"They don't want to go up against me," Nifong said when asked outside court Monday about the defense request for his removal. He has denied any political motivation behind his aggressive investigation.

"Their way of trying a case in the media is not to call press conferences, but to simply file motions and court papers that contain outrageous or false statements and assume that people will report them as if they were facts," Nifong said.

"I am convinced there was a rape, yes Sir" to Dan Abrams, 3/28/06 and "There's no doubt in my mind that she was raped and assaulted at this location" to Bill O'Reilly, 3/29/06.

He can't take back his 70 media appearances or his prejudicial statements, particularly, "I am convinced there was a rape, yes Sir" to Dan Abrams, 3/28/06

No offense, IMHO, but Nifong's response sounds like a lot of false bravado.

Criminal lawyer Kerry Sutton of Durham, N.C., admires local district attorney Mike Nifong. She thinks the Durham county prosecutor is ethical and honest--in short, a solid lawyer. "I have a campaign sign of his in my front yard," she said last week. But Sutton, who is representing one of the 45 Duke lacrosse players who have not been charged in the alleged rape and kidnapping in Durham last month, takes a different line when it comes to Nifong's handling of the controversial case. "I think he's made some decisions I would not have," she said.

Even Butch Williams, who represents some of the lacrosse players, supports Nifong's candidacy, and says the DA is "honest and forthright, firm but fair. It is never personal with him."

...pictures would seem to suggest that [AV] was severely intoxicated...this is a fact..

complainant was impaired...at the beginning of the dance cannot be seriously challenged.

Roberts said that she thought the other woman arrived sober. But when the two began their strip show around midnight, the other woman began having trouble. "She started stumbling," recalled Roberts. "When I think back on it, she had a glassy look in her eyes." Roberts says she "gave her a look that said, 'C'mon, girl, what's going on?'-but got no response. The dance lasted about 10 minutes, according to Roberts; the defense lawyers say it lasted only about three minutes.

It just occurred to me. Maybe the main reason for filing this recusal motion was to hurt Nifong's reelection chances by making all the allegations of personal misconduct against Nifong.

I am curious why there's been no response to this article in the Charlotte Observer.

The relevant quote is "In 1998 the accuser told police that her ex-husband had tried to kill her, according to the court filings."

It's worth noting that the police report has the accuser's claim that the rape lasted 30 minutes, with no mention of any of the three leaving as the event was occurring.

Are you talking about the search warrant or do you have information from a police report?

Are you talking about the search warrant or do you have information from a police report?

A lot of people, including myself, have tried to come up with plausible reasons or motives why the AV would falsify a claim of rape in the face of 40 hostile witnesses.

I think Nifong may be right, and Defendant filed this motion to simply rehash the same arguments for favorable press coverage.

"I am convinced there was a rape, yes Sir" to Dan Abrams, 3/28/06 and "There's no doubt in my mind that she was raped and assaulted at this location" to Bill O'Reilly, 3/29/06.

chew2, remember I mentioned a possibility of bipolar disorder or schizophrenia last week? And unlike Dr. Frist, I don't even have a medical license.

Investigator Hinman swore under oath on March 23, 2006, that XXXXXXXXX "reported she was sexually assaulted for an approximately 30 minute time period by three males."

Chew2, she not only made this claim the night of the alleged rape, she gave the police the details 31 hours later after she had plenty of time to back out.

Indeed, Nifong counts a number of the dozen or so lawyers on the Duke defense team among his friends and supporters: One of them, Bill Thomas II, gave $1,000 to Nifong's reelection campaign in January, records show. Another, James D. "Butch" Williams, endorses him on Nifong's campaign website.

While some of the players' attorneys criticized Nifong's specific actions in the Duke case in recent weeks, they continued to vouch for his fitness for public office. But Nifong's refusal to meet with some of them and hear exculpatory evidence has been a source of frustration.

A separate motion -- one of several filed Monday -- asks the court to suppress the accuser's identification of the two suspects, arguing that the photo lineup that Nifong and police put her through was flawed.

It also alleges that the accuser has "serious credibility problems." The motion makes reference to a 1996 rape allegation the accuser made, which police did not pursue for reasons that are unclear. It also alleges that the accuser stated that her husband threatened to kill her in 1998, but failed to appear at a hearing to prove her allegations, ending the investigation.

And IMHO, the fiance who urged her to file charges in the first gang rape, that was the guy who was trying to kill her, right? That is, he was trying to kill her because she had no logical reason to lie to the police about that.

It also alleges that the accuser stated that her husband threatened to kill her in 1998

If the DA participated in the photo IDing, he's fair game to be called up as a witness to that, right?

PB, you just don't get it. I suppose until a direct member of your family, or yourself, is a victim of a overzealous prosecutor, you never will.

IMHO,

It's customary for yahoos like us to bandy about terms from the DSM with abandon, but there's a reason real doctors don't do that.

Yes. Especially when ignorant use of those medical concepts don't help us to explain the topic under discussion.

I think that anyone who is serious about this case would be foolish to ignore the pattern here or dismiss out of hand that the woman may have some kind of mental illness which may have something to do with her behavior and her report of gang rape to the police. She may have been angry that she wasn't paid. She certainly was intoxicated, which would cloud her judgment. She certainly would not have appreciated the sexist and racist comments made toward her. All of these things would play a part in her decision-making process.

Kim Cates is furious with Durham police for not arresting a New Black Panther member.

Durham resident Kim Cates said she felt threatened when one of the New Black Panthers took an aggressive stance towards her. She said he looked like he was going to hit her. She wanted police to arrest the man, but officers say he didn't break any laws.

"They don't deserve to be here, they don't need to be here!" Cates shouted. "We have enough problems of our own in this town and we need to take care of it (ourselves.) Let justice take care of itself!

Hey, I didn't call us all "yahoos," that PB character did, though I concur.

More recently, the Supreme Court in Buckley v. Fitzsimmons, 113 S. Ct. 2606 (1993), reaffirmed the principle that "[a] prosecutor's administrative duties and those investigatory functions that do not relate to an advocate's preparation for the initiation of a prosecution or for judicial proceedings are not entitled to absolute immunity," although those duties and functions may be protected by qualified immunity. Id. at 2615. The Court reasoned that, "[w]hen a prosecutor performs the investigative functions normally performed by a detective or police officer, it is 'neither appropriate nor justifiable that, for the same act, immunity should protect the one and not the other. The Court in Buckley held that a prosecutor, who was sued in a § 1983 action by a released murder suspect, was not entitled to absolute immunity because he was not acting as an advocate for the State when he allegedly fabricated evidence against the murder suspect and made false statements to the press about that evidence. Rather, we view Prosecutor Bissell's act of advising Chief Thornburg during the challenged forfeiture negotiations as the functional equivalent of a prosecutor providing legal advice to police during the investigative stages of a criminal proceeding, an act which is not absolutely immunized from liability. Burns v. Reed, 500 U.S. at 496. Burns v. Reed rejected any notion that giving legal advice to investigators is related to a prosecutor's role in screening cases for prosecution and in safeguarding the fairness of the criminal judicial process. The Court reasoned that: Indeed, it is incongruous to allow prosecutors to be absolutely immune from liability for giving advice to the police, but to allow police officers only qualified immunity for following the advice. . . . Almost any action by a prosecutor, including his or her direct participation in purely investigative activity, could be said to be in some way related to the ultimate decision whether to prosecute, but we have never indicated that absolute immunity is that expansive. That reasoning, which we believe applicable here, was reaffirmed by the Court in Buckley v. Fitzsimmons , 113 S. Ct. at 2617 ("When the functions of prosecutors and detectives are the same, as they were here, the immunity that protects them is the same.").

As we stated in Good , "[t]he ultimate issue is whether, despite the absence of a case applying established principles to the same facts, reasonable officers in the defendants' position at the relevant time could have believed, in light of what was in the decided case law, that their conduct was lawful." 891 F.2d at 1092. We note that qualified immunity protects "all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law." Malley v. Briggs , 475 U.S. 335, 341 (1986); Schrob I , 948 F.2d at 1421.

Can a defense atty selectively withold evidence in his possession, such as the camera and photos of the party from discovery. What if those photos were incriminating or not helpful to his case?

The proper line-up procedure was a judgement call and not plainly illegal so as to violate the defendant's constitutional rights.

It also alleges that the accuser stated that her husband threatened to kill her in 1998, but failed to appear at a hearing to prove her allegations, ending the investigation. Durham police were unable to verify that allegation Monday evening.

But a number of Durham lawyers -- prosecutors and defense attorneys -- have scoffed at the idea that Nifong would play politics with such a serious matter. Brian Aus, a Durham defense attorney, noted that Nifong shied away from politics for most of his 25-plus years in the district attorney's office. .................. For the first time, Nifong has had to campaign to keep his job. "But he is not a political figure," Aus said. "He's stayed in the past away from politics. ......But I don't believe there was any political idea regarding these indictments." Over the years, Nifong earned a reputation among many Durham criminal attorneys as a tough prosecutor, but also a fair one: Aus said Nifong often gave the defense access to files beyond those he was required to turn over under North Carolina discovery laws. Indeed, Nifong counts a number of the dozen or so lawyers on the Duke defense team among his friends and supporters: While some of the players' attorneys criticized Nifong's specific actions in the Duke case in recent weeks, they continued to vouch for his fitness for public office.

So if the three men gave her a drug in order to knock her out and rape her, they didn't wait for it to start working. What's the point of giving someone a drug to knock them out and not wait for it to start working?

How can you presume that someone's memory will be impaired before the drug starts to work?

(Last I checked this is TL's blog, not that of Chew2 and IMHO).

The defense might be able to ask the AV about these reports on cross, but if the AV said the allegations happened, the collateral evidence rule will probably prohibit the defense from introducing evidence to counter that assertion.

Specific instances of the conduct of a witness, for the purpose of attacking or supporting his credibility, other than conviction of crime as provided in Rule 609, may not be proved by extrinsic evidence. They may, however, in the discretion of the court, if probative of truthfulness or untruthfulness, be inquired into on cross‑examination of the witness ...

(b) Other crimes, wrongs, or acts. - Evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts is not admissible to prove the character of a person in order to show that he acted in conformity therewith.

Can the defense ask, "Have you ever made charges of a crime committed against you to the police? How many times?

"Did you pursue these charges? Did the police pursue these charges? Why not?"

NC Ev. Code Sec. 404(b) provides: (b) Other crimes, wrongs, or acts. - Evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts is not admissible to prove the character of a person in order to show that he acted in conformity therewith.