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Plaintiffs’ Response to Nifong’s Motion to Dismiss
Topic Started: Jan 31 2009, 12:32 AM (8,067 Views)
chatham
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~J~ is in Wonderland
Feb 2 2009, 02:51 PM
chatham
Feb 2 2009, 02:26 PM
One item always bothered me. After reading gottliebs deposition for nifongs disbarment I am wondering about one item he said. Why would gottlieb be ordered to write up notes to give to the durham city manager to present to the city council early on in the case. Why would baker want to be informed by gottlieb and not by one of gottliebs supervisors?

Does the city council ask to be updated on all criminal cases in their city. Was someone from city hall really running the case side by side with nifong? If I was to be something other than PC I would say because someone at city hall new crystal and may have even had interactions with her and maybe even a phone number on her cell? Or maybe city hall was storing her toys so she would not lose them?
chatham, what is that plant you are growing? :jump:
It was time to change my avatar from basketball to gardening and I didn't like the tomato picture anymore so the closest thing to something growing in my garden was just labeled plant. lol lol. I don't have any seeds,, so I am not growing THAT plant.

The mellow farmer. :toast:
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wingedwheel
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Not Pictured Above
It's either Hibiscus or something else........ :fspin:
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abb
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wingedwheel
Feb 2 2009, 05:57 PM
It's either Hibiscus or something else........ :fspin:
We could call it Ozzie. For Oz Smith, aka The Potted Plant...
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MikeZPU

pjr
Feb 2 2009, 02:01 PM
MikeZPU: I recommend watching a few episodes of COPS to answer your question.

(snip)
Crystal only got as much face time with a detective because a respected institution like DUMC lent reliability to her fable. A more standard approach was the one she received from the earliest cops who disbelieved everything she said, not only because of what she was saying, but who she was.

Why would any cop waste their efforts on Crystal or Kim, other than to take basic statements or any IDs? For purity's sake, one could go through the motions and browbeat them into inconsistencies galore, but what would that prove? It wouldn't prove that a crime DIDN'T occur, people like Crystal lie in those circumstances too.

(snip)
By the way, I watch "Forensic Files" on TruTV almost every night.
Much better than COPS :)

In addition to my previous response (which is much more substantive than
my comments in this particular post) I would like to add a few things
(although Baldo pretty much covered it all. Baldo: bravo!)

The point of questioning is NOT to "browbeat them into inconsistencies"
but to expose the inconsistencies that are already there and to eventually
get Mangum to admit she made it all up. This is what ROUTINELY happens
with false rape claims. My observation here at Purdue is that when someone
files a false claim of rape, with proper compassionate questioning it usually
takes less than 48 hours to get the person to admit they made it up.

Also, with respect to your characterizations of Mangum, keep in mind that
she was a student at NCCU who graduated with a Bachelor's degree last year,
with honors I believe. She is not an illiterate person, nor does she have a low IQ.

Edited by MikeZPU, Feb 2 2009, 08:04 PM.
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pjr

MikeZPU (and Baldo)

The point of my post is that, if the plaintiff attorneys attempt to make the argument that the intent of the cops in the first week was a bad faith one demonstrated by instances of omission, it is a weak one and can be easily parried. Cops routinely devote resources and allocate time based on the viability and circumstances of the case, and change their approach based on the exigencies.

To say that it was practical or beneficial to keep going to Crystal (or Kim) for information is a headscratcher, to say the least. Both were unreliable by the nature of who they were and what they do. In Crystal's case, she was loaded on the night in question, and anything she could offer was additionally questionable, to put it charitably. I would immediately doubted the intention, if not the professionalism, of a detective that had kept after Crystal to bolster this case, when all that had to be done was to wait for the DNA results to sort things out.

The "omission" argument (for things which occured before the Khanna article appeared) tends to flop for other reasons for the simple fact that the cops didn't do things to the laxers which conceivably could have been. It was almost a stroke of luck (for the Buchanan residents) that Crystal could be found and located before the search warrant was served. I think that her interview introduced a lot of doubt about the overall story, and eliminated her as a reliable source. I think it led to the absence of an arrest (or three) based on property recovered at the house, and caused the lack of a push over the Friday-Sunday timeframe immediately thereafter. Frankly, Crystal was a dry hole who had zero credibility, and the case became one of minimalism waiting for the biological results. Of course, the most glaring omission right after the search was the lack of a concerted effort to interview the other partygoers pronto. If the cops had been on a jihad at that point as claimed, the dorm funny business witnessed later in the case would have been introduced. Instead, the early days were more of a waiting game centered around the house search and the gathering of samples from the players.

One of the aims of the suits besides exposing malfeasance is to make the miscreants pay. The sums will be the result of various outrages that occured as the case progressed. The "omission" argument - besides being functionally lame - won't produce anything resembling an outrage with the jury, and may even tend to cause doubt about the veracity of the plaintiff attorneys because its fundamental weakness.

*Added: BTW, the AG investigators used almost an identical approach when interacting with Crystal. They gave her a shot, determined that it was fruitless to proceed, and used other information to make their judgment. I wasn't a demonstration of bad faith on their part to break her down - it was just mission impossible.
Edited by pjr, Feb 3 2009, 07:54 AM.
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pjr
Feb 3 2009, 07:49 AM
MikeZPU (and Baldo)

The point of my post is that, if the plaintiff attorneys attempt to make the argument that the intent of the cops in the first week was a bad faith one demonstrated by instances of omission, it is a weak one and can be easily parried. Cops routinely devote resources and allocate time based on the viability and circumstances of the case, and change their approach based on the exigencies.

To say that it was practical or beneficial to keep going to Crystal (or Kim) for information is a headscratcher, to say the least. Both were unreliable by the nature of who they were and what they do. In Crystal's case, she was loaded on the night in question, and anything she could offer was additionally questionable, to put it charitably. I would immediately doubted the intention, if not the professionalism, of a detective that had kept after Crystal to bolster this case, when all that had to be done was to wait for the DNA results to sort things out.

The "omission" argument (for things which occured before the Khanna article appeared" tends to flop for other reasons for the simple fact that the cops didn't do things to the laxers which conceivably could have been. It was almost a stroke of luck (for the Buchanan residents) that Crystal could be found and located before the search warrant was served. I think that her interview introduced a lot of doubt about the overall story, and eliminated her as a reliable source. I think it led to the absence of an arrest (or three) based on property recovered at the house, and caused the lack of a push over the Friday-Sunday timeframe immediately thereafter. Frankly, Crystal was a dry hole who had zero credibility, and the case became one of minimalism waiting for the biological results. Of course, the most glaring omission right after the search was the lack of a concerted effort to interview the other partygoers pronto. If the cops had been on a jihad at that point as claimed, the dorm funny business witnessed later in the case would have been introduced. Instead, the early days were more of a waiting game centered around the house search and the gathering of samples from the players.

One of the aims of the suits besides exposing malfeasance is to make the miscreants pay. The sums will be the result of various outrages that occured as the case progressed. The "omission" argument - besides being functionally lame - won't produce anything resembling an outrage with the jury, and may even tend to cause doubt about the veracity of the plaintiff attorneys because its fundamental weakness.
Except that the DPD can't have it both ways. They can't say that "early on we didn't believe her and that's why we did no investigation," and then turn around and claim the reason for all the NTO's, warrants, lineups, searches and other nonsense was because, "we are obliged to investigate potential crimes to the best of our ability."

So which was is? Did they not believe Crystal & Co. on 3/19? Why not? What made the DPD thugs change their mind? Who put pressure on you? CowBell? Nifong? Brodhead? The PotBangers? The NandO?

etc, etc.
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pjr

Easy, abb. Liars can be bona fide victims. Serial killings of streetwalkers for example. Thus, use other tools and witnesses to sort it out.

In my earlier remark to Mike about watching COPS, I was being serious and not facetious. It is one of the show's regular scenarios to have patrolmen (and the COPS cameras) roll onto a scene of streetpeople engaged in fighting each other. Despite the fact that they know that everything was filmed, the first five things to come out of the mouths of both sides are laughable lies.

The patrolman don't bother to take involved statements or spend a lot of time on putative inconsistencies from the losers. They use their own knowledge and gather any witness statements if meaningful, cuff the bad actor and call out the aid car for the other liar. It's a practical way of approaching a problem and getting as correct a solution as possible.

In the laxer case, rolling around in the mud with Crystal and Kim made zero sense in the early days. If the SANE recommendations were to be trusted, the only sensible course of action was to proceed with DNA. Then the next decision could be made.
Edited by pjr, Feb 3 2009, 08:13 AM.
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pjr
Feb 3 2009, 08:12 AM
Easy, abb. Liars can be bona fide victims. Serial killings of streetwalkers for example. Thus, use other tools and witnesses to sort it out.

In my earlier remark to Mike about watching COPS, I was being serious and not facetious. It is one of the show's regular scenarios to have patrolmen (and the COPS cameras) roll onto a scene of streetpeople engaged in fighting each other. Despite the fact that they know that everything was filmed, the first five things to come out of the mouths of both sides are laughable lies.

The patrolman don't bother to take involved statements or spend a lot of time on putative inconsistencies from the losers. They use their own knowledge and gather any witness statements if meaningful, cuff the bad actor and call out the aid car for the other liar. It's a practical way of approaching a problem and getting as correct a solution as possible.

In the laxer case, rolling around in the mud with Crystal and Kim made zero sense in the early days. If the SANE recommendations were to be trusted, the only sensible course of action was to proceed with DNA. Then the next decision could be made.
Except for when the DNA came back negative, then what happened? The Frame went into overtime. Why did none of the cops who were allegedly skeptical early on say stop?

Nope. At best, the DPD early on played the role of the "good Germans" and just followed orders.

That dog don't hunt no more.

:bman:
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pjr

The argument that the existence of a later frame proves an earlier frame is a logical non-starter; that later bad faith necessarily taints earlier practical police actions, ditto.

I believe that this case was one that morphed as things came up. And that the later actions were so outrageous that, if the suits are allowed to proceed, will result in staggering amounts.
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pjr
Feb 3 2009, 08:31 AM
The argument that the existence of a later frame proves an earlier frame is a logical non-starter; that later bad faith necessarily taints earlier practical police actions, ditto.

I believe that this case was one that morphed as things came up. And that the later actions were so outrageous that, if the suits are allowed to proceed, will result in staggering amounts.
I'm not trying to say there were two Frames. It was one large one and the DPD was in the big middle of it, either by acts of commission or acts of omission. One is as bad as the other, in my opinion. I would almost respect acts of commission more, because if they were scared to speak up and stop it, they're just plain old cowards. That doesn't say much for people who swear to "protect and to serve."

And once again I would like to remind everyone the lawsuits aren't about monetary settlements. It's about the truth.
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chatham
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I agree with you PJR, up to a point. The cops could have interviewed the neighbor(s) who may have heard or seen anything. They could have found crystals driver and talked with him. Even nifong said they should have done the search warrant and some interviews right away. There was a lot of other opportunities available to the cops early on. I believe that gottlieb was just "snooping" around when he took over the case to try to figure out what, if anything, did happen. That is why there was a delay in the investigation. I believe that himan played stoopid throughout the investigation because he knew it was bogus. He was about the only one saying there was no evidence to show any crime happened. Crystals story was unbelievable, kims story matched the 3 guys thatwere interviewed at the station. There was no evidence of a crime making sense. The only thing left was to interview the rest of the party and hear their story. That is when Duke (brodhead) got involved. Then everything got out of control, the LAX team called in the lawyers. They it became us(DPD) against them (LAX team) and dukes reputation against the LAX team.

I still believe that nifong knew some details of what happened in the ER early on and got his early information from the wife of one of the Duke cops. I believe that nifong was waiting in the wings to make his leap and he was the person who informed the DPD that he wanted to take over the case. He saw an opportunity fading away for his election bid so he made a claim to the DPD that the investigation was not looking for the rapists hard enough. Nifong knew too much at his very first March 27th meeting with himan and gottlieb and started out the meeting with his famous "we are ******" statement. He also knew a lot more things than was just stated in the NTO. Although gottlieb played coy throughout the case, once nifong took over the case he knew that he would have a free hand to harass the Duke LAX students. Everyone on the durham side knew that what nifong was doing was illegal but they chose to support him for some reason. Either they really hated him or they thought the case could make him known to the community so that he could win the primary. It might be that Chalmers knew the unethical behavior of his DPD and chose to ignore it rather than correct it, so he went into hiding.
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Bill Anderson
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My sense is that they decided early on to frame the kids, if they could pull it off. If it blew up in their faces (which it did), then they could claim immunity for their actions.

In other words, there really would be no consequences, or so they thought. At best, they could railroad innocent students into prison and at worst, they might get a hung jury.

Ultimately, I think Bill Bell was responsible for what happened in Durham. First, he made a high-profile contribution to Nifong's campaign and second, he demanded arrests by hook or crook, but he wanted arrests and soon.

Had Bell shown some moral courage, Nifong would not have had the police backing him up. Ultimately, it was Bell who made sure that the frame would happen and the charges would stick.

:bill:
Edited by Bill Anderson, Feb 3 2009, 09:59 AM.
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Baldo
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PJR I don't have a problem with your questioning, in fact it is a useful exercise to sharpen the debate against what will probably be a defendant tactic.

Nifong, Gottlieb, and Himan knew there wasn't any forensic evidence(they actual knew it was impossible she was raped by any Lax player after DNASI's results of April 10) yet Nifong writes out the indictment on April 12 and Gottlieb & Himan waltz into the Grand Jury on April 16 to give testimony that obtains those indictments on Reade & Collin. Two players whom they never interviewed and had no proof of any forensic evidence that attached them to the alleged "assault." Apparently with only that non-standard, violating their own DPD protocol "line-up" from the same unreliable witness whom they didn't care to question about her glaring inconsistencies, EVER!

Nifong was right in his explaining of the "Old Fashioned" way, meaning lying , cheating, and obfuscating the truth.

There are standards of police work; reasons why notes are kept, fillers are used in line-ups, interrogations performed and recorded, and reports read. The "Bart Simpson" defense of "I didn't do it. Nobody saw me do it. You can't prove anything" will fall apart in Federal Court.

This is a Civil Rights case, one I doubt the defendants thought they would ever have to face away from the comfort and protection of the hometown court. They are a long way from Judge Stephens.
Edited by Baldo, Feb 3 2009, 10:42 AM.
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Deleted User
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FOLLOW THE MONEY................Bill Bell had the most reasons to "make it happen" I'm sure somewhere down deep we will find he has a vested interest in the construction on Central Campus...He was one of the striking points that forced Duke to add to their "contribution" to the fine arts center and a lot of other projects , yes I said projects and nothing more, in Durm....Spend that money Bill, as long at it comes off the "Plantation"...Isn't that how city-university relations are supposed to work......FOLLOW THE MONEY............
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darby

I think this forum tells us all we need to know about who and what were behind the actions of the Durham "leaders"..... The only actor missing was the honorable city manager Patrick Baker, he may have still been meeting with the police officers to "get their stories straight".


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