Posted on 01/14/2007 4:25:09 PM PST by Howlin
Comments here!
This is as bad as a presidential news conference threads...
"Why do they always start so late?"
"Who is that in the second row? Looks like Jeff Gannon"
"HERE COMES SOMEONE!!!! Oops. Just a Secret Service guy."
"When are they going to do something other than a blue curtain?"
"Helen Thomas ALERT!!!"
GOOD...
I will be curious to see how the spinners on MSNBC and CNN spin it tomorrow.
Luckily, it was on network TV..and after a big football game...so hopefully more people saw that interview than normally see him during the week.
The purpose of fillers on a line-up is to ensure that a witness not only needs to want to finger someone, but also needs to know what the person looks like. Had Precious been shown 100 photos, some of which were people on the team and some of which were people selected at random from police files, and she had managed to pick three team members, that would suggest that at minimum she had some clue what at least some of the team members looked like. If one or more of the people she picked were random fillers, that would suggest she didn't have such a good idea of what the attackers looked like; if two or more were fillers, that would pretty well show that she was just guessing.
By declining to use fillers, Nifong offered her "A multiple-choice test with no wrong answers" (forget who said that). Without fillers, there is no way to judge with what degree of certainty she made the identification.
"Time will tell as to whether Nifong or the City or County of Durham will be found liable to damages or agree to pay a settlement, that is, assuming the defendants even decide to sue."
Of course.
"As to the photo identification, I don't believe the mere fact that a photo line-up included only lacrosse players or that it did not conform to state guidelines would necessarily make it unconstitutional (although we may learn other facts about the way it was conducted that would render it unconstitutional)."
Agreed, but again, those facts are powerful circumstantial evidence that the procedure was intentionally designed to produce an unreliable identification. As I argued, "smoking gun"-type evidence of intent is not required for a section 1983 action to be successful.
"I do concede that the effort by Nifong to delay revealing materially relevant DNA evidence makes a 1983 claim a much closer case."
It sure does. And there have been many cases in which a 1983 plaintiff was successful after presenting far less impressive circumstantial evidence of intent than that in this case. Add to that the results of the disciplinary proceedings, and any plaintiff would have more than a decent chance of being successful, not to mention defeating a motion to dismiss.
"And I am not defending the current state of the law, or hoping that the defendants do not succeed in a civil claim, I'm simply trying to evaluate the potential claims as dispassionately as possible."
I agree with your approach.
Smidgeon....smidgin....whatever....one of my grandmas favorite words. lol
The President's answer was played entirely!
Start around post 170 or so.
According to reputable histories, at the beginning of the American Revolution the would-be nation of the "United States" was anything but united. About a third of the population were Tories, who supported the King and opposed the war.
About a third counted themselves as "Americans" and supported the war. And the remaining one-third stayed out of the war and were uncommitted.
In short, at no time before about the last year of the war when it was clearly won, would there ever have been a majority of the US population in favor of the Revolution. So, if the CBS rule was followed in the American Revolution, we would still be British subjects.
Probably the only member of the Bush Administration who is sufficiently knowledgeable of history and fast enough on his/her feet to nail the "60 Minutes" questioner with the proper analogy would be Condi Rice. Many times I've had the feeling that she was holding her tongue in dealing with clueless questioners.
Congressman Billybob
No problem, JLS -- and thanks for being reasonable about a somewhat different take on the situation. But I do think we'll find out before too long. The fourth count of the disciplinary complaint will bring that particular issue into focus, and Nifong will have to make the Hobson's choice to which I referred.
My guess is that any school committed to academic excellence and basketball excellence that wants a great coach, Coach K may well be available and that would be the ultimate slap down.
Transcript:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/11/60minutes/main2352512.shtml
EXCERPT
60 Minutes has learned that she has a "long psychological history" and that she had taken anti-psychotic medications like Depakote and Seroquel.
This after he announced that he was demanding DNA from all the players since the accuser said they did NOT use condoms.
His constant tainting of the jury pool is clearly unethical, to say the least.
If he isn't disbarred the signal to other DA's will be very dangerous.
If you want to add the acts of terrorism against us prior to 9-11, we will have to adjust the figure up!
1983-1988: 916 deaths ..... and we were not at war!
Gulf War 1: 245 deaths
1993-2000: 608 deaths ..... and we were not at war!
She will skate, IMO.
Sorry, not true. That is an old-stale urban legend based on misreading of a letter by John Adams. In that letter, written during the 1780s, Adams was summarizing American attitudes toward the French Revolution, not the earlier American revolution. The vast majority of Americans supported the revolution.
Here is a transcript:
http://www.wral.com/news/local/flash/1086698/
The recently converted it from one format to another. The new format is easier to use but I think the cut some things out probably inadvertantly.
Remember the Durham Access records supposedly not kept? No written record?
Another Meehan type situation? If she had been a patient before, somewhere on the chart would be her previous admission dates. If they were really on the ball her old chart might have been with the nonexsistent record.
When was Nifong aware of her mental health history?
Maybe even on record in DA's office.
That was true in New England from early on, but not in the South, at least until much later.
Oh...I meant to add that the one third undecided figure (also from Adams letter on the French revolution) is equally wrong. The American revolution could have never be won if the figures you cite are correct. The myth of a minority revolution is just that, a myth, based on a misreading of what Adams was talking about.
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