The testimony of Mecklenberg Co. ADA Marsha Goodenow is occurring.
An experienced prosecutor, she is leveling blow after blow against Mike Nifong.
Q: Is it normal procedure in NC for prosecutors to file rape charges w/ only evidence being contradictory stories of accuser?
A; "Highly unlikely"
Q: Any problem with receiving exculpatory evidence?
A: Not only no problem, but she encourages it.
Q: Any problem with interviewing accuser?
A: No.
A: Lineup not normal procedures.
1) don't tell them suspect is in lineup
2) supposed to use fillers.
"I've never seen a lineup where you put all the suspects alone."
3) Also had been two lineups before that--not supposed to do same people in sequential lineups.
Always improper for prosecutor to express personal opinions on guilt either before or after indictments.
After reviewing several of Mike Nifong's statements--including a video of him asserting that he's not going to allow Durham's image to be that of lacrosse players committing gang rape--Goodenow noted that Nifong's comments were improper.
NTO evidence: Goodenow: nothing exculpatory about it. All results have to be turned over. As soon as prosecutors get oral report, they have to turn the information over. Law doesn't say written report--applies equally to oral reports. Required to turn over to all 46 members of the team.
Q: Is it proper for prosecutor on NTO report to turn over selective written report?
A: I don't believe so, no. It would not be proper.
Goodenow: If I received a report that didn't include all the items, would ask DNA lab for report to include everything.
Lab report is a summary of results, not simply the underlying data.
[This testimony is a vindication of the Ekstrand strategy not to resist the NTO motion: by not appealing the motion, Ekstrand ensured that the lacrosse players would be entitled to all test results, thereby setting the stage for this ethical violation.]
Goodenow: prosecutors have requirement to give everything to defense.
Exculpatory evidence must be turned over immediately upon receipt.
Has never seen a case where a prosecutor turned over a report where the lab director can "pick and choose" which DNA evidence to report.
"can't think of any" legitimate reason why a prosecutor would turn over an incomplete DBA report--might be a reason, but she can't think of one.
Goodenow concludes with story of a recent case in Charlotte: ADA hands over a few late documents. The defense attorney said, "I've been Nifonged."
Her response? "This is sad."
Has never seen the word "interim" report; has never heard of report that doesn't summarize all the tests done to that point.
Has never seen a case where evidence that was "so clearly exculpatory" was not turned over.
"If this case has caused DA's to be more complete in turning over discovery, that's a good thing."
Q: If the state has orally received test results that are exculpatory, when should be turned over?
A: Information should be communicated immediately.
Q: Q: If the state has orally received test results that are exculpatory in April, is it OK not to turn over for months?
A: No.
Q: Did Nifong comply with NC law on discovery, regarding DNA data?
A: No.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
82 comments:
Is this really supposed to be over tomorrow?
Goodenow - "A fair prosecutor..."
Defense - "Objection."
Chairman - "Over ruled."
Hilarious
Is it me or is this Nifong's worst day so far?
I wonder if someone threw a bucket of water on him right now would he melt like the Wicked Witch?!
He surely thought he was trying his case in the Land of Oz/
"It's the constitutional rights, Stupid!!!" This woman is awesome, and to those who thought the Bar wasn't doing so well-----watch this slaughter!!!!
Devastating. Nifong should just turn in hit tickets now, even Clarence Darrow couldn't save his sorry a$$.
he thought he was in Land of Oz
however, we know he is in Wonderland
First Brad Bannon, now Marsha Goodenow are tearing up poor little Mikey. It must really suck to watch your professional career go down in flames right in front of your eyes, with the world watching everything unfold.
The 'Fongster is experiencing what we in the military call BOHICA:
Bend
Over
Here
It
Comes
Again
Has anyone noted if there is has been a run on Depends? I think Nifong must be using them, otherwise that room would stink to high Heaven.
No Mas, No Mas!!!
This isn't even a fair fight.
I get the feeling that old Mikey is no longer quite as fond of TV cameras as he used to be.
There's a certain inexorable fascination in watching the facts unfold, isn't there? Even though we all knew and had been discussing the particulars of all the ways in which Nifong had violated disciplinary rules and rules of conduct, I find myself absorbed by the slow eliciting of the many, many ways he did so. It's like watching the Titanic in slow motion.
Nifong really wants this to continue in front of his family?
For those not watching they played a few videos of Nifong where he really laid it on the lacrosse players.
Powerful, powerful stuff.
Hard to object over damaging video of your client.
I agree, not only are the facts worse than even the most cynical of us imagined, but watching this played out in public is almost too good to be true.
The other thing we have to remember, at least in my perspective, is most of these bar lawyers are defense lawyers, usually they are on the 'wrong' side of justice..most of their clients ARE guilty, and most of the time public sentiment is against them...
They must be LOVING this, they are on the right side of things legally, ethically and morally, fo that reason alone he will be skewered.
Why doesn't the man just stand up and say enough! Stop! Because he isn't now, and never was, a man.
Lord forgive us for the sense of schadenfreude.
I also have to think there's one good reason for all of this happening like this--it might help people understand that there isn't a case here and never was. Otherwise, there are still those that would say these guys got off because of having money. I gotta think all of this will only help clear the 3 guys' names. If Nifong had just dropped all the charges last winter, they'd always have been tainted by these false charges.
Goodenow has just confirmed that Nifong telling Meehan how to prepare a report in any way was improper
Nifong can stop the bleeding any time he wants. All he has to do is whisper to his attorney, "Here's my license. I'm going home."
Dianna
"Death by a thousand cuts"!
Ouch, this must be one big hurt for the Fong,Freedfong and Twitt team?
Looks like Nancy Grace has turned on Nifong.
I think I can hear the fat lady singing "Turn out the lights, the party is over..." for MIKEY!
Can anyone predict Duff's apin on this lady and her testimony?
And ..after all this ...Mikey wants to take the stand ???????
It's like watching the entire world finally catch up with what most of us have assumed for the last 18 months.
Nancy Grace just said, it when the fa began changing her story, that she, grace had doubts.
What a piece of crap.
Mrs. Former Prosecutor 3:31 said...
...There's a certain inexorable fascination in watching the facts unfold, isn't there?
::
Absolutely!
Also, there's a certain inexorable fascination in watching history unfold right in front of your eyes and summarized by a Harvard Ph.D who is a professor of history.
It doesn't get any better than that!
::
GP
Nancy Grace=Pariah
I am simply amazed that Nancy Grace has the unmitigated GALL to even speak on this subject.
What's next, Wendy Murphy?
Where are you seeing Nancy say these things?
"Turn out the lights, the party is over..."
Are you sure you're not hearing a fat former Monday Night Football broadcaster singing that tune?
Like the photo at Liestoppers yesterday, it really is time to order lunch and that means getting the daily special, the "Toasted Nifong."
Nice touch of the Bar to use Nifong's ADA to show the evidence rules.
court tv grace is on
"I`m so glad they didn`t miss a lacrosse game over a little thing like gang rape!" ~~ Nancy Grace, March 31, 2006
North Carolina justice showing Nifong is a maverick. More than anything NC lawyers and justice system being rehabed.
I always thought that the decision of all the players to comply with the NTO was a blessing because it ensured that ALL of the players were exonerated by the DNA. Without that, we would have potentially had a process where three players at a time were subjected to this farce/tragedy.
GS--
Goodenow isn't Nifong's ADA, she's from Mecklenberg County.
Nifong better get in a few of the G88 to recite the holy meta-narrative.
3:47
I agree, I thought it was a good idea for a different reason, it was clearly unconstitutional, BUT, by everyone voluntarily turning their DNA over it prevented another set of negative stories based on 'if they have nothing to hide why are they fighting it'
It might also, this is a big, BIG, maybe have given Nifong more time to figure out better candidates for his frame up, maybe like players who were still in the house when Mangum left.
If he had any brains he would have charged Evans, the other guy whose DNA was found in the bathroom and Ryan McFadden, author of the infamous email or the broomstick guy or the cotton shirt guy.
As long as he was just picking random players, he would have done a lot better to pick the guys who were there and who said and did things that were unseemly.
Too stupid even to conduct a proper frame up....
Anon 3:34: While I'll admit to schadenfreude (pleasure in the misfortunes of others) from time to time, what I feel today is righteous anger vindicated. What Nifong did was important in many ways, and he himself laid the stones in the long road bringing him here. It's not schadenfreude to be glad justice is done.
I like her quoting a Defense Lawyer in court saying "I was Nifonged".
Clearly, Nancy Grace has no pride or dignity in her. Brad, you are a star and got the Dudder too. The female lawyers in this deal are extrodinary - make Sutton look like a clown/
Dianna,
It's too late for Mikey to surrender his license. He MUST stay. Their are no provisions for a surrender once the hearing has started.
Mikey, even ole Duff is going to sell you out. Cash already did on Court TV last night, and Victoria is home eating fried chicken.
AMF Mikey, adios M F'ker
Kemp
Grace is now saying rule #1 "do not comment on the case" as a DA.
Gee she never mention that while Nifong was spouting crap.
Grace was stunned by Nifong's comments.
Did you see Nancy Grace?! LOL! Talking all humbly and quietly. Trying to blame her earlier big mouth on blindly believing the DA. (I guess she realized she better come back on the air because everybody knew she was hiding from the Duke case).
Just caught Disgrace trying to have it both ways. What a first-class turd. She is truly a waste of skin.
Grace believed that everyone (DA's) has the same goal to seek the truth.
What a lame excused.
On Grace, The book writer (with M.P.) saids only Nifong, and not J. Jackson or Sharpton or other s have apologize.
Grace did NOT take the opportunity to apologize herself.. Very classy.
I had to laugh. I wonder if he was setting her up to apologize?
Nifong's entire case now hangs on Tara Liviscy. To f&*$ing bad!
Court TV has a comments link at their site.
Use it, folks.
Nancy Grace needs some feedback.
I would have loved to have seen the expression on Nifong's face when Goodenow described how the defense attorney in the Charlotte case said, "I've been Nifonged."
Cash and Nancy have turned. Duff can't be far away. I wonder if the "listening" folks are listening today.
If I lived in NC and was looking to make a quick buck, I'd set up booth outside a courthouse selling DUKE LACROSSE t-shirts to people trying to get out of jury duty.
Nancy Grace: recently converted?
Let's propose this: Nancy Grace
gets to look at her own Nifongesque
videos (provided by John Stewart.)
The visual effect:
She looks like she's having the
same type of nervous breakdown
as Nifong.
Could be she's from the planet
Hemo-r, same as Nifong (and perhaps
Polansky.) "We are from the
planet Hemo-r" etc.
There's an old saying, that applies
in the inverse to Nancy Grace:
"There's no one so wild as a
worldly Quaker!"
There's no one so penitent as
a Nancy Grace, exposed.
Everyone involved in this mess should be burned at the stake. Nifong missed his time in history. He could have run the Spanish Inquisition and he would have done a credible job.
Ooops, Goodenow just said that exculpatory material is the most important material and DAs in the state of NC have to turn it over!
If this were a softball game, it would have been called because of the mercy rule.
No prosecutor is putting you on a jury wearing one of the Lax shirts, but the defense might want you.
And I thought the Dan Rather memos were bad.
If Grace had any balls at all she would have Steven Miller back on her show.
Unfortunately she doesn't and seh doesn't deserve to be respected at this point.
So, it's now even more clear that Nifong's defense is that he relied on the SANE nurse and that he eventually gave the DNA, and he relied on Meehan's written reprot--that's it???
Nifong's lawyer should say to him "lets go home, it's over".
Marsha Goodenow did a fantastic job. She was a deal breaker for Nifong's 'incompetency' defense.
If Levy testifies, the first thing the bar attorneys are going review will be her qualifications at the time of the report.
4:48
That's gonna be intriguing.
The TortMaster at TL wrote "asking her opinion of the case is like asking the lawnmover guy to evaluate the space station." Levicy has no expert credintials and never claimed to.
Nancy may have have forgotten her "Don't let a little thing like gang rape interfere with a Lacrosse game", but we have not.
Give her some credit, better late than never.
At LEAST she is not saying 'something happened' but it can't be proven because of the DA's mis-steps.
I have Never heard Nancy Grace admit she was wrong about anything. That is a big reason why alot of people don't respect anything that comes out of her mouth. She used to be good but her ego has made her head swell so much it's amazing it fits on the TV screen now.
Haz
Yeah, when Nancy first got her show she was a breath of fresh air, she wasn't like the rest of the defense attorneys or 'neutral' journalists who would report w/a straight face that "OJ thinks a Columbian drug gang killed his wife and Scott Peterson thinks a satanic cult killed his wife"
She was willing to call defense attorneys on the b.s. that they routinely spew....somewhere along the line she stopped thinking that ANY defendant could possibly be innocent, or that any crime could have mitigating circumstances and she stopped listening to any voice but her own.
I also liked her at first but once she turned the volume up to hysterical on every case she commented on, I tuned her out.
Gotta say she was a laugh riot during the Michael Jackson case.
someone please tell me what is nifongs case in chief.
Witnesses? Who?
Noose?
Now I want eery signatory of the Gang of 88 to take out another ad apologize to the accused.
No?
Where's their sense of justice? Or is justice only for the groups they define as oppressed?
Is there video available of this woman's testimony? Anyone have a link please?
-----------------
BTW, isn't it interesting how so many people comment here anon? I've always thought that interesting, I don't see that anywhere else. I think that in and of itself is a sad comment on people's perceptions of what could happen.
You have demonstrated a lot of courage doing what you've done KC Johnson.
Could someone kindly define "NTO."
Thanks,
Grace's comment that she started doubting the validity of Nifong's case when Crystal started changing her story doesn't pass the smell test.
Crystal started changing her story 5 minutes after she told it the first time, so why was Grace along for the ride for months?
Inre: to Gang of 88, Nancy Grace, Pot Bangers, etc...they really do not care about the truth and will only reload to continue there meta-narrative. Stalin would have been proud, and then sent them to the Gulag for bringing disrepute upon the state.
Meta-narrative = lie
“One thing which emerges strongly from any case-by-case study of intellectuals (big stretch here) is their scant regard for veracity. Anxious as they are to promote the redeeming, transcending Truth, the establishment of which they see as their mission on behalf of humanity, they have not much patience with the mundane, everyday truths represented by objective facts which get in the way of their arguments. These awkward, minor truths get brushed aside, doctored, reversed or are even deliberately suppressed. The outstanding example of this tendency is Marx…Now come two intellectuals in whose work and lives deception - including self-deception – played a central, indeed determining role.” – Intellectuals, by Paul Johnson.
Mr. Johnson is referring to Victor Gollancz and Lillian Hellman in the opening paragraph of Chapter 11.
Mrs. Former Prosecutor, I slightly disagree. I don't feel that schadenfreude and righteous anger are necessarily mutually exclusive, and I've felt both very strongly during the last few months as Nifong's "case" evaporated. While I do feel righteous anger at the damage Nifong caused in his cynical and successful bid to race-bait his way to an election win, I also enjoy seeing him kicked while he's down as is happening here, and the more he suffers, the more joy I have. I'm only waiting for civil trials and criminal prosecutions now, and my biggest regret is that he cannot be sentenced to that which he attempted to foist on three innocent young men.
6:37
NTO:
Not to Opine?
Non traditional occupation?
Although his "image" is to the contrary, I wonder if Nifong is on a "suicide watch" tonight.
If he died now, I suspect that his widow would be able to access some of his state retirement and a civil case against his actions would be short-circuited.
If any of his associates were less than moral people, I'd even worry about his safety; but there is no reason to suspect this is the case.
Today's most delicious moment occurred when the verb "to Nifong" was entered into the public record by Ms. Goodenow.
Some of Marsha Goodenow's testimony;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdSDmMKarOM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeni3QK2HpE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-Tq5zb0sWI
Non-Testimonial Order -- this is what got the DNA and photos.
Post a Comment