I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think Nifong will be investigated. At least not for the lacrosse case. Yep! The whole thing stinks and charges never should have been brought. But we all know why Nifong did this. And who knows? Maybe four years from now -- is that the length of a DA's term? -- the black community will run and elect a black candidate.
That would be poetic justice!
There wasn't enough time to orchestrate all of this by the end of the summer.
Another question: Videos of Crystal's pole dancing have existed for months. Why have they been released only now? The road is being paved for the dismissal of the case.
Let's see:
1. I did notice the shock of an ex-federal prosecutor that Nifong has not interviewed Mangum. I think the powers that be in the NC and among the feds may be giving the electorate of Durham a chance to make this right. At some point Nifong is doing more damage to other prosecutors than investigating him would do. I think he is past that and they will investigate and sanction him, if the voters do not solve this problem for them.
2. Nifong is OLD. He may well not run again. This was his shot. He did not want to be appointed and then not win in his own right.
3. I disagree on not having enough time. All it took was Nifong dropping the charges. Now maybe the "mark" had not been cooled enough and there were serious worries about riots had this been dropped this summer. And maybe that is what you meant by not enough time?
4. The defense had the video. My guess is they kept it close to the vest as an exclusive for 60 Minutes. That gave 60 Minutes something new to break and thus an incentive to do this story. [BTW, I wonder if 60 Minutes might have told or shown Roberts the entire video of the party to see if she wanted to stick to her original story. Certainly her knowing or having seen a video of the party would give her a strong incentive to stick to the truth shaded of course to not make herself look bad.]
1. Oh, the problems are over if Durham elects well... the unknown "Cheeks" candidate. But with Monks acting as a spoiler, it's a pretty safe bet that Nifong will be elected. And I think the fix was in months ago when Cheeks announced that he would not run even though enough petitions were collected to get his name on the ballot. (Don't forget; these are Democrats....)
2. He's only in his late 50s. He'll never be appointed a judge though after this mess.
3. Yep. That's what I meant. The mark wasn't sufficiently cooled in the summer.
4. 60 minutes didn't get that tape from the defense. But I suspect the defense has other videos of Crystal. (and one can only imagine what those videos show...) Apparently, she's been dancing publicly for months. Why release it now?
5. Kim was delighted to tell 60 Minutes whatever it wanted to here. And she did it without any fear of her sweetheart deal with the prosecution going south. Kim looked the best she ever looked! That was one happy camper!
Well:
1. By his college graduation date, 1971, I would guess he was born about 1949 or 1950. That would make him 56 or 57 and in his 60s in 4 years. That is a few years younger than I thought. Still I suspect it was most important to Nifong that he not be appointed and then defeated with never winning election.
2. I do agree that there may well be some back room deals. Clearly the move to Judge Smith was accompanied by a deal of no change in the Nifong schedule. It well could be that everyone is just marking time until the election. Heck if that is the case, it could even go away while the Duke students are mostly away for Thanksgiving.
3. No matter where CBS got the tape, the defense was smart to hold theirs to give CBS/60 Minutes something to break in their segment.
PRECIOUS DANCING ALERT!!!!
http://forums.go.com/abclocal/WTVD/thread?threadID=135779
".....I got there at 12:50 and who do i see ON THE POLE . . . once again .. the traumatized H.0ochie Precious is still at it......"
You must go read the salacious details. (And they are salacious)
This poster has been saying for a long time she's been dancing. I believe the details. He has a 100% track record.
Blech. But hey, at this point none of it surprises me. And with all of this going on Nifong is in court saying how traumatized ol' Precious is. He's just not at the stage where he can ask her about what happened due to her delicate sensibilities. Yeah, right.
Maybe he should ask her in Spanish...
(ouch,that was a bad one!)
But don't you know, the poor woman had to earn a living to support her chldren while taking all those classes!!
Holy cow is right - 4 or 5 days? Incredible.
You know, there was a time when I would have thought Niofng would have had more control over her but now I see he was just thinking about indictments and winning the primary. I don't think he was even considering a trial at that point. He was just interested in getting three names he could put on indictments.
bttt
http://johnsville.blogspot.com/2006/10/duke-case-hoax-busting-video.html
http://johnsville.blogspot.com/2006/10/duke-case-outrage.html
-- Which had this tidbit from Tony Soprano: "Joe Cheshire just told local reporters that information on the accuser will be coming out soon and did not elaborate further."
http://johnsville.blogspot.com/2006/10/duke-case-obsession.html
LOL! Wonder if Cheshire mean the abc board?
Mangum dancing while Gottlie is claiming she is in great pain is evidence. Mangum dancing now is not particularly germane though possibly interesting to some.
In other news, I got an invitation in the mail today to attend some kind of dinner in DC at which Richard Brodhead and a panel will talk about "Duke's contribution to the world" or something like that. No mention of anything lacrosse-related.
A PR campaign is clearly well underway, but I doubt the administration will be able to change the subject as quickly as it would like.
Posted by Laurie Lin at 12:17 AM
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