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
So that is another name for the Church of Secular Humanism? :-)
trust me....we'ver not rich.....5 grand would set us back ....
"The odds are only 50-50 at best that this will be
something we have not discussed here earlier."
We have looked many things this past summer
and found much- never yet to be reported in the MSM,
such as ADA Couch, he/she Jakki, and the many
jailings of the FA's friends.
Devastation in this book would be the revelation
that Nikki and Precious were on a DNA collecting
mission from the get go.
Kim's opinions as to whether there was a rape have flip flopped but I actually think her first handwritten police statement was fairly truthful. She left a few things out - the argument about money for one, but I think it was fairly close to the truth.
Did Nifong's wife speak to the accuser?
Perjury applies only during sworn testimony in a trial, not what she tells the press.
I think your right.
Perhaps Kim will tell us about Crystal's 12:26 phone call...
That could be devastating info.
I guess Roberts could reveal that the two of them used drugs or drank in the car before going in? I guess she could reveal what they did between leaving the house and arriving at the Kroger parking lot.
Perhaps she resolved her own criminal case for violation of probation and now has a freer hand - shed Liefong's yoke, so to speak.
Kim would not be that difficult to rehabilitate as a witness.
The idiot who wrote that piece made not one mention of any consideration for what these boys and their families have been put through. I know the focus was what will happen next, but he rambled on long enough about PC crap, the election, and so on, such that perhaps he could have squeezed in one note or two about the devastating and life-long impact these boguc charges will have on the boys, their families, and future rape victims.
You'd be entitled to a free attorney, in that case.
Believe it or not, most DAs don't bring charges frivolously or because they "think" someone committed a crime. They bring all manner of evidence to support the charges, and the role of the defense is to test that evidence.
The laws of NC, Liefong's pitiful career and aspirations, racist organizations and weak leadership at Duke and throughout the county made this all possible. The indicting grand jury requirement for threshold felonies coupled with no probable cause/pretrial hearing process and no Sixth Amendment protections are what has allowed this to go on this far. Liefong has no crime to prosecute, and only under such a system as they have in NC could such a non-case get to this point. The real legal issue underlying this that should be discussed separately from the defendants and the anti-white racial biases running Durham and the election and Liefong and Gottlieb and the whole nine yards is the fact that no crime occurred. It isn't that no crime occurred because these boys have alibis, and it isn't that no crime occurred because there is no other evidence against these boys. It's the fact that there is no evidence of a crime occurring at all, and that is the fatal flaw in this entire fiasco.
Same for me.
I think I'm living in America and then I think about this case. I've seen some ugly things happen in the system to be sure, but nothing even close to this. It's astonishing, but NC's system was made to order for this to happen, so I guess I shouldn't be astonished.
True, but it also includes sworn affidavits made under penalty of perjury.
But aside from that, if Kim goes on TV and tells one story and then tells a a completely different story on the witness stand, she can and will be impeached by what she said to the media, so it DOES matter what she says. Kim recently went through her own court case for violationj of probation for not paying her restitution for the embezzlement charge she was convicted of. Looking at her now, my guess is that she got some good legal advice on how to handle this matter as well.
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