Lacrosse judge asked to block IDs

DURHAM -- Defense lawyers in the Duke lacrosse rape case asked a judge today to prohibit the accuser from identifying at trial the three players she said attacked her.

The motion, filed in Durham County Superior Court, also asks the judge to throw out the photographic lineup procedure that was the basis for the state’s case. And it followed a defense motion Wednesday that attacked the handling of DNA evidence.

If the motions succeed, the lawyers for three indicted former lacrosse players would undermine the foundation of District Attorney Mike Nifong’s case. The motions attack the key weaknesses the defense has raised about Nifong’s case — the lack of physical evidence and whether the accuser is a reliable witness.

The case is set for a hearing Friday and, while the issues the motions raise are unlikely to be settled, the lawyers are sure to discuss the defense’s allegations.

Today’s 43-page motion methodically recounts the day-by-day progress of the investigation and police efforts to get a reliable identification from the accuser, an escort service worker who said she was raped by three men at a lacrosse team party in March.

“Putting to one side the substantial evidence that no sexual assault ever occurred at 610 N. Buchanan, there is quite simply no evidence that any of the accuser’s identifications or descriptions of her alleged attackers are in any way reliable,” the motion says. “Rather the State is left with an incoherent mass of contradiction and error, one which not only raises the issue of a ‘substantial likelihood of misidentification,’ but which establishes that the accuser has in fact misidentified the Defendants.”

Nifong did not return a message seeking comment today and has said he would no longer discuss the specifics of the case outside court.

The accuser has been unreachable for months. WRAL-TV, without citing a source, has reported that she gave birth to a child today.

David Evans, 23, of Bethesda, Md.; Collin Finnerty, 20, of Garden City, N.Y.; and Reade Seligmann, 20, of Essex Fells, N.J., are each charged with rape, kidnapping and a sexual offense. The men maintain their innocence and say the accusations are lies. Wednesday’s defense motion said a private lab Nifong hired to analyze DNA evidence found male genetic material in the accuser’s body but none from any lacrosse player.

Much of Thursday’s motion focuses on the events preceding the April 4 procedure where the accuser viewed a PowerPoint presentation of 46 lacrosse players and identified four as her assailants. That lineup became the basis for the three indictments. The fourth person was not investigated further. The police and prosecutor have declined to answer questions about the lineup.

Before that lineup, the accuser made contradictory statements, misidentified party-goers and failed to recognize the men she would eventually accuse.

In March, she twice looked at pictures of lacrosse players and didn’t identify any as her attackers. On March 16, she viewed a picture of Seligmann and said she was 70 percent sure he was at the party, but couldn’t remember what he was doing. On March 21, she twice looked at photos of Evans and did not recognize him.

Meanwhile, a state crime lab could find no sperm, saliva or blood in evidence collected from the woman at the hospital, and the woman’s ability to identify her attackers had become central to the state’s case. Nifong had repeatedly told the public that a rape had occurred and lacrosse players were the culprits.

“The PowerPoint Identification directed to be used by the District Attorney simply represented the last chance to identify someone from the Duke lacrosse team as an attacker,” says the motion, which is entitled “Motion to Suppress the Alleged ‘Identification’ of the Defendants by the Accuser.’”