Via Talk Left, I see that the DA in the Duke Lacrosse rape case intends to continue forward with charges, despite DNA evidence that would seem to suggest that no rape occurred (at least as alleged):
Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong said he plans to move forward with his case against three members of Duke University’s men’s lacrosse team despite DNA results that do not match evidence collected from a woman who says the athletes raped her.
“I intend on doing exactly what I’ve been doing the whole time,” Nifong told a CBS News reporter Monday night who asked if he intended to move forward with the case. “If that’s what you define as moving forward, then yes.”
The State Bureau of Investigation delivered the long-awaited DNA results to Nifong Monday afternoon. Less than two hours later, Raleigh defense attorney Wade Smith, after reviewing the results, said he hoped Nifong would consider dropping the case.
“No DNA material from any young man tested was present on the body of this complaining woman, not present within her body, not present on the surface of her body and not present on any of her belongings,” Smith said in a prepared statement.
I don’t see how he can move forward, but if he does, one of two things must be happening. There must be a great deal of evidence that the public does not know and that the defense attorney’s are winning the PR war, or, the DA is just a hardheaded sumbitch who wants the press and really doesn’t give a shit about the evidence.
FYI- the only reason this case does not fall under the ‘Natalie Holloway/Ignore’ category is because I played lacrosse for a dozen+ years, so whenever I hear the word in the news I pay attention.
gratefulcub
Go on Nancy Grace’s show. You guys can scream at each other about how this case should be handled, and the guilt of those accused. Obviously, you both know all there is to know by what you have seen on SportsCenter and CNN.
We have no idea what happened. The prosecutor probably doesn’t know at this point. The defense’s spin on the results of a test is not evidence, and it is not the whole story.
Maybe condoms were used, maybe she made the whole thing up……you have no idea.
gratefulcub
And, I too would usually ignore this story. I know nothing about Natalie, or the Runaway bride. But, with the racial and class tensions of that area, I wish our public pontificators would spend a little more time waiting for facts, and a little less time making ‘wild accusations.’
It’s not like we have real stories, with real reporters, with real facts to focus on.
John Cole
Comments like this are one of the reasons I am increasingly less interested in blogging. I hate Nancy Grace, and I in no way was telling anyone to do.
In fact, I even posited that there might be aboatload of evidence we don’t know about, which is why he may be moving forward with charges.
Your response? To put me in the same category as Nancy Grace.
And some of you wonder why I comment less frequently- it isn’t just the amount of stuff I am doing outside the website.
gratefulcub
Posts on ‘hardheaded sumbitch’ DA that we know nothing about: 1
Posts on a president that claimed for 3 years to ‘want to know who leaked classified information’ so he could deal with the leaker appropriately, that has gone to the mat to stop real whistleblowers from leaking illegal activity, THAT KNEW WHO LEAKED THE INFORMATION BECAUSE HE APPROVED IT: zero
gratefulcub
You are 100% correct and I apologize. I stumbled across her show last night as she was convicting the entire lacrosse team, and I showed up too sensitive on the issue. My apologies.
My point remains though, we know nothing about anything.
DJAnyReason
Woah, calm down there chief. John did quite clearly state the possibility that there’s more evidence than he knows about, and the DA could easily be doing his job. Given the burden of reasonable doubt, a no-match DNA is a pretty high hurdle to overcome. Even had the alledged attackers used condoms, there probably still would be some sort of DNA residue (skin cells, pubic hair, sweat, etc.). But even given all that, it is possible that there is enough evidence to convict, and John Cole admitted as much. He simply stated (and correctly) that given what we know it seems odd that the DA would press forward.
Punchy
Lacrosse?
Isn’t that what the French nail their non-believers to?
gratefulcub
Given what we know, which is nothing.
That is my entire point. This is turning into a national spectacle. You can see it happening in slow motion. Then I see Nancy Grace whipping herself up into a frenzy, dragging rape victims on the air to convict the accused. It is becoming the next installment of reality TV. It is sickening.
And yes, I did way over react to the post. Pretty much my first time to do so, I am often wrong, but usually level headed. I apologized, and I do so again.
D. Mason
This entry is the most I’ve heard about this “story” and I still know that if there was DNA collected which then didn’t match the suspect(s), the case will be difficult to prosecute. In todays high tech crime prosecuting world DNA is often the make it or break it piece of evidence. For better or for worse.
The Other Steve
I don’t know all the details.
Maybe these were polite rapists who used condoms?
I heard briefly on the news last night that the DA had about 50 hours or so of interviews with witnesses. So I’m assuming that the DA has something which the DNA results don’t need to confirm.
Oh yeah, I can’t stand Nancy Grace. Too much of a Georgia redneck for my tastes.
capelza
We don’t know anything for sure. Had the unfortunate experience of catching a little of the screaming match on Larry King. The “defense” guy kept yelling that she is a “STRIPPER”!!!!. Well she is also a university student, which I all ready knew, and this morning just now was watching another CNN thing with a rally held at her school. She is also a mother, going to school and raising her kids.
The people talking did have a point, what we mostly hear is “STRIPPER!!!”. Though having it be the Lacrosse team is a new angle, isn’t usually the basketball or football team? What’s next, the archery team on a rampage? I kid.
I’ll wait for the DA. And I can’t forget that incredibly freakish email the one kid wrote…ewwwwwwwwww. Remember kids, never write down your most horrid fantansies on your comp. Even if you are innocent of the rape charge, you’re still a very sick person and now the whole world knows it.
Bottomline, what really makes me sick is the news coverage. Aren’t we supposed to be nuking Iran or something?
Clever
I really like how we’re all in agreement that watching/being a guest on Nancy Grace should be taken as a negative/deragatory proposition. Need to get her a nickname like “Throaty McHusky” [Jon Stewart creation, not mine].
Nancy’s wikipedia entry is pretty interesting, especially the ‘criticism’ part.
Rusty Shackleford
DNA can be collected from hair, skin, and semen. Not one trace of DNA from a member of the lacrosse team was found inside the woman, on her body or on her possessions.
Gang-raping a woman with a condom just doesn’t seem plausible. Restraining a woman and not leaving a trace of DNA on her body (or under her fingernails), as well, doesn’t seem plausible.
Someone may have raped the woman – before, during or after – but it doesn’t appear to be a member of the team.
Therefore, if Chewbacca is a wookie and lives on Endor – you must acquit!
Rusty Shackleford
John Cole Says:
…And some of you wonder why I comment less frequently- it isn’t just the amount of stuff I am doing outside the website.
It doesn’t have anything to do with the Republican party being in complete shambles, the Bush Administration setting new scandal records every news cycle and generally feeling bad about voting for the schmuck twice, does it?
Jcricket
According to the defense attorney, anyway. Not sure why he would lie if he could easily be factually proven wrong in the next week or two, but I wouldn’t put it past him. At this point he’s proven more than willing to say anything to get his clients off (again, these days that seems to be the job description of a defense attorney).
This case proves, once again, the problem with “trying cases” in the court of public opinion. The defense attorney, prosecution, Nancy Grace, and armchair commentators all over the news/blogs all have their own axes to grind. Combine that with the relentless right-wing assault against the judiciary for making the judgments their job requires (see the reaction to Kelo, for example). This all makes for good theater, but poisons the jury pool and corrodes the actual workings of our justice system.
Perhaps this is why something like 90% of cases these days are settled by plea bargain.
DougJ
I can’t believe anyone thinks John likes Nancy Grace. (Maybe some of the other John Coles of the center-right like Nancy Grace, but not this one.)
Eural
And thus is summarized 1,000,000,000 + hours of internet bloggary on any given subject.
Damn, that’s depressing…
neil
If the DA had no evidence, he probably wouldn’t be pressing forward. A rape case that’s he-said-she-said is not easy to win, especially when she’s a broke black stripper and he’s a lacrosse team full of trustafarians.
gratefulcub
No one does. I did a little 9/11 Saddam bin Laden flaming. uncalled for, and I apologized for it.
ppGaz
We may all hate Nancy Grace, but she’ll appoint herself as the final authority in this case before it’s over, if history is any teacher. Innocence or guilt is hers alone to judge. In her view, I mean.
DougJ
I find it ironic that so many on the left hate Nancy Grace but love Al Jazeera’s legal talk shows, which regularly condone stoning of adulterers and the like. Can you day double standard?
SeesThroughIt
Boooooo! Get off the stage! [throws tomato]
I too played lacrosse, it was pretty fun, but it was also totally infested with douchebag trustafarians and old-money assholes with names like Kip and Pip (I’m not making either of those up, by the way). And considering that Duke recruits the douchiest of douches, I’m already predisposed to hate the Duke lacrosse team. (Fuck Duke, by the way).
That said, I haven’t really been paying much attention to this case, but there doesn’t seem to be much by way of evidence to convict unless, as John pointed out, the DA knows a bunch of stuff that he isn’t sharing. But it’s easy to understand why, in a city full of poor minorities, there’s an awful lot of distrust for the overpriviledged asshole kids at Duke whose daddies spend more for a year’s tuition than a lot of Durham residents make in a year. Also, the defense attorney screaming, “STRIPPER!” at every opportunity to make the woman seem like the Whore of Babylon is gross.
Mr Furious
John’s headline gives the impression that lack of DNA evidence exonerates the team. I realize later he speculates that the DA must have more to go on and he is really just asking, “on what basis?” is the case proceeding.
I can see how some might quickly read this as dismissing the case by John.
This is where the DNA be-all-end-all, CSI-ization of American armchair lawyers gets out of contol. Something tells me they were able to prosecute rape cases prior to DNA eveidence. It certainly would have been helpul to the prosecution, but I doubt this case ever hung on DNA.
All it means is that there was no semen.
The fact that the team acted like there was something to cover up means far more to THIS armchair lawyer than lackk of DNA evidence.
Don
Because he’s not under oath or in court when he says these things to the press so there’s no penalty to lying. In a high profile situation like this the goal in public statements is to sway as many potential jurists as possible and create political pressure on the DA, if possible.
Rusty Shackleford
This is where the DNA be-all-end-all, CSI-ization of American armchair lawyers gets out of contol. Something tells me they were able to prosecute rape cases prior to DNA eveidence. It certainly would have been helpul to the prosecution, but I doubt this case ever hung on DNA.
All it means is that there was no semen.
Or hair, or skin, or blood, or saliva…
from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA
“Forensic scientists can use DNA located in blood, semen, skin, saliva or hair left at the scene of a crime to identify a possible suspect, a process called genetic fingerprinting or DNA profiling.”
Even a consensual session between husband and wife is going to leave traces of all the bolded above on sheets, clothing, the other person’s body (ie in their hair). The woman is accusing 3 men of forcible rape. If 2 men are restraining a woman while a third is penetrating her (condom, or no condom) DNA is going to be all over the victim. Scratching and biting would have probably occurred.
3 men cannot rape a beaten and bruised woman without leaving a trace.
As I stated before, the woman may have very well been raped – before, during or after – but it was not by any of the team members who provided samples for analysis. My guess is that maybe a boyfriend or manager or pimp worked her over or she was worked over at a previous gig that night.
Rusty Shackleford
Or guys at the party not on the team committed the rape.
Rusty Shackleford
“The 27-year-old woman has told police that she and another woman were hired to dance at the party and that three men there dragged her into a bathroom, choked her, raped her and sodomized her. The allegations led to days of protests on and off the Duke campus.”
Paul Wartenberg
There seems to be evidence, from what I’ve read, that a violent act occurred, that there was some form of assault/battery that could still be pursued.
This still doesn’t explain whose DNA it was. Were there other guys there not on the lacrosse team? If a rape occurred and didn’t involve the lacrosse players, why did they still clam up?
One last thing: that psycho who wrote that email about killing hookers still needs to get slapped into a straitjacket and pumped with meds until he’s senile. Dudes, only serial killers write like that.
Mr Furious
Yeah, I am aware of what you are saying, Rusty. But do you know that they cehcked every inch of the victim’s body for trace evidence or just a standard rape kit swab? What is standard now? Do they automatically check under her nails at the hospital?
That’s the problem with CSI, Bones, etc. They go over a dead body for trace evidence and then analyze the “evidence” in their holographic spectrum analyzer, can indefinitely go back to the body for additional evidence (exhume if needed) and then they trace the mud on the suspect’s tires to the “only mine in Nevada” with those elements…case closed…
We don’t know what kind of analysis was done on the victim, and what evidence was collected.
There is much more to a criminal case than circumstantial evidence.
All of that considered, I think your 12:29 suggestion is actuallly the most likely scenario. The team stonewalled to protect someone.
Pooh
Possible that she took a shower before calling the police, no?
And I’ve heard conflicting reports – there’s a difference between no DNA matches and no DNA-period, does anyone have clarification as to which?
fwiffo
What the fuck ever happened to due process in this country? Our criminal justice system is seemingly being gradually replaced by Nancy Grace, Bill “Falafel” O’Reilly and armies of psychotic mouth-breathers that worship them.
Punchy
This could be one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen posted here….great comedy…
Personally, I could just remove “lacrosse” and replace it with any sport they play…
Quarterback
I don’t watch the mainstream media for news, for the same reason I don’t wipe my ass with hot peppers or chew on glass.
jg
Due process occcurs in the courts. I and anyone else is free to have an opinion. Innocent until proven guilty doesn’t apply to public opinion.
jg
That seems very wrong grammatically. Any help?
DougJ
What the fuck ever happened to due process in this country?
That’s pre-911 thinking at its finest.
Jcricket
Yes, DNA evidence can be collected from many sources (hair, semen, blood), but at least according to this article, DNA isn’t present in 75-80% of the sexual assault cases. Unlike what’s portrayed on TV, DNA is not always left at the crime scene. More importantly, it’s not always easy to get DNA from the trace evidence left. Hair left may lack a root, fibers are often very common to lots of material, etc. Part of my job involves working with clinical labs that process patient samples (taken directly from the patients) and even then the processing is not always smooth. Sometimes it takes multiple samples to get reliable results.
In other words, TV is not reality. TV programs take liberties with the truth because showing the 2-years it takes the FBI’s DNA lab in Quantico to process a DNA sample for a Washington, DC murder case (yes, 2-years is the average) would be incredibly boring. Or showing the 30-days it takes the DEA to process a sample on material confiscated in a DEA raid would be ridiculous (compared to having a cop lick the substance and say, “yup, it’s cocaine”).
I’m personally friendly with one of the DEA’s clinical Lab Directors. We’ve had many conversations about how CSI, Bones, etc. are great shows, but do a poor job of presenting how labs actually work. Doesn’t bother me when watching the show, but no one should be basing their judgment of this case (e.g. excoriating the prosecutor, convicting or exonerating the defendants) based on how those shows “would have” prosecuted this particular crime. I love Law & Order, but I don’t expect my DA buddies to have 95% conviction rates.
Again, the shows aren’t real! The people on the shows are not DAs, MEs or CSIs. They’re actors. The processes portrayed are dramatizations on how real crimes are actually investigated.
We really have gotten to the point where people are more likely to believe the background information and procedures as portrayed by fictional crime shows than the explanations given by the real people who hold those jobs in real life.
Back to this case. Whether or not this woman was raped is an open question. Whether or not some, all or none of the Duke lacrosse players were involved is an open question. What I can tell you is that what the defense attorney, Nancy Grace and most blogs have already concluded has little bearing on the correct answer to either of those questions. There are a few examples of pundits/blogs with legal experience correctly examining constitutional or legal issues related to high-profile cases such as this, but for the most part it’s just biased speculation. So treat it as such.
El Cruzado
You can’t have it more settled than Jcricket’s comment.
Wait and see. IMHO It sure smells fishy, but screaming online won’t do any good for now.
Ryan Waxx
I love the snooty fools whining about “CSI syndrome”: So what? Before CSI syndrome, you had prosecuters worrying about perry mason syndrome (juries expecting dramatic in-court confessions).
“…and everything old shall be new again.” – Chaucer
What we REALLY have is snooty prosecuters (and snooty blog commenters) who are groping for explanations of the simple fact that some juries don’t convict when they probably should… and blaming the popular entertainment the unwashed masses watch.
We don’t require 5 different types of DNA linking the players to the crime… we need ONE. And it looks like it isn’t there.
Use your brain. The tests were looking for a MATCH. A match to what? We don’t know, but its entertaining to see the condom-theorists claim it was to non-existant semen.
Tester Bob: “Hey, I have a great idea! Let’s run a test to see if this DNA sample matches a semen sample!”
Tester Jim: “But Bob, there IS no semen sample…”
Tester Bob: “That’s what makes it a GREAT idea! Run the test. And when it comes up negative, we can send the results to the defense so they can ‘spin’ it!”
Tester Jim: “Um, how do you spin: ‘NO’?”
Tester Bob: “I don’t know, but that’s because I’m not as smart as a blog commenter… that’s why I’m out in the real world doing real work.”
Yeah, that’s probably what happened. Good thinking!
John Cole
It seems to me if they were testing the DNA for a match, they had some DNA to test.
And it didn’t match.
Or what Ryan Waxx said.
Dave Ruddell
Sentiments like that warm my Carolina heart.
And for those commentors who make the point that CSI is not real life, as an actual forensic scientist may I just say, word.
Mr Furious
Could they have aksed for the samples in order to encourage confessions or cooperation? On other words, if I know something or I am guilty, Someone might squeal if they think there is going to be DNA evidence…
Ryan Waxx
The entire reason that the defense team has a report to ‘spin’, is because a report was given to them (this is required by discovery rules). So at this point, we know that they were testing against SOMETHING… so no, Furious, I don’t think the DNA testing was purely a stunt to get confessions.
Doesn’t mean that that wasn’t running through the prosecuter’s beady little mind, of course…
wickedpinto
black, white, mexican, european, asian, mideastern, east indian, it doesn’t matter you friggen ETHNOCRATS!!!!
ABSENT ANY EVIDENCE, there is still NO EVIDENCE!!!!
Prosecute the innocent, because YOU think they are guilty?
Okay, well, you are demanding that we re-create the FAULTS of 80 years ago, where “black men are guilty” NOW you want us to say “white boys are guilty?”
ADMIT IT! you aren’t about justice, you are about retribution that you yourself never experienced.
No evidence? NO CASE!!! Thats Called JUSTICE!!!
Beej
Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t there a couple of different types of DNA tests that can be run? And doesn’t one type take at least a few weeks? And doesn’t the one that is run depend to some extent on just what kind of evidence there is?
The Other Steve
I’m a bit baffled here. I offered some idol speculation, just a pondering really…
And now we’ve got fools running around yelling “If the glove don’t fit, you must acquit”:
What the fuck kind of conspiracy mongering is this?
It’s not up to us in the blogosphere to try this case. It’s the DA’s job. If the DA is moving forward, he must think he doesn’t need DNA. Shocking, I know, but despite what you have heard on CSI, DNA evidence isn’t the only thing that links someone to a crime.
I’ll wait for the trial to find out, thank you very much.
You can take your CSI detectives, your Nancy Graces, your JAG officer wannabes, and shove it up your blogosphere bunghole.
Ryan Waxx
Conspiracy mongering? WTF are you smoking? A DNA test is a matching test… it tests to see weather one sample is similar to another sample. Hence, it’s logically required that there be a sample on the victim that they want to compare it TO. Something that the detectives who took the samples muct have EXPECTED to match one of the team members. What we don’t know is weather it is semen, or skin scrapings, or hair, etc. But we DO know it exists, from the fact that it must have existed to test against.
And it did not match. Chasing the wild yeti, this is not. Hell – third grade reading comprehension, this is not.
I love how you selectively apply “waiting for the trial”. If you were waiting for the trial, you wouldn’t be READING THESE COMMENTS, which I remind you are all about what evidence we do know up to this point.
…Which is not the entire body of the evidence, I grant you. But based on what we DO know, up here on the grassy knoll next to the trilateral commission HQ, it doesn’t look good for the prosecution.
Gary West
The bimbo made the whole story up. Why on earth is the district attorney believing this stripper slut? The young men are fine, upstanding, well-educated members of our society. Would rather be around them than a cow like the accuser.