Was that stripper really raped by the Duke player's?

[Buffmaster]

27 years for $173? Judge opens door for release




DURHAM - The county's top judge took a step Thursday toward giving freedom to an armed robber who has been behind bars longer than some people found guilty of murder.
Orlando F. Hudson Jr., senior resident Superior Court judge, issued an order vacating a judgment against Raymond Lee Parker. A new sentencing hearing is set for April 16.

Parker, 53, was convicted 27 years ago of robbing a woman of $173 at a bakery.

James H. Pou Bailey sentenced Parker to 40 years to life under a sentencing system that is no longer used.

Freda Black, a former prosecutor who is Parker's attorney, asked Hudson last month to set aside the sentence, pointing out that the crime today would bring Parker no more than 13 years and eight months behind bars.

Black argued that sentencing laws had changed significantly while Parker has been in prison.

District Attorney Mike Nifong protested vacating the judgment, saying such an action would open the door for others to ask for similar relief. Nifong argued that state legislators did not write new sentencing laws to have a retroactive effect.

In his order, Hudson acknowledged the authority of the legislature to reduce the punishment for crimes. The result, he said, could cause a disparate sentence for someone sentenced prior to the new laws.

The court, Hudson said, has an obligation to rectify those inequities.

Nifong could not be reached for comment Thursday. It was unclear whether he would appeal the judge's decision.

Parker, who had previous convictions for auto larceny, assault with a deadly weapon, forgery and assault on a female, was never able to make bail once he was arrested on July 16, 1979.

No shots were fired during the robbery, according to court records, and no injuries were reported.

Officials at the Post-Release Supervision and Parole Commission said Parker has been eligible for parole for 17 years. They cited privacy laws in refusing to say why parole has not been granted.

Parker has had 41 infractions while behind bars, according to Department of Correction records, but none in the past 4 1/2 years.

As of Jan. 31 there were 60 people in North Carolina prisons with armed robbery as their most serious offense who have been incarcerated for more than 25 years, according to Department of Corrections records. All were convicted before the 1981 "fair sentencing" law took effect.

[Buffmaster]

Duke prosecutor's ethics trial begins



RALEIGH, North Carolina (AP) -- More than a year after shocking allegations emerged about Duke University's lacrosse team, prosecutor Mike Nifong was back in court Tuesday -- this time as the defendant.

The North Carolina State Bar charged the Durham County district attorney with several violations of the state's rules of professional conduct, all tied to his handling of the lacrosse case.

Nifong won indictments against three lacrosse players last year after a woman hired as a stripper for a team party in March 2006 said she was raped.

One of three had graduated, but Duke suspended the other two.

Criticism of Nifong's evidence and handling of the case increased through the summer, then when the bar filed its initial ethics charges, Nifong turned the case over to the state attorney general, who dropped all the charges.

"This didn't have to happen, and the horrible consequences were entirely foreseeable," Katherine Jean, the bar official prosecuting Nifong, said during her 25-minute opening statement. "The harm done to these three young men and their families and the justice system of North Carolina is devastating."

The trial is expected to run for five days, and the hearing commission chairman promised a quick verdict. If convicted, Nifong could be disbarred.

Reporters and observers -- including the mothers of David Evans and Collin Finnerty, two of the once-charged and now cleared lacrosse players -- packed the state Court of Appeals courtroom.

Finnerty and the third player, Reade Seligmann, are expected to attend the trial at some point. Attorneys for all three players were in the courtroom Tuesday.

Nifong aggressively pursued the case against the players, at one point calling the lacrosse team "a bunch of hooligans" in a newspaper interview.

That interview, along with several others made in the case's early days, formed the basis of the bar's initial complaint against Nifong, which said he made misleading and inflammatory comments to the media about the athletes.

"I believe you will hear him testify that he regrets making those statements," said Nifong's attorney, David Freedman, in his opening statement.

Freedman recounted the very early days of the case, highlighting evidence he said led Nifong to believe a crime had occurred. "It is not unethical to pursue what someone may believe to be an unwinnable case," he said.

The bar also alleged that Nifong withheld evidence from defense attorneys and that he lied to the court and bar investigators.

In her opening, Jean detailed Nifong's meetings with the director of a DNA laboratory he hired, at which she said Nifong learned that none of the players' DNA matched that material found in and on the accuser. The bar has accused Nifong of keeping those test results from the defense.

Nifong asked the North Carolina Attorney General's office to take over the lacrosse prosecution in January. By then, most experts and legal observers had long since concluded the case could not be won.

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper agreed in April and dropped all charges against the three players. In a stunning rebuke, Cooper said there was no rape or attack, calling the indicted players "innocent" victims of a rogue prosecutor's "tragic rush to accuse."

[Buffmaster]

Cop: Duke prosecutor pushed rape case despite doubts


June 13, 2007

RALEIGH, North Carolina (AP) -- As prosecutor Mike Nifong pushed forward with the Duke lacrosse rape case, a police investigator expressed concerns that there was a lack of evidence.

When he learned that Nifong planned to seek indictments, police investigator Benjamin Himan testified Tuesday, his reaction was instinctively sarcastic.

"I think I made the response, 'With what?"' Himan said.

Himan returns to the witness stand Wednesday for the second day of Nifong's trial, in which the North Carolina State Bar accuses the Durham County district attorney of several violations of the state's rules of professional conduct.

All the claims involve Nifong's handling of allegations that a stripper was raped and beaten by three Duke lacrosse players at a March 2006 party.

If convicted by the disciplinary committee that is hearing the case, Nifong could be stripped of his license to practice law in the state.

Himan testified that Nifong acknowledged privately that the accuser's story was filled with inconsistencies and the case would be hard to prove.

"We didn't have any DNA. We didn't have him at the party," Himan said of former lacrosse player Reade Seligmann. "It was a big concern to me to go for an indictment with not even knowing where he was -- if he was even there."

Nifong won indictments against Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and Dave Evans. The three were later cleared by state Attorney General Roy Cooper, who concluded they were "innocent" victims of a rogue prosecutor's "tragic rush to accuse."

Nifong's attorney, David Freedman, said his client told police that if they believed the accuser's allegations against Finnerty, "then you have to believe her on Seligmann."

"Mr. Nifong did not -- did not -- generate a warrant on his own," Freedman said. "He had the investigators go in to present their case to a grand jury. There will be no evidence of any kind that they were instructed how to present the case to the grand jury."

Attorneys for the lacrosse players, said Himan's account was further proof that Nifong should have backed off the case.

"When everyone who knew anything about the investigation kept saying, 'There's no evidence, slow down,' Mr. Nifong kept going forward," said Jim Cooney, who represented Seligmann.

Nifong's public pronouncements of confidence in the case -- which included calling the players "hooligans" and saying he didn't need DNA evidence to win a conviction -- formed the basis of the bar's initial ethics complaint, which accused Nifong of making misleading and inflammatory comments about the athletes.

Freedman has said that his client will testify that he regretted making such statements and that in the early days of the case evidence led Nifong to believe a crime had occurred.

In January, after Nifong turned the case over to state prosecutors, the bar added allegations that Nifong withheld evidence from defense attorneys and lied both to the court and bar investigators.

[Buffmaster]

Lawyer for Duke player says DA withheld DNA results from alleged rape


Dr. Brian Meehan testified Wednesday that he did not conspire with the Durham district attornery to keep DNA results from defense attorneys.



RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) ” Lawyers for three Duke lacrosse players once accused of raping a stripper repeatedly asked District Attorney Mike Nifong to turn over the full results of DNA testing, a lawyer testified Thursday during Nifong's ethics trial.

Brad Bannon, who represented former student Dave Evans, also recounted the offers he and other defense attorneys made to meet with Nifong before he sought indictments against their clients. Nifong refused, he said.

The North Carolina State Bar charged Nifong with violating rules of professional conduct in his handling of the high-profile case.

Among the charges are allegations that Nifong kept the full details of the DNA testing from the defense. If convicted by the bar's disciplinary committee, Nifong could be stripped of his license to practice law in the state.

Dr. Brian Meehan, director of DNA Security Inc., testified on Wednesday that he and Nifong did not conspire to keep the results from defense attorneys, although he said Nifong never asked for a final and complete report on his lab's findings.

"We did not withhold anything," Meehan testified.

The test results found that none of the DNA on the stripper's body matched the players she accused of raping her at a March 2006 team party.

Despite the lack of DNA evidence tying them to the case, Nifong won indictments against Evans, Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty. The three were later cleared by the state attorney general, who called them "innocent" victims of a rogue prosecutor's "tragic rush to accuse."

Seligmann and Finnerty were in the courtroom Thursday.

Meehan said Wednesday that an initial DNA report he provided to Nifong was never intended to be all-inclusive.

"We don't typically force-feed reports to clients," Meehan said. "When he was ready for a final report, we thought he would let us know."

When Nifong released the initial report to defense attorneys in May 2006, they quickly trumpeted the news that Meehan's lab had been unable to find a conclusive match between the accuser and any lacrosse players.

But it wasn't until much later that the defense received the background details of the test results, which indicated there was genetic material from several other males on the accuser's underwear and body, but none from any member of the lacrosse team.

Meehan testified that he was concerned that releasing all the information would have violated the privacy of those tested.

But Meehan said he would have turned it over had Nifong asked for the information. He hinted that defense attorneys should have noticed a reference to the additional test information in the May report, though it didn't specifically state what was available.

State Bureau of Investigation agent Jennifer Leyn later testified that the agency's reports on DNA testing always contain complete information.

Joseph Cheshire, another attorney for Evans, angrily insisted after the hearing that it was Nifong's responsibility to provide all the test results.

"It's an absurdity," he said. "(Meehan) works for the prosecutor. He's the prosecutor's employee under the attorney work-product doctrine. You don't mess with another lawyer's experts. You call the lawyer."

[Buffmaster]

State bar calls Duke lacrosse DA 'minister of injustice'


June 16, 2007


RALEIGH, North Carolina (AP) -- A panel of his peers heard closing statements Saturday at the ethics trial of Mike Nifong, who already had promised to leave his job as district attorney over his ill-fated pursuit of the debunked Duke University lacrosse team rape case.

"Mr. Nifong did not act as a minister of justice, but as a minister of injustice," state bar prosecutor Douglas Brocker said Saturday morning in his closing statement.

Brocker told a disciplinary hearing committee that as Nifong investigated allegations that a stripper was raped at a March 2006 party thrown by Duke's lacrosse team, he charged "forward toward condemnation and injustice," weaving a "web of deception that has continued up through this hearing."

The bar charged Nifong, a prosecutor in Durham County for his entire three-decade legal career, with breaking several rules of professional conduct, including lying to both the court and bar investigators and withholding critical DNA test results from the players' defense attorneys.

Nifong acknowledged Friday he was likely to be punished by the disciplinary committee for maybe getting "carried away a little bit" when talking publicly about the case. He said he regretted some of his statements, including a confident proclamation that he wouldn't allow Durham to become known for "a bunch of lacrosse players from Duke raping a black girl."

Brocker pounded on such comments Saturday, saying Nifong had to have known he was making improper comments to reporters.

"They [were] clearly going to cause public condemnation of anybody who was charged," Brocker said.

If convicted, the committee could suspend Nifong's law license or take it away entirely.

Nifong tearfully said Friday he would resign as district attorney, stunning his staff in Durham and his own attorneys. They had insisted for weeks their client had no plans to leave the office he was elected to for the first time in November.

"It has become increasingly apparent, during the course of this week, in some ways that it might not have been before, that my presence as the district attorney in Durham is not furthering the cause of justice," Nifong said, adding later: "My community has suffered enough."

Even if he is disbarred, Nifong's troubles aren't over -- the players' attorneys have pledged to seek criminal contempt charges next week in Durham.

[Buffmaster]

1. Nifonged

Nifonged describes the railroading or harming of a person with no justifiable cause, except for one's own gain. It is someone being taken advantage of unfairly by someone without scruples or morals. It is created more in disdain of North Carolina/Durham District Attorney Michael Nifong, and his screwing of 3 Duke University Lacrosse Team members and helping to inflame a tense racial situation for his own glory, ego, and political gain.

Being Nifonged, Getting Nifonged, Nifonged
-examples
1. We knew we were BEING NIFONGED when we were forced to pay an extra $50 duty to the customs agent for bringing foreign magazines into Mexico under the threat of jail time.
2. When I saw that the rebate on my new DVD player was not honored by the company I'd bought it from, I had the distinct feeling I was GETTING NIFONGED.
3. "When we noticed that our belongings were missing from our room, we had the distinct feeling we had been NIFONGED by the locals.


tags synonyms- screwed f*cked reamed railroaded hosed - variations- fonging fonged


2. Nifonged

To be unjustly prosecuted by a politically motivated District Attorney.

Members of the Duke LAX team are being Nifonged.

tags justice lawyers sports university court trials




3. Nifonged

Nifonged is a verb that describes the railroading or harming of a person with no justifiable cause to do so, except for one's own gain. It can be used as a substitute for "screwed" and many other similar words.

It is created to display someone being taken advantage of unfairly by someone without scruples or morals.



We knew we were BEING NIFONGED when we were forced to pay an extra $50 duty to the customs agent for bringing foreign magazines into Mexico under the threat of jail time.

2. When I saw that the rebate on my new DVD player was not honored by the company I'd bought it from, I had the distinct feeling I was GETTING NIFONGED.

3. "When we noticed that our belongings were missing from our room, we had the distinct feeling we had been NIFONGED by the locals.

-variations - may be used in place of slang or common terms denoting a situation where one is "bamboozled" "hoodwinked" or "screwed"

Fonging Fonged

-examples

1. When the professor only gave me a B- on my paper, I had the feeling I was getting a royal FONGING.

2. When I walked in to find my Dog had chewed up my term paper I knew I was FONGED.



tags screwed rail-roaded falsely accused shafted travesty

[Buffmaster]

Judge sends Duke prosecutor to jail



DURHAM, N.C. - From the day he took over the Duke lacrosse rape case, Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong charged forward with a strident determination that the guilty would end up in jail. Ultimately, the since-disgraced former prosecutor only succeeded at putting himself behind bars.

Nifong was sentenced Friday to a single day in jail, having been held in criminal contempt of court for lying to a judge during his pursuit of rape charges against the three falsely accused lacrosse players.

Superior Court Judge W. Osmond Smith III could have sentenced Nifong, who had already been stripped of his law license and had resigned from office, to as many as 30 days in jail and given him a fine as high as $500. Instead, he opted for a largely symbolic punishment — the public humiliation of sending a prosecutor to jail — that he said would help protect the integrity of the justice system.

"If what I impose with regard to Mr. Nifong would make things better or different for what's already happened, I don't know what it would be or how I could do it," Smith said.

It was the latest in a line of punishments for a broken man who once confidently trumpeted to anyone within earshot that a woman hired to perform as a stripper at a March 2006 lacrosse team party had been raped.

State prosecutors — who took over the case when Nifong recused himself in January amid ethics charges — dropped charges against players Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans in April. In a stinging rebuke, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper called them innocent victims of Nifong's "tragic rush to accuse" and said there was no credible evidence a crime had occurred.

Two months later, Nifong was disbarred for more than two dozen violations of the state's rules of professional conduct, including withholding exculpatory DNA evidence and making numerous inflammatory comments about the lacrosse players to the media.

Nifong, who was ordered to report to jail at 9 a.m. next Friday, showed no visible reaction when Smith handed down the sentence, and left the courtroom with his wife. Defense attorney Jim Glover declined to comment after the hearing.

"None of us take any joy in what happened today or what is going to happen to Mr. Nifong in a week," said Jim Cooney, one of Seligmann's defense attorneys. "But it was the inevitable outcome of a lot of actions."

Duke's highly ranked lacrosse team was initially vilified, as Nifong — in his first political campaign for district attorney — told voters he wouldn't allow Durham to become known for "a bunch of lacrosse players from Duke raping a black girl." He won indictments against the three players, but it soon became clear Nifong's evidence was pitifully weak.

The North Carolina State Bar disciplinary committee later concluded Nifong manipulated the case to boost his chances at the ballot box, adding he continued to pursue it even when it was apparent the defendants were innocent.

"Do I feel sorry for him? I feel sorry for his family," said defense attorney Joseph Cheshire, who represented Evans. "I think what he did was willful and intentional and damaged seriously this state and the lives of these boys and their families. I don't feel sorry for Mike Nifong. Sorry if that sounds cruel, but I don't."

Reading his contempt decision from the bench minutes after the conclusion of two days of testimony, Smith said Nifong "willfully made false statements" to the court in September when he insisted he had given defense attorneys all results from a critical DNA test.

In fact, Smith found, Nifong had provided the defense with a report on the DNA testing that he knew was incomplete. The omitted data contained test results showing that DNA of multiple men, none of whom were lacrosse players, was found on the accuser.

Kevin Finnerty, Collin's father, said the family would have accepted any sentence Smith thought appropriate.

"It's not a happy day for us, but we're thrilled the system works, that justice has happened, and we're moving on," he said.

Taking the stand in his own defense, Nifong insisted Friday he didn't intentionally lie about whether he had turned over the DNA evidence. But he acknowledged the report he gave defense attorneys was incomplete.

"I now understand that some things that I thought were in the report were in fact not in the report," Nifong said. "So the statements were not factually true to the extent that I said all the information had been provided."

A defense attorney found the omitted data amid 2,000 pages of documents Nifong gave the defense months after the initial report. Nifong said that by the time he realized the data wasn't contained in that report, "it had been corrected. The defendants already had it."

"It was never my intention to mislead this or any other court," Nifong said. "I certainly apologize to the court at this time for anything I might have said that was not correct."

[pakka_gucci]

interesting read

[Buffmaster]

I'm glad you liked it.

[Buffmaster]

Hush, little Mikey, don't you cry
Joanie's gonna sing you a lullaby.
That shadow on your window is just some Fed
Tomorrow they might look under Mikey's bed.
Hush, little Mikey, close your eyes
Didn't one day in jail make you realize?
Stephens whimpering won't help next time.
Federal prison is real hard time.
Hush, little Mikey, you might get sick
Feds don't care if you're Marcia's "chick."
All her fudging can't save your skin
Feds gonna find all of Mikey's sin!
Hush, little Tara, you need your rest
All your "conclusions" gonna be addressed
Sleep, little Nurse-y, face your fears.
Just like those kids who faced THIRTY YEARS.
Hush, little Brian, if you can't count sheep.
Count all your lies till you fall asleep.
Count all your alibis, and if that fails
Count all of Crystal's "unidentified males."
Hush, little Linwood, sing a gospel song
My, how you helped Mikey's frame along!
Feds are digging, you need repose
Bet whither Mike goest, thou will go!
Hush, little Markie, in your pajama coat
No, all those case notes can't be unwrote.
The "moving finger" moves right past you.
Feds gonna finger little Markie too.
Hush, little Ronnie, Mike's "A-OK"
Where will Ronnie be when Mike's led away?
Hush, little Pat, too late for crying
You assured us YOU were "supervising."
Hush, little darlings, do you hear that sound?
That's the Big Ole Fed-dies snooping all around.
Sleep at home, little darlings, while you may
Feds gonna bring Durham's Judgment Day.
Nighty-Nite.