Cash Michaels clearly has doubts about the lacrosse case,
but they seem to be mostly about D.A. Mike Nifong's competence.
After he runs down the problems with the case, he switches gears and says
..."there is a mother load of testimonial evidence D.A. Nifong could have
gotten if Durham police investigators had moved swiftly enough in the beginning,
that may be out of his reach, even at trial."
He speculates that Nifong may have a witness from the lacrosse team, and
wonders again why no one volunteered to speak to the D.A.'s office. Just
guessing, but it could have been that a) they were called hooligans by Nifong,
which is not a good way to garner cooperation, b) he made some other hostile
remarks suggesting that innocent people didn't need attorneys, or c) there was
no rape and it wasn't at all clear who was to be indicted, although it was
perfectly clear that Nifong planned indictments.
Why would anyone wish to cooperate given that environment? You would
know your own innocence or guilt of course, but the district attorney just
called you a hooligan and made several inflammatory comments to the media.
Surely Michaels understands this, and understands the fear it would engender.
He goes on to suggest that something nefarious did happen when the AV went
back to the house and (Cash suggests) was confronted by players angry over
paying $800.00 for a two-hour performance.
Presumably he's suggesting that's where the missing money ended up.
Like a lot of people, Michaels just overlooks her admission at UNC Hospitals
that she took Flexeril and drank a fair amount of alcohol after doing so.
That's enough to stagger a much larger person, and would logically account for
heavy intoxication, particularly if she took some more at some point during the
party. There
are a lot of other contradictions as well.
Now he does raise an interesting point, noting that the partygoers were
completely gone by the time the police responded to the 911 call, which was
unusually fast for Durham, frankly, within just a minute or two.
But if they cleared out to avoid the police after a problem of some sort,
you'd think Duke students would be smart enough to clean up the house/crime
scene as well.
He also confirms, incidentally, that Ed Bradley is interviewing people for 60
Minutes.
And KC Johnson links to and analyzes a Liestoppers breakdown of the latest defense motion. Interesting stuff to say the least.