Duke Lacrosse Attorneys Seek Change of Venue
Posted: 13 minutes ago
Updated: 2 minutes ago
Durham — Defense attorneys in the Duke University lacrosse rape case on Friday asked a judge to move the trial out of Durham.
Attorneys for lacrosse players Reade Seligmann, 20, Collin Finnerty, 20, and David Evans, 23, said Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong has polarized the local community with comments he made during the initial stages of the investigation.
A North Carolina Central University student told police she was beaten and raped by three lacrosse players while performing as a stripper at a March 13 team party. Seligmann, Finnerty and Evans were later indicted on kidnapping and rape charges, but they have denied any wrongdoing.
Before any arrests were made, Nifong publicly stated that a crime had been committed.
The change of venue motion was delivered before a packed courtroom that included the three players and their families, lacrosse coach John Danowski and scores of Duke students.
The motion is the latest development in the high-profile case. On Thursday, defense attorneys asked that the judge throw out the photographic lineup in which the accuser identified the defendants.
The motion said the identifications of the Duke players resulted from a "tainted procedure" and were unreliable.
Nifong directed that the identification procedure use only photos of the white members of the team who were at the party and arrange the photos in a PowerPoint presentation for the woman to view.
http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/1107841/
Any media cameras in there? CTV decided to cover the case in a jury watch.....more face time for the spawn of Gloria Allred. ugh
They changed that page to be a diff article, maggief. :>( Can't find the Change of Venue article of pdf anywhere...