Duke lacrosse prosecution falling apart

More evidence from the Duke lacrosse case has been made public, and -- like the last batch -- it is absolutely damning to the prosecution:

Hours after a March 13 Duke University lacrosse team party, the woman who said players raped her that night told police changing stories.

An officer at Duke Hospital wrote in a report released Friday that the accuser said she was one of four women who danced at the party; every other account of that night says only two women danced.

The woman said that night that five men sexually assaulted her; District Attorney Mike Nifong and investigators have said there were three.

Durham police officer G.D. Sutton noted that the woman also said at one point that she had not been raped. "While being interviewed at Duke, her story changed several times," the officer wrote in a report.

...The woman has given, by Cheshire's count, at least a half-dozen different accounts to police, doctors and nurses. The woman first said she was raped to someone at a mental health facility where police took her for detoxification. At Duke Hospital, her story changed several times:

* She told police she was dancing at a party with three other women when she was pulled into a bathroom and raped by five men.

* She told another police officer that she had been groped by some men in front of the house at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. but had not been raped.

* She told a doctor that three men had assaulted her vaginally.

* She told a nurse that three men had assaulted her vaginally, anally and orally.

* She told the same nurse that two men had assaulted her.

Even Nifong's allies are bailing out:

"Unless he has a player from the team who is going to testify that this rape occurred, there is no way he will win this case and there is no way this case should have ever been brought," said Mark Edwards, a Durham criminal defense lawyer. Edwards appeared in an advertisement on Nifong's behalf during the prosecutor's successful campaign in the Democratic primary for district attorney.

And neutral observers are pointing out that Nifong's prosecution is highly unusual given the flimsy, contradictory evidence:

"Victims in these cases often may very well say something somewhat inconsistent immediately afterward and might still be telling the absolute truth," said Stan Goldman, a Loyola Law School professor and former Los Angeles County public defender.

"But ... I've never seen a case go to trial with this many inconsistencies in the victim's sequence of events," he said.

Meanwhile, two candidates are seeking to get on the ballot to oppose Nifong. I'm going to turn in my signature on a petition to get one of them on the ballot on Monday. We need to make an example out of Nifong.

Comments

[David B.]

Mr. Nyhan,

I appreciate your comments and opinion. Many times, however, I do not have time to read all your posts (there are so many good blogs out there). Usually, I like to read the posts that generate the most comments.

May I suggest you have another link (e.g., below your picture) of the post that has generated the most comments. Then I can quickly and easily read what people are saying without having to scroll down the (long) page.

Keep up the good work.

[Brendan Nyhan]

David -

Thanks for the kind words. There's a link to the 10 most recent comments in the left sidebar. You should be able to use that to go to the posts receiving the most comments.

Best-
Brendan