Duke case: Police "forgot" evidence?

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Vex

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In a case such as this, it is the job of the police to report and record all evidence and not tamper with witness statements.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/06/08/duke.lacrosse/index.html

(CNN) -- Police investigating the Duke University lacrosse team on rape allegations "omitted" notes from a second dancer at the party, who told authorities the alleged victim had been drinking, was acting "crazy" and that her colleague's accusation was a "crock," a defense attorney said Thursday.

In court documents filed Thursday, attorney Kirk Osborn said that Durham, North Carolina, police "intentionally, deliberately and/or recklessly omitted" information from a probable cause affidavit -- information Osborn says would have persuaded the judge not to file felony charges against three of the players.

The district attorney's office did not return a call seeking comment.

The accuser, a 27-year-old student at nearby North Carolina Central University, was hired as an exotic dancer at an off-campus team party, where she said three white men pulled her into a bathroom and assaulted her March 14.

Reade Seligmann, 20, of Essex Fells, New Jersey; Collin Finnerty, 19, of Garden City, New York; and team co-captain David Evans, 23, of Bethesda, Maryland, are facing charges of first-degree forcible rape, first-degree sexual offense and first-degree kidnapping.

But Osborn says that wouldn't be the case if the judge had seen a written statement by the lead Durham investigator summarizing an interview with Kim Pittman, aka Kim Roberts, the second dancer at the party.

Pittman referred to the accuser's report that she had been sexually assaulted as a "crock," the investigator wrote, and "she also stated that she was with her the whole time until she left," except for five minutes -- not the 30 minutes reported by the alleged victim, according to court documents.

Pittman said in a handwritten note dated March 22 that the accuser, to whom Pittman refers as "Precious," wanted to stay at the party and earn more money, even after one of the players made a verbal threat.

"Precious became 'crazy' and eventually passed out and had to be carried to Pittman's car by some of the Duke athletes," the statement says.

Another police note obtained by the defense says the alleged victim acknowledged having two beers before arriving at the party and that she and Pittman both had a rum and coke after their arrival.

The accuser also told police that she used a vibrating sex toy during a dance in a hotel room for a male and female, but she told police that she had not had sex in the week before the party, the note says.

However, a male friend of the accuser said that he had sex with her that week and that he drove her to three other sexual encounters, according to the friend's statement.

Osborn also claims in the court documents that the nurse who examined the alleged victim was in training and not yet certified.

I normally side with the police, a form of professional courtesy, giving them the benefit of the doubt. But I think this is inexcusable. I wonder what the motivitation for the police was to "forget" specific information.... race, perhaps?
 
I generaly try to keep an open mind, but it is stuff like this that makes me and others be wary of police. 99.9% of the time they are just fine and great people, but if you run into that one person with an ax to grind or wants to advance their career your day will go downhill fast. The same applies to insurance companies and the IRS. I really hope all this bad karma gets put to use.:mad:
 
I am shocked but not surprised. I have personally worked cases where police deliberately omtted exculpatory evidence b\c ''it didn't help us.''
 
IANAL. I would differentiate between the police and the prosecutor. My understanding is the police collect the evidence, the prosecutor decides what to present. I am STILL not a lawyer.
 
I would differentiate between the police and the prosecutor.
+1. This case has, on several occasions, smacked of malicious prosecution. There have been several times when the rape story just didn't add up, but the DA's office seems intent on making this a big media circus, trying to convict the lacrosse team in the press. I won't argue that they're a bunch of stupid scumbags who should be promptly expelled from Duke for representing their school in such an awful manner, but I don't see any evidence that they're rapists.

YMMV, and we may be missing some key piece of evidence.
 
"This case has, on several occasions, smacked of malicious prosecution."

Malicious prosecution seems to be the case here as far as I have thought it out. But why would the DA keep going? Apparently he can be disbarred if that proves to be the case.

Either he has an "ACE" up his sleeve or he's committing serious harrassment that is just short of a disbarrable offence and will finally, after a year of fun and frolic, drop the case.

This will have cost the accusees lots of money and time and will keep the clouds hanging over Duke for longer. Maybe these are his goals.

rr
 
Its really simple the DA was running for office and the race card and the publicity helped him appeal to his constituency and win the election. The publicity of the case and his role of crusader for the downtrodden minority made folks forget that he had done a crappy job as DA for the prior 4 years.
 
Either he has an "ACE" up his sleeve . . .
IANAL, but if he has an "ACE" up his sleeve and hasn't provided this information to the defense, it would seem to be a serious case of prosecutorial misconduct.

There seems to be sufficient - heck, SEVERAL TIMES sufficient - evidence to provide resonable doubt to a jury; I really don't understand why Nifong is continuing . . . and why he wants to deliberately delay the trial. Smells more than fishy to me.

IMHO If the Duke players did commit rape - which is becoming more doubtful every day - they need to go to jail for 20 years. If, on the other hand, the accusation is completely false - which is looking more likely every day - then the accuser needs to go to jail for the same length of time.
 
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Azrael256 said:
This case has, on several occasions, smacked of malicious prosecution.
It sure smells.

If these boys did the crime, they should be punished to the full extent of the law. But this case smells like Tawana Brawley...

And the DA Nifong. Every time I see him pose for the camera, I smell something really rank... and I don't have smell-a-vision...

And, BTW, where do these three kids go to get their good name back if they are innocent...

will Nifong prosecute the accuser with the same zeal and publicity if she is proven a liar? Race Pimp.
 
Mongo wrote
And, BTW, where do these three kids go to get their good name back if they are innocent...
Mongo they probably won't get their good name back. If they are lucky people will eventually forget why thier names and faces are familiar. It is amazing how far these Scumbag prosecutors and their minions will go to "find evidence." :fire: :banghead: :cuss: Please note, this is not about all, most or even some prosecutors, just about the few glory hounds that need their high profile case to feel important. A friend of mine was caught up in a situation like this that left him ruined financially. He was found not guilty in 4 seperate trials, the prosecutor kept bringing more charges. The only thing my friend could do was plead guilty to something minor. Shortly there after he left town. He was fortunate, none of it made the national news so he was able to get away from it. these guys won't be that lucky.

Tim
 
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I won't argue that they're a bunch of stupid scumbags who should be promptly expelled from Duke for representing their school in such an awful manner

If you expell every college student that gets drunk at parties, visits or hires strippers, and does some wild acts then you're not going to have very many students left. I think some people forget how the college environment is.

As for this case, it stinks to high heaven and I can't believe the prosecutor is going forward with this mess. This is a woman who's credibility is no where near solid. She's made these SAME allegations against 3 men years ago and it was dropped. She's changed her story numerous times in this case, and none of the facts seem to add up. She should be prosecuted for filing a false police report and that DA should be disbarred.
 
There's a very simple reason Nifong continues to pursue this case: if he gets guilty verdicts or pleas his career is made forever.

When this case was hotter in the newsmedia Jesse Jackson got up in front of crowd and repeated one of the single most important myths of American egalitarianism. He said that white-on-black rape was as common as black-on-white.

This, of course, is a lie. According to the National Crime Victimization Survey (which uses numbers based on reports rather than convictions, thus going a long way to limit the effects of so-called "institutional racism"), from the period of 2001 to 2003 there were an estimated 15,400 single offender black-on-white rapes and 900 white-on-black. Keep in mind that even the comparably small 900 figure is likely inflated by the fact that Chicanos (who have a significantly higher rape rate than Euro-descended whites) are lumped into the white category by the NCVS.

Of course, the Duke lacrosse players aren't acused of single-offender rape. They're being slapped with gang-rape charges. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the history of American racism knows that in days past there was no greater hot-button than black-on-white gang-rape. At times a mere hint at its occurence was enough produce ropes and hoods. In the cultural campaign against racism of the past century or so it has been of the utmost importance to combat the image of black men as uncontrolled gang-rapists. The two techniques mainly employed by this effort have been the dismissal of any discussion of blacks and interracial gang-rape as mean-spirited stereotyping while insisting that Southern whites perpetrated a campaign of gang-rape angainst their black neighbors (think of the number of fictionalized accounts of the Klan's lynching and arson campaigns that include Mammy being violated by a few klaverns worth of night riders). The NCVS, unfortunately, tells a much different story about our present-day reality. From 2001 to 2003 there were an estimated 10,000 black-on-white gang-rapes while the sample size of the survey was unable to detect even 1 white-on-black multiple-offender rape.

For Nifong, convicting these young men is the Holy Grail of America's secular religion of anti-racism. If he wins this case the road his career will walk down for the next few decades will be paved with gold. He can present himself as a crusader for the downtrodden who stood up to the "culture of silence" and cast the "harsh light of truth" on the darkness that lurks in the heart of our cultural attitudes about race and sex. Book deals, speaking engagements, and perhaps even more prestigious elected offices are sure to follow.
 
As for this case, it stinks to high heaven and I can't believe the prosecutor is going forward with this mess. This is a woman who's credibility is no where near solid. She's made these SAME allegations against 3 men years ago and it was dropped. She's changed her story numerous times in this case, and none of the facts seem to add up. She should be prosecuted for filing a false police report and that DA should be disbarred.

Surely malicious prosecution is a crime? So who will prosecute the prosecutor?
 
It has been my personal experience, that prosecurers dont care one way or another about innocence or guilt, just the win loss ratio. They want wins, period.
This is why in a lot of cases, a completely innocent party will be railroaded into taking a plea.
Make the plea a less enough charge, and a lot of people will take it just to be done with it. A win is a win to the DA.
 
I think this accuser is a gold digger and lying to get money. What a suprise that she did the same thing ealier.

I think she will be found out a liar.
 
In the cultural campaign against racism of the past century or so it has been of the utmost importance to combat the image of black men as uncontrolled gang-rapists.

The NCVS, unfortunately, tells a much different story about our present-day reality. From 2001 to 2003 there were an estimated 10,000 black-on-white gang-rapes while the sample size of the survey was unable to detect even 1 white-on-black multiple-offender rape.

So wait a second, blacks are committing thousands of gang rapes against whites every year and this never made the news once? What am I missing here?

Statistics often dont tell the whole story. Link to NCVS? How does this little bit of information fit into overall multiple offender rape statistics?

If this really is happening, maybe we need to bring back the death penalty for rape, at least gang rape. If the message that rape is wrong isnt being heard by all members of society, maybe we need to turn up the volume.
 
Folks,

This DA was gearing up for a re-election and has since been re-elected. I have little doubt that Nifong deliberately held the case up in order to better his chances of re-election by alienating a few people as possible. Something that surely would have happened had he chose not to prosecute.
 
...maybe we need to bring back the death penalty for rape...

+1

Thanks to Tennessee v. Garner, this could happen. Example: Police officer walks around a corner and witnesses a man raping a woman in the alley. Victim is screaming, "Help, he's raping me." Officer approaches, draws his weapon, and orders the man to stop. Rapist tries to flee the scene. Police officer shoots the rapist in the back of the head to prevent him from getting away.

This is a good shoot. It's assumed that the rapist could and would offend again, and rape is such a heinous crime that seizure of life under the 4th amendment is constitutional to prevent the suspect from causing serious injury (rape) to others.
 
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