The defense filed another challenge to DA Mike Nifong Thursday. Remember when he told America on national tv that his reading of the accuser's rmedical eport indicated a rape had taken place? Turns out, the report hadn't been printed as of that date.

"On March 29, 2006, Mr. Nifong claimed to have read a medical report that, according to discovery, was not printed until March 30, 2006, or retrieved by law enforcement pursuant to Mr. Nifong's own subpoena until April 5, 2006," read the filing from lawyers Joseph Cheshire and Bradley Bannon.

As to the accuser's injurie that might be consistent with a sexual assault, what injuries?

According to the defense, the only injuries noted by the doctor who performed the 33exam were "three small scratches" on her right knee and ankle.

The last Duke thread is full. Here's a place to keep the conversation going.

Update: I'm told there may be an exeption in the federal statute for grand jury subpoenas. Which might just leave the issues of whether Nifong should have obtained prior court approval for the subpoena and whether he needed individualized suspicion for each player whose records he subpoenaed.

********
Original Post:

It seems DA Mike Nifong has stepped in it again. Lawyers for 33 unindicted players Monday filed a motion to quash subpoenas he issued without a court order that requests home addresses and other personal information protected by federal privacy laws.

And back to the last Defense motion(pdf) to throw out the Court's initial order compelling the 46 players to provide photographs and other non-testimonial evidence, and evidence derived from them, such as the later photo identifications, I received a request to weigh in on the motion, and in particular, commenters nit-picking over phraseology, so here's my reaction.

Durham County DA Mike Nifong won the Democratic Primary but a write-in candidate has emerged.

A Durham lawyer and county commissioner is considering a write-in election campaign to try and unseat District Attorney Mike Nifong, the prosecutor overseeing the investigation of a rape accusation involving three members of the Duke University lacrosse team.....Commissioner Lewis Cheek said he has been recruited to challenge Nifong.

Also, the New York Times has a detailed article on the Duke case and Nifong today.

The dukesters need a new thread. What's in the news? The Washington Post explores how the players' families are coping.

Feeling abandoned, angry and distraught over their sons' futures, the parents bonded most through the shared conviction that everyone on the team is innocent....Over the months, tensions erupted over legal strategies and fears of which son might be handcuffed next. The less-affluent parents have worried about how to pay legal bills. The wealthy ones swore they would spend every last penny clearing the names of the indicted.

There are also interviews with parents of four of the uncharged players. The article is detailed and I'm so glad to see their side of the story told for once instead of all the attention being focused on the accuser, the inconsistent versions of Dancer #2 and the partying.

TalkLeft commenters have been on top of the new defense filing for hours, but I'm just getting to it. Check it out, the defense tells the court Dancer #2 said the accuser's allegations were "a crock," there was no physical evidence of rape, the rape examiner was a trainee who only found signs of edema and did not attirbute it to a cause, and the accuser's father says the accuser is under the care of a shrink and in no condition to testify.

Exotic dancer Kim Roberts doesn't want to wait for the courtroom to tell her story. Here she is in Vanity Fair.

With every statement she makes, she provides impeachment for the defense on her prior statements. Will she never learn?

Duke University has announced the lacrosse team will resume playing this fall. Stricter conditions will be in place.

"The reinstatement is inevitably probationary. ... (If) we did not allow these players the chance to take responsibility for creating a new history for their sport at Duke, we would be denying another very fundamental value: the belief in the possibility of learning from experience, the belief in education itself."

There's been little news in the Duke lacrosse players' alleged rape case the past few days, but the comments keep coming so here's a new thread. And some player news:

[Matt] Zash and two former teammates, Kyle Dowd and Dan Flannery, took part in workouts hours before the Major League Lacrosse college draft. All three were selected in Wednesday night's draft, and Zash could make his professional debut as early as Saturday when his Philadelphia Barrage faces the New Jersey Pride.

by TChris

John McCann concluded a confusing opinion piece in the Durham Herald Sun with this:

The lacrosse boys brought it on themselves, though -- even if the accuser's lying.

Talk about blaming the victim. Maybe you can figure out how "the lacrosse boys" brought on a false accusation. McCann is incoherent on the subject.

Here's a rebuttal to McCann.

Ok, there's not much news in the Duke case but it's time for a new thread. Here's an article on how defense lawyers are presenting a unified defense. Dave Evans' lawyer Joe Cheshire says:

Unindicted players and their lawyers would not be sticking together unless "every single one of them knows that they're innocent."

ABC11 Eyewitness News in Durham has obtained a copy of a police report that outlines in greater detail how the accuser changed her story.