NC - Two Duke Lacrosse Players Indicted

[Paladin]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/more/06/22/duke.lacrosse.ap/index.html

Can the accused get this money back if they were falsely accused?

 

[Jeana (DP)]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/more/06/22/duke.lacrosse.ap/index.html

Can the accused get this money back if they were falsely accused?

Bond funds are only required to make sure that the defendant appears in court as ordered. Its then returned after disposition of the case, and it can be reduced by a judge even before that time.

 

[Wudge]

I have a news flash for you...prosecutors don't start cases on their own, they only respond to what witnesses and victims tell them. If a woman tells the police that she was gang-raped, the police and the DA are required by law to open an investigation. If the investigation determines that there is "probable cause" for the charges, they're required to file charges.

Keep in mind that in this case the investigation was severely limited by the fact that the lacrosse players made the strange (and rather immature) decision to refuse as a team to cooperate with the police. If someone on the team had spoken with the police and explained their side of the story, it's entirely possible that the inconsistencies would have come out much sooner, and charges might never have been filed. So a lot of this was self-inflicted, because by banding together and remaining silent, the players essentially forced a grand jury to rely on nothing other than the testimony of the victim. If the victim testifies under oath that it happened, and the only other witnesses to the crime (the team members) all immediately hire lawyers and refuse to cooperate, you tell me what the DA (and the members of the grand jury) are supposed to do?

SNIP

Remember, the DA is not the judge and he is not the jury. Remember also that there are 2 sides to every story; even serial killers have their excuses and their alibi witnesses and their sleazy defense lawyers who'll try to twist the facts around. If DA's went around refusing to file charges every time some witnesses contradicted each other, then very few cases would ever be filed and a lot of guilty people would go free.

In the end, it's not the DA's job to decide who's telling the truth, especially when none of the eyewitnesses to the crime will cooperate. That's the jury's job at trial. After all, the whole point of a trial is to sort out the truth when people tell different stories. The DA's role is to put the victim on the stand and let her tell her story; the defense lawyer's role is to present witnesses and evidence that point to innocence; and it's the jury's role to decide who to believe.

The other way to think about this is to flip it around. If you expect DA's to start sitting in judgement and determine, before a trial, who is telling the truth and who isn't, then why have trials at all? If DA's are so good at figuring out cases before trial, why would we ever need judges and juries?

So, you need to think twice before attacking someone for being corrupt when they're doing the job that the law requires them to do.

I will first say that you truly made an unbelievable post. Jeanna's referral to read prior threads was most appropriate. However, I will still comment, in net, on a few points.

Prosecutors have immense discretion regarding what cases they decide to bring forth to a Grand Jury or to a Judge in a preliminary hearing, wherein probable cause will be assessed. Nifong used a Grand Jury in this case, and he declined to hear exculpatory/exonerating evidence that defense lawyers tried to provide to him. Thus, Nifong made himself willfully deaf, dumb and blind to any such evidence. This allowed him to willfully present limited (one-sided) facts/evidence to the Grand Jury while still remaining, technically, within the letter of the law and his oath.

Though that is far beyond unscrupulous, it is the way most NC prosecutors operate. Prosecutorial corruption has long been epidemic in NC, and I have often posted links evidencing that to be true.

It is also very clear that Nifong used this case for political and, therefore, his personal gain. Again, that is not surprising to me in any way.

The bottom line is that Nifong knowingly ruined three lives, and he does not care; he has neither shame nor heart nor ethics. I do not say that lightly, but all that he has done, has been done knowingly.

 

[jttnewguy]

Sherlockmom, I almost don’t know where to begin with my response.

First of all, I will willingly and openly admit that I haven’t followed this case as closely as some members on this message board. I’m not as fascinated by this case as some members, as evidenced by the fact that I’ve avoided writing even a single post in this thread (or its predecessors) until today.

The second thing I will say is that I had thought that this message board was open to all members to voice their opinions. I was not aware that the only people who are permitted to post without being personally attacked (including by moderators) are those who consider themselves to be "well informed." I think this is silly, since I would have thought that we would want more participation and not less. Moreover, once we start comparing who knows what, and thus who can post and who can’t, we’re setting up a standard that few of the members here can actually meet in view of many of the posts I’ve seen. But it is especially silly for reasons that I will elaborate upon in more detail shortly.

The third thing that I will say is that, while everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion regarding how a prosecutor handles a case, it is extremely dangerous to make a leap from disagreeing on how a case is handled or thinking that someone is doing a poor job, to accusing a prosecutor (or police officer, or judge, or defense attorney, or bailiff, or court reporter, or anyone else in the criminal justice system) of "corruption." There a line between opinion and slander, and accusing someone of a felony (which corruption is), openly and without any qualification whatsoever, comes very close to crossing it. You may or may not be aware of this, but people get sued all the time for posting libelous statements on message boards. What you write here is not any more privileged from litigation than what reporters write in their newspapers.

I also think it is extremely troubling to make yet another logical leap, from accusing one prosecutor of corruption, to broadly writing, as Wudge did, that many prosecutors routinely engage in corruption, falsifying or destroying evidence, perjury, filing false charges, and the like, for personal gain (this is the post that mine directly responded to). Now, I don't know whether prosecutors in NC have a "history of corruption", as Wudge alleges. Maybe he's right. But I know that many of the members here are affiliated in various capacities with law enforcement. Putting aside the issue of libel, I think that it is insensitive toward our members, as well as unnecessarily inflammatory, to write statements suggesting that prosecutors regularly commit crimes for political gain when so many of our members are, know, or are related to, police officers, corrections officers, and yes, prosecutors. I happen to personally know prosecutors who visit this board on occasion. I wasn’t aware that it was OK with the moderators here for members to insult entire groups of other members by openly accusing them of engaging in serious felonies on a regular basis.

It troubles me further that, when I attempted to place the prosecutor’s actions in context in order to defend him and to try to defuse the allegations of corruption, the moderator of this site chose not to criticize those who did the accusing, but to criticize me for not knowing the case well enough.

The funniest thing about all of this – especially the accusations that I don’t know this case well enough – is that nobody here knows anything. All we know is what we’ve read in the papers.

Sherlockmom, I don’t want to engage in a personal argument with you. I don’t know why you felt so offended and so emotionally upset by my post that felt compelled not only to respond with a post that long, but also to attack me personally and suggest that I am poorly educated. I have no idea how I may have offended you. I have never interacted with you in any way. I have no idea who you are. I have already admitted that I have not followed this case very closely. And I still have no idea why that offends you so much.

But I will say this. I was a prosecutor for 5 years. After leaving the DA’s office, I also worked on several cases as a criminal defense lawyer (although I no longer actively practice law anymore, now I’m a land developer). I’ve prosecuted hundreds of felony cases, and I’ve defended about a dozen. As a DA, I conducted 45 felony jury trials, which resulted in 43 convictions. I have tried 12 murder cases, including 6 that were covered extensively in the press. Two of my murder trials were televised, gavel-to-gavel, on CourtTV, so if you’re an avid watcher, you’ve probably seen me.

I don’t know what you do for a living, Sherlockmom, but I feel confident in saying that I have at least some idea how prosecutors analyze cases and make decisions. And I’m sorry to say that you are deeply, deeply misinformed about how prosecutors do their job.

I’m going to skip over the small errors in your post (such as the fact that defendants always have the constitutional right under the Sixth Amendment to appear and present exculpatory evidence at grand jury proceedings, and many do), because I don’t want this to become a war of words and finger-pointing. Its not about what you know or don’t know, or what I know or don’t know. Instead, I’m going to ignore most of what you wrote, and instead focus on explaining the reasons behind my original post (which may not have been explained well), so that you can perhaps understand why I wrote what I did and why I am so perplexed by your response.

First, I’m sorry to tell you that what you read in the newspapers is rarely accurate. I don’t think this should really be a surprise. So, you’re convinced you know what’s happening in this case because you’ve read the newspapers and watch CNN? Think again. When I was a DA, the judges, defense lawyers and I used to laugh over how wrong the stories in the press were and how inaccurately all of us were portrayed. I was in the courtroom once when a judge ordered a reporter to pay a $2,000 fine for reporting a crime inaccurately. Sometimes the stories made the cases sound better than they were, sometimes worse. Sometimes I looked smarter than I am (I wish I were half as good as I was portrayed in some of those stories) and sometimes dumber (I hope I’m not half as bad as some of the stories made me look), but the stories were almost never accurate.

If you’ve ever personally dealt with reporters, you’ll know why. First, they all work on very short deadlines so they rarely spend enough time to really understand what a case is about. After their morning assignment meetings, most local reporters usually begin their beat at about 11 in the morning. Newspaper reporters generally have to have their stores written and filed by 4, and evening news reporters have to have their stories taped by 5, so they all start leaving the courtroom at around 2 or 2:30 every day, which means they’re usually only engaged in actual news-gathering for about 2 or 3 hours a day, while events in a criminal case may be happening all day long. The second problem is that reporters are always looking for an "angle," or what they call a "news hook" that distinguishes their story from stories written by everyone else. In this day of 24-hour media feeding frenzies, it’s not enough to simply report what you see; an understated "just the facts" kind of guy like Walter Cronkite would never get on the air nowadays. Today, you have to come up with something salacious and exciting and hopefully controversial in order to attract attention and stand out and get the lead position on the telecast and win that award.

I’ll give you one example: I once tried a shooting case in which seven different eyewitnesses positively identified the shooter (it happened outside of a popular restaurant in broad daylight), the license number of his car was caught at the scene by a surveillance camera and he was filmed getting into the car with the gun still in his hand, and the police found the gun (which was ballistically matched to the bullet in the victim’s body and still had the defendant’s fingerprints on it) under the defendant’s mattress. The case was so open-and-shut that the jury deliberated for only 20 minutes before finding him guilty. It was one of the quickest jury deliberations I’ve ever had in my years as a prosecutor. But anyway, during the trial, one witness (who was a seventy-year old man with diabetes and poor eyesight) mistakenly told the police that he thought that the shooter was Latino when in fact he was a light-skinned African-American. The witness was correct about everything else, including the height and weight and even clothes the guy was wearing, and all of the other seven witnesses gave the exact same (accurate) description, and of course he was captured on videotape and the gun was found in his bedroom with his prints still on it. Guess what the headline was the next day? "Mistaken Identity Possible In Racially Tinged Shooting Case." The headline was so funny – and so blatantly inaccurate – that the next morning, the judge threatened to hold the reporter in contempt of court (she eventually decided not to), and even the defense lawyer admitted in court that race was not an issue in the case. The only person who even mentioned race during the entire case was the reporter. Why? Because a story about a routine shooting in Las Vegas (where there are dozens every year) probably gets buried on page 5, but a story about racism ends up on the front page as the story of the day. Does that make me a racist? Did I falsify evidence in order to frame the guy? If you believe what was written in the newspaper it certainly sounds like I did. Does that make it true?

Now, I realize that what I’m describing isn’t exactly what’s going on in the Duke case, but the point is the same: you should be very, very careful about believing what you read in the news. It’s extremely dangerous to become so enamored of things written by a reporter who’s fighting to get his story on page one that you become emotional when someone else (like me) questions it on an anonymous message board. It’s even more disturbing when you fall so deeply in love with someone else’s story that you feel perfectly comfortable openly accusing someone you’ve never met, in writing, of corruption and felony misconduct just because you read it in the news.

The second thing I will tell you is that prosecutors don’t have as much discretion as you think they do. And this is really the point I was trying to make in my original post when I tried defending Nifong from Wudge’s accusations of "corruption." The common impression (probably created by TV dramas like "Law and Order") is that a prosecutor can do whatever he pleases on a case. But the reality is quite different. Virtually every county has written administrative policies on how felony cases can be handled, negotiated, prosecuted, or dismissed. This is because the prosecution of a case requires the involvement of several different government agencies – the police department, the DA’s office, the courts, forensics labs and investigators (which often are civilian agencies separate from the police, as portrayed in "CSI"), court reporters (who generally are private contractors and not court employees), and the jail which houses defendants and transports them to the courthouse when needed – not to mention the involvement of witnesses who can be seriously inconvenienced by being called to court to testify. These standards were also created to reduce the possibility of corruption, for example, to reduce the possibility that a DA may dismiss a case because he’s friends with the defense attorney.

Because of these standards, not every case can be decided just on the personal whim of a prosecutor. I don’t know how North Carolina specifically works (and even less about the rules in the particular county where this case is being handled), but in Nevada, there are strict checklists that must be followed in the prosecution of a case, and if you don’t follow them, you not only lose you job, you could be investigated for misconduct. Virtually all states follow some variation of these standards, although there are differences in the details. Generally speaking, the more serious the charge, the less discretion you have. For example, Nevada classifies its felonies from the most serious Class A (homicide, sexual assault, arson, kidnapping), down to the least serious Class E (check washing, forgery, simple theft, possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use, etc.). With Class E felonies, prosecutors do have considerable discretion in deciding whether to proceed or whether to dismiss, plea bargain, and the like, because those cases are both considered to be less serious, and also because they are factually much simpler to prove or disprove, and generally do not require expensive and extensive forensic or crime scene investigation. However, with Class A felonies, there is virtually no discretion. Once a Class A felony is referred to the DA’s office from the police department, the DA must follow certain checklists on how to handle it. And in certain types of cases, the mere fact that a witness or victim changes her testimony is not enough, by itself, without something more, to dismiss a case or to decide not to file charges, because in certain types of cases (most notably sexual assault cases, or gang cases where witnesses are frequently threatened or afraid of retaliation, or cases involving child witnesses), witnesses frequently change their testimony even if they were telling the truth.

(continued in next post)

 

[jttnewguy]

(continued, apparently the post was too long)

Nor is it accurate to say that prosecutors should only proceed on cases in which they know they will win. I’m sorry, but I simply have no idea where you got that idea. Of the hundreds of felony cases that I handled, I can think of only a handful in which I really felt confident at an early stage of the case, simply because you never know what a jury is going to do, and as I said, there are always 2 sides to every story. Remember, OJ Simpson was acquitted even though the evidence in his case was pretty strong, while Scott Peterson was convicted in a case that was pretty weak (whether you personally believe he was guilty or not, the evidence in the case was a little on the marginal side and far, far less than the evidence of OJ’s guilt). Does that mean that the Scott Peterson case should not have been prosecuted? Of course not, it was a murder case, and you go with the evidence that you have.

The problem with your reasoning is that the defense does not have to reveal their defense strategy or plan to the prosecution before trial, so usually prosecutors do not know what the defense is going to be until the trial actually starts. Obviously, if you don’t know what the defense is going to argue or attack, you really can’t tell how strong your case is. Sometimes you can make an educated guess, and sometimes the defense will tip its hand, but that depends on the facts of the particular case; sometimes, you have absolutely no idea what evidence the defense has until the first witness testifies, or at least the opening argument. Remember, nobody knew exactly what defense Scott Peterson was going to raise until Mark Geragos stood up and presented it to the jury for the first time in his opening argument. It’s actually very much the exception that the defense has revealed as much as it has in this Duke case.

On the other hand, I have taken many cases to trial when I wasn’t sure what the outcome would be, or who was telling the truth, or where there was a plausible defense, or where there was some question about the facts that I was not able to resolve in my own mind. Every prosecutor has. Why? Because we’re not God. We do not know what happened. We weren’t there. We only know what the witnesses tell us. If a hundred nuns and bishops tell me that they witnessed a crime, that’s pretty strong evidence, but it doesn’t mean they’re right. If a convicted felon and drug addict and known liar tells me he witnessed a crime, I may or may not choose to believe him, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I wasn’t there. And the very purpose of the checklists I described is to put into effect the principle that, because we are not omniscient, you go with what the witnesses tell you, unless the case is so obviously weak that going forward would be a miscarriage of justice. Now, there are options when cases are weak; for example, prosecutors can (and often do) negotiate a plea bargain to avoid a trial. But it is the defendant’s right to accept or reject a plea bargain offer; if he insists on his day in court, then that’s his right, and the case is going to trial whether it’s strong or whether it’s weak. Again, I’m not saying that’s what’s going on in this case; the larger point is that the prosecutor’s choices are not limitless, especially in the case of a Class A felony. Once a witness reports the occurrence of a Class A felony, and there is some evidence that corroborates it even if it is not conclusive (such as broken fingernails, medical exam results, etc. like there is here), then the train starts, and the prosecutor doesn’t have as much discretion as you may think he does.

Now, let’s imagine if DA’s actually worked the way that you believe they do. Let’s say you’re the victim of a crime, and the DA dismisses your case before trial. When you ask him why, his answer is, "I wasn’t sure I would win." Would you find that answer acceptable? Wouldn’t you be outraged? Wouldn’t you feel that you were denied your day in court? Wouldn’t you call every reporter you knew to complain that this was a miscarriage of justice, and that the DA was spineless? Yes, you would. We all would. And that’s exactly why these checklists were created – to eliminate miscarriages of justice created by dumb, ineffectual or lazy DA’s who dismiss cases at the first sign of difficulty and only prosecute the "slam dunks."

Now, I’m not saying that Nifong has done everything correctly. As I said, I have not read everything (even if you believe it), and I do not know the particular standards in North Carolina. Nor am I saying the defendants are either guilty or not guilty, because I don’t know. Nor am I defending everything that he has done in this case. Maybe you are right, and he is corrupt; I don't know the man, so I can't say.

But my point is that there's another explanation for everything he has done, and we shouldn't jump so quickly to conclusions of corruption based on what we read on the Internet, especially when, based on my experience, his hands are somewhat (not completely but certainly somewhat) tied by what the victim has told him. He is not a man living alone on an island, free to do whatever he pleases. He is part of a machinery of laws, procedures and standards that were put into motion not by him, but by a victim who told the police that she was raped. Whether the victim was lying or not, only time will tell. But once the machinery is put into motion by her allegation – even if it’s a complete lie – then it’s not as easy as some people think for him to just do whatever he wants, no matter what comes out in the press (even assuming that the reporting is accurate). And if you go back and read my original post again, you’ll see that is the point that I was trying to make.

 

[Sherlockmom]

>But I will say this. I was a prosecutor for 5 years.



If you say so

Sherlockmom

 

[Sherlockmom]

"A judge reduced the bond of a Duke University lacrosse player charged with rape to $100,000 at a hearing Thursday"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060623/ap_on_sp_co_ne/duke_lacrosse_5

Sherlockmom

 

[Wudge]

(continued, apparently the post was too long)

SNIP

while Scott Peterson was convicted in a case that was pretty weak (whether you personally believe he was guilty or not, the evidence in the case was a little on the marginal side and far, far less than the evidence of OJ’s guilt). Does that mean that the Scott Peterson case should not have been prosecuted? Of course not, it was a murder case, and you go with the evidence that you have.



Now, I’m not saying that Nifong has done everything correctly. As I said, I have not read everything (even if you believe it), and I do not know the particular standards in North Carolina.




But my point is that there's another explanation for everything he has done, and we shouldn't jump so quickly to conclusions of corruption based on what we read on the Internet, especially when, based on my experience, his hands are somewhat (not completely but certainly somewhat) tied by what the victim has told him. He is not a man living alone on an island, free to do whatever he pleases. He is part of a machinery of laws, procedures and standards that were put into motion not by him, but by a victim who told the police that she was raped. Whether the victim was lying or not, only time will tell.

SNIP

As for NC prosecutorial standards, I am reposting the following as a background aid.

BEGINNING OF PRIOR POST

"When it comes to railroading the innocent (railroading in capital cases is a true specialty) via withholding exculpatory or exonerating evidence or through seating a pre-disposed jury, no other state in America can even fathom pulling off once what commonly takes place on a daily basis in NC's courtrooms.

As regards its prosecutorial practices as well as its actual operating "policy", NC is pure Ripleys.

For example, if a prosecutor has exculpatory evidence, are they required to turn it over to the defense"? No. To do so would violate State policy.

I kid you not.

http://www.newsobserver.com/208/story/249929.html

And if a NC prosecutor wants an expert witness to testify in a certain way, what methodology do they practice? Why they treat their expert witness the exact same way that they treat defense lawyers. They withhold relevant facts/evidence from them as well. Thus, by withholding relevant facts, they force or shape the resulting "expert opinion" to fit their storyline.

http://www.newsobserver.com/208/story/255927.html

And if a prosecutor is faced with hearing about, reading about or, in any way, knowing about exonerating evidence, what do they do? Why the practice in NC is to become deaf, dumb and blind to any such evidence. This is known as "willful blindness".

For example, seventeen eye witnesses would exonerate a defendant. So, what is the practice for prosecutors in NC. The practice is simple and standard. They just pretend (claim) that investigators never told them about any such witnesses, and they will claim (pretend) not to have read the files on any such (seventeen) witnesses

http://www.newsobserver.com/210/story/318665.html

This practice of "willful blindness" is also used to obtain indictments in NC. The Duke rape case serves perfectly to illustrate that practice. I reference Nifong's unwilligness to even hear (a prosecutor must be deaf) what exculpatory or exonerating evidence one of the defense attorneys said they had to support their client's innocence.

The bottom line is: NC is not like any other state in our nation. There have been five or six recent murder/capital case reversals that resulted from such heinous prosecutorial practices as I noted above. Let me repeat: capital cases.

Should anyone doubt that a Durham prosecutor would consider all of the above practices, and more, to be fair game in a simple rape case that they have already used to gain re-election. (hah)

Oh, and when a NC review board decides to impose the harshest of penalities to prosecutors who withheld exonerating evidence in a capital case and who also withheld facts from their expert witness so as to shape their opinion, what do prosectutors suffer? Why they get reprimanded and appointed to one of the highest positions in the state legal system.

http://www.newsobserver.com/208/story/244539.html

Summarizing NC's system of jurisprudence: Ripley, eat your heart out."

END OF PRIOR POST

If the above is not enough, then for your bedtime reading, do a bit of detailed research (simply via the web) on the case histories, convictions and imprisonment records of: Alan Gell, Darrly Hunt, Jerry Lee Hamilton, Alfred Rivera, Charles Munsey, Tim Hennis, et al. Their case histories are readily available on the web.

As for Scott Peterson, I agree with your assessment. For no one, anywhere, ever produced the clear and unyielding proof (unyielding to the reasonable alternative explanation provision for circumstantial evidence) of his guilt, as charged. His high-profile case and trial reminded me a good deal of both Dr. Sam Sheppard's case/trial and Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald's case/trial, which is yet another greatly disputed NC case.

 

[Jeana (DP)]

Sherlockmom, I almost don’t know where to begin with my response.

First of all, I will willingly and openly admit that I haven’t followed this case as closely as some members on this message board. I’m not as fascinated by this case as some members, as evidenced by the fact that I’ve avoided writing even a single post in this thread (or its predecessors) until today.

The second thing I will say is that I had thought that this message board was open to all members to voice their opinions. I was not aware that the only people who are permitted to post without being personally attacked (including by moderators) are those who consider themselves to be "well informed." I think this is silly, since I would have thought that we would want more participation and not less. Moreover, once we start comparing who knows what, and thus who can post and who can’t, we’re setting up a standard that few of the members here can actually meet in view of many of the posts I’ve seen. But it is especially silly for reasons that I will elaborate upon in more detail shortly.

You were not personally attacked. Its a case with many twists and turns and one would think you would want to familiarlize yourself with them before you began posting about a case that you, admittedly, knew nothing about.

The rest of of your post just sort of blurred, but if you feel "attacked" in the future, please hit the alert button and I'll be glad to help you out!!

 

[JDB]

When are the charges going to dropped. This case is beyond belive. Just found this one
RALEIGH, N.C. -- A woman who accused three Duke University lacrosse players of rape initially told police she was attacked by five men at a team party and at one point denied she had been raped, according to a police report released Friday by a defense attorney.

Authorities said previously in affidavits that the accuser reported she was raped by three men at a March 13 lacrosse team party where she and another woman were hired to perform as exotic dancers.


More at link
http://www.sportsline.com/general/story/9522933

 

[Jeana (DP)]

Good question. Either the prosecutor needs to dig his head out of his arse or someone needs to do it for him.

 

[mssheila]

I try not to post much in this thread because I do not understand this case at all. I mean, it makes absolutely NO SENSE to me whatsoever. I cannot understand how Nifong has not dropped it yet.

The only thing I can even imagine is that the prosecutor is holding something back. But how he could possibly keep the secret, and not include that in the discovery? Is that even possible? I guess I just can't imagine that he doesn't have to turn his 'evidence' over.

Going back to when he refused to hook one of them (Evans, I think) to a lie detector. He refused to take exculpatory evidence from the boys. I just can't make heads or tails of it at all. I can't imagine either, that a DA would keep this up, with all the public pressure. It tells me that he MUST have SOMETHING.

 

[BillyGoatGruff]

I try not to post much in this thread because I do not understand this case at all. I mean, it makes absolutely NO SENSE to me whatsoever. I cannot understand how Nifong has not dropped it yet.

The only thing I can even imagine is that the prosecutor is holding something back. But how he could possibly keep the secret, and not include that in the discovery? Is that even possible? I guess I just can't imagine that he doesn't have to turn his 'evidence' over.

Going back to when he refused to hook one of them (Evans, I think) to a lie detector. He refused to take exculpatory evidence from the boys. I just can't make heads or tails of it at all. I can't imagine either, that a DA would keep this up, with all the public pressure. It tells me that he MUST have SOMETHING.

Not necessarily. He could simply be stringing it along to get some name recognition, then drop the charges/announce the accuser has backed out (apparently she and her kids have disappeared) and then use the high profile/cred to try and angle for running for a political office or consulting job elsewhere.

 

[mssheila]

Also, why is there no toxicology report. That's the one thing that has me baffled. If she was as incoherent as has been reported, there is no reason fathomable in my mind that they didn't do a toxicology report. They drew blood. That's in the discovery. But they didn't do the test? No way. If Nifong could hide that report, or "lose" it, or whatever, there must be a reason he hasn't released it to the defense. There is only one plausible theory that I read by another poster here, but I don't remember who said it.

Someone here posted that the toxicology may have revealed that the AV could have had a substance in her system that was in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. I can totally see that happening, her stealing some drug from the guys' medicine cabinet, and then getting out of her head, with the drinking and then the added drugs. It's also possible that the boys may have caught her, or confronted her about it, and then she cries "rape" to avoid getting in trouble for stealing someone's medication.

That is one theory that I just can't get out of my head. It rang true when I read it. Total speculation, of course, but it just sounds like something that may have happened.

 

[Wudge]

I try not to post much in this thread because I do not understand this case at all. I mean, it makes absolutely NO SENSE to me whatsoever. I cannot understand how Nifong has not dropped it yet.

The only thing I can even imagine is that the prosecutor is holding something back. But how he could possibly keep the secret, and not include that in the discovery? Is that even possible? I guess I just can't imagine that he doesn't have to turn his 'evidence' over.

Going back to when he refused to hook one of them (Evans, I think) to a lie detector. He refused to take exculpatory evidence from the boys. I just can't make heads or tails of it at all. I can't imagine either, that a DA would keep this up, with all the public pressure. It tells me that he MUST have SOMETHING.

Do not think that prosecutors wear white hats, particularly in NC. That should help you.

Nifong clearly does not have a smoking gun stashed away. He is just another corrupt NC prosecutor. From the get go, he used this case for his personal advantage, nothing more, nothing less.

Nifong might have misjudged how weak this case was going to be. For, if measured by credible inculpatory evidence, this is not even a runt case. Nevertheless, NC prosecutors hang tough on such cases until the very end, and they do score on such cases. The Little Rascals day-care (satanic abuse) case is one such infamous example.

 

[mssheila]

Not necessarily. He could simply be stringing it along to get some name recognition, then drop the charges/announce the accuser has backed out (apparently she and her kids have disappeared) and then use the high profile/cred to try and angle for running for a political office or consulting job elsewhere.

I've been waiting for him to make the announcement that the AV will not testify so he has to drop the charges. That's what I predict he will do. Not only to save face, but won't that prevent the boy's from being able to sue the AV in a civil court?

 

[Jeana (DP)]

I've been waiting for him to make the announcement that the AV will not testify so he has to drop the charges. That's what I predict he will do. Not only to save face, but won't that prevent the boy's from being able to sue the AV in a civil court?

It will happen eventually. The best thing he could do right now is to assign it to an assistant and get a different take on the entire thing. He's too close -- too involved at this point to see anything but what he wants to see. Unfortunately for him, its just not there.

 

[Sherlockmom]

My guess is that the witness will disappear into some strange Nifong version of the witness protection system. We'll never hear from her again. (It's already being reported that her family hasn't heard from her in awhile). At this point not only is it unlikely that she will ever testify in the case, Nifong cannot ALLOW her to testify. And she could be charged with a crime herself for making this whole thing up. Maybe he has her in rehab somewhere working on getting her story straight and cleaning her up for court. Judging by the court behavior of her co-hort however I doubt there is anyway to make a silk purse out of that sow's ear.

Her disappearance will be blamed on her mental state and extreme stress from the rape. Nifong will buy himself a new suit and run for some higher office a AKA Al Sharpton. Maybe he can get a space on one Fox New's expert panels now that he's a big celebrity.

Sherlockmom

 

[BillyGoatGruff]

I've been waiting for him to make the announcement that the AV will not testify so he has to drop the charges. That's what I predict he will do. Not only to save face, but won't that prevent the boy's from being able to sue the AV in a civil court?

Actually, no.
I have to wonder what's screwing Nifong up at home to make him go out of his way to antagonize the Duke Alumni. Its not a move someone in a politically charged career like DA would make willingly.

 

[Wudge]

Actually, no.
I have to wonder what's screwing Nifong up at home to make him go out of his way to antagonize the Duke Alumni. Its not a move someone in a politically charged career like DA would make willingly.

Durham politicians do not look to Duke's alumni (a minor voting faction) as key to their jobs. They look to the black community, which represents around 45% of Durham's voters.