The Duke Lacrosse Rape Case Has 20 Suspects!

6 Responses to “The Duke Lacrosse Rape Case Has 20 Suspects!”

1. Alas, a blog » Blog Archive » Duke Rape Victim Originally Said She Was Raped By 20 Men - Or Did She? Says:
   May 10th, 2006 at 5:01 pm

   [...] Predictably, a legion of right-wing bloggers have jumped on this as proof that Mary Doe, the (alleged) rape victim, is lying. [...]

2. Independent Conservative Says:
   May 11th, 2006 at 9:39 pm

   DNA and Pubic Hair Found In Duke Lacrosse Rape Case. Partial DNA Tissue Match Found.

   Now there is finally a case. Although the details are interesting. Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong got a private laboratory to do additional DNA testing and they have found a partial DNA match. The partial match was found on a finger nail, tha…

3. Ryan Anakalea Says:
   May 13th, 2006 at 10:51 pm

   The DNA match on the finger nail was found in the trash can, and it could have been contaminated by touching other trash in the trash can. Remember no scratches were found on the boys.

   A confirmed DNA match proves the stripper had sex with her boyfriend, which explains the “rape kit” evidence of recent sexual activity.

   The stripper has serious character flaws judging by her criminal pass:

   • Stripper made a false claim of rape by three boys in 1996.
   • Stripper made a false claim of kidnapping in 1998
   • Stripper charged with larceny, auto theft, and trying to kill a police officer in 2002

   The stripper’s account of the night has serious integrity issues:
   • First she claimed 20 boys raped her, then she narrowed it down to 3 in a bathroom
   o The bathroom is absolutely and completely devoid of any evidence of a rape. Where is her DNA? Urine, blood, vaginal fluid, saliva, or tears?
   o Many people’s DNA were found under her nails but none from the innocent lacrosse boys.
   o She lied about losing her fake finger nails in a desperate struggle in the small enclosed bathroom, but pictures show that she removed her nails before inadequately performing her routine. No scratches were found on any of the innocent lacrosse boys’ bodies.
   o The 2 innocent boys she “eeny meeny miney moed” to be her rapists weren’t even at the party the time she claimed the rape occurred. She claims that she’s 100% sure, but she told her father that she’s not sure.
   o She took drugs before coming to the house, something illegal.
   • The 2nd stripper stated that she doubted that a rape occurred, but changed her story after given a deal by DA Nifong, then contact a PR firm to “spin this scandal to her advantage.”

   The stripper obviously lied, and she’s putting these innocent boys and families through hell. She deserves to be in prison for the rest of her pathetic life. She is worthless as a person and human being. Her one lie destroyed innocent boys. I hope her and Nifong’s aura catches up to them and they get what they deserve. I hope everyone wishing this rape claim to be true, in spite of all the evidence that it never occurred, gets what’s coming to them.

4. Voice of reason Says:
   May 15th, 2006 at 1:32 pm

   I was surprise of how many false rape accusations have been made by several independent surveys reveal that 42% to approximately half of all accusations made are false. Most cases involve divorce battles involving the custody of children, some for revenge for withdraw of affection, monetary gains, an excuse for infidelity, or misidentification.

   • According to the FBI, one of every 12 claims of rape filed in the United States are later deemed ‘unfounded,’ meaning the case was closed because the alleged victim recanted or because investigators found no evidence of a crime.
   • Howard County Police classified one out of every four rape allegations as unfounded in 1990-91.
   • The National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers says around 600 teachers a year are falsely accused - a trebling since the 1989 Children’s Act.
   • Citing a recent USA Today article, discussing the miracle of DNA and FBI studies of sexual assault suspects, DNA testing exonerated about 30% to 35% of the more than 4,000 sexual assault suspects on whom the FBI had conducted DNA testing over the past three years.
   • Purdue sociologist Eugene J. Kanin, in over 40% of the cases reviewed, the complainants eventually admitted that no rape had occurred (Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol. 23, No. 1, 1994).
   • 1985 the Air Force conducted a study of 556 rape accusations. Over 25% of the accusers admitted, either just before they took a lie detector test or after they had failed it, that no rape occurred.
   • 1996 Department of Justice Report, of the roughly 10,000 sexual assault cases analyzed with DNA evidence over the previous seven years, 2,000 excluded the primary suspect, and another 2,000 were inconclusive.
   • Linda Fairstein, who heads the New York County District Attorney’s Sex Crimes Unit. Fairstein, the author of Sexual Violence: Our War Against Rape, says, “there are about 4,000 reports of rape each year in Manhattan. Of these, about 50% simply did not happen.”
   • Craig Silverman, a former Colorado prosecutor known for his zealous prosecution of rapists during his 16-year career, says that false rape accusations occur with “scary frequency.” As a regular commentator on the Bryant trial for Denver’s ABC affiliate, Silverman noted that “any honest veteran sex assault investigator will tell you that rape is one of the most falsely reported crimes.” According to Silverman, a Denver sex-assault unit commander estimates that nearly 50% of all reported rape claims are false.

5. Voice of reason Says:
   June 7th, 2006 at 3:57 pm

   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.

6. Voice of reason Says:
   June 7th, 2006 at 3:58 pm

   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.

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