WtVD, the local ABC news station in Durham has viewed the transcript of the photo identification made by the rape accuser in the Duke Lacrosse player case.

Eyewitness News was allowed to look at the 15-page document describing the process. The accuser looked at pictures of 46 lacrosse players on April 4 in a police department Powerpoint presentation. She would look at a picture, then see a blank screen before looking at the next image.

She identified Reade Seligmann, 20, with 100-percent certainty as the man who forced her to perform oral sex on him. She also identified Collin Finnerty, 19, as the man who raped and sodomized her.

Today's News Observer has a very good article explaining why the DA in the Duke case may have crossed ethical lines by proclaiming his belief in the accuser's rape allegation. It also contains the ethical rules in a sidebar. As the excellent, veteran criminal defense lawyer (and TL pal) David Rudolf says,

"When a district attorney talks to the local and national media about his personal belief that certain people are guilty and are 'a bunch of hooligans,' about how horrified he is by the allegation, that 'a bunch of lacrosse players from Duke ... raped a black girl from Durham,' or how alleged racial slurs 'make what is already an extremely reprehensible attack even more reprehensible,' the State Bar would have to be concerned," Rudolf said.

Here's what DA Nifong said, according to the News Obersver which tracked his comments:

Defense lawyer Abbe Lowell, representing former AIPAC lobbyist Steven Rosen in a case in which he and fellow lobbyist Keith Weissman are charged with receiving and disclosing classified National Security information, has subpoenaed Secretary of State Condi Rice and other officials, alleging that they also disclosed such information. The Government sought to quash the subpoenas but it the Court has approved them.

The point is not to go after Rice, but to demonstrate to the judge that the law prohibiting disclosures is overly vague, and it is often not possible to discern what is legal from what is illegal to receive and disclose. The Judge has said he's close to tossing the Government's charges because of the vagueness and overbreadth of the law which may impermissibly infringe on protected free speech.

This is a continuation of yesterday's post, Duke Accuser's Photo Identifications of the Lacrosse Players.

The defense received a copy of the lineup details Friday. Sure enough, the only photos shown were of Duke lacrosse players.

To obtain the identification, Durham police showed the woman photos of the 46 lacrosse team members one at a time, sources said. The woman said she was 100 percent certain that Finnerty and Seligmann were involved and 90 percent certain that a third player was involved.

....Defense attorneys also noted that two people at the party who aren't on the lacrosse team weren't included in the photos shown to the woman. Those two people also have never submitted DNA samples to authorities for testing, attorneys said.

This increases the chance for misidentification. But, as I wrote yesterday,

The second dancer -- not the accuser -- in the Duke Lacrosse story has identified herself as Kim Roberts and tells her story.

She's angry -- and if the slur she describes actually were made by one or more lacrosse players, and I don't doubt her on this since the defense lawyers seem to concede the racial slurs, she has every right to be.

"Don't forget that they called me a damn n*gger," she said. "She (the accuser) was passed out in the car. She doesn't know what she was called. I was called that. I can never forget that."

But Roberts acknowledges she doesn't know if the accuser was raped.

Update: It seems the second dancer is reaching out to pr firms like 5W Public Relations to "spin this to her advantage." More on the CEO of the company who wrote the blogpost here.

Last week I questioned the accuser's reported photographic identification of the accusers:

The D.A. said the accuser last week, three weeks after the incident, was able to identify one attacker. Reports are it was from a photo lineup.

Who wants to bet the only persons in the lineup were Duke Lacrosse players? If it didn't contain any foils (persons resembling her description of the perpetrators who have nothing to do with events of that evening) it's a bad lineup. One of the four key rules in proper eyewitness identification procedures is that the lineup must contain known innocents.

Defense lawyers in the case are asking the same questions. Let's examine the issue. Here are the suggested guidelines of the North Carolina Actual Innocence Commission on eyewitness evidence.

Update: The cab driver's story about his second trip to pick up players at the party becomes even more suspect. CNN reports:

Less than an hour after he says he picked up Seligmann and a friend, Mostafa says he got another call -- at around 1:07 a.m. March 14 -- to pick up people at the same North Buchanan address. He said he saw about 20 people on the lawn of the home, "yelling, talking back" to each other, including one African-American woman who he said didn't appear to be injured.

Four men got into the taxi, Mostafa said, and they appeared to be drunk. One of them said, "She's just a stripper," Mostafa quoted.

When the police arrived at the house at 12:55 am, two minutes after the second dancer's first 911 call, the house appeared deserted. The women were already gone. They left at 12:41.

*****
Original Post:

In the Duke lacrosse players case, the search warrants of the indicted players' rooms were filed today. You can view the warrant here.

Smoking Gun has the Indictment of the two Duke Lacrosse players. Reading between the lines of this statement from Duke University today, the two indicted players have been suspended.

So, two young men, accused but not convicted, have their faces and names plastered on television screens and in newspapers across the country, are required to post $400,000. secured bonds and get kicked out of school, based on allegations by an accuser who is allowed to retain her anonymity and her privacy.

This is like Alice in Wonderland. Sentence first, verdict afterwards.

by Last Night in Little Rock

CNN reported at 2:01 pm ET today that the defense lawyers for the two Duke lacrosse players arrested this morning (arrest noted by TChris here, which has an update from ABC News with similar information) offered alibis for both men. Both claimed to be elsewhere at the time of the occurrence, with witnesses and time stamped video from an ATM. CNN.com alluded to it in a post at that same time:

Sources close to the investigation told CNN Tuesday that the defense will present evidence -- including ATM receipts and a cab driver -- that neither Seligmann, 20, nor Finnerty, 19, were at the team party at the time the alleged rape took place.

by TChris

Two Duke lacrosse players, both sophmores, have been arrested on the indictments that were reported here. Their names will now appear in newspapers around the world although, as this post lamented, the accuser's equally newsworthy identity will not be similarly publicized. A third student was also accused, but the DA said today that he hasn't been charged because he can't be "identified with certainty."

The players were charged with first degree forcible rape, first degree sexual offense and kidnapping. William J. Cotter, the lawyer representing one of the young men, said:

"The grand jury, as you know, has indicted him. They hear one side of the story. They almost always indict. The next jury will hear the entire story, which includes our evidence. We're confident that these young men will be found to be innocent."

Tomorrow we will learn the names of the Duke lacrosse players accused of criminal activity in the alleged rape case.

Question: When their names are released, shouldn't the accuser's be as well? Charges are merely allegations, they are not proof. Why should the accused's name be public but not the accuser's?

If we want people to recognize that rape is a crime of violence, it is not about sex, and are serious about trying to remove the shame and stigma associated with rape, shouldn't we treat potential rape victims the same as stabbing and shooting victims -- whose names are routinely publicized?

The Duke accuser's name is on the internet. I've seen it. I'm not going to publish it or link to it tonight. I'd like to hear your thoughts. But this is like Kobe redux -- his name was dragged through the mud while the media refused to publish the accuser's name.

I think it's time for this double standard to end.

Update: Defense lawyers confirm two players were indicted. The New York Times reports:

....defense lawyers had asked Nifong on Thursday and again today to issue public indictments so that anyone who was charged with a crime could voluntarily surrender. Ekstrand said Nifong refused the request, "so we'd be left in the dark." He said the situation meant students could be arrested in classrooms or paraded in front of the media. "I can't imagine any other reason but humiliation." he said in an interview while the grand jury was in session.

Update: Court sources tell WRAL there are two sealed indictments of players in the case.

Update: CNN reports there are two sealed indictments. Ordinarily, when Indictments are sealed, no one other than the prosecutors and grand jurors and the arresting authority responsible for executing the arrest warrant would know until the first person is arrested. It's doubtful the prosecutors would tell the defense lawyers. What's so silly about this is that sealed indictments are usually handed down to avoid tipping off a suspect who might flee if he got advance word. The prosecutor seems to be milking this for all it's worth.