Reply #67: But how risky is it really?

[BrownOak]

There's no way this evidence, which is likely to be key to the prosecution gets tossed in something this visible. Nifong had to have known that when he instructed the police to abandon their policy of including fillers in the lineup.

Still, he has to know that the flawed lineup will cast some doubt into the alleged victim's ID of the suspects. As Torchie said earlier, it could be because he's so confident in everything else around the case. But I think it's equally plausible that he's not confident and that the thing he really couldn't afford was for the AV to identify a person that wasn't on the team and therefore not at the party. In fact, there are several things that would lead to that conclusion:

-If he had strong evidence outside of the ID, why the need to wait for the second round of the DNA tests? Why the need for those tests at all? Why not indict all three guys at the same time.

-On the Friday before the first grand jury, the police visited several players to interview them without their attorneys present. The questions they asked were if the players would tell them who was at the party. This would indicate to me that there was some doubt in Nifong's mind in that regard.

-Two weeks ago Nifong announced that they were going to be reopening the deferred prosecution arrangements against all lacrosse players unless they could prove they weren't at the party. Again, this shows he had some doubts about who was at the party. The first guy they went after on those deferred prosecution deals.... Dave Evans.