They're scared of standing up for the rights of well-to-do white boys, plain and simple. They are not members of demographic favorites whom they treat as pets, also known as minorities.
When the Bush administration took office they never went in and cleaned house in the Justice Dept. they way they should have. When the Clintons came in, Hillary packed the DOJ, including the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's office, with hundreds of her hand-picked leftist radicals. Same thing at the State Dept., although they were pretty well entrenched before even the Clintons got there.
New prosecutor is former colleague of Nifong
By John Stevenson, The Herald-Sun
January 16, 2007 11:47 pm
DURHAM -- One of the new prosecutors in the Duke lacrosse sex-offense case is a former colleague of District Attorney Mike Nifong, who stepped aside last week in the face of mounting public and professional pressure.
Special Deputy Attorney General Mary Winstead, who worked with Nifong for several years in the 1980s and early 1990s, is now in charge of the lacrosse prosecution along with Senior Deputy Attorney General James Coman, a former director of the State Bureau of Investigation.
The two received thousands of pages of evidence about the case from Nifong Tuesday, including 1,822 pages of forensic testing information indicating the accuser had DNA on her linked to several men, but not to any Duke lacrosse players.
Winstead gained extensive experience with sex-offense matters during her stint in Durham.
Attorney General Roy Cooper appointed her and Coman to the lacrosse case on Saturday after Nifong asked to be removed.
The litigation has threatened Nifong's career, showered the Durham legal system with unprecedented publicity and divided the community along lines of race and class.
Nifong faces N.C. State Bar charges that he made unethical comments about the Duke affair in its infancy, including an assertion that some lacrosse players were criminal "hooligans" whose alleged sexual assault on an exotic dancer last March was racially motivated.
A hearing on those allegations will be held in May and could result in anything from exoneration to a warning letter to disbarment for Nifong.
In addition, Nifong's colleagues in the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys recently suggested he remove himself from the lacrosse case.
When Winstead worked with Nifong, both were assistant prosecutors in Durham.
Nifong went on to become chief of his office by gubernatorial appointment in 2005, then won a four-year term in November's general election.
Some lawyers said Tuesday that a former Nifong colleague was an unusual choice to help prosecute the lacrosse case, since Nifong's previous handling of it is an important issue.
"She may not be investigating Mike, but she's investigating Mike's work," said attorney Alex Charns, who represents an unindicted Duke lacrosse player.
"There's no distinction," Charns added. "His [Nifong's] conduct is part and parcel of this prosecution. There's no way to untangle that."
Still, Charns said that despite appearances, he saw no outright conflict of interest on Winstead's part.
Many other attorneys agreed, saying Winstead has no conflict because she is prosecuting only the lacrosse case and not Nifong himself.
"She has had no connection with the Durham District Attorney's Office for years," said lawyer Mark Edwards. "And she never did work for Mike. She just worked with him. I see no problem."
In fact, state regulations would have allowed the attorney general -- without creating a conflict -- to let the lacrosse prosecution be taken over by someone who still works in Nifong's office. Other options were to call in a district attorney from another county or, as was done, appoint special prosecutors from the N.C. Department of Justice.
When asked Tuesday if her agency saw any possible conflict with the Winstead appointment, Department of Justice spokeswoman Noelle Talley said only, "We have complete confidence in our special prosecutions attorneys."
The lacrosse defense team had planned to argue significant motions during the first week of February. Included is a motion contending that police, at Nifong's direction, used an illegal and unconstitutional photo lineup to identify three defendants in the case: Collin Finnerty, Reade Seligmann and David Evans.
If a judge were to grant that motion in full, it might suffice to get the case thrown out, many observers have said.
But court officials now predict that, because boxes of documentation must be reviewed, Winstead and Coman will not be ready to argue such major issues by early next month.
The schedule had not been revised as of Tuesday, however.
The three defendants are charged with restraining the accuser in a bathroom and committing a first-degree sex offense against her during an off-campus lacrosse party at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. on the night of March 13-14, 2006. Initially, they also were charged with rape, but Nifong dismissed those allegations last month after the woman changed her story.
In 1992, Winstead prosecuted a Durham case in which Donald D. Farrow received a life prison term -- with parole eligibility after 20 years -- for raping and committing other sex offenses against a co-worker who asked him for a ride home.
A year later in Durham, Winstead got another life sentence for Sammy Lee Young, who pleaded guilty to accidentally murdering a 17-year-old girl as he sprayed a drug house with bullets. Investigators said Young was gunning for a group of narcotics dealers, but the unintended victim was not involved with drugs.
Winstead, who received an undergraduate degree from Wake Forest University in 1978 and a law degree from the same school in 1981, is a former assistant district attorney for Wake County as well as Durham County. She has accumulated 12 years of experience with the state Attorney General's Office.
Cable News Network (CNN) hosted a special report on the lacrosse case hosted by Paula Zahn live from the Durham County Courthouse on Tuesday night. The special was entitled, "The Duke Assault Case: A Question of Race." The early part of the program featured the headline "Racism in America" posted prominently on the screen.
In the report, CNN released its own poll of Durham residents which found that 27 percent of all those polled believe the alleged victim's accusations, and that that number soars to 41 percent among what CNN described as "nonwhite" Durham residents.
CNN also interviewed a woman it identified only as a cousin of the accuser. The woman said the accuser's family believes the allegations the accuser has made but is disappointed with Nifong's handling of the case and expects all charges against the lacrosse players to be dropped.
"I feel [Nifong] used this as an opportunity to get elected," the cousin said. "I feel duped."
She went on to say of her cousin, "She's not the type of person to have fabricated this story."
Finally, the cousin said she expects the accuser, who has been silent publicly, to speak out soon, especially since she has retained "representation."
"She no longer wants to be Public Enemy No. 1," the cousin said of the accuser. "She wants to speak out and I think she will."
Meanwhile, it was learned Tuesday that the U.S. Attorney General's Office will not probe Nifong's handling of the lacrosse case, as U.S. Rep. Walter B. Jones, R-N.C., of Farmville, had requested. Jones was told by letter last week that it would be "premature" to initiate a federal investigation while criminal charges are pending.
But a Jones spokeswoman said the congressman didn't consider the matter ended and still planned to meet soon with the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department.
"He's still pushing forward," the spokeswoman said.
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