Posted on 01/15/2007 4:04:02 AM PST by abb
Published: Jan 15, 2007 12:30 AM Modified: Jan 15, 2007 06:10 AM
Nifong conduct rebuked early State Bar has letter from lawyer warning prosecutor of ethical violations
Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong, on MSNBC, shows how he said a woman was choked while being raped at a Duke lacrosse party.
Joseph Neff, Staff Writer In the first weeks of the Duke lacrosse case, Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong continued to disparage lacrosse players in public after a defense attorney had put him on notice that he was violating ethical rules governing the conduct of lawyers. The N.C. State Bar has charged Nifong with making improper statements to the media. The Bar is likely to use the letter from defense attorney Joseph B. Cheshire V as evidence that Nifong had been warned he was crossing ethical boundaries early on.
"Your reported comments have greatly prejudiced any court proceedings that may arise," Cheshire wrote on March 30, three days after Nifong began making public statements about the case.
"I do not understand why you will reportedly speak to the media in such certain, condemning terms before all the evidence is in, but you will not have the courtesy to meet or even speak with a representative of someone you have publicly condemned, despite your knowledge of the presumption of innocence and your position as an officer of the court bound by the Rules of Professional Conduct related to pre-trial publicity."
The letter makes it more difficult for Nifong to argue that his remarks were off-the-cuff, said Thomas Metzloff, who teaches legal ethics at Duke Law School.
"That gets away from the spur of the moment defense, that 'I just went with it, I really didn't mean it, I was caught up in the emotion of the moment,' " Metzloff said.
The bar charged Nifong with violating a rule requiring prosecutors to "refrain from making extrajudicial comments that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused." The bar also charged Nifong with engaging in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation and conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice.
Nifong brought charges of rape, sexual assault and kidnapping against three former lacrosse players: David Evans, 23; Collin Finnerty, 20; and Reade Seligmann, 20, saying they sexually assaulted a dancer from an escort agency during a March 13 team party. They have proclaimed their innocence and called the accusations lies. Nifong dropped the rape charges in December. On Friday, he asked the Attorney General's Office to take over the case.
Nifong goes public
Nifong made his first public statements on March 27, two weeks after the lacrosse party. "The circumstances of the rape indicated a deep racial motivation for some of the things that were done," Nifong told The Associated Press. "It makes a crime that is by its nature one of the most offensive and invasive even more so."
The woman is black; the accused players are white.
"We're talking about a situation where had somebody spoken up and said, 'Wait a minute, we can't do this,' this incident might not have taken place," Nifong said to The News & Observer.
"The contempt that was shown for the victim, based on her race, was totally abhorrent," Nifong told ABC TV. "My guess is that some of this stonewall of silence that we had seen may tend to crumble once charges start to come out."
The case instantly became a national and international story, with dozens of television trucks flocking around Duke and the Durham courthouse. Nifong estimated he gave 50 to 70 interviews in that first week. He called the players hooligans and said that "Duke students' daddies could buy them expensive lawyers."
The barrage of publicity was too much for Cheshire, who represents Evans.
Cheshire wrote in his letter that on March 29, he had his paralegal, Moira Bitzenhofer, call Nifong's office to set up a meeting so the defense lawyer could talk to the prosecutor either in person or on the phone. Nifong, through his assistant, Sheila Eason, declined to talk with Cheshire.
Cheshire wrote a strongly worded response and faxed it to Nifong at 3:42 p.m. on March 30.
"You and I have known each other for a long time, and I do not mind telling you I was amazed at that response," Cheshire wrote. "In 33 years, I have never seen such a request denied by a prosecutor, nor in such a manner. Your responsive comments, reported to Ms. Bitzenhofer by Ms. Eason verbatim, seemed to suggest I should call the Durham Police Department and have my client charged with a crime before you would have a conversation with me on a topic you have demonstrated no reluctance to discuss with myriad local and national news reporters over the last several days."
Cheshire went on to list some of Nifong's comments, as reported by The New York Times, WRAL and The News & Observer.
Cheshire said he didn't understand how Nifong could refuse to meet with a lawyer for one of the men the prosecutor had condemned in public. Nifong had essentially announced to the world that dozens of people were guilty of committing or aiding a racially motivated gang-rape, Cheshire wrote. And he wrongly proclaimed that the players wouldn't cooperate with police, when the truth was that three captains had voluntarily given interviews and their DNA to police, without consulting a lawyer.
"In addition to being patently false, your comments about the failure of anyone under suspicion to speak to law enforcement represent the type of negative comments on the exercise of Fifth Amendment rights that you would never be able to get away with in a courtroom."
Cheshire concluded that Nifong had left him and other defense lawyers no choice but to defend their presumed innocent clients in the media: "Sadly and unfortunately, that has created an atmosphere of trying these matters in the media, rather than a court of law, and that could have -- and should have -- been avoided."
Primary campaign
The day after receiving Cheshire's letter, Nifong appeared on MSNBC and demonstrated how the accuser had struggled to breathe while she was being choked during the alleged rape. He told The N&O he was certain a sexual assault had occurred at the house. And he continued to discuss the case as he campaigned to win the Democratic primary in the district attorney's race.
"The reason that I took this case is because this case says something about Durham that I'm not going to let be said," Nifong said at an election forum on April 12. "I'm not going to allow Durham's view in the minds of the world to be a bunch of lacrosse players at Duke raping a black girl from Durham."
Nifong has made few public comments after winning the primary May 2.
Even though he has recused himself from the case, he may face more charges from the Bar.
The Grievance Committee of the State Bar is meeting later this week and may add more charges against Nifong, Metzloff said.
The most likely charges would concern Nifong's withholding of DNA evidence favorable to the defense, Metzloff said. The director of a private laboratory testified that he and Nifong agreed not to report that tests had found DNA from unidentified men in and on the accuser.
"It's likely, but not a sure thing," Metzloff said. "It's likely they might want the judge to start things off."
In North Carolina, trial judges can punish or sanction lawyers for legal misconduct in a case.
Superior Court Judge W. Osmond Smith III, the trial judge, can find Nifong in contempt of court, but he can't disbar him.
"In some ways, the judge is better able to assess Nifong's alleged misstatements and the withheld evidence," Metzloff said.
Staff writer Joseph Neff can be reached at 829-4516 or jneff@newsobserver.com.
If Nifong is disbarred, he could not serve as district attorney. In fact, he could not practice law in any capacity anywhere in North Carolina.
http://blogs.newsobserver.com/ruth/index.php?title=possible_relief_from_ruth_sheehan_column&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
Monday, January 15, 2007
Possible relief from Ruth Sheehan columns?
You heard it here first (at least in The N&O.) My husband is pursuing a position in Wilmington, NC, his hometown. Read about it here .
Go Harry?
Posted at 02:27 pm by Ruth Sheehan in General
http://www.starnewsonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007701120359&source=email
"I think Nifong is a victim of that 'Monkeys Paw' thing. He wished to be DA and got it, sort of."
I haven't thought about that story in a very long time. Thanks for the pleasant reminder, RobRoy!
This is going to come back to haunt Nifong with more weight than we're seeing right now.
That's what I assumed but didn't know with 100% surety.
But Nifong can blame that on the grand jury, and the grand jury can blame it on the cops who testified.
The investigation needs to start with the cops. How did Nifong shape their testimony before the grand jury?
There's been some disappointing information released about them. I'm not optimistic.
Sure. And Cooper could have appointed somebody not from his office. The fact that he is using his own attorneys and also has aspirations of becoming governor does not bode well. The fact that Nifong chatted up Coman about this case before sending over his request also does not bode well.
I doubt Jesse's going to give her any money. The most he might do is pay some of her tuition directly to the school only because he said he was going to. He won't want to renege because it would be as good as saying she was lying, and we know blacks never lie, right?
I agree!
mark
No.
Lotsa luck getting Gonzales to do anything except avert his eyes to all rat corruptions, such as this one. I think he's so afraid of being called "partisan" that his feet are forever mired in clay.
A racial slur is subject to interpretation and is not in violation of a law.
The crime should be left wing enforcement of PC speech.
I would think so, wouldn't you?
Just last week, a judge here who was disbarred was forced to resign because he couldn't do what he was elected to do.
placemarker
Wow I guess they are quite a team. I have been an academic for 25+ years at a number of institutions. I have NEVER seen an attempt to strong arm oneself into a job like this one.
It is shameless. First the guy applies for a job before the position is announced. BTW, if he does not reapply once it is announced he probably can not be legally hired. Then he or his wife leaks his application to the local paper again before there is a job advertised and a search committe. Then his wife writes about his application for this not yet existing openning on her employer's website.
He would never get a job this way at a four year institution. JUCOs are more political so maybe this will work. Certainly "I want to come home" is not a qualificaton for this job. [BTW, the bad news for us is that a columnist could easily work from a remote site.]
And finally, I guess Sheehan remains too stupid to see that she along with her husband are jumping the gun again JUST LIKE SHE DID ON THE DUKE LACROSSE ALLEGATIONS!!!!! Talk about a slow learner.
I agree. Mangum is a messy human being living in the moment, like all of her ilk. But for Nifong's ambitions combined with his gross and wanton lack of professional ethics, the case would never have gone beyond March 14, 2006. Mangum was playing fast and loose with people's lives because she's too weak and afflicted to do anything else. She's a despicable, weak-minded person with no ethics of her own, to be sure, and should be punished harshly, but she's not the one we have the higher ethical expectation of. Nifong was playing fast and loose with the constitution, professional ethics, and the lives of three promising young men and their families. He was given the power and egged on to do exactly that by the black voters of Durham for racial retaliation, and I find them as guilty as I do Nifong. What the black voters of Durham did to these boys was no different from the lynchings of yesteryear, and they know it.
Yeah but they can't figure out how to get him off the payroll until his term expires in 2008. Is that Nifong's future?
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