One minute before a midnight deadline Tuesday, the city of Durham submitted a motion to dismiss charges in an ongoing lawsuit with the three formerly indicted Duke lacrosse players.
Also Tuesday, Investigator Benjamin Himan, lacrosse lead investigator Sgt. Mark Gottlieb, Cpl. David Addison and a group of defendants from the Durham Police Department presented similar motions asking the court to dismiss all charges filed by the plaintiffs.
Other responses to the suit were issued earlier in the day Tuesday. Like the city, Linwood Wilson, who worked for disgraced former Durham district attorney Mike Nifong during the investigation, and Richard Clark and Dr. Brian Meehan, who both were associated with DNA Security, Inc.-the lab responsible for performing DNA tests in the case-also sought relief from the suit.
Nifong responded to the litigation by filing for bankruptcy Tuesday.
The lawsuit, filed by players Oct. 5, 2007, alleged that the 14 defendants, ranging from city officials to DPD investigators, allowed injustices against the students to occur through malicious intent and negligence.
The Bull City
The premise of the city's argument rests on its claim that Nifong, an employee of the state and not the city, made the decision to pursue charges and an investigation against the players.
"The central fact of this case is that the plaintiffs cannot recover against Mr. Nifong's employer-the State of North Carolina-because it has absolute immunity," the motion on behalf of the city reads. "As a result, plaintiffs have resorted to overreaching conspiracy claims and other novel legal theories that attempt to impose legal liability on the city of Durham, Durham police officers and city administrators for the actions of an overzealous prosecutor. All this creativity is in aid of an effort to impose on Durham taxpayers untold millions of dollars in damages for plaintiffs who were publicly exonerated and never spent a moment in jail."
Although all citizens maintain a constitutional right to a fair trial, the city's motion argues that because the men never went to trial, their rights were never violated.
"Plaintiffs have failed to allege any underlying constitutional violation by city officials and have failed adequately to allege a policy or custom of the city that caused their alleged injuries," the reply states.
Thus, the motion argues even if plaintiffs allege that the investigation was faulty, it may not have violated their constitutional rights.
Attorneys for the city also addressed accusations that Durham officials perpetuated systematic discrimination against Duke students.
"Plaintiffs' allegations of a policy to target Duke University students... lack the requisite specificity and do not allege that such a policy caused the alleged constitutional violation," it reads.
The Durham Police Department
In addition to charges against Durham, the October suit names six individuals from DPD by name, alleging that although the six were not directly involved in gathering evidence for the investigation, they were cognizant of misconduct within the department but failed to act against it.
Among the six were former chief Steve Chalmers, Maj. Beverly Council, current Deputy Chief Ron Hodge, Cpt. Jeff Lamb, Lt. Michael Ripberger and Maj. Lee Russ.
"Plaintiffs mass defendants together, and repeatedly and summarily allege 'upon information and belief,' that as a group, defendants were aware of exculpatory evidence that they ignored," a group response filed on behalf of the six reads.
The 48-page response outlines a series of rebuttals to claims made in the October suit, arguing both that the suggestions are faulty and that they present legal redundancy, since DPD is a subsidiary of Durham, itself a defendant in the suit.
But like the city, DPD's response is most ardent in its insistence that Nifong, not the police department, called the shots in the case.
"Defendants are not liable for any potential Fourth Amendment violation, because Nifong's decision to seek indictments broke the causal chain," the motion reads. "While plaintiffs allege that 'it was unprecedented for a district attorney to play such an active role so early in a police investigation,' they have not, and indeed cannot, allege that a direction to work with a prosecutor showed an indifference to a risk of constitutional injury."
The motion adds that although Nifong may have had ulterior motives in pursuing charges, the DPD defendants cannot be presumed to have been privy to them.
"Although plaintiffs allege that defendants knew that he was running for election, there is simply no suggestion that Lamb, or anyone else, had any reason to believe that Nifong, the district attorney appointed by the governor, and with the broad constitutional grant of authority and discretion to determine what cases to prosecute and what charges to bring against a particular defendant, would pose a risk of unconstitutional injury," the motion reads.
Himan, Gottlieb and Addison
Himan and Gottlieb, who headed up the investigation, and Addison, who served as DPD's official spokesperson, chose to respond individually to the suit.
But like the other parties, attorneys for the three emphasized Nifong's leading role throughout the proceedings as taking precedence over the investigators' independent actions.
They each additionally argue that the plaintiffs fail to specify wrongdoings on the part of any of the three defendants, supporting their claim that they acted in line with the expectations of their duties.
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