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Show the scene of the crime?
Topic Started: Mar 19 2014, 08:40 AM (259 Views)
Quasimodo

Quote:
 
http://www.vnews.com/home/11192684-95/campus-rape-trial-underway-jury-begins-with-visit-to-dartmouth-dorm

Campus Rape Trial Underway: Jury Begins With Visit to Dartmouth Dorm


March 18, 2014

North Haverhill — The trial of the former Dartmouth College rugby player charged with raping a female student began with jurors visiting the Hanover dormitory where the incident allegedly occurred last May.

Parker C. Gilbert has been charged with seven felony counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault and one count of criminal trespassing. After the jury was sworn in on Monday afternoon in North Haverhill, they boarded a bus for the hour drive south to Dartmouth, where they visited Berry Hall on Maynard Street.

“The evidence you’re about to see on this view is going to be as important as any evidence you could hear or see in this case,” George Ostler, one of the defense attorneys, told the jurors before they departed. “Everybody’s heard the saying, ‘A picture’s worth a thousand words.’ Well, being there in this case is worth a million words, especially when you’ve got a lot of lawyers involved.”

The trial started Monday — also Gilbert’s 21st birthday — and is scheduled to last two weeks at the Grafton Superior Court in North Haverhill. Gilbert has a three-person defense team: Ostler, of DesMeules, Olmstead & Ostler in Norwich; Cathy Green, of Green & Utter in Manchester; and Robert Cary, of Williams & Connolly in Washington D.C.

Cary is a Dartmouth alumnus and high-profile attorney who represented the late U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, when he was exonerated on ethics charges.


In the minutes before the trial began, Gilbert, wearing a blue dress shirt, navy suit jacket and red tie, stood in a small circle of relatives and spoke with them quietly. Once Monday’s proceedings began, about a dozen people — all of whom appeared to be supporters of Gilbert — sat in the gallery behind the defendant’s table, where Gilbert sat sandwiched between his three attorneys facing the jury box.

Gilbert is no longer a student, and according to court documents, he has been living in the Newbury, N.H., area.

[aside: note that the accuser is not named; whereas the accused gets a lot of coverage from the press.]

According to court filings and indictments, the state alleges that Gilbert entered the victim’s dorm room [where did "alleged" go in that sentence?]

in the early morning hours of May 2, 2013 and engaged in sexual penetration while she was asleep through physical force, physical violence or superior physical strength. Once the victim woke up, the state alleges Gilbert continued to sexually assault her.

Defense attorneys filed a motion last fall outlining their request for jurors to visit the dorm, arguing that the visit would allow the jury to assess the credibility of witnesses’ testimony about events on the night in question.

In the motion requesting a jury view, the defense states that a roommate and friend were in the same suite as the victim at the time of the alleged assault. The defense’s motion states that discovery material shows that the victim’s roommate was studying nearby and “only heard sounds consistent with consensual sex,” while a friend slept through the alleged assault as the victim claims she yelled out.

When the jurors arrived on campus, they were greeted by Judge Peter Bornstein, Grafton County Attorney Lara Saffo and her colleague Paul Fitzgerald, and Gilbert and his three attorneys. Gilbert’s family stayed behind in North Haverhill and did not attend the jury view.

When reporters and a documentary filmmaker tried following the jury into Berry Hall, they were stopped by Dartmouth Safety and Security officers and told they couldn’t go inside.

Dartmouth spokesman Justin Anderson told the Valley News that the college was obligated by the court to allow the jury into Berry Hall, but as a general practice, the college prohibits third parties from entering student rooms and dormitories out of concern for privacy.

While the media was barred from the dormitory, Saffo addressed the 14 jurors before departing and provided a sense of what jurors would see.

Once the jurors arrived at Berry Hall, Saffo explained, they would be asked to note the bike rack next to the building and to take note of the door and the scanner used to gain access to the building.


The jurors would then be taken to the second floor, where they would be asked to take note of student rooms, a common area and a study hall. The jurors would then be taken into unit 204, a suite that contains two rooms.

In the first room, the jurors would be asked to pay attention to the bunk bed, a desk and the door between the adjoining rooms. In the second room, they would also be asked to notice the furniture.

Ostler told the jury to pay particular attention to room 204, everything from the floor to the lighting.

Once the jury view was over, the jurors stepped onto the bus and headed back to North Haverhill. The prosecutors and defense attorneys parted ways, and Gilbert entered a car with his three attorneys.

The trial will resume at 9 a.m. today, when opening statements are scheduled.
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Quasimodo


Is there any reason why there was a total-- and I mean TOTAL-- media blackout on showing
the scene of the alleged crime on Buchanan Blvd.?

Just as there was a TOTAL censorship of the alleged victim SMILING as she attempted to force
her way through a locked door, back into the house where she alleged she had just spent a half hour
fighting for her life before being raped in every possible way?

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LTC8K6
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Assistant to The Devil Himself
Yes. It would compromise the State's case.
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Quasimodo

Quote:
 

August 5, 2007

http://johninnorthcarolina.blogspot.com/2007/08/ruth-sheehans-opportunity.html


Dear Ms. [Ruth] Sheehan:

When I began reading last Monday's column, "Lacrosse house ... what if?," I thought to myself: "Sheehan's finally going to do it. It's about time."

I really thought you were going to tell readers John Burness pulled the car into the driveway beside the house and the two of you got out so you could enter the house and inspect that bathroom where Crystal Mangum claimed it all happened.

But you and Burness cruised right past the house.

(snip)

Surely you must have thought about asking Burness to stop and let you have a look in the bathroom. That would be a legitimate news requests.

(snip)

People who've been in the bathroom say if the public could see how small it is, they'd know there was no why Mangum could've fought a 30 minute brutal battle with three big athletes in there and then emerge without a sprain or a cut requiring even one stitch.

The N&O published a picture of the anonymous "Vigilante" poster after Duke said doing so would add to the danger the players were already facing.

You published the tax value of Reade Seligmann's parents' home and told us there was a Godiva Chocolate Shop in the town near where he went to high school.


So what's the problem with publishing a photo of the bathroom, preferably with four people in it and the door shut, which is how Mangum said things were that night of her "ordeal?"

You could accompany the photographer to the house and ask Burness and Duke's President Dick Brodhead and Mike Nifong to join you.

Then the photographer could take pictures of you, Burness, Brodhead and Nifong in the bathroom;
and you could ask the three men to explain why they think news organizations have been so reluctant to report on the bathroom's size and when each of them first realized Mangum's story (stories really) was just what David Evans said it was: "fantastic lies."

You have quite an opportunity to educate the public about how news organizations actually work. It's also an opportunity to help people in Durham who genuinely wish to get along with each other better understand why Roy Cooper said, "innocent."

I hope you take advantage of the opportunity. It's the least you and the N&O owe the community.

I'll publish your response in full at my blog.

(snip)

Sincerely,

John in Carolina
Edited by Quasimodo, Mar 19 2014, 09:05 AM.
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Quasimodo

Quote:
 
http://johninnorthcarolina.blogspot.com/2006/05/duke-lacrosse-and-bathroom-safety.html

MONDAY, MAY 15, 2006

Duke lacrosse and bathroom safety


Today’s indictment of Duke Men’s lacrosse captain David Evans adds to the story the accuser and DA Mike Nifong want us to believe.

We should believe that:

On the night of March 13/14 at a party at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. in Durham, David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann dragged the resisting accuser into the bathroom where they each brutally raped, sodomized and choked here as she struggled for her life.


That's what we're all supposed to believe.

Mind you, I’m not saying anyone should believe any of that.

I just want us to agree on what a person must believe in order to agree with what the accuser and Nifong are saying.

I’m doing that because I want to ask the millions who believe the accuser and Nifong some questions.

The rest of you are, of course, welcome to read along and decide how you’d answer those questions.

Now questions for accuser/Nifong believers:

Have you and someone else ever helped a cooperative elderly or very ill person into a bathroom to shower?

Did you have to be extremely careful and move very slowly lest you accidentally injure the person or yourselves by hitting one of the many hard, angular, and large objects found in a bathroom?

Did you carefully plan and coordinate with the ill or elderly person and your helper every move you all made in order to avoid serious injury to any of you?

And for all the planning and cooperation, you knew the smallest slip or bump could result in a serious injury, didn’t you?

Did you think about getting a third person to help?

If you did, I'm betting you rejected that idea because you knew a third person would only make things too crowded and hard for everyone to maneuver safely around the shower/tub, toilet, sink, medicine cabinet and towel rack.

Am I right?

Have you ever tried to help an elderly or ill person who resisted a bathroom shower, say an Alzheimer patient with paranoid ideation?

Did you try to shower the person anyway, or did you immediately stop because you knew going ahead would be physically dangerous to the person and yourself?

Did you think instead of a bedroom where you could give the person a sponge bath?

That would make a lot more sense, wouldn’t it?

The papers report the house at 610 North Buchanan Blvd. has three bedrooms.

One last question: Will you tell us why you believe what the accuser and DA Nifong are saying?


John in Carolina could ask these questions in MAY 2006.

So where were the rest of the "reporters";

and why didn't they ask to see the crime scene?

What crime which received this kind of coverage, NEVER SHOWED THE CRIME SCENE?



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Quasimodo

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Some of us think the house should have been preserved, for its historical connections;

moreover, it would serve as a perpetual reminder of "innocent until proven guilty".

And, the bathroom would always be there, so that all of Durham could see how ridiculous
the original charges were.


Duke, judging from the above, thought otherwise.
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