Adding to N&O’s "Block IDs" story

Readers’ Note: If you’ve already read the N&O's story below, you may want to skip down to my comments below the star line.

John
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The Raleigh News & Observer has posted online a story, "Lacrosse judge asked to block IDs" It begins:

Defense lawyers asked a judge today to block the accuser in the Duke University lacrosse case from identifying her alleged attackers in court at trial.

If they succeed, the lawyers for three indicted former lacrosse players would undermine the foundation of District Attorney Mike Nifong’s case and give the defense a chance to have the charges dismissed before trial. The request came in a motion in Durham County Superior Court that also asks the judge to throw out the photographic lineup procedure that became the basis for the state’s rape case.

The 43-page motion methodically recounts the day-by-day progress of the investigation and the efforts of police to get a reliable identification from the accuser, an escort service worker who said she was raped by three men at a March lacrosse team party. […]

Her descriptions of her attackers did not resemble the men eventually charged. Before picking out her attackers three weeks after the party, police told her she would be viewing photographs of all people at the party, meaning anyone she picked out could be indicted.

The document is titled, “Motion to Suppress the Alleged ‘Identification’ of the Defendants by the Accuser.’”

The motion, signed by lawyers for all three defendants, asks Superior Court Judge W. Osmond Smith III to throw out the April 4 lineup procedure in which the accuser identified four men as her attackers. It asks the judge to bar her in-court identification and asks for an evidentiary hearing on the issues raised in the motion. […]

The motion highlights a further contradiction: The accuser told police that a man she later identified as Seligmann dragged her to a car after the assault. A photo taken at 12:41 a.m. shows one player helping the accuser into a car; a Wachovia ATM photographed Seligmann withdrawing cash at 12:24 a.m., about a mile from the party.

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The N&O’s story, detailed and coherent, looks like fine reporting under tight deadline.

The story will very likely be front-page in tomorrow’s print editions. Between now and the print deadline the story’s reporters, Ben Niolet and Joe Neff, will no doubt continue working on it.

I hope Neff and Nicolet do at least two things that will make the story more useful for readers:

1) After reporting defense attorneys are asking that the accuser be barred from IDing her alleged attackers in court at trial, explain why the attorneys made that request.

That's made clear by Duke University Law School professor James Coleman in hisJun. 12 letter to the N&O:

[The police’s telling the woman they’d be no fillers used] strongly suggests that the purpose of the identification process was to give the alleged victim an opportunity to pick three members of the lacrosse team who could be charged. Any three students would do; there could be no wrong choice.

The prosecutor would not care if the pre-trial identification was subsequently thrown out by the court.

The accuser would identify them at trial by pointing to the three defendants seated in front of her as the three men who assaulted her.

The prosecutor would argue that she had an independent basis (independent of the identifications thrown out) for doing so.

2) Regarding the N&O's report the block motion noted an accuser contradiction: She "told police that a man she later identified as Seligmann dragged her to a car after the assault. A photo taken at 12:41 a.m. shows one player helping the accuser into a car; a Wachovia ATM photographed Seligmann withdrawing cash at 12:24 a.m., about a mile from the party."

I hope the reporters add that Moezeldin Elmostafa, the cab driver who drove Seligmann and his roommate from the party to the ATM machine, reported taking them from there further away from the house on N. Buchanan Blvd. to a Cook Out Hamburgers where the two students bought takeout; after which Mostafa drove them back to their dorm on Duke’s West campus. Mostafa’s cab record shows he dropped them off at 12:45 a. m. Duke’s electronic records show Seligmann’s key card was used at 12:46 a.m. for entry to his dorm. (Seligmann timeline data from Johnsville News post.)

It's very likely the attorneys included the Elmostafa and card swip information in their motion.

Including the Elmostafa and card swip information in the N&O story will help readers understand the improbability of the accuser's claim that Seligmann helped her into the car.

I plan to contact Niolet and Neff on the two points.

I get an N&O print edition. (The N&O prints four editions. In my area we get the West edition.)

I'll post tomorrow on whether the N&O included in the print edition either or both of the points I've raised.
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A hat tip goes to an Anon who called my misspelling of Moezeldin Elmostafa's name to my attention.