NYT on new Duke lacrosse evidence

The New York Times has written a 5,000+ word article reviewing the facts of Duke lacrosse case, including new evidence that has not previously been disclosed in the media. The reporters, Duff Wilson and Jonathan D. Glater, conclude that the prosecution's case is not as weak as defense leaks have suggested. However, this conclusion depends crucially on the notes of a single police sergeant, which the defense is contesting:

By disclosing pieces of evidence favorable to the defendants, the defense has created an image of a case heading for the rocks. But an examination of the entire 1,850 pages of evidence gathered by the prosecution in the four months after the accusation yields a more ambiguous picture. It shows that while there are big weaknesses in Mr. Nifong's case, there is also a body of evidence to support his decision to take the matter to a jury.

Crucial to that portrait of the case are Sergeant Gottlieb's 33 pages of typed notes and 3 pages of handwritten notes, which have not previously been revealed. His file was delivered to the defense on July 17, making it the last of three batches of investigators' notes, medical reports, statements and other evidence shared with the defense under North Carolina's pretrial discovery rules.

In several important areas, the full files, reviewed by The New York Times, contain evidence stronger than that highlighted by the defense:

Defense lawyers have argued that the written medical reports do not support the charge of rape. But in addition to the nurse's oral description of injuries consistent with the allegation, Sergeant Gottlieb writes that the accuser appeared to be in extreme pain when he interviewed her two and a half days after the incident, and that signs of bruises emerged then as well.

The defense has argued that the accuser gave many divergent versions of events that night, and she did in fact give differing accounts of who did what at the party. But the files show that aside from two brief early conversations with the police, she gave largely consistent accounts of being raped by three men in a bathroom.

As recounted in one investigator's notes, one of the indicted players does not match the accuser's initial physical descriptions of her attackers: she said all three were chubby or heavyset, but one is tall and skinny. In Sergeant Gottlieb's version of the same conversation, however, her descriptions closely correspond to the defendants.

The sergeant's notes are drawing intense scrutiny from defense lawyers both because they appear to strengthen Mr. Nifong's case and because they were not turned over by the prosecution until after the defense had made much of the gaps in the earlier evidence.

Joseph B. Cheshire, a lawyer for David Evans, one of the defendants, called Sergeant Gottlieb's report a "make-up document." He said Sergeant Gottlieb had told defense lawyers that he took few handwritten notes, relying instead on his memory and other officers' notes to write entries in his chronological report of the investigation.

Mr. Cheshire said the sergeant's report was "transparently written to try to make up for holes in the prosecution's case." He added, "It smacks of almost desperation."

Comments

[Steve Verdon]

Try reading Stuart Taylor's article in Salon that takes that NY Times article apart. There is no case here, literally. My favorite part is about how Seligman was a mile away from the time and scene of the rape at an ATM.

[Josh Morgan]

I find it ironic that the Bush administration would be comparing their enemies to Hitler when the Bush family fortune was built with nazi money. In October, 1942 Prescott Bush (George's grandfather) was pulled before congress to explain why his company, Union Banking Corp. of New York, was still doing business with the nazi's in violation of the Trading with the Enemy Act. The bank's doors were closed by the government but not before the Bush family had turned a tidy profit, all the while American blood was being spilled to fight the nazi's.