Posted on 12/13/2006 1:36:38 PM PST by Howlin
A private laboratory hired by the prosecution in the Duke lacrosse case failed to report that it found DNA from multiple males in the accuser's body and underwear, according to a defense motion filed today. The lab, DNA Security of Burlington, found that the DNA did not match the three defendants, their lacrosse teammates or anyone else who submitted their DNA to police, including the accuser's boyfriend.
The new evidence emerged in thousands of documents handed over to the defense in October.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsobserver.com ...
Backtracking the date, if the child was actually born on 12/13 or 12/14, actually puts conception after the party, but not real far beyond it - about a week. Further, third, fourth and so on births tend to come a little early, which would move the date forward, not back to the 13th-14th of March.
Duke admits 469, sees 20% decline in early applications
Officials say lacrosse, national admissions trends had likely effect
http://www.dukechronicle.com/media/storage/paper884/news/2006/12/11/News/Duke-Admits.469.Sees.20.Decline.In.Early.Applications-2598581.shtml?norewrite200612150518&sourcedomain=www.dukechronicle.com
Lacrosse defense challenges photo lineup
BY WILLIAM F. WEST, The Herald-Sun
December 15, 2006 12:17 am
DURHAM -- Defense attorneys in the Duke lacrosse rape case filed papers Thursday asking Superior Court Judge Osmond Smith to suppress the "alleged 'identification'" of their three clients by the woman who claims they raped her in March.
The defense accused District Attorney Mike Nifong of violating constitutional rights, Durham police procedures and state police education and training standards by resorting to a photo lineup procedure that was "tainted" and "unduly suggestive and misleading," in its motion Thursday.
"In short, the accuser was asked to pick three people as her attackers from those present at the scene, and because only those thought to be at the scene were shown to her, she was, in effect, given a multiple choice test in which there were no wrong answers," the defense argued.
Meanwhile, television station WRAL reported online late Thursday that the lacrosse players' accuser had given birth at UNC Hospitals.
The child would be the third born to the accuser.
WRAL reported that an unidentified defense attorney in the case said the accuser was not pregnant at the time of the alleged attack and had been given emergency contraception after the alleged attack.
Thursday's filing is the latest in an ongoing legal battle by graduated player Reade Seligmann and former teammates Collin Finnerty and David Evans -- who have both taken leaves of absence from Duke -- to fight charges they sexually assaulted the accuser the night of March 13-14 at a rented house at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd., next to Duke's East Campus, where a Duke lacrosse party was being held.
As for the case in general, Judge Smith is set to preside at the latest pretrial hearing at 9:30 a.m. today in the sixth floor grand jury room of the Durham County Judicial Building.
Nifong was not in his office when a reporter stopped by Thursday afternoon and did not respond to a written message left at his office to call or e-mail the reporter.
Nifong has not commented about the case -- outside the courtroom -- in weeks.
The defense wants Smith to bar any in-court identification of Seligmann, Finnerty or Evans by the accuser and to hold an evidence hearing on the issue.
The defense argued in detail that police investigation notes of physical descriptions of three suspects given by the accuser don't match those of Seligmann, Finnerty or Evans.
According to the defense, a late-produced report by the prosecution showed that the accuser already had failed to identify either Seligmann or Evans as her attackers after viewing about 36 photos of lacrosse team members and that no evidence linked the two to the woman.
"Finally, and despite descriptions of her attackers given to police by the accuser on March 16, 2006, the accuser had never been shown a picture of Collin Finnerty, presumably because he didn't match any of these descriptions," the defense argued.
The defense went on to argue that Nifong -- who took over supervision of the investigation on March 24 -- directed that a new procedure showing photos of all the white players on the lacrosse team be used by police.
The team's lone black player at the time has never been considered a suspect because the accuser said all the attackers were white.
But, the defense argued, the procedure was used "despite the fact that investigators knew that at least two of the people present at the party were not members of the Duke lacrosse team."
The defense argued that police prepared a "PowerPoint" presentation for April 4 in which only lacrosse team members were shown to the accuser, with no "fillers" to test the accuracy of her identification.
"Prior to showing the accuser the pictures, the supervising investigator informed her that she was only going to be shown pictures of the people who attended the party and that it was important for her to identify the people she recognized," the defense argued.
"Moreover, the accuser's actual 'identification' is riddled with errors," the defense argued.
The defense argued that not only did the accuser identify two players who were not even at the party, "one was not even in Durham" at the time of the get-together.
And the defense argued, "In the process of identifying her three attackers, the accuser actually identified four separate men as her attackers -- the state apparently just chose three of the four to indict without further investigation.
"She did not recognize people whom she had earlier identified, and misidentified people as doing things at the party that the investigation showed they did not do," the defense argued.
URL for this article: http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-799604.cfm
Duke early-admission applicants down
BY RAY GRONBERG, The Herald-Sun
December 15, 2006 12:02 am
DURHAM -- Early-admission applications to Duke University dropped by 25 percent this fall, a decrease administrators conceded Thursday is likely due in part to bad publicity stemming from the Duke lacrosse case.
Duke officials reported 1,198 would-be students sought admission through a program that requires them to commit to attending the school if it offers them a place in next fall's incoming class or else lose the offer. Last year, 1,501 early applications came in, about the same number Duke received each of the four years before that.
Dean of Admissions Christoph Guttentag said Duke received more early applications this year from the Carolinas, Georgia and overseas, but fewer than it would normally expect from the eastern seaboard and major metropolitan areas.
He conceded that those are the places the lacrosse case has received the most attention. The three men indicted on rape charges in connection with the March incident -- David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann -- are from Maryland, New York and New Jersey.
"I think we would have been surprised if there hadn't been some effect due to all of the media coverage over the last eight or nine months," Guttentag said. "It's reasonable to think that some students who are interested in Duke and who have Duke on their list, that some percentage of them would take a little more of a wait-and-see attitude."
Guttentag added that schools similar to Duke have reported steady or lower early-application numbers this fall.
Regular admission candidates are likely to apply this month.
Guttentag said the incoming students in this year's early-admission group "are very much the equal of last year's," academically.
Bob Ekstrand, a Duke alumnus and Durham lawyer who has represented unindicted lacrosse players, said he had wondered if the school would see a drop-off in applications due to the lacrosse case and local law enforcement's 2005-06 crackdown on underage drinking and off-campus partying.
Duke neighbors have said the crackdown is the only effective thing Duke or city officials have done to combat drink-induced, off-campus disorder, but Ekstrand said it stoked fears among prospective students and their parents of police mistreatment and the possible stigma of criminal records.
Duke "is an exceptional place," but parents may wonder if their children would "be arrested for things they wouldn't be in another place," Ekstrand said, adding that he expects Duke President Richard Brodhead to address the situation. "I don't know who turned up the volume first or loudest, but the answer should not have been the use of criminal laws."
URL for this article: http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-799597.cfm
Defense wants ID of players barred
Judge is asked to stop the rape-case accuser from pointing out defendants in court
Benjamin Niolet and Joseph Neff, Staff Writers
DURHAM - Defense lawyers in the Duke lacrosse rape case asked a judge Thursday to prohibit the accuser from identifying at trial the three players she said attacked her.
The motion, filed in Durham County Superior Court, also asks the judge to throw out the photographic lineup procedure that was the basis for the state's case. And it followed a defense motion Wednesday that attacked the handling of DNA evidence.
If the motions succeed, the attorneys for three indicted former lacrosse players would undermine the foundation of District Attorney Mike Nifong's case. The motions attack the key weaknesses the defense has raised about Nifong's case -- a questionable lineup, the lack of physical evidence and whether the accuser is a reliable witness.
The case is set for a hearing today, and, while the issues the motions raise are unlikely to be settled, the lawyers are sure to discuss the defense's allegations.
Thursday's 43-page motion recounts the day-by-day progress of the investigation and police efforts to get a reliable identification from the accuser, an escort service worker who said she was raped by three men at a March lacrosse team party.
"Putting to one side the substantial evidence that no sexual assault ever occurred at 610 N. Buchanan, there is quite simply no evidence that any of the accuser's identifications or descriptions of her alleged attackers are in any way reliable," the motion says. "Rather the State is left with an incoherent mass of contradiction and error, one which not only raises the issue of a 'substantial likelihood of misidentification,' but which establishes that the accuser has in fact misidentified the Defendants."
Nifong did not return a message seeking comment Thursday and has said he would no longer discuss the specifics of the case outside court. The accuser has been unreachable for months.
David Evans, 23, of Bethesda, Md.; Collin Finnerty, 20, of Garden City, N.Y.; and Reade Seligmann, 20, of Essex Fells, N.J., are each charged with rape, kidnapping and a sexual offense.
The men maintain their innocence and call the accusations lies.
Wednesday's defense motion said a private lab that Nifong hired to analyze DNA evidence found male genetic material in the accuser's body but none from any lacrosse player. WRAL-TV, without citing a source, reported that she gave birth to a child Thursday. After the party, the accuser was seen at Duke Hospital and given emergency contraception, a standard procedure.
Much of Thursday's motion focuses on the events preceding the April 4 lineup in which the accuser viewed a PowerPoint presentation of 46 lacrosse players and identified four as her assailants. That lineup became the basis for the three indictments. The fourth person was not investigated further. The police and prosecutor have declined to answer questions about the lineup.
Before that lineup, the accuser made contradictory statements, misidentified party-goers and failed to recognize the men she would eventually accuse.
In March, she looked at pictures of 36 lacrosse players and didn't identify any as her attackers. On March 16, she viewed a picture of Seligmann and said she was 70 percent sure he was at the party but couldn't remember what he was doing. On March 21, she twice looked at photos of Evans and did not recognize him.
Identification central
Meanwhile, a state crime lab could find no sperm, saliva or blood in evidence collected from the woman at the hospital, and the woman's ability to identify her attackers had become central to the state's case. Nifong had repeatedly told the public that a rape had occurred and lacrosse players were the culprits.
"The PowerPoint Identification directed to be used by the District Attorney simply represented the last chance to identify someone from the Duke lacrosse team as an attacker," says the motion, which is titled "Motion to Suppress the Alleged 'Identification' of the Defendants by the Accuser."
The procedure violated Durham police guidelines in two ways:
* An officer unconnected to the case should run the lineup, according to the procedures. Sgt. Mark Gottlieb, the lead investigator, ran the April 4 procedure.
* The guidelines call for five photos of people who aren't suspects to be included for each photo of a suspect, yet Gottlieb showed the woman pictures only of lacrosse players, all of whom had been ordered to submit DNA because they were suspects.
"This procedure was designed to permit her to pick any person she desired and identify him as an attacker," the motion says. "That person would then be charged with rape."
The motion highlighted evidence to support the argument that the accuser incorrectly identified the three defendants:
Seligmann
Seligmann's attorneys had previously made public cell phone records, sworn statements and bank machine records to show that Seligmann had left the party during the time the accuser said she was raped. The motion Thursday highlights what defense lawyers say is a further contradiction -- the accuser told police that a man she later identified as Seligmann carried her to a car after the assault.
A Wachovia ATM photographed Seligmann withdrawing cash at 12:24 a.m., about a mile from the party. But a photo taken at 12:41 a.m. shows one player helping the accuser into a car.
Finnerty
Finnerty is 6 feet 5 inches, 215 pounds, with a "very noticeable freckled face," the motion said.
When the accuser described her three attackers to police, she said one of them was "short," another was "heavyset" and the third was "chubby." She made no mention of freckles.
"While he could fairly be described as 'lanky' no one would describe him as 'chubby' or 'heavyset'," the motion stated.
Evans
On March 21, police showed the accuser photographs of 12 lacrosse players. She looked at a photograph of Evans twice and did not recognize him. Two weeks later, as she looked at photographs of every white team member, she viewed Evans' picture about 45 seconds.
"He looks like one of the guys who assaulted me sort of," she said. "He looks just like him without the mustache."
Evans did not have a mustache on the night of the lacrosse party, according to the motion, which includes photographs of a clean-shaven Evans taken the day before and the day after the party.
Staff writer Benjamin Niolet can be reached at 956-2404 or bniolet@newsobserver.com.
WHAT'S NEXT
The lacrosse case is due in court today for a hearing. District Attorney Mike Nifong is expected to hand over more evidence. Nifong and the defense lawyers are likely to discuss trial dates and whether to schedule hearings on two motions filed by the defense this week.
Those hearings are likely to be mini-trials in the case. Lawyers would question witnesses and argue to the judge. At stake will be whether the lacrosse rape charges will go forward.
PHOTO ID
The defense requested that the April 4 photographic identification procedure be thrown out and that the judge not allow the accuser to point to her alleged attackers in court.
The judge would have to answer the following questions: Was the PowerPoint procedure inherently suggestive and inherently misleading? Did it result in a tainted and unreliable identification? If so, was the procedure so tainted that an in-court identification would be inherently unreliable?
For answers, the judge would hear testimony from witnesses who would be questioned by both sides: the accuser and the police officers who participated in the identification, such as Sgt. Mark Gottlieb and Investigator Benjamin Himan.
Both sides could call expert witnesses.
"I would try to hire an expert witness on the science of memory and the impact of suggestive identification procedures," said Eric Muller, who teaches criminal law at the University of North Carolina law school.
DNA
On Wednesday the defense charged that a private laboratory hired by the prosecution did not report that its tests showed that the accuser had DNA from unidentified men in her body. The specimens did not match any of the lacrosse players, the accuser's boyfriend or anyone else who submitted DNA to police.
The defense team asked for more records from the company, DNA Security of Burlington.
Defense lawyers requested the right to question the lab's director, Brian Meehan, under oath.
http://www.newsobserver.com/100/story/521740.html
Fewer apply early at Duke
Lacrosse case seen as one factor
Jane Stancill, Staff Writer
Applications for early admission to Duke University dropped by nearly 20 percent this year in the aftermath of the lacrosse scandal.
This year, 1,198 students applied early to Duke, committing to enroll if they received an offer of admission. That is a decline from 1,496 early decision applicants last year.
The university sent offers this week to 469 high school seniors from around the world for a spot in the Class of 2011.
A Duke official said the slide is probably partly attributable to months of negative news about the case in which three Duke lacrosse players were accused of raping a dancer from an escort service at a team party in March. The players have denied the charges.
"It would have surprised us if all of the media coverage hadn't had some effect," said Christoph Guttentag, dean of undergraduate admissions.
But he pointed out that early decision applications declined this year at other highly ranked schools, including Yale and Rice universities. That could indicate a trend against early decision, which has been the topic of media attention since Harvard, Princeton and the University of Virginia announced plans to drop the practice this year, Guttentag said. Early decision has been criticized because it tends to attract more affluent students.
"I don't think it's unreasonable to think that the critical view of early decision as a whole might have affected some people's decisions overall," he said.
Duke typically fills about 30 percent of each class during the early admissions process, but there is no specific target for the number of students to be picked early. Guttentag said the overall quality of the admitted students was the same as last year. "I'm very pleased with where we ended up," he said.
It remains to be seen whether the decrease in early applicants foreshadows trouble for Duke. The university's regular admissions deadline is Jan. 2, and the vast majority of students apply in December, Guttentag said.
Staff writer Jane Stancill can be reached at 956-2464 or janes@newsobserver.com.
http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/521622.html
That picture is hilarious,
Mike Nifong is the baby daddy.
Call Greta.
KC didn't ask Elmostafa about the white car? Dang.
Jaw on floor.
Poll at LS:
Who da baby daddy?, Name your choice before parternity tests
Who is the father of the accuser's child?
Irving Joyner [ 0 ] [0.00%]
Mark Gottlieb [ 0 ] [0.00%]
Jakki O'Knight [ 1 ] [16.67%]
Brian Taylor [ 0 ] [0.00%]
Bill Bell [ 0 ] [0.00%]
Linwood Wilson [ 1 ] [16.67%]
Steven Chalmers [ 0 ] [0.00%]
Matt Murchison [ 1 ] [16.67%]
Destine Couch [ 2 ] [33.33%]
Benny Himan [ 0 ] [0.00%]
Patrick Baker [ 0 ] [0.00%]
Brian Meehan [ 0 ] [0.00%]
Jarriel Johnson [ 0 ] [0.00%]
Cash Michaels [ 1 ] [16.67%]
Total Votes: 6
She probably found out she was pregnant at the hospital, and had no idea how to 'splain it to her family.
The spin was, however -- SO TRAUMATIZED BY THE RAPE(S)!
Hm. No wonder Nifong is open and public about having spent no "time" interviewing her. I guess the "interviewer" was someone else.
If she became pregnant after the incident, we know the father is not a white guy, because after that night whenever she saw a white man, it is claimed she "screamed and ran away".
She's a real piece of work. She was upset that "they" have kept the FA hidden away and Jakkie has been denied her TV face time as "family spokesperson". No word on who "they" are.
Of course it was a "committed relationship"--lots of them, in fact. The "committment" involved a $100 bill and 20 minutes of the FA's time.
I'll check in later to see what's going on with the hearing this morning. And to hear more about this baby who I presume is black because sure as the sun shines in the east, if the baby was white, we'd have heard by now.
LOL
Although I'm trying to catch up can someone please tell me when and how I can follow the goings on in the courtroom today? Is LB going to be there?
If she was already pregnant...say a few days, no matter what test she was given, it likely would not show her being pregnant. As far as the morning after pill, it is not "abortive", it is preventive. Regardless, she would have known in two weeks after she became pregnant and you can be damn sure that Nifong was told......The question is when was he told. Obviously, he had made a deal with her.
Peach...I'm thinking the opposite, We'd be told it was black but not that it was white. Best guess, light mulatto.
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