Legal Filings

In perhaps the least surprising legal development of the case, a unanimous three-judge panel from the North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court's judgment that DNA Security had cause to fire former lab director Brian Meehan.

The court's description of Meehan's activity was blunt. Though his lab's tests indicated not one but two vital findings: "(1) there was no match between any of the specimens provided by the lacrosse players and the alleged victim; and (2) the alleged victim had recent sexual contact with multiple men who were not among the specimens provided," Meehan's "report obscured findings that exculpated the charged players." By using "opaque" language "instead of explicitly stating both conclusions," Meehan produced a report that "obscured the actual test results"--not even mentioning the critical second finding, and mixing in the first finding with additional irrelevant details.

The appeals court found that Meehan had no grounds to dispute his dismissal for just cause, given that he had, under oath, "explicitly stated that he knowingly violated his company's protocol and procedures." Meehan's dubious conduct, in turn, directly harmed his company's bottom line, since "DSI's business model depended on the reliability of the scientific research and its reports used by courts or law enforcement personnel for determining the probable guilt or likely innocence of those being tested." The contract between DSI and Meehan stated that the lab director could be fired for misconduct, and Meehan's behavior fit the bill: "Plaintiff's misconduct involves intentionally obscuring evidence and submitting an incomplete report in a court of law when clear explanation of the test results would have exculpated individuals wrongly charged."

The opinion also quotes at length from Brad Bannon's brutal examination of Meehan at the Dec. 15, 2006 hearing, and includes the following classic Meehan rationalization of his report: "I don't have a legal justification for it or a reason, okay."

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In a partial setback to the three falsely accused players, Judge Beaty declined to certify their appeal of one aspect of his March ruling, namely his finding that as the City could not have delegated its policymaking authority to Nifong, the claims against Nifong in his “official capacity” are claims against the State (forbidden by the 11th amendment), not the City, and therefore "the City cannot be liable under § 1983 for 'official capacity' claims against Defendant Nifong or for alleged conduct by Nifong as a 'policymaker.’" In other words, Beaty found in a bit of torturous reasoning, Nifong had no lawful authority to take over personal command of the police investigation, and even though the city allowed him to do so, no legal claims can be filed against the city for its improper behavior.

Yet Beaty's ruling was something of a mixed bag on this point. He noted that: (1) the players would have an opportunity to appeal this aspect of his decision after the trial; (2) civil rights claims against the city continue to go forward on other grounds; and (3) perhaps most importantly, repeating an item from his March ruling, "the City is still responsible for its own policies that result in Constitutional violations by City employees, even if the City employees were acting in coordination with or at the direction of Nifong." In other words: unless the city can establish that its police officers refused to follow Nifong's unconstitutional orders (which, at least in the case of Sgt. Gottlieb, clearly was not the case), Durham is still on the hook.

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Beaty's ruling also took note of a lengthy filing by Durham to the 4th Circuit, in which the "defendants have attempted to raise additional issues on appeal, beyond the limited denial of qualified immunity." (In a debatable ruling in June, Beaty delayed discovery for the city defendants while this appeal goes forward.) That filing, as reported in the H-S, featured little more than the city's fantastical interpretation of the case, in which city officials did nothing much wrong and the case was handled pretty well.

Also, in the only-in-Durham world: the head of Durham's Department of Social Services director was fired, in part--according to the H-S--because she did not vigorously contest a judge's decision to award temporary custody of two of false accuser/accused murderer Crystal Mangum's children to their biological father.

Remarkable.