General
Duke Rape Case is Falling Apart
La Shawn has an excellent roundup in keeping with her excellent coverage of this case. See here and keep scrolling to get updated.
News 14 and AP have filed a report here:
Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong has dismissed first degree forcible rape charges against three Duke University lacrosse players accused of attacking a woman at a team party.
That word comes from defense attorney Joseph Cheshire, who represents one of three players.
Cheshire says charges of kidnapping and sexual offense remain in place. He and the other attorneys for the players have said for months the woman has told several different versions of the alleged assault. Cheshire says the woman now says she does not know if she was penetrated, which led Nifong to dismiss the rape charges.
“It’s highly coincidental,” Cheshire said, that the charges are being dropped a week after the director of a private DNA testing lab acknowledged that he initially, with Nifong’s knowledge, withheld from the defense test results showing none of the players’ DNA was found on or in the accuser’s body.
Testing also showed that genetic material from several males was found in her undergarments and body.
District Attorney Mike Nifong did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
Nifong has painted himself into a corner of his own making. After railroading the Lacrosse team and surfing the original outrage, it’s now clear that there is no case and that the star witness will be someone he wants nowhere near cross-examination, to put it kindly.
The accused should launch a counter-offensive civil rights suit on Nifong, the crime lab, and anyone else who knew and hid the truth. That’s certainly what would be happening if the races were reversed.
Discussion
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DUKE RAPE CHARGES DROPPED!…
Unbelievably cool. More here.
Merry Christmas, Dave, Collin and Reade!
Later…but they’re still charged with kidnapping and sexual offense! So much for the “Merry Christmas.”
The stripper-accuser, who said she was beate…
This is as bad as what happened in the Kobe Bryant case. In both cases you have corrupt Prosecutors who continue to pursue a case for political reasons, no matter how much evidence piles up against them. Not to stop there, they even go so far as to fix the evidence when it doesn’t back their illegitimate prosecution.
I was glad to see North Carolina Congressman Walter Jones call for the Justice Department to investigate this prosecutor for corruption. Not only should they investigate him, they should go back and investigate Eagle County (Colorado) Prosecutor Mark Hurlburt too.