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Duh...ya think????????????????
Posted on 01/15/2007 9:50:37 AM PST by freespirited
Forced by allegations of prosecutorial misconduct to recuse himself, the district attorney who drove the Duke lacrosse sexual-assault case could end up losing much more than the opportunity to try a case he still supports.
For Mike Nifong, the missteps of the past 10 months have the potential to end a career that started nearly 30 years ago.
"You don't easily recover from something like this," said James Coleman, a law professor at Duke University and a frequent Nifong critic. "That's what's so unfortunate about this. He had a career - a long career, a reputation of being an honest and fair prosecutor - and for some reason, his conduct in this case was inconsistent with that.
"It's just bizarre," he said. "This is the biggest case by far that he's handled, and he didn't do a very good job, and I think that's going to haunt him."
When Nifong asked the N.C. Attorney General's office Friday to take over the case of three lacrosse players accused of sexually assaulting a woman hired to strip at a team party, he was less than two weeks into his first full term as Durham County's elected district attorney.
Now he must defend himself against ethics charges that could lead to his disbarment. If N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper dismisses the case against Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann - and legal experts have said that there appears to be little evidence to support the charges - their families might try to file a civil lawsuit against Nifong.
If and when he returns to the courtroom, Nifong will have to rebuild a reputation tainted by the vast attention generated by the lacrosse case.
"Nothing happens in a vacuum," said Garry Frank, a district attorney in four North Carolina counties and the president of the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys. "It's something that he and his office will have to work through. It will be a challenge for him."
The conference offered Nifong assistance in September - an offer that went unanswered. Frank said that Nifong appeared surprised in December that his colleagues were concerned about his handling of the case. They later formally called on Nifong to recuse himself.
"Folks that have to do the things we do on a day-to-day basis quickly learn to take good advice when you can get it," Frank said.
A more immediate concern for Nifong is the pending ethics charges that accuse him of making misleading and inflammatory comments about the lacrosse team, including calling them "nothing but a bunch of hooligans." A hearing on those charges is scheduled for May.
John Banzhaf, a law professor at George Washington University, thinks that more ethics charges are forthcoming. The director of a private lab has said that he and Nifong agreed to keep out of a report given to the defense results of DNA testing that found genetic material from several unknown men on the accuser's body and underwear, and found that none of the DNA matched that of the three indicted players.
While the defense was eventually given the test results, as required by state law, it wasn't until months later.
Joseph Kennedy, a law professor at the University of North Carolina, said that the accuser's Dec. 21 interview with an investigator, in which she changed several key details in her description of the attack, is also a concern.
Among the changes, the accuser offered a new timeline that put the attack outside of the apparent alibi window established by Seligmann's attorneys. She also said she could no longer be sure that she was penetrated vaginally by a penis, which could have helped Nifong explain to a jury why there was no DNA evidence.
"It's just troubling that ... nine months after the event, there's an interview and the interview reveals this fact, which minimizes the importance of the evidence they didn't turn over," Kennedy said.
As a prosecutor, Nifong enjoys broad but not absolute immunity from civil litigation, and the families of the indicted players have hinted that they plan to sue. Asked in an interview with CBS' 60 Minutes what she would say to Nifong if they met, Evans' mother said, "Mr. Nifong, you've picked on the wrong families ... and you will pay every day for the rest of your life."
Some of Nifong's harshest critics have also suggested that he face criminal charges, but Kennedy said that those charges "should only be reserved for the most egregious types of misconduct. And it's too early to say whether this might be one of those cases."
Nifong has no plans to resign and is intent on carrying on with cases as the district attorney in Durham County, said his attorney, David Freedman.
So it's OK that this stripper FALSLEY accused them of a crime and Nifong prosecuted these young men for NOTHING?
Just because you're jealous that these guys have a life and you don't, doesn't give you license to accuse them of rape.
If I stay up till 1am on FR am I "indecent?"
I agree. This is the worst of the worst. He did it only for the politics of the situation. She now changed the timeline to destroy one of the men's defense. He deserves to lose his position as DA. This situation only hurts legitimate cases........
Flash Bunny, POOR choices, bring bad consequences. It's LIFE. If you hang out with the rift-raft, don't look for my pity or sympathy if your raft goes over the falls. Kids do make mistakes,they learn. I bet they have grown up quite a bit. Nifong was doing his job, poorly, but the people smelled a racial rat in the courthouse, and they wanted blood. Go join the Salvation Army and give food out at midnight to druggies, but don't hire a stripper unless you want your name smeared on on the front page of America. It's LIFE!
Nifong is probably judgment proof, that is even if these kids get a judgment against him, he probably has so few assets that the exemptions that he gets will shield those.
When this case came along, Nifong was trailing in the polls for the Democrat nomination. He was borrowing money from his friends to finance his campaign. I seriously doubt that his financial condition has improved to the point that any judgment is collectable against him, much less one for the tens of thousands of dollars that these kids have tied up in just their legal bills.
I do believe that the State of North Carolina may face some liability under the provisions of a federal statute giving individuals a right to sue people and governments for violations of their constitutional rights under color of state law. I belive that the reference to that statute of 42 U.S.C. sec. 1983, but I could be mistaken on that citation.
Among the changes, the accuser offered a new timeline that put the attack outside of the apparent alibi window established by Seligmann's attorneys. She also said she could no longer be sure that she was penetrated vaginally by a penis, which could have helped Nifong explain to a jury why there was no DNA evidence.
It was revealed on last night's "60 Minutes" report that she is/was on the drug Depakote which is prescribed "in the UK and US for the treatment of the manic episodes of bipolar disorder, and increasingly taken long-term for prevention of both manic and depressive phases of bipolar disorder, especially the rapid-cycling variant."
Doesn't he get a pass on the injustice thing or at least a get outta jail free card?
SARCASM ALERT
I don't think there's the least doubt in the world that Nifong is guilty of a criminal offense.
The lab employee testified under oath that Nifong knew about the DNA test results and deliberately told him to suppress that evidence and not give it to the defense. That's prima facie evidence that a deliberate crime was committed.
Moreover, shortly before this testimony was given, Nifong assured the judge that he knew nothing about this exculpatory evidence. As the prosecuting attorney he was not put under oath when he made this statement, but as an officer of the court giving evidence he was surely under an obligation to tell the truth. Although not technically perjury, it was surely a crime, too.
Finally, his motives for committing these crimes are clear. He was willing to violate his basic duties as a prosecutor in order to get re-elected. He put his career ambitions before his solemn duties.
As for this being an unprecedented first, I thought I read somewhere that his superiors took him off prosecutorial duties earlier in his career, and he only recently returned to them. I suspect there is a pattern of misconduct that was probably systematic. These abuses of his office didn't just come out of nowhere all of a sudden.
Somewhere somehow, these kids and their families should be awarded 10s of millions of dollars for all that they have had to go through.
So the guy who wasn't at the party while this was all happening,but instead was at an ATM machine and then back at his dorm, deserved to have his reputation ruined and wasted thousands of dollars on a lawyer?
Either you're trolling or you're one seriously messed up individual.
According to a professor who has been following the case closely, each family has been spending 80K a month on legal fees since last March. At that rate, they are approaching the million dollar mark per family.
It will end his career.
Until he needed to get re-elected.
The minute it's revoked he'll get offers to be a Law Professor at UC Berkeley, U of W (Madison) and Cornell in Ithaca - the City of Evil. Plus if he chooses Berkeley, he can room with domestic terrorist Angela Davis.
Heck they may even waive tenure requirements to get him.
Reimbursement just doesn't cut it. They deserve their TON of flesh, too.
Everyone involved in this, (Mangum, Nifong, Duke, the Duke prez, The 88 professors, etc...), should be legally, financially, and socially ruined forever and reduced to the condition of bag ladies.
I don't know myself but it seems like it would carry criminal charges.
you got that righ, Red Dog. Gettem' all.
Put the bong down.
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