[bjc]

The scary thing is that the guys could have been less clean cut - with a few more black marks in their backgrounds and a few less connected parents - and it would have been easier for Nifong to get them railroaded. The real issue here is how easy it is for a DA to corrupt our entire LE process for his/her own nefarious purposes. Let's hope some good will come of exposing the fragility of the system. It is episodes like this that makes me anxious about my support for capital punishment.

[Dante3]

This is scary. I am sure this case (along with a few others)has cause the judicial system to lose credibility.

[Jezebelle]

Well, not so fast. NC has some unusual laws and the particular indicting grand jury system they use leaves the people ripe for this kind of abuse. This case presented a perfect storm of political circumstances, personalities and events converging within a rather unusual legal system that allowed this travesty to be set into motion and move forward judicially unchecked. In other words, most other states have checks and balances that would have derailed this before it got anywhere near this far down the road.

[VRWCtaz]

"The scary thing is that the guys could have been less clean cut - with a few more black marks in their backgrounds and a few less connected parents - and it would have been easier for Nifong to get them railroaded. The real issue here is how easy it is for a DA to corrupt our entire LE process for his/her own nefarious purposes. Let's hope some good will come of exposing the fragility of the system. It is episodes like this that makes me anxious about my support for capital punishment."

I have to believe that most of our nation's CJS has built in checks for abuse such as Nifong's. Unfortunately, parents have no way of knowing when they send their son or daughter off to school that their greatest danger could be from a college town DA.