The DA race of the century has its finish line in sight
By John Stevenson : The Herald-Sun, Oct 28, 2006 : 10:01 pm ET
DURHAM -- In a city rife with opinions on the Duke lacrosse case, one fact seems to stand beyond dispute:
The controversial, nationally publicized rape investigation has sparked a Durham district attorney campaign like no other in memory.
At center stage is Democrat Mike Nifong, a local prosecutor for 27 years and district attorney since the governor appointed him in April 2005.
His handling of the rape case -- particularly comments he made soon after police arrested three lacrosse players on charges of assaulting an exotic dancer at an off-campus party in March -- fueled intense scrutiny of his tactics, motives and professionalism.
Nearly eight months after the alleged attack, the case continues to rivet national, even worldwide, attention on race and class issues in Durham.
The alleged rape victim is a black woman and single mother who has been a student at Durham's historically black N.C. Central University. The defendants are white, and Duke is one of the nation's most exclusive and expensive universities.
The DA campaign is seasoned, too, by the nature of the opposition Nifong faces.
County Commissioner Lewis Cheek is on the Nov. 7 ballot. But he has said he will not serve if elected.
In essence, a vote for Cheek would be a vote to recall Nifong. If Cheek wins and keeps his pledge not to serve, Gov. Mike Easley will choose Durham's next district attorney.
Then there is county Republican Party Chairman Steve Monks, who is running as an unaffiliated write-in candidate.
Last week, the Cheek and Monks camps appeared to be in a verbal slugfest over which side could drum up the most anti-Nifong votes.
Monks, a lawyer and Houston native who has lived in Durham for four years, acknowledged in an interview that Cheek enjoys excellent name recognition and a good reputation. He also said it is an advantage for Cheek to be on the ballot.
But those leg-up factors, Monks said, are outweighed by Cheek's avowed refusal to serve as district attorney, no matter how many votes he might pull.
"Many are disenchanted with the idea of voting for someone who is not committed to serve," Monks said.
Selection of Durham's chief prosecutor, he said, should be in voters' hands -- not the governor's.
Monks said he is the best man for the job and acknowledged dual motives for tossing his name into the hat as a write-in candidate: a craving for public service, coupled with a desire to oust Nifong because of his handling of the lacrosse rape case.
"It has not been my life's ambition to be DA," he said. "It has been my life's aspiration to provide public service. If I could choose some other form of public service, I would do it. But the need for a new DA struck me like an open sore that needed to be healed."
For his part, Cheek said in an interview last week that he didn't think a write-in candidate had a chance of winning an election.
Cheek, a lawyer who mostly handles civil matters, also said he wouldn't support Monks just to give the anti-Nifong movement a better chance of succeeding -- even though the Monks camp recently asked him to do so.
"I would not feel comfortable doing something like that," he said.
Cheek said that even though he wouldn't serve as district attorney, his name on the ballot gives voters a viable and valuable alternative to Nifong.
"People ought to do whatever they think is right," he said. "If they're comfortable with Mike Nifong as DA, they ought to vote for him. Mike is a fine lawyer and a fine prosecutor. But my name gives people an opportunity to declare, 'I don't think Mr. Nifong is doing an appropriate job as DA.' "
Nifong says he could stomach the thought of losing an election, but not under the circumstances Cheek presented.
"You know you can always be removed by the voters," he said. "But you would hate to think you were removed because the voters had been conned and misled. People have fought and died for the right to vote. Now Lewis Cheek is telling voters to let [the governor] make their decision for them. That's wrong."
Cheeks bristled at those remarks.
"I take great exception to the suggestion that I have been part of an effort to con or mislead anybody," he said.
By all normal standards, the contest for district attorney would have been over in May, when Nifong beat contenders Freda Black and Keith Bishop in a Democratic primary.
At that time, no other challengers were in sight. Cheek and Monks didn't surface as candidates until later.
Cheek emerged with the backing of political movers and shakers like former Sheriff Roland Leary, former City Councilman Ed Pope and businessman Dan Hill.
Four months ago, about 10,000 people signed a petition to place Cheek's name on the November ballot -- many of them hoping to oust Nifong over his handling of the lacrosse rape case.
Cheek then kept the community on edge for weeks before announcing he would not perform the chief prosecutor's job even if he won the election. He said his decision was driven by personal and professional concerns, including his private law firm and his work as a county commissioner.
Still, many continue to support Cheek on an anybody-but-Nifong basis.
Whether Nifong likes it or not, many election-eve perceptions of him have been largely forged by his handling of the Duke lacrosse incident.
Several national television pundits, along with numerous Internet chatters, have accused him of rushing to judgment in the case and making public statements before he had sufficient evidence.
In at least one of those statements, he asserted that privileged, white hooligans must suffer the consequences for victimizing a relatively poor black woman. But sophisticated test results from two laboratories showed no DNA from any of the three defendants in or on the accuser's body.
Still, Nifong has said he did the right thing by pursuing the case, and that he would rather be right than keep his job as chief prosecutor.
"I don't have anything to be vindicated for," he said immediately after winning the Democratic primary.
Nifong also frequently has denied suggestions that he deliberately hyped the lacrosse case to gain ground in the primary.
"I'm not a political animal," he said even as the May vote tally was being finalized. "Politics isn't in my blood. This isn't really that much fun."
And in a July news conference, Nifong admitted he would handle the publicity angle of the rape case differently if he had it to do over again.
"I both underestimated the level of media attention this case would draw and misjudged the effect that my words would have. ... When you're in law school, there are no courses on dealing with the media," he said.
http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-782816.html
* More warm and fuzzy.
Says the DA appointed by the Governor:
Interesting - the Durham race of the century because it's the Durham case of the century.
When the N&O started backpedaling on their coverage of The Hoax, many posters to the editor's blog demanded that they cover all the little quirks in the case. Melanie looked down her nose and sniffed an excuse that after all, this WASN'T the "case of the century".