Replies

Duke Case Accuser Is Pregnant, and Test of Paternity Is Next

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS; New York Times version, Published: December 16, 2006

DURHAM, N.C. , Dec. 15 (AP) — After it was revealed in court that the woman who has accused three Duke lacrosse players of rape is pregnant, a judge on Friday ordered a paternity test on the fetus. But the district attorney and the defense rejected any possibility that one of the three men was the father.

News of the accuser’s pregnancy comes roughly nine months after the lacrosse team party at which she says she was raped.

The district attorney, Michael B. Nifong, said he believed that the accuser had become pregnant at least two weeks after the party.

The defense asked for the paternity test. A defense lawyer, Joseph B. Cheshire, said it was an “absolute impossibility” that the woman became pregnant in the alleged attack.

Mr. Cheshire said that the woman was given a pregnancy test just after reporting she had been raped, that the test was negative and that she took an emergency contraceptive.

Also on Friday, a laboratory director admitted in court that in the wake of an agreement with Mr. Nifong, he had violated his own procedures and withheld results showing that none of the lacrosse players’ DNA had been found on or in the accuser’s body.

The director, Dr. Brian Meehan, who works for DNA Security Inc., said he and Mr. Nifong had agreed to include only DNA matches in the report on his testing results. The report released in May omitted information about people the DNA tests excluded, including the fact that no genetic material from any member of the lacrosse team was among that from several men found in the accuser’s underwear and body.

“We are extremely troubled by that,” Mr. Cheshire said. The full testing results were disclosed through a defense request.

The defense also asked that the trial, which will probably not begin until spring, be moved out of Durham County because of publicity. The judge set a Feb. 5 hearing on that request.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/16/us/16duke.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Judge orders paternity test in Duke rape case; DNA report questioned

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS -excerpt-- Winston-Salem version.

Defense attorney Brad Bannon, who represents Evans, suggested that since Meehan knew that this was a rape case involving multiple assailants, and that negative tests could be considered exculpatory, he should have reported that.

"Wouldn't it tend to negate the guilt of someone accused of raping someone?" Bannon asked.

"No," Meehan replied. "It's a CSI effect.... If their DNA's not there, it doesn't mean they were not there."

Meehan acknowledged that the report "diverges from the letter of that standard," but he said he wasn't attempting to withhold information. He said he was concerned about sensitive, private information leaking out. "He (Nifong) didn't ask me explicitly to exclude that," Meehan said. "I was just trying to do the right thing."

The judge scheduled a Feb. 5 hearing on the defense requests to move the trial and to throw out the accuser's identifications.

The February hearing might also be the first time that the players and their accuser will come face to face since the party. Nifong said that she will have to be there to testify about the identification process, and Cheshire said that the thought of questioning her in person made him feel "maybe like a 5-year-old at Christmas."