From 60 Minutes:
The forensic expert hired by the prosecutor in the Duke rape case says he made a “big error” in judgment by not stating in his report that the only DNA he found on the accuser was from several men who were not on the Duke lacrosse team.
Dr. Brian Meehan speaks with 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl in his first interview about the controversial case this Sunday, Jan. 14, at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
Meehan acknowledged that he has never omitted potentially exculpatory evidence before. “We haven’t done that before,” he tells Stahl. “In retrospect, I should have done a better job of conveying that information.”
Meehan has stated that he told the prosecutor, Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong, about the other DNA for the first time in mid-April. Later that same month, Nifong indicted three Duke lacrosse players. Meehan has also said in court proceedings that he and Nifong agreed before the evidence tests were completed that his report should be limited to positive matches between the accuser and the players at the team party where she says she was sexually assaulted last March.
Meehan says writing an incomplete report violates his own firm’s standards. “It was an error in judgment on my part. … It certainly was a big error,” says Meehan. He says his firm wasn’t trying to hide the information and that it released it when it was asked. But his client’s behavior irks him, he says.
Nifong took six months to tell the players’ defense attorneys about the other DNA, as required by law — and during that time, Nifong filed a court motion that stated he was not aware of any potentially exculpatory evidence.
A “big error”… I would like to call it extremely unprofessional behavior. As such I agree with Dr. Steven Taylor:
Yes, I would say that that was a “big error.� Indeed, it strikes me a unconscionably negligent. The job of prosecutors is to find the guilty and punish them.
This case continues to amaze (and not in a good way).
[T]he malfeasance here is stunning
Indeed.
Eugene Volokh has, as usual, great commentary.
I believe this disturbing phenomenon is distinct from “normal” prosecutorial overreaching in ordinary cases. This sort of misconduct is fueled by publicity and politics, whereas normal prosecutions take place in almost complete obscurity. On the one hand, fewer people–in particular the press–are looking over the prosecutor’s shoulder. On the other hand, the lack of publicity reduces the incentive to dig in and go for broke, which makes it all the more mysterious to me when prosecutors have done so. In large offices, prosecutors must get supervisors to sign off on reducing or dropping charges precisely to prevent them from getting out of trying cases that are not dead-bang winners. But like the psychology of defense, the psychology of prosecution is far more complex than this.
[…]
But the scandal of Duke case does not about the incompetence of either line prosecutors or ordinary criminal defense attorneys, but the politically-motivated misconduct of an elected District Attorney. And it is also about how one’s life can be ruined, or at minimum forever altered, not to mention bankrupted, by a false accusation from which one is eventually vindicated.
Lawhawk at A Blog for All:
While those who have been following the case have known this for the better part of a month, that the story is getting wider play can only increase the focus on Nifong’s actions and push this sad chapter in prosecutorial misconduct to a close. KC Johnson calls Meehan hapless. I’d call him a weasel, because he chose not to do the right thing from the outset and instead let Nifong lead him down this sad road.
One sad state of affairs.
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