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
And don't forget supporting the local economy to the tune of $800.
At the media confab a week ago, Susannah Meadows said that they heard about it through other media (don't remember which) and she got assigned because she's a Duke alum. She basically disavowed the cover with the mug shots by saying it wasn't her decision. Contact any reporter about a headline over their byline and you'll get the same dodge - "I don't write the headlines".
http://blogs.newsobserver.com/ruth/index.php?title=i_got_my_invite_but_guess_what_you_can_c&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1#comments
Hey Ruthie - pay attention. Someone has used your blog to name she who must not be named. And it's been there for 24 hours. Now, shudder, everyone will know.
I saw that yesterday. Not surprised that it has stayed up. N&O blogs apparently are not monitored well or at all.
Maybe we should post it on a regular basis. It would force them to pay more attention to their blogs - heh. This was by the same poster who had a comment deleted for suggesting that Linda Williams ethnicity might have had something to do with her editorial decisions in March.
The Newsweek reporter, Suzanne Meadows, is a Duke grad. I expect she learned of it rapidly through connections and came a'runnin'.
The only people involved in all this that I can see who need diversity training are black Durhamites and 88 Duke faculty members. None of them seem to understand that white people are entitled to the same rights as blacks and other minorities.
Oh, and add Brodhead and Liefong to the group.
LOL! Prolly 'cuz it's the weekend. You know, kind of like when they said there was nobody around to monitor and nix the printing of the entire team roster?
So, OJ should have gotten all his hundreds of thousands back from the government?
The problem is that any funds "paid" by the government are really paid by taxpayers. In areas where most of the voters actually pay taxes, this can provide some incentive for elected officials to avoid costing their constituents too much money. But in areas where most of the voters don't pay taxes, the voters may not mind someone whose malfeasance offers more excuse to 'sock it to the rich'.
Yeah, but should people be responsible for the reckless actions of politicians they voted against? I suspect that if Nifong is elected but then gets a major judgement against the city, the vast majority of the cost will fall on people who voted against him (and who, in any case, had never voted for him previously).
An automatic rule, like loser pays, will not work. Believe me some companies use legal action as predatory attacks on others. You need some means of ascertaining the reasonableness of the overall case - both sides. Obviously those who pursue unsubstantiated, nuisance or frivolous cases deserve to pay the costs.
I worked for a metropolitan DA's office for thirty-two years. Based on that experience, it's my opinion that a vastly larger number of people beat the rap than there are those who get railroaded. Because of the vagaries of evidence, some cases are much harder to prosecute than others, but the crimes committed by these offenders are no less devastating than those committed by "dumber" criminals. Because of the vagaries of jurors, some cases end in surprise verdicts of NG or are hung juries. I see no good in forcing taxpayers to foot the bill for their defense because a case was lost due to the whim of some leftist judge who refused to admit certain evidence or jurors who are either dumber than a box of rocks or biased in favor of a defendant for hidden reasons unknown to the prosecution.
If judges and juries were failsafe, there might be a modicum of merit to your idea, but given that they are anything but failsafe, I find the idea totally impractical and unfair to the people.
What I do think would be a solution worth considering is a review process of a DA's performance in terms of ethical standards he casts for himself, his deputies and investigators. Such a review process should include the authority to levy fines on the department, penalties on the individual DA or deputy if there was malice or fraud aforethought in the unethical act, and reimbursements paid to the defendant for legal fees if the review board finds in favor of the acquitted defendant. But some automatic right to reimbursement of attorney fees because a judge or jury went haywire would not only create chaos, but there would be a helluva lot more criminals on the streets because no DA would want to prosecute unless they had an absolutely ironclad, irrefutable case. Even then, a successful prosecution depends on being able to get all that evidence admitted and a host of other variables. One never knows what can go wrong in a trial until the jury comes in, and some events are just beyond the prosecutor's control.
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