Duke lacrosse: That "Blue Wall of Silence"

A great thread underway over at Lie Stoppers. This part is telling:

If you go back and watch Nifong's March 29, 2006 interview (the famous choke hold interview) on the Abrams Report he makes a very revealing comment on Bill Anderson's point. Abrams asks him if the statement by Lax player Zash's attorney is true that he is cooperating with police. Nifong begins by saying yes Zash has talked to police but then goes out of his way to point out that if Zash made an untrue statement to police then "that would not be cooperation". Abrams follows up with the question.."did he make a false statement?"

Nifong's answer... "well if you assert that nothing happened then that would be an untrue statement." He goes on to pompously explain :"it is the position of the State that there was a rape."

This speaks volumes. First he was not conducting an investigation he was seeking confirmation of his charges. Any statement from anyone to the contrary would be "non cooperative". So the only way in his view a player could be cooperative if he admitted "something happened" even if the player offered to take a lie detector test to establish that nothing happened.

The police and DA were not doing an investigation, they were only looking for evidence to confirm their belief that a rape occurred. (And why were they so certain of that when they had next to no evidence?)

This also sheds a lot of light on why the players "lawyered up." The police were not interested in the truth, so what was the point in talking to them. Moreover, in Nifong's world, telling the truth was dangerously close to obstruction of justice.