Well well well. All that is left is for the AG to appoint another prosecutor. I wonder how long it will take him to determine that this case is BS, and how long after that he drops the charges.
More stuff! After meeting with Mangum for three hours Friday, Nifong served her with a subpoena compelling her to testify at the February 5th hearing. His only witness. His only evidence, as he has freely admitted, has to be forced to testify.
Even more stuff! That seems to contradict other stuff! Is Nifong insane? He claims that Mangum still wants to pursue the case. What the hell was the subpoena about? Is it a formality? Do DAs normally subpoena complaining witnesses?
From the New York Times:
How does Duke acting in accordance with the presumption of innocence “subvert the process?” If we admit that the whole prosecution “process” has not been the least bit “principled,” why on Earth would we want/need to avoid subverting it? And since when is it the job of Duke to piously exalt form over substance? How does Duke’s admissions decision “subvert” the judicial process in any way, dumbfuck? She is furious for one and only one reason: Duke has ceased its gratuitous punishment and ostracism of the victims. She **liked it **when they were being punished and ostracized gratuitously. Nasty bitch, that one.
Even his own lawyer thought he was an unethical sleaze (till he started getting paid). I really hope new charges are added on Jan. 24.
. . . and the new lawyer loses no time distinguishing himself as an idiot:
Hey dumbfuck, is stupid contagious from your client? “Make sure the accuser receives a fair trial?” Problem is Lying Whore Crystal Mangum is not (unfortunately) on trial. The prosecution is not (cannot be) about the accuser – it’s about the guilt or innocence of the suspects (who are presumed innocent).
He’s got it just as backward as his dumbfuck client Nifong. Nifong’s quote about Lying Whore Crystal’s desire to go forward with the case shows what a moron he is. WTF does her desire to go ahead (or not go ahead) with the case have to do with anything? “Well, I can’t quit because my LW complainant doesn’t want me to.” If the case is meritless (and has any case ever had less merit?), how the fuck do you even ask whether the accuser wants to go forward with it? What about the obligation to use independent prosecutorial discretion?
Well, I’m glad they care about “students . . . whose suffering is real.” Oh, wait, they weren’t talking there about Seligmann, Evans, or Finnerty. I guess they forgot – their “suffering” pales in comparison to the anguished rape fantasies of the poor women’s studies majors or whoever the fuck they think their referring to . . . .
Dumbfucks.
This is clearly a case of CYA. The original ad thanked the protesters for their involvement. Among other things, some protesters held up huge signs saying “RAPIST” and “CONFESS” and my personal favorite, “CASTRATE.” A professor is currently being sued for grade retaliation. This professor had referred to her students (LAX players) as enablers of rape. If the case falls apart the way it seems it will, the administration and some faculty members could be on the line for millions in damages.
K.C.J. is as usual on point and super-timely.
I don’t know about CYA. As K.C. points out, several of the original 88 have drifted off – and they have recruited new converts to this sinking ship!
I also am not sure about the realistic possibility for personal liability for any of those faculty fuckers. City of Durham – definitely. Nifong – God, I hope he and his children (if any) are slammed with such a civil judgment that they spend the rest of their lives begging outside of a Circle K for ninety cents to buy a Slim Jim. Duke: more borderline. But, as you point out, the retaliation claims (which are by players other than the defendants) might pose different issues.
Reason I’m skeptical about the CYA hypothesis: because this follow-up is just so damned . . . coyly arrogant and non-contrite. Other than one or two token and opaque references to the presumption of innocence, there is nothing truly apologetic or remedial here, and no mention of the gross miscarriage of justice (nor the stupidity of those who, in Durham and here, believed Lying Whore Crystal).
It really recapitulates the early-2006 attitude of “Even if nothing happened, that’s all the more reason that Lying Whore Crystal Mangum and the race-baiters among the Durham black community and the Duke women’s studies world ought to be given center stage and forgiven for any regrettable embarrassing circumstances, because their suffering is real and paramount regardless of the boring pesky facts.”
When I am, rarely, forced to write a CYA memo by work circumstances, I do a Hell of a lot better job of seeming contrite and distancing myself from the original, now-untenable position than this crap . . . . Of course, none of these people are very smart, which I guess is the point. Remember, the Duke economics faculty came out against this stupid cabal, and I’d wager you there are precious few science profs., but plenty of English dept., women’s studies, sociology, and Ethnic Studies savants, among the signatories.
Nah, I tend to read this more as an “F You” memo to their critics.
You may be right. FWIW, here are a couple of links that address the issue of liability. The first one includes pictures of the rally that the Group of 88 thanked.
http://www.lincolntribune.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5701
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070121/D8MPEI900.html
Nifong’s lawyering up.
WTF? Why would an innocent person need a lawyer? Right?
Especially one who said this on the Abrams Report, April 19.
More here. Durham-in-Wonderland: A Lawyer for Nifong
I was watiching the 60 Minutes interview with the parents of the accused. All of them say basically the same thing. “When will it end???”
My question is why not demand your constitutional right to speedy trial??? The government filed it’s charges so long ago, they cannot claim to be unprepared. If I was one these kid’s defense attorney, I couldn’t wait to get this in front of a jury.
There’s no way in hell the prosecution can convict. There has been too much change in the accuser’s story. She has a history of mental illness and medication. There was an improper ID from the photo array. There’s no DNA evidence linking the accused to anything. There IS DNA linking other, unknown individuals. 2 of the accused have good alibis for the original time frame of the accuser’s story.
If the accused demand a trial, wouldn’t the State fold? I mean, they know they cannot win, right?
Right?
The problem is that the prosecution is back to square one now that Nifong has been recused. The new prosecutors have to go over all the evidence and conduct their own interviews. There was a hearing scheduled for February fifth, to determine the validity of the photo ID, that will probably be postponed. The accuser was going to have to testify at that hearing, and many feel that she will refuse to do so.
My guess is that all charges will be dropped once the prosecution has finished its perusal of the evidence, which, given Nifong’s new theory of the events of March 13, consists entirely of Mangums’s testimony.
The Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial is, IIRC, applied differently in different states (usually by statute, I think). For instance, my friend the assistant DA has I think 180 days to get a case to trial following indictment. But a number of things can stop the clock ticking.
One may be delays occasioned by defense counsel, into which category would probably fall evidentiary motions such as the ones theke guys have been bringing to find out exactly what enormities Nifong has committed and then suppress the bogus “evidence” such as the lineup.
As much as you are right that any intelligent jury should see through this, there’s always a chance of a jury going haywire (especially with the racial politics that has been injected here – would you bet your life that it was impossible for a heavily black jury in Durham to “send a message” by convicting even if they were convinced Lying Whore Crystal Mangum was lying? Note the recent defiant posture of the Duke faculty – they’re still “standing behind their principle,” whatever that is, and won’t come out and call the Lying Whore a liar, and they have Ph. D.s, which your average juror won’t).
No, you can’t let your guy go out before a jury if there’s any way to stop it – and here there are a number of ways to do that. What should have happened, of course, was that charges were never brought, as a result of the prosecutor’s inherent discretion not to believe bogus allegations.
Because Nifong is a dumbfuck, that didn’t happen. Perhaps the new prosecutors will be marginally less dumbfucks and will throw this piece of crap out after a decent interval.
The state bar has added ethics charges to its complaint against Nifong.
What a scumbag.
I am not sure these charges cover all his misdeeds, but I hope they will suffice to get him disbarred.
Yet as Durham In Wonderland still reports, there are (unbelievably) still some supporters of Nifong and Lying Whore Crystal.
I don’t even know if the OP has checked in in recent months, but he was attacked for the title of his post, and I even said (early on), something to the effect that I regretted the harshness of his post title and did not buy into it.
OP, I apologize. Crystal Mangum is lying. She is a whore. Nifong is lying. He is a whore.
Sorry, man.
I await the similar apology from all the others who attacked you.
Crickets chirp.
Here’s the amended Bar grievance paper.
They don’t even go into the phony lineup. But they slam him. Re-reading the chronology (including his brazen lies to the Grievance Committee itself after the initial filing in December) makes you shake your head at just what a disgrace to the law this dumbfuck is.
Will he be disbarred? Hard to say. Certainly he should. He should be sentenced to serious jail time. I’m not holding my breath.
I can’t believe the withholding of the exculpatory DNA evidence is not illegal enough for disbarrment at the least, and jail at the best.
Regards,
Shodan
unethical, not necessarily criminal. however, the disbarrment is certain still on the table, since they’re also chargin him w/lying to the court and the Bar investigators (Specifically that he’d turned over all evidence w/potentially exculpitory evidence. Certainly DNA samples that specifically exclude the defendants would routinely be considered potentially exculpitory evidence. not sure how he’dclaim otherwise.
Apparently, the new prosecutor, Jim Coman, basically did the same damn thing as Nifong when he retried former death row inmate Alan Gell in 2004. Easy enough to look up.