*** Scroll down for updates ***
The bond for Collin Finnerty, dangerous “rapist,” has been reduced from $400,000 to $100,000, according to The News & Observer.
In other news, Durham County Commissioner Lewis Cheek, another Democrat, has obtained enough signatures to challenge DA Mike Nifong on the November ballot.
Reade Seligmann’s attorney, Kirk Osborn, filled two motions last week:
1) Second Motion For Specific Discovery (PDF): The defense requests access to the accuser’s computer, Durham Access Center records, Duke University Hospital records, and other information. See this op-ed for background.
2) Motion For Bill Of Particulars (PDF): Reade Seligmann offers a “complete alibi” to the charges. According to the motion, the defense carefully reviewed Nifong’s discovery and claims it consists “mainly of extraneous, irrelevant material.” (Hence, the term “document dump.”) According to the discovery, no crime occurred, claims defense.
In order to prepare an adequate defense, Seligmann wants Nifong to turn over info on exactly where and when he contends the crime occurred, how the alleged rape was committed with another person, whether a dangerous or deadly weapon was used that the accuser reasonably believed was dangerous or deadly, who displayed or used it, etc. Download more motions here.
In other words, the defense wants specifics, and I’ll bet you $1 Nifong doesn’t have specifics.
Some journalist named Andrew Cohen wrote an op-ed called The Media Rush to Duke’s Defense, berating journalists for “tripping all over themselves to quickly and repetitively report the biased view of the young men’s defense attorneys, family members, and other supporters.” He must have been in a cave during the first weeks of the scandal, when journalists were tripping all over themselves to report Nifong’s every word, including his race pandering speeches. Tom Bevan of Real Clear Politics writes:
My beef with Cohen’s piece is that he makes only two passing references to Mike Nifong’s deplorable behavior at the start of this case when Nifong waded into the media frenzy and did more than seventy interviews, including at least a few where he touted the certainty that a rape had occurred…Just because Nifong subsequently decided (after his election was secured, of course) to unilaterally disarm and stop talking about the case with the press doesn’t mean the defense should have to surrender its right to discuss the case as well.
Mike Nifong set this whole thing in motion, based on the most egregious of motives. Unless some judge stops him, this case will go forward. I predict there won’t be a trial and Nifong will fall. Not that I enjoy watching others fail, but I look forward to reporting and documenting the fallout.
Bloggers: Robert KC Johnson blogs about the Group of 88, Duke faculty members who wanted to lynch the accused players the high-tech way (my characterization). Also see Johnson’s latest Duke post, which includes lots of links.
The Johnsville News has posted several updates.
Steve Levitt at the Freakonomics blog catches on:
She was shown the pictures one-by-one. The three players that she positively identified were the fourth, fifth, and seventh pictures that she saw. These are the only three positive identifications that were made…Statistically this is quite strange. The chance of any one player being positively identified is 3/46, or about .065. I did the calculations, and if the order of the pictures was randomly chosen, the probability that 3 of the first 7 pictures would be positive identifications is less than 1 in 100.
Update (6/30): “[I]t turns out that over 95% of those pages are worthless.”
