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Saturday, May 27, 2006

The Bizarre Twists of the Duke Rape Case

The melodrama known as the Duke Rape Case (if you have not followed this story, never mind) is a lesson on so many levels.

Ann Coulter has pointed out:

However the Duke lacrosse rape case turns out, one lesson that absolutely will not be learned is this: You can severely reduce your chances of having a false accusation of rape leveled against you if you don't hire strange women to come to your house and take their clothes off for money. ,

It is a study in the consequences of bad actions. I’m not talking about raping people; I’m talking about hiring strippers. That is bad morally, spiritually and even intellectually. And as we see, it can lead to all sorts of legal problems even if all you did was watch.

It is a study in race relations with black “community leaders” calling for the heads of the white lacrosse players even as the evidence for a crime being committed becomes weaker and weaker.

It is a study in prosecutorial misconduct. Unless the district attorney has a case that is much stronger than what it now appears, there is a distinct whiff of political grandstanding even more gratuitous than found in Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities where “Master of the Universe” Sherman McCoy, becomes the “Great White Defendant.”

VDARE does a devastating comparison between McCoy, Bonfire’s fictional anti-here and the rich white Duke Lacrosse team players.

So today, via ABC11tv, we find that the woman who has accused the Lacrosse team of rape changed her story about: being raped, where it occurred and how many men raped her.

And from the News Observer:

The accuser in the Duke lacrosse case viewed a photo lineup of players one week after the alleged attack and did not pick out a team captain who has since been charged with rape, according to court papers filed today.
The March 21 photo lineup was made public by lawyers for captain David Evans in a motion demanding more evidence from the files of police and prosecutors.

Evans, 23, of Bethesda, Md., is one of three players charged with first-degree rape, sexual offense and kidnapping in the case. Collin Finnerty, 19, of Garden City, N.Y., and Reade Seligmann, 20, of Essex Fells, N.J. face the same charges.

The accuser, an escort service dancer, told police she was raped during a team party at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. in the early morning hours of March 14.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ann Coulter has pointed out:


"However the Duke lacrosse rape case turns out, one lesson that absolutely will not be learned is this: You can severely reduce your chances of having a false accusation of rape leveled against you if you don't hire strange women to come to your house and take their clothes off for money." ,


Talk about blaming the victims! Maybe if we blamed and jailed the women who made these false claims, guys can enjoy strippers the way God intended.

Anonymous said...

Comparing LAX case to that of Scottsboro Nine


I am a college instructor who teaches criminal justice and a criminal defense attorney. In my entire career I have never seen such a bizarre and unfair case as the one against three Duke lacrosse players.

I teach a class about a similar case in American history, the Scottsboro Nine. In March 1931, a group of nine black teen-agers was charged with rape on incredibly flimsy evidence in Scottsboro, Ala. The nine were originally charged with the rape of two white women. Even after one woman testified that she lied about the rape, the nine teens continued to face rape charges and the threat of death by execution.

In the Scottsboro case, the two women were part-time prostitutes, but that didn't matter, nor did it matter that at least one of the boys was known to be physically unable to have sex, and two of the boys were only 13. Like Durham, the real issue was race.

In Scottsboro, nine young men were wrongly charged and condemned because they were black, and today the Duke lacrosse players have, in my opinion, been wrongly charged and condemned because they are white and the alleged victim is black.

The one constant with respect to the two cases is racism. I often ask my students if it possible for blacks to discriminate against whites in the same type of mindless ignorance as the KKK or the way the mob went after the Scottsboro Nine. The answer I receive is yes, and my students point to Durham as proof.


JOSEPH R. GUTHEINZ JR
Houston
May 20, 2006

Anonymous said...

Many prominent folks in Durham supported the candidacy of Mike Nifong for district attorney, none more distinguished than law professor Robinson Everett. His column of May 12, "Try a lie detector test for alleged victim" is sage advice. Given the accuser's troubled history of crying "rape," according to law enforcement officials, one might reasonably ask why Nifong did not administer such a test when she first made these allegations some two months ago. The job of prosecutor is not just to seek indictments; it is to seek justice. The suggestion that the accuser be given a lie detector test is not just good advice, it is an exit strategy for a prosecutor whose case now appears to be hopelessly lost.

GRAHAM MARLETTE

Anonymous said...

No-case Nifong


Once again District Attorney Mike Nifong has been shown to be an arrogant individual who apparently cares more about publicity and getting votes than he does about seeing that justice is served. If we the public are getting the right information from the press and the defense attorneys, Nifong does not have a case.

It appears to me that Nifong erroneously opened his mouth in an irresponsible manner initially in order to obtain votes and is now too arrogant and egotistical to admit his mistake. So he has chosen to continue with a case that as it stands now would render a not guilty verdict by any impartial jury. I only hope that if this case goes to trial that the jury is not made up of people who are out to get the "well-to-do white boys from the north."

Nifong's conduct does not say much for our justice system here in Durham and/or for his qualifications for the DA position. Too bad that all Durham registered voters did not have the option of voting on the DA position. No, I have not predetermined that these boys are not guilty but, if Nifong has no more than has been evident so far, I also could not beyond any reasonable doubt say they are guilty. I will say that many things concerning this matter stink and I pray that the real truth comes out at some point.


R. DEWEESE

Anonymous said...

Duke Lacrosse Rape Accuser Mentioned No Condoms Were Used
It seems the defense keeps finding more to support their side of things, with each new piece of information they get. Now from that stack of 1,300 papers, they have discovered that the stripper accuser mentioned no condoms were used. No condoms and…
The stripper’s body was completely void of any sign of a sexual assault (except for signs of recent vaginal and anal from her boyfriend). The alleged crime scene was completely devoid of DNA.

It is impossible that a crime scene with three drunk men in a small enclosed room with a fighting and clawing woman being orally, virginally, and anally penetrated not leave any DNA evidence of urine, blood, vaginal fluid, sweat, fecal matter, scat smears, saliva, tears, or semen... especially if condoms were used. How would they take off the condoms during all this chaos without spilling, smearing, or touching the content inside or outside of the condom?

When investigators questioned the stripper after DNA tests on the semen found inside her vagina and rectum didn’t match any of the Duke players, the stripper admitted to having had sex with at least three men around the time of the alleged rape. The stripper named her boyfriend and two men who drove her to Duke.


When questioned, the “drivers” said they would drop her off at several places, including hotel rooms.

It appears that the stripper has sex with men for rides to her strip shows…Nasty!

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, that was not the end of Nifong’s lies. He told Newsweek that it would be likely that toxicology tests would show that Mangum had been given an alleged "date rape" drug (supposedly by the lacrosse players), which was responsible for her condition. However, neither the police nor Nifong had ordered any toxicology tests. In other words, Nifong made a claim to Newsweek that he had to have known on its face was a lie.
(Someone I respect very much has known Nifong for many years and says that he is not dishonest, but rather has backed himself into a corner. This was a "damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t" situation, he tells me. While that might be true, Nifong also has done enough things that strain his credibility.)
Lest I let Nifong off with just telling a few whoppers, there is even more. On the day after the alleged attack, police came to the house where the party was held and the occupants, including Evans, showed police around, retrieved material for them and even went to the station and spent three hours talking to police without attorneys being present. Soon afterward, Nifong publicly claimed that the lacrosse players were "putting up a blue wall of silence" and were purposely covering up a "crime." Moreover, he threatened to charge the other players with "accessory to kidnapping, assault, and rape" charges unless they came forward.
Shortly thereafter, Nifong hinted to the press that at least one player was willing to turn state’s evidence. He based his claim upon an email that allegedly one player had sent to his teammates. However, it turned out that the email was a fraud, and, according to the attorneys who represent the players, the fake email almost surely had been concocted by the police. So, we have Nifong implicated in another falsehood.
William L. Anderson, Ph.D.
Frostburg State University in Maryland

Anonymous said...

Blind to evidence
On Monday, May 15, a Durham County grand jury handed up a third indictment in the nothing-short-of-notorious Duke rape case. This latest indictment charges the lacrosse team's captain, David Evans, with first-degree rape, first-degree sexual assault, and first-degree kidnapping.
The charges against Evans are identical to those handed up last month against fellow players Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty. Still, this final indictment does come as a bit of surprise. As I detailed in a prior column, the cases against Seligmann and Finnerty appear quite weak. As I'll discuss in this column, the case against Evans may be even shakier. It's true that the grand jury did return indictments against Evans, and previously against the other two. It's also true that the District Attorney, Mike Nifong, is forging ahead -- seemingly undeterred.
But Nifong's judgment has been poor all along- and the old adage that a D.A. can get a grand jury to "indict a ham sandwich" shouldn't be forgotten. Without defense attorneys there to test the prosecutor's evidence via the invaluable process of cross-examination, weak evidence can be made to look pretty convincing. It's not the grand jury's fault; it's just the reality that if you only hear one side, you tend to believe it.
At least a ham sandwich has some weight to it. As I'll explain in this column, the Evans indictment - like the two that preceded it - does not. The very evidence that may have convinced the grand jury - accuser identification and new DNA evidence - is just the kind that will ultimately fall apart when defense attorneys finally do get to cross-examine the witnesses presenting it.
The Mounting Evidence in Favor of Defendants' Innocence
All three defendants in the Duke lacrosse case have unfailingly and repeatedly proclaimed their innocence - Evans doing so most eloquently, on behalf of all three men, in a brief public comment following his being formally charged.
In fact, in a highly unusual move, newly indicted defendant Evans went to so far as to volunteer to take a lie detector test at the direction of law enforcement. When the D.A. refused, Evans enlisted a top polygrapher to administer the test anyway. He passed.
Thus far, the defense camp has come forward with a host of seemingly reliable, exculpatory evidence -evidence that will be admissible in court, and that is likely to sway a jury. I'm not talking about, maybe, kinda, sorta, or could be, exculpatory evidence either. I'm talking about weighty evidence - receipts, photos, phone records, alibi witnesses, an absence of DNA, and now actual DNA - that directly supports the defendants' claims of innocence.
A plethora of proof supporting a defendant's claim of innocence - not just the government's failure to carry its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt -- is a rare pearl in the practice of criminal defense. It should cause the D.A. to reassess his case.
The Problems with the Accuser's "Identification" of Evans
In my prior columns, I discussed the problems with evidence against Seligmann - who has strong evidence supporting an alibi - and, to a lesser extent, against Finnerty. The evidence against Evans is also weak, maybe even more so.
Evans reportedly was not initially indicted, with the other two, because the accuser couldn't identify him with certainty (only with "90 percent certainty," in her words) from a photo lineup. Ten percent doubt sounds like a lot like reasonable doubt to me - and perhaps, at least initially, it sounded that way to D.A. Nifong too. And if the accuser herself has reasonable doubt, how can a prosecution go forward?
The accuser's lack of certainty is even more worrisome in light of the fact that the photo lineup was grossly biased. It included only Duke lacrosse players - meaning that the accuser had no choice but to select a Duke lacrosse player if she were to select anyone at all. And this photo lineup was apparently the sole means of identification for all three defendants.
Finally, and perhaps most disturbingly, the accuser is reported to have said that Evans's photo "looks just like [one of my assailants] without the mustache." According to Evans's defense lawyer, Evans has never worn a mustache. And party photos support this contention.
For all these reasons, the accuser's identification testimony is likely to be destroyed upon cross-examination.
The Problems with the New DNA Evidence
Besides the accuser's testimony, prosecutors also presented to the grand jury the results of a second round of DNA testing.
Readers may recall that the first round of DNA testing was, if anything, exculpatory: There was no DNA match whatsoever linking any of the forty-six lacrosse players whose DNA was taken, to the accuser.
Following those results, D.A. Nifong reportedly hired a private lab to re-test certain samples. In so doing, the new lab found a possible connection between defendant Evans and the accuser's discarded fake fingernail, found in the trash bin inside the bathroom.
To begin, it's awfully odd that the fake fingernail found its way into the trash bin in the first place, if a rape really occurred, and if the fake fingernail broke off during the victim's struggle, as she claims. No victim would clean up after her accusers; she would flee the scene. And if a culprit had the presence of mind to clean up -- realizing that the fake fingernail might be evidence against him -- surely he wouldn't just drop it in the trash can in the very room where the rape occurred, for police to easily find.
Significantly, too, defense attorneys claim the DNA material was found on the front of the nail -- not on the underside, where it would logically have lodged had the accuser scratched and clawed at her attackers as she claims.
But even putting these points aside, the DNA connection to Evans is weak. To begin, this isn't remotely close to the kind of "match" you may be familiar with from CSI - the kind where the odds of a false positive are infinitesimally small. Indeed, "match" here is a misnomer. All that can be said is that the DNA is "consistent" with DNA voluntarily supplied early on by Evans.
Shocking? Hardly. Evans lived in the house, and therefore may have, from time to time, blown his nose, swabbed an ear, or otherwise disposed of DNA-laden waste into that very trashcan.
Moreover, it was reportedly Evans himself who fished the fake nail from the garbage, voluntarily handing it over to police and maybe, just maybe, shedding some skin cells in the process.
As for direct evidence of sex, there is none; none from any of the forty lacrosse players, that is.
While the second round of DNA testing proved that semen was found inside the accusers vaginal cavity, spokespersons close to the defense are confident the source of the semen is the accuser's own boyfriend.
In sum, after cross-examination, there is little, if any, chance that a jury will give weight to this DNA evidence. It clashes with the accuser's own story, and it's as fully consistent with Evans's innocence as it is with his guilt.
The D.A.'s Unusual Hostility to Even Viewing Defense Evidence
Defense lawyers have repeatedly implored District Attorney Nifong to meet with them and to examine the evidence that favors the defendants. But Nifong has said no - with an attitude that boils down to, "Talk to the hand."
That's unusual. More often than not, prosecutors are quite open to exchanging - or at least being entertained by - the defense's evidence. After all, it provides them with a valuable preview of what the defense's case may ultimately look like in court. Prosecutors are legally required to turn over certain evidence to the defense, but no obligation runs the other way. And since the defense goes second, prosecutors may not be able to effectively counter defense "surprises."
For prosecutors, meeting with the defense is thus typically a win-win situation: If they are convinced to drop the case, then that's embarrassing - but far less than as a loss at trial would have been. If they aren't convinced to drop the case, they've gotten a precious new edge at trial. And either way, both the reality and appearance of fairness to the defendants are enhanced.
Giving a defendant a lie detector test, in contrast, isn't a win-win situation: It may hurt prosecutors' case if the results are released to the public. (Lie detector results are rarely - if ever - admissible in court.) But at the same time, a lie detector test - while risky, and far from perfect - is likely to get prosecutors closer to the truth, which is supposed to be what they are after.
As noted above, in this case, Evans claims Nifong refused to give Evans a lie detector test. (He ultimately took one himself, and passed.) In my professional experience, a prosecutor's refusing to administer a lie detector test to a defendant is nearly unheard-of. The defendant's answers - and the lie detector's response to them - may provide the prosecutor with a road map to what his vulnerabilities on the stand may be.
Just as meeting with the defense previews the defense case for prosecutors, administering a lie detector can preview the defendant's testimony, as well as his on-the-stand demeanor, showing prosecutors what kind of a witness he will be. (Confident? Nervous? Shifty? Solid?)
I can't help but believe that, were any of these defendants to assert that they had proof that a crime was indeed committed, this district attorney would be all ears. Suppose, for instance, that Seligmann or Evans were to turn on Finnerty, to try to save themselves - surely Nifong would happily hear them out. So how can the prosecutor justify, then, turning a blind eye to evidence of any of the accused's innocence?
If There's A Card Up the D.A.'s Sleeve, the Law Requires Him to Play It Soon
Some pundits have suggested that the only explanation for the District Attorney's pressing on in the light of strong evidence that the defendants are innocent, is that he has a card up his sleeve. If so, then he needs to show that card, pronto.
The discovery statutes in North Carolina - as in most states - do not allow prosecutors to play "hide the ball." This is a judicial proceeding, not a magic show. So D.A. Nifong will have to reveal this evidence sometime before trial.
He ought to opt to reveal it right now - to give the defense a chance to counter it. When evidence suggesting innocence is as strong as it is in this case, it's wrong to just let the case go to trial and "see what the jury says." These three young men's live will be forever affected, even if they are acquitted. Even an arrest leaves a scar; the scar of trial is far deeper.
D.A. Nifong should listen to the defense, and should drop the case unless he has strong evidence supporting the accuser. Moreover, if he does have such evidence, he should show it to us now. The defendants have been forthcoming - especially Evans, who volunteered to, and then did, take a lie detector test. The prosecution should follow their example.