Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Who should worry about Duke/Durham discovery?

A Jan. 7, 2009 Durham Herald Sun story, “Lacrosse cabbie, Macy's settle suit,” began:

Cabbie Moezeldin Elmostafa and the proprietors of the Macy's department stores have settled the lawsuit he filed against the chain in connection with a 2003 shoplifting incident.
Readers who read down to the ninth paragraph learned. Elmostafa’s attorney, Tom Loflin, said the following:
"We were one of the last on the lacrosse litigation train, the last to be charged and all that, but we're probably the first out of it, except that Mr. Elmostafa is probably going to end up as a witness in some of the players' civil cases," Loflin said. (emphasis added)
Some people worry we won’t have discovery and some people worry we will.

Loflin’s comment reminded me that all the attorneys I’ve talked with who are not directly involved representing parties to the suits, but who’ve been following them agree we’ll have plenty of discovery, most, if not all, of which will be available to the public because of the “in the public’s interest to know” aspects of the suits.

So IMO the people worrying we
won’t have discovery need only be patient while the often slow process of litigation moves along.

On the other hand, the people worried there
will be discovery are right to feel that way.

BTW – Loflin’s comment and those of the attorneys I referred to here were all made
before the announcement of the U. S. Supreme Court’s unanimous Pearson v. Callahan decision which KC Johnson posted on here.

The short of Pearson is the decision makes it more difficult for Nifong to avoid responsibility for his travesties. But read KC’s post if you haven’t already.

The entire H-S story's here.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

I look forward to discovery but I have never worried that it wouldn't happen.

I do hope those who should be worrying that discovery will happen are but I'm not sure they realize the gravity of their situation yet.

It seems to me that some, particularly the miscreants at Duke, have gone merrily about business as usual, as if they didn't have a care in the world.

Clearly they want everyone to forget about it. They want to silence their critics and MoveOn but even if that happened it wouldn't matter. The lawsuits are what they should be worried about. Discovery should scare the peedoodle out of them.

I get sufficient satisfaction knowing they are worried or they will be at some point. So many and so much will be exposed I should feel sorry for them but I don't.