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
Well, I think that's what the motion for the Bill of Particulars was all about: "What is it that you claim my client did, and when, how, where and to whom?"
Add the feds to that list.
Well looky looky I ddi too. :)
Says the DA appointed by the Governor:
Oh, I'm no insider. I'm not even in North Carolina. I'm just observing this travesty unfold from way up here in Michigan.
When it became apparent to all but the most strident AV supporters that no rape occurred that night, the most interesting aspect for me was figuring how the Powers That Be in NC would get out of this mess. They have certainly tried to keep this thing under wraps what with incomplete and misleading reporting by the local media, that unauthorized "gag order," and the decision by Judge Smith to prohibit cameras at the hearings.
Thank God for the Internet and the bloggers. Without them, the outcome of this hoax might have been very different.
As for Nifong, does anyone really believe what he says anymore? Of course he's going to put the best spin possible on whatever exit strategy is exercised.
As for the boys, all three seem to be fine young men with strong supporting families and friends. People whom they encounter in their futures -- people who matter -- know that this whole thing has been a hoax. Maybe one of them will bring a civil suit, but I suspect that they just want to put this horrible episode behind them as soon as possible.
This is all just my opinion and I could be wrong, but I don't think this case will ever go to trial.
I have been critical of his handling of the case but he was fantastic yesterday. One dad stood up and said "We need to get the word out on all the wonderful things Duke is doing!" (we had just seen a panel discussing a program Duke has that allows students to develop and run their own nonprofit). I thought that was a ridiculous statement. Brodhead was polite but his first comment was that "Don't think that thought hadn't occurred to them, too". He then went on to say that we can't control what message the media prints/says and that he doesn't' think it makes sense to spend the time and resources of the university on PR when he thinks the reason we were vilified in the first place is b/c Duke has been rising as of late. He wants to keep that trend in effect- keep getting better as an institution.
He blamed Nifong for the "80,000 media hits" that Duke had last spring. He said that had the DA not been on TV repeatedly saying that he was "virtually certain" that a rape had occurred. He said at this point, people are "virtually sure" that it did not. He mentioned abuse of process but said that at this point we have to follow it to its end.
He also told all of us that if we had thoughts, suggestions, ideas, etc, to call or email him, that he would be happy to take them.
Interesting enough, Gayle King was there (I guess she has a child at Duke). I didn't know who she was but a friend of mine recognized her. She was sitting up front and asked Brodhead several questions. They were all supportive of Duke and showed her frustration with the media (ironic!) One question she asked Brodhead was "How angry does it make you to see the media coverage of this case?" Brodhead said that he didn't think it was appropriate for the president of the university to walk around in a rage all the time but that to say it had made him angry was a severe understatement.
I do think he and some support staff are traveling some to give people around the country access to him. I can tell you that having the opportunity to ask him whatever we wanted was terrific. He was quite candid in his remarks, too.
I meant to say that had Nifong not been on TV saying that he was virtually certain that a rape had occurred, Brodhead said that the case would not have taken off the way it did. He said that Nifong's statements convinced nearly everyone that a crime had occurred.
As a non-Duke person, this is the statement which bothers me. He said the same thing in the 60 Minutes interview. What Nifong said to the media should have been irrelevant. Broadhead should have taken it upon himself to gather facts.
I am on the outside looking in, so I do not have the perspective you have, just MHO. Thanks for the report.
He should have been more candid seven months ago. Instead, he and the "88" assisted a corrupt DA and a corrupt system in railroading a whole team and particularly 3 innocent individuals. In the meantime, he has done nothing to correct the problems he and his administration created.
Duke needs to do some house cleaning and it starts at the top. It remains to be seen if they have the intestinal fortitude to do the right things. I have serious doubts in my mind that they will.
I have no doubt that Brodhead will try to smooth-mouth his way out of this whole thing. He's that wormy. Everything is someone else's fault, even though he's CEO of Duke. Make no mistake, he's got fingerprints all over this hoax. He didn't have to cave in to the Gang of 88 or the potbangers early on, but he did.
Just my humble opinion...
mark
Well, compare Donna Shalala's saying she was not going to abandon her students and throw them under the bus; and Brodhead's "even if there was no rape, what they did was bad enough" remark.
Compare Fresno State's seeing that their charged players had criminal defense attorneys, with Duke's telling the players not to inform their parents, and not to get attorneys.
And who but Brodhead would have refused time after time to meet with the Finnertys (parents), until finally the head of fundraising said he would resign if he didn't meet with them. And then, at the meeting, he remained intransigent, was argumentative with Mrs.Finnerty, and then after he started insulting them they both left.
That's surely not a 'leader' who is in the kid business. That's a man angry that he is about to lose his job, and trying to blame someone--anyone--else.
As information has come out about what Duke and Brodhead did early on, the worse it gets for Duke and Brodhead. From the "don't tell your parents," "don't get lawyers, trust us," "whatever they did was bad enough," lying about how much the players were cooperating, etc., it is becoming increasingly apparent that Duke and Brodhead were more complicitous in this fraud than anyone thought. IMHO, Brodhead made a decision early on to cut these guys loose and hang them in the public square if things went bad. That's what he did at Yale. It is also why he did not want them to tell their parents or get lawyers or explain how much they were cooperating. It also explains why his 60 Minutes outtakes interview was so much more rhetorically soothing to the players -- too bad it was disingenuous and he dod not mean aword of it.
The story on Duke's involvement in this is yet to be written but it won't be good.
Did he support Prof Baldwin's position or the Duke 88? If not unequivocally the former, Brodhead is spinning you.
I'm sorry,my views are incredibly biased but I knew from day 1 this was a hoax-Brodhead should have too. He didn't know his students or take the time to get their story. He chose to succomb to the media before supporting his students. No excuses.
(excerpted from a column by William Anderson) --
http://www.lewrockwell.com/anderson/anderson144.html
October 18, 2006
"Moreover, I intend to establish that Brodhead very well might have been involved in the commission of felonies. . .
(snip)
First, it is clear that Brodhead's associates actively were involved in deceptive actions by citing the "student-faculty privilege" nonsense that was aimed at tricking them into speaking with police without representation. Thus, we ask the pertinent question: What did Brodhead know, and when did he know it?
If the accusation against the administrators is true – and those to whom I have spoken tell me it is – and Brodhead either approved of the actions or did not try to stop them when he did know (or cover up these actions), then Brodhead could have been involved in a conspiracy to deprive these students of their rights to an attorney of their own choosing.
(snip)
When the accused students obtained counsel, Brodhead announced that he was "disappointed" with their decision...
Instead of telling the truth – that the players were cooperating with the investigation and had offered to take lie detector and DNA tests – Brodhead issued statement after statement calling for the players to "cooperate" in language that suggested that they were hiding behind their lawyers. . .
After the players obtained lawyers, Durham police officers unannounced and without search warrants went to the on-campus dormitory rooms of some of the players to "question" them (without their attorneys being present). On solid advice of counsel, the players refused to talk to the police or let them into their rooms, as is their Constitutional right. . .
Instead of denouncing this assault on the law and the illegal police invasion, Brodhead ignored the police predations and again called for "cooperation" on behalf of the lacrosse players. Of course, by this time, everyone understood "cooperation" to be a "confession" from the players. . .
He has permitted – and even encouraged – intimidation of students and faculty members. (I have received emails from Duke faculty members who believe the players are innocent, but also know that there will be retribution against them if they speak out.) He attempted to use deceit in a situation where truth was needed.
What a hero! /sarcasm
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:cfnERmspKKMJ:preview.newsobserver.com/145/story/372520.html+%22mark+gottlieb%22+raleigh&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=137
Triangle Briefs
Published: Nov 30, 2005 12:30 AM
Modified: Nov 30, 2005 04:32 AM
Stolen car found thanks to GPS
A global positioning system helped police catch a car thief Tuesday, only minutes after the vehicle was stolen.
About 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, a man stole a car from a branch of the State Employees Credit Union at 3808 Guess Road, Durham police Sgt. Mark Gottlieb said. The car was equipped with an On Star tracking system, a subscription service built into many General Motors cars.
Within 20 minutes of the theft, police were able to locate the car at a shopping center on North Roxboro Road, Gottlieb said. Police charged Mark Paul Travers, 17, with larceny of a motor vehicle, injury to personal property, fleeing to elude police and driving without a license, according to court records. Travers, of 4206-A Oran Ave., was being held at the Durham County jail late Tuesday in lieu of $10,000 bail.
(Wonder if Travers got a sweetheart deal like Precious?)
Right off the bat you had multiple key parties
who questioned the 'horrific charges'.
The DPD cops, Duke cops and medical
personnel all had doubts. The team captains
looked Brodhead in the eye in his own office
and told him the truth, nothing happened. The coach
and the lawyers and police received multiple
confirming statements from team members
behind the scenes, while the media circus on
campus was fed by uninformed hysterics and
the DA's pronouncements. The boys were almost
in the clear when the infamous 'Psycho Email',
an extraordinarily damaging dirty police trick,
was released.
Who downtown grabbed this bogus charge and
pushed it on the DA's office? Hint: we have probably
named them often in the past seven months. Maybe
not. We need proof. More investigation. This is
where the crime is.
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