From Nifong's bio: In the course of his career as a prosecutor, Nifong has worked for three different District Attorneys, serving as Chief Assistant under both Ronald L. Stephens and James E. Hardin, Jr., both of whom now serve as Superior Court Judges. He was appointed District Attorney for Durham by Governor Mike Easley on April 18, 2005, and was sworn into that position on April 27, 2005.
Italics are mine.
Would this not give the defense a very good reason to ask for a different Judge?
The thing they need to do is measure the distance between the eyes because there is some inbreeding going on somewhere...
AHA! Thanks for connecting the Stephens/Nifong dots.
You would think that because of the personal relationship with Nifong, Judge Stephens would recuse himself from this case. What a circus.
Really, most prosecutors are guilty themselves of prosecutorial misconduct, but nobody ever dares hold them accountable. They pick and choose who they want to be guilty. There are, unfortunately, monsters in the system and no disciplinary mechanism when they step out of line.
The young man who went so far to face the cameras and say that he turned over his emails, that he had nothing to hide and the lengths he went to prove that, is very probably innocent. No one that is truly guilty would go so far as to let the police in without the benefit of counsel present as he did. He cooperated, told the truth, and look where that got him. This happens all the time at the High School level and students are often severely punished for wild stories based on someone else's lies. I honestly think the people bringing the accusations and their witnesses should submit to a lie detector test themselves. The burden of proof lies with the State. As a taxpayer I'd sooner pay for a lie detector test than a stupid trial.
Aha! Seems that the judge and the prosecutor have a long-time relationship. I wonder how that equates to a fair trial....