It's not over until the fatheaded DA sings (Signifying Nothing: how does saying nothing at all become so loud?)

Monday, 10 April 2006

It's not over until the fatheaded DA sings

The News & Observer reports that Righteous Townie DA Mike Nifong hasn’t quite thrown in the towel on making rape charges against the players at the party:

Nifong said the DNA results do not end anything.

“I’m not saying it’s over. If that’s what they expect, they will be sadly disappointed,” Nifong said at a candidate forum Monday night. “They can say anything they want, but I’m still in the middle of my investigation. … I believe a sexual assault took place.”

Neither Nifong nor the defense lawyers would release the results.

The Herald-Sun’s account indicates that Nifong may have some difficulty in making the case in the absence of DNA evidence:

Stan Goldman, who teaches criminal law, evidence and criminal procedure at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said the DNA results don’t mean that Nifong can’t go forward with the case—but the test results make a successful prosecution much harder.

“Isn’t the absence of DNA evidence, given the way the victim has described the crime, in and of itself almost enough to raise a reasonable doubt?” he said. “That’s all the defense has to do.”

And, of course, people will continue to believe what they want to believe anyway…

On a related note, I sat down for an interview with freelance writer and Duke alum Dana Vachon, who’s working on a story for Salon (and possibly another story for Men’s Vogue) on the rape allegations, this evening at the Joyce; I think you’ll find his story quite interesting when it comes out, if the tidbits I heard this evening are any indication. As for what I had to say… we shall see.

1 comment:

Any views expressed in these comments are solely those of their authors; they do not reflect the views of the authors of Signifying Nothing, unless attributed to one of us.

1. Len Cleavelin wrote @ Tue, 11 Apr 2006, 7:58 am CDT:

No, the lack of DNA results don’t end anything, if there is other credible evidence beyond a reasonable doubt against anyone charged. I think one of the big problems it poses, though, is that in the popular mindset people think there’s a transitive relationship here: since the presence of DNA results would be dispositive evidence of guilt, lack of same, they reason, is dispositive evidence of innocence. Not necessarily the case; the old saw that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” is a good analogy here. But absence of evidence may be enough to raise a reasonable doubt, as the good professor notes, and that’s all that’s needed for a defense win. Hell, it raises, at the very least, an unreasonable doubt, and by the time the defense lawyers are done they’ll have the jury convinced that’s enough to justify an acquittal..

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