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
Rumors????????? Were they similar to the suggestion above of some type of rehab? Just curious
Correction
Committee endorsed Bishop. Got my colors and names mixed up. It happens.
Just wild speculation like I am doing here.
But "Medical Leave" has been out there. Considering the Blinco's was alcohol related (just like those satanic Duke players,LOL!), it was suggested he may be in some type of rehab.
One other thing, even though the cabbie was picked up by the investigators, it was put into motion by Linwood Wilson, Nifong's illiterate butt boy.
Smarmy little prick? More like smarmy little queer. He likes boys. He's from SF; made his bones prosecuting the dog-mauling case. Overcharged the case to win more favor with the homo saps because the victim was a lezzie, got his hat handed to him by the judge.
But supposedly she had her kids the next day, or at least they were at her father's house when she was there, so it doesn't sound like they were not in her custody at least at that point. What I was getting at is that it sounds like they've been taken away from her by the authorities since that point in time. What I wonder is to what extent, if any (and I suspect plenty), Liefong had to do with them being taken since she has to discuss or arrange with his office when she gets to see them.
No mention of the victims of these lonely, discouraged people, though.
Yeah, my "navel" ain't quite what it used to be - gotta little "orange peel" around it now. :>
But juries don't find defendants innocent - they can only find them "Not guilty", meaning that the prosecutor didn't meet his burden of proof. Therefore, the taxpayers should not be penalized for that. Further, if you think defense attorneys charge astounding fees now, think what they would charge if they knew their clients could get compensated by the government. Of course, this is a completely different category than the case at hand. Deliberate abuse of the system should be prosecutable criminally and severe civil penalties should also attach to prosecutors who behave as Liefong has. What I think is truly egregious is that there is no system in place to address such cases. Yes, there are ethics boards and judicial boards and the like, but there is no "Bureau of Prosecutorial Misconduct Investigations" whose sole purpose is to investigate the likes of Liefong and his ilk, and there seems to be tacit agreement between the defense bar and prosecutors that neither will rock the other's boat very hard - enough to make waves, but not enough to sink their boat.
Lawyers and the judiciary are great at holding everybody except their own to account - and pay.
If Brodhead lets Reade and Colin return, it will signal the community (and Duke student voters) that the final rug has been pulled from underneath Liefong's feet. In other words, the return of these boys could undermine Liefong's chances in the election. Yet Brodhead remains intractable, so that tells me he still supports Liefong and his campaign of terror against these boys and potentially other students down the road. If he no longer supports Liefong, then he certainly fears him and his local mob supporters in the local and state NAACP and that local black organization that purports to hold sway in all things Durham.
"What I was getting at is that it sounds like they've been taken away from her by the authorities since that point in time."
I'll feel sorry for her when she stops helping Nifong try to take three innocent kids away from their parents and incarcerate them for the rest of their lives.
"If he no longer supports Liefong, then he certainly fears him and his local mob supporters in the local and state NAACP and that local black organization that purports to hold sway in all things Durham."
Duke should take some of its endownment and move the campus elsewhere, in the rising West, maybe (Albuquerque? Phoenix?) and leave Durham and its intractable problems behind.
Or maybe he just doesn't want to see impoverished black hookers make any money?
LOL! Howz that for spin?
He didn't have the guts to face the de rigueur confrontation with the "black community", given that the boys are white (and wealthy) and the "victim" is black, female, and poor. The NCCU aspect probably also had a lot to do with it. Brodhead was too cowardly to take up for his students because of his fear of the politically incorrect appearance of Duke bullying poor, black NCCU.
The committee endorsed the black candidate.
I never will feel sorry for her. She's a weak, narcissistic woman with no regard for anyone but herself. Look at how she tried to run over a police officer. She didn't want to be caught, so she was actually willing to take someone's life to avoid being caught. She probably thinks it's good of her that, instead of trying to kill these three boys, she merely used them to avoid being committed to Durham Access. She's a despicable person who isn't fit to live in a decent society because she has no sense of duty to 'do unto others etc.' or to hold herself accountable. She's a weak, wanton, hedonistic libertine and a heathen, and was a tragedy waiting to strike. Now she's struck. In a few years, she'll do something again, maybe even kill someone, when she's in one of her bouts of drugs/depression/self-medication of alcohol modes. It'll be a drunk-driving manslaughter or somebody will try to detain or control her and she'll give them a deadly push or blow that will end their life for getting in her way of doing whatever it is she wants to do at that moment in time.
That'd be replacing one poverty class with another.
There are better regions, imo.
Does anyone know how Newsweek originally got ahold of this story, and why they chose to go with it as a cover story?
Was it just random selection--they heard about it like everyone else, and just decided it made a good, sensational PC cover?
Or did someone "suggest" it to them?
Just curious. . .
See my 301. That extra hour messes me up every year, LOL!
Make that 302
(Damn that hour)
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