Expect chicanery whenever a DSR (Democrat Seeking Election) is involved.

Nifong wanted to make sure only lacrosse players were chosen.

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!

Lisa M. –“ The comments calling the accuser a whore and a lying whore make me wonder…why aren’t strippers lobbying in support of the accused? Yes, the accused. They should be worried about what this case might do for business.”

What’s more strange is how all these victims groups, women’s groups, and feminist groups have fallen silent after the evidence was released that suggests that the stripper lied. These specialty political groups know that if they back liar, they will lose credibility and public support, so they’re avoiding her like a 2006 republican candidate is avoiding Bush.

1. The accuser’s story changes again–
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=local&id=4208878
“She was wearing a see-through red outfit,
( Is this what she was wearing when she left the house?)
with no undergarments and one high-heel shoe”. . .
Shelton says he got an ammonia capsule from his patrol car.
“When I used it, the female began mouth-breathing, which is a sign that she was not really unconscious,” he wrote. . .
(snip)
Shelton says the woman would not speak with police officers, so they decided to take her for involuntary commitment at the Durham Access Center. . .
“He called me and stated the female stated she had been raped
“She said some of the guys from the party pulled her from the vehicle and groped her. She told me that no one forced her to have sex.”
“. . . Within a few minutes, I was told that she told the [doctor] that she had been raped. I returned and asked her if she had or had not been raped. She told me she did not want to talk to me anymore and then started crying and saying something about them dragging her into the bedroom.”
(not to mention the twenty white men, reduced to four, then reduced to three; then the broom, the rape coats, the condoms or no condoms, etc.)
Comment by Seahawk — 05.27.06 @ 8:54 am

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.

A Special Prosecutor In The Duke Rape Case?
Susan Estrich wants DA Mike Nifong to appoint a Special Prosecutor in the Duke lacrosse rape case. Ms. Estrich believes that Mike Nifong, is outmatched for Bob Bennett hired by the Duke team parents, and wants NC’s attorney general to hire Bennett's equal to represent the state?
Why not hire Bennett's equal to represent the state? Bringing in the top guns for a complicated case would be one thing, but bringing in the high-priced talent in order to attempt the transformation of a pig's ear into a silk purse would be a waste of the taxpayer's money.
Nifong claimed that a date rape drug was used but a discovery motion filed by the defense learned that there wasn’t any toxicology done. The question of a “line-up” that guaranteed a Duke lacrosse team member would be chosen. The absolute refusal of Nifong looking at exculpatory evidence of any kind, and he continues to ignore evidence that the crime never occurred.

There is no way three drunken men, inside an enclosed bathroom with a woman violently clawing and fighting would leave absolutely no DNA behind at the alleged crime scene. Where’s her tears, sweat, saliva, and other bodily fluids? If condoms were used, were are the condoms, wrappers, boxes or evidence of lubricant on or in the alleged victim? The scene described by the alleged victim is one of violence and chaos, yet even in the most calm and best of situation, anyone who has ever had sex with a condom knows that there is no way to remove a condom without touching DNA evidence from either yourself or partner.

Ms. Estrich states: "The price to date has been paid by the accuser, who has been called every name in the book".

Really? Some think that the defendants have paid a higher price. These boys had their names, photos, addresses, personal information attached to “gang rape” in the national media and internet, they had “wanted posters” posted all over their school and community, daily protests by many sexist and racist political groups identifying these boys and calling them gang rapists, Meanwhile, no mainstream media outlet that has published the accuser's name, let alone called her a liar.

Ms. Estrich’s second point, “that the treatment of the accuser may chill other women from coming forward”

This depends on whether you think public opinion has turned because of brilliant defense maneuvering, or because of an embarrassingly weak case where evidence points to the accuser making false claim, and a DA who has a political agenda.

Ms. Estrich: “Let Nifong pick the prosecutor; if his handpicked choice believes there is no case, …then so be it.”
My guess is that Nifong will have no interest in appointing a special prosecutor prior to his election in November - in terms of Nifong's job preservation, which seems to be his motivation here. Having a special prosecutor dismiss this over the summer will be even more politically embarrassing than having Nifong take responsibility for his own behavior.
Frankly, as best I extrapolate Ms. Estrich's view, if the Duke Stripper replaces Tawana Brawley as the shorthand for false accuser, that will chill real rape victims who will fear that they will not be taken seriously. The only non-chilling outcome would be prosecutions and convictions, and that is not going to happen based on the evidence we've seen.

Just when you think this case couldn't get any weaker, more information comes to light showing the complete incompetence of district attorney Mike Nifong.

The only thing left to make this case even weaker would be the accuser herself finally coming forward to admit that she lied about the whole thing, which would make it even harder for district attorney to win the case, but Mike Nifong would probably ignore that piece of evidence as well in his quest to maliciously prosecute these young men.

I was wrong, apparently the case could get alot weaker without the stripper confessing that she lied.

The stripper originally claimed that the second stripper helped with the rape!

Just when you think this case hit rock bottom, there’s about 50 feet of crap, then you find a sub-basement where in the corner Mike Nifong is clutching this case like “Gulum”, from the movie Lord of the Rings, clutches the “ring of power”.

If Mike Nifong doesn't get disbarred after this, then there really is a corrupt system in Durham that protects rich white guys. In Nifong's case - stupid rich white guys with transparent political agendas, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Nifong can turn a pig's ear into a silk purse.