NandO
Nifong Made Call Too Late
by Ruth Sheehan
Here's something I was beginning to think I'd NEVER say about Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong:
He did the right thing.
By turning over the miserable Duke lacrosse case to the Attorney General's office for handling by a special prosecutor, he did the right thing.
But he did so more than seven months later than he should have.
And here's a stunner: He did it to save his own hide.
Let's review, in brief.
Nifong used the case to win an election.
He refused to meet defense attorneys, including one who appears to have solid proof that his client was elsewhere when the alleged assault (in the original version) took place.
He appears to have tried to withhold evidence.
And the first time his office met with the accuser was this month. (Producing a whole new version of events -- argh!)
But when Nifong finally decided to turn over the case to the special prosecutor (something some of us have been calling for since June), it wasn't an acknowledgment of any mistakes or misdeeds.
Nope. He was feeling heat from the State Bar, and a chorus of fellow DAs, regarding alleged ethical violations. (Finally, we might see the wussy Bar take some action against a prosecutor. Stay tuned.)
So forgive us, Mike, if we don't stand up and applaud.
Unfortunately, Nifong is only the first on a playlist of unappealing characters and bad actors in this case.
There are the investigators who at the very least appear to have gone along with Nifong's efforts to mold this case.
There are the accused, young men who I believe are innocent of the crimes with which they are charged but whose peer group's behavior on the night in question was appalling. Ye shall be known by the company you keep. I know -- I work with journalists, and I'm married to a politician.
Strippers and racial slurs?
If I found out one of my sons was involved in such a scene, I'd jerk a knot in his neck.
Their parents, in an interview with CBS' "60 Minutes" Sunday night, bristled, justifiably, with fury at the treatment of their sons.
But one came off as mighty arrogant as well. Nifong messed with the "wrong families" indeed.
There is the accuser, who can't seem to get her story straight.
She will never be punished sufficiently if her allegations are as bogus as they appear.
Some observers of this case are turning their blood lust on this case to Duke President Richard Brodhead. Watch out, Dick.
And, of course, there are the 88 Duke professors who came out so forcefully against the accused.
Even in the face of powerful evidence that the attack did not occur as originally described, a number of them have not retreated, much to the outrage of the blogosphere.
So, any good guys?
Let's see.
There's Elmo, the cab driver whose testimony cleared Reade Seligmann in the accuser's first version of events.
Oh, and the accuser's newborn baby who, it's safe to say, will never play Duke lacrosse.
NandO
Players' Parents Rip into Nifong
by Michael Biesecker
The parents of the three Duke lacrosse players charged with sexually assaulting an escort service dancer appeared together on national television Sunday night, lashing out at District Attorney Mike Nifong and proclaiming their sons' innocence.
In an interview with Lesley Stahl of "60 minutes" -- taped last week before Nifong withdrew from the case Friday -- the mother of Reade Seligmann described what it was like to hear that her son was to be charged with rape.
"You feel like someone hit you with a baseball bat," Kathy Seligmann said. "My son said, 'Mom, when is this going to stop? When is this insanity going to stop?' knowing he was still being charged with crimes he didn't do. It's crazy. It didn't happen. ... Our families have been held hostage of this DA, of this woman, of this police department. We don't know what our futures hold. Our children don't know what our futures hold."
Rae Evans, the mother of David Evans, said Nifong charged her son and the others to help win support in the May 2 Democratic Party primary.
"You have to remember that this has never been about the evidence. Never," Rae Evans said. "If it were about the evidence, nine months ago this case would have been totally dropped. This is about a man who chose to use a troubled young woman's story of fantastic lies to advance his own political career, which was crumbling. He needed something big. He needed that magic bullet. And he shot it at our sons."
Asked by Stahl what she would say to Nifong if he walked into the room, Evans responded that she would face him with a smile on her face. "Mr. Nifong, you've picked on the wrong families," she said. "And you will pay every day for the rest of your life."
I agree with this. Although I can imagine how hard this experience has been for the families, they still need to control their comments to public. We're having a war image here. Lets not give opportunity to Nifong and his like to muddle the water with what could be construed as class issue: because the families are rich, this should be an important case. This is the kind of image that Nifong has tried hard to put in public.
What's wrong with what that parent said? I hope they put Nifong through legal hell the next several years and financially reduce him to the condition of a bag lady living out of a Giant Eagle shopping cart.
And they have the money to do do just that to this cretin DA.
If it were MY kid, I'd se to it Mike Nifong never ever recovered from this and I'd harass him though civil courts for decades.
Well, it's not like Roofie has never been wrong before ....