Rape Charges on Duke Players Dropped!
District Attorney Mike Nifong has officially dropped the rape charges on the three Duke University lacrosse players, but maintains plans to charge them with kidnapping and other sex offenses. On March 13, 2006, the team had a party which involved a couple of strippers, one of whom accused Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann of raping and sodomizing her. In the immediate wake of her accusations, law enforcement authorities examined her body and found evidence of sexual intercourse, but no DNA tests matched any of the defendants. Earlier this week, another round of DNA tests became public, which showed that the accuser sported the DNA of five men on her person - none of whom were the defendants. Nifong had originally violated the procedures for photo lineups when he showed the accuser only pictures of Duke lacrosse players. The regulation dictates that lineups for a witness to pick out the perpetrator include some innocent non-suspects in order to judge the reliability of the witness. The way Nifong rigged the deck, every face was a possible suspect, so whichever three faces she pointed out became his rape suspects.
The online Fox News story deserves an "Understatement of the Month" award for this passage:
"In recent months, Nifong has been vilified by some lawyers and members of the community for pressing ahead with what appeared to many to be a remarkably weak case." (Never mind the players whom he has vilified.)
In other words, everyone with a brain except Mike Nifong, Al Sharpton, the New Black Panthers and Johnny Cochran's Ghost can see clearly that Nifong has absolutely no case of any kind against these three players. He did not drop the rape charge until DNA evidence completely removed the possibility that they could have raped the aspiring victim. The word "aspiring" is intentional - she wants to be the new Rosa Parks, but she is a counterfeit.
About the DNA evidence, understand that when you shake hands, you leave some of your DNA on the other person's hand. This latest test means that Nifong cannot prove that the three defendants, whose names he has besmirched constantly for nine months, even touched the stripper. Another stripper who attended the same party has said that nothing happened. One defendant has bank documents showing that he was withdrawing money from an ATM machine at the precise moment that he supposedly raped the stripper. The cab driver who took him to the ATM confirms his story.
The only evidence Nifong has of anything is the accuser's story, which she has changed no fewer than twelve times. She might have been assaulted three times or twenty times, depending on which version of her story she propagates. More importantly, the law since Bible times has held that a conviction can only come from the testimony of two or more witnesses. Nifong has no case and well knows that he has no case, but he has gotten such good press from this "white men rape a black woman" story that he will continue to milk it for all of the PR that he can get.
I do not usually sympathize with guys who hire strippers to entertain them. The players could have avoided this situation easily in the first place, but if they are innocent of crimes then they need to go free, their names need to be cleared and the DA needs to face disciplinary action for his misconduct in the lineup situation, among others.
The online Fox News story deserves an "Understatement of the Month" award for this passage:
"In recent months, Nifong has been vilified by some lawyers and members of the community for pressing ahead with what appeared to many to be a remarkably weak case." (Never mind the players whom he has vilified.)
In other words, everyone with a brain except Mike Nifong, Al Sharpton, the New Black Panthers and Johnny Cochran's Ghost can see clearly that Nifong has absolutely no case of any kind against these three players. He did not drop the rape charge until DNA evidence completely removed the possibility that they could have raped the aspiring victim. The word "aspiring" is intentional - she wants to be the new Rosa Parks, but she is a counterfeit.
About the DNA evidence, understand that when you shake hands, you leave some of your DNA on the other person's hand. This latest test means that Nifong cannot prove that the three defendants, whose names he has besmirched constantly for nine months, even touched the stripper. Another stripper who attended the same party has said that nothing happened. One defendant has bank documents showing that he was withdrawing money from an ATM machine at the precise moment that he supposedly raped the stripper. The cab driver who took him to the ATM confirms his story.
The only evidence Nifong has of anything is the accuser's story, which she has changed no fewer than twelve times. She might have been assaulted three times or twenty times, depending on which version of her story she propagates. More importantly, the law since Bible times has held that a conviction can only come from the testimony of two or more witnesses. Nifong has no case and well knows that he has no case, but he has gotten such good press from this "white men rape a black woman" story that he will continue to milk it for all of the PR that he can get.
I do not usually sympathize with guys who hire strippers to entertain them. The players could have avoided this situation easily in the first place, but if they are innocent of crimes then they need to go free, their names need to be cleared and the DA needs to face disciplinary action for his misconduct in the lineup situation, among others.
posted by Bountyhawk at 5:32 PM
1 Comments:
Hugh,
I couldn't agree with you more on this one. This whole case has been a diasater from the start and should never have moved beyond an initial investigation. The inappropriate lineup is unfortunately an all too common problem with many police forces, but this sounds extraordinarily bad. I hope they do bring the DA up on disciplinary action and then let these guys move on with their already somewhat ruined lives.
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