Duke Lacrosse To Play Next Season?

Committee Recommends Team Resume Play, But Needs Strict Monitoring

(CBS/AP) 
Speaking in Durham on Monday, Black said her candidacy has been the target of a smear campaign, but that she's in the race to stay.

"Since I left the district attorney's office last April, I have been subjected to smear tactics, some call it mud-slinging," Black said. "Others that are close to me have also been the victims of smears."

Nifong has previously denied that political motives led to his aggressive investigation of the rape allegations. A nearly three-decade veteran of the prosecutor's office, he was appointed district attorney last year and is seeking election for the first time in Tuesday's Democratic primary.

The winner probably will be the next district attorney, since no Republicans are running. If no candidate wins at least 40 percent of the vote, the top two will advance to a May 30 runoff.

Meanwhile, the Duke women's lacrosse team is having a good year — on the field. But as CBS News correspondent Joie Chen reports, the scandal that rocked the men's team didn't just take fellow athletes off the field. Many of the men's players are family.

"One of our players, her brother's on the team. A freshman on the men's team … his older sister graduated from our program last year," women's lacrosse head coach Kerstin Kimel said. "We have a couple of kids who have known kids on that program for their entire lives."

This leaves the women's team members very conflicted (watch video). Duke defender Aiyana Newton plays a tough line amid allegations of racism and privilege.

"Whose side do I take? Neither: I support the legal system, I support Duke lacrosse, I support Duke as an institution," Newton told Chen. "There are people coming up to me saying 'How can you wear your Duke lacrosse stuff as an African-American woman?' and I'm like, 'of course I'm gonna wear this. This is my life, this is what I take pride in.'"

Also Monday, members of the New Black Panther Party gathered at an entrance to Duke University to show support for a woman who told police she was raped by three members of the school's lacrosse team.

Late last week, the Atlanta-based group distributed recruitment brochures at various Durham locations — including the courthouse — with information about today's rally.

CBS News affiliate WRAL in Raleigh, N.C., reports that the rally has drawn criticism from the family it is supposed to be aiding. The Monday morning event sponsored by the Panthers was supposed to display solidarity with the woman who says she was sexually assaulted.

But the women's mother says the family doesn't want the party to use the incident as a recruiting drive to seek new members. The accuser's mother says her family didn't ask the Panthers to come to Durham and doesn't want their help.

In recent days, the defense has also regularly attacked the accuser's credibility. Osborn's motions referenced a 1996 rape allegation made by the accuser, which did not lead to any charges, and a report she made in 1998, in which she accused her then-husband of threatening to kill her. Osborn's motion said she later failed to appear at a court hearing on the complaint, which was dismissed.

Osborn also filed motions seeking to reduce Seligmann's bond, now set at $400,000, to no more than $40,000; to obtain access to the accuser's cell phone records; and to order the state to save all DNA samples.