Videos may reveal police abuse in Atwater case

Demario Atwater’s attorneys say videos could show police abuse.

Defense attorneys for one of the two men charged with killing former Student Body President Eve Carson want videos that could show if he was abused by police during his arrest and interrogation.

Federal defense attorneys of 23-year-old Demario James Atwater filed a motion Monday asking for Durham and Chapel Hill police surveillance of Atwater and of Shanita Love, a key witness.

If the videos do exist and show the physical and mental threats and abuse that Atwater says occured, any statements made by Atwater or Love during the videos would most likely be thrown out in court.

“Coerced testimony would violate the Fifth and 14th Amendments,” Rich Myers of the UNC School of Law said. “If those statements led to other evidence, that evidence would be thrown out as well.”

A Durham Police Department attorney said she couldn’t comment on the specific case, and there’s no guarantee an event in their patrol cars or department rooms — if any occurred — was captured on tape.

“Our cameras are old,” said police attorney Arnetta Herring. “We’re in the process of replacing them.”

Monday was the defense’s last opportunity to file motions before the federal trial, so Atwater’s attorneys also filed many last-minute requests for specific kinds of evidence and for the possibility of the death penalty to be reconsidered.

The federal prosecutors have until March 15 to respond to the motions, said Lynne Klauer, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the N.C. Middle District.

Sometime this month, a judge will decide whether to grant the defense’s request to move the trial out of state. The defense claims that 80 percent of North Carolinians are familiar with the case, which could mean the jury pool is too biased.

The judge will decide before Feb. 22, when the in-state jury selection process is scheduled to begin.

Authorities say Atwater and Lawrence Alvin Lovette, 19, kidnapped Carson from her home on March 5, 2008, took her to an ATM to withdraw $1,400 and then shot her in a neighborhood off East Franklin Street.

Atwater faces both federal and state charges and is eligible to receive the death penalty if convicted after either trial.

Lovette, Atwater’s co-defendant in the state’s case, has not been indicted by federal prosecutors. He is not eligible for the death penalty because he was younger than 18 when Carson was killed.

Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.