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I have mentioned to you in the last couple days that the Meehan thing makes a case for obstruction of justice and appears to be actual criminal conduct, that an extensive investigation should be conducted and that we then would hear the legal community, specifically former prosecutors, begin to speak of obstruction charges. I was wrong. Of all people, Hammer brought it up on Greta's show last night. He said Nifong's conduct of withholding the full results was outrageous, ILLEGAL, and enough to remove him from the case. A few minutes later, in total disgust, he said that between the DNA results issue and the line-up issues (as to Nifong telling the police to violate their own policies), it's looking like Nifong was trying to obstruct justice and that the whole thing is just outrageous.

I wasn't pointing this out to you as a defense of Hammer, but rather that chatter among your "insiders" about actual criminal charges against Liefong have been started (in a small way) by Hammer, of all people.

The Motion to Suppress is set for hearing the week of February 5, 2007. If the Court grants the motion and prohibits the FA from making an in-court identification of the Defendants, then the charges must be dropped. In order to grant that motion, the Court would have to find that the photo ID process was so flawed in this case that it is unreliable as a matter of law and that any in-court ID would be so tainted as to amount to a violation of the Defendants' rights of due process. It's a tough burden to meet because there is a presumption that the weight to be given to the identification of the accused by the FA is a matter within the province of the jury. However, reading the Defendants' motion leads one to believe that a fair judge might very well grant it, because the problems related to the FA's eventual ID of the Defendants are truly mind boggling.

If the hearing goes forward, every cop who had contact with the FA could be called to discuss the description, or lack thereof, which the FA gave of her attackers. The failure to ID anyone on the first go around; the descriptions of a "chubby" attacker, one with a mustache, the fact that one of the Defendants is so far removed from any description given by the FA that he was not even included in the first photo line-ups; the fact that she apparently eventually named 4 attackers and just left it up to the DA as to which 3 to charge--all of this would be part of the hearing-- and I bet the FA will make a very poor witness.

There has to be some likelihood that the DA and the FA will try to find a way out of this mess before Feb. 5. Maybe it will be just too traumatic for her or something like that--or health considerations related to pregnancy--or whatever--that will allow Nifong to "relunctantly" drop the case. Of course, if he does so and thereby leaves a cloud over the LAX players, they probably would still go after his ass in every way possible, so he's got problems at this point no matter which road he takes. He may decide his best bet is to just push ahead. The only thing I'm sure of is that the Number One consideration in whatever decision Nifong make will be --What's best for Nifong.