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.
What is UNFORTUNATE is the fact that he ruined lives and reputations! What Nifong dod was pre-meditated, pure and simple. People's character doesn't change. The man was ALWAYS an assw*pe!
Are you nuts? None of that deserves prison time for rape. Hiring strippers is sleazy, but legal. How did they "ruin" the strippers? Seems like they did that to themselves with their lies and contradictory stories.
Sheesh!
Unfortunately, in the civilian sector (as opposed to military where I prosecuted as a JAG), the checks on this type of thing are slim at best - rogue Federal prosecutors in particular seem to have no problem avoiding trouble after ruining people's lives like this dude did - let me clarify that I am talking here about a small minority of Federal prosecutors. The vast majority serves this country honorably and well. But the system (unlike, again, in the military) is simply not equipped to identify and punish prosecutorial misconduct in the civilian world. Plus the existing mechanism is inadequate and rarely if ever used.
This case will be the exception that proves the rule however. Nifong does not have even a 'fig leaf' to hide behind since its now obvious that he knew, or should have known almost form the beginning that he had no case - yet he continued it, curiously enough about the time he was up for reelection.
Whether he'll be disbarred is an open question - I personally doubt it unless evidence of misconduct is incontrovertible. But he will never prosecute again after he's hit with a suspension of his license, which I think is a more likely outcome, for some period of time.
If evidence shows willfull misconduct as some of the allegations indicate, he might be made an example of.
And that would be a good thing. Political aspirations of a small minority of civilian prosecutors occasionally result in miscarriages of justice like this one, and it will be refreshing to see at least one such prosecutor get his 'just desserts'.
>>Other serial murder cases "He was a good boy, he wouldn't hurt a fly" by family and friends.<<
He always kept his room clean. And ate his vegetables.
If God is just . . . .
On a different note, I wonder if strippers' business in the area is suffering much.
If I were a white dude I would think twice about hiring a stripper to come to my house!
You got it. Just like Miss Nevada, poor choices...and a possible loss of a crown. Nifong got what he deserved, and the LaCrosse Team's parents should have worn them that playing with fire, someone might get burned. Americans need to learn to live responsably, and know that if they hang around the low scum, they might might the news with OJ.
I don't know if you were being sarcastic or not, but the fact that these guys hired a stripper show that they were involved in the seedier side of life. Duke was established as a Christian school but look how far the school has fallen from the standards. Some of us people, born in NC, look at Duke as a school for the rich kids from up north who could not get into the Ivy League schools. So, even though Mike Shoochefski (sic) is able to put out consistent basketball teams, we tend to look at Duke with disdain.
"For Mike Nifong, the missteps of the past 10 months have the potential to end a career"
Well, I would certainly hope so!
you need a reality check.
Nifong was NOT being a prosecutor or a lawyer.
If anything he was only exposing his habits as a prosecutor.
He concealed exculpatory evidence.
He engaged in unethical conduct with regards to the media.
Unthinking comments like yours give conservatives a bad name.
Just because YOU want to persecute adults for you distaste for strippers, in no way excuses nifong from ignoring the 4 and fifth amendments and the constitution in general.
Your comments are why prosecutors feel they have a free pass to urinate on the rights of citizens. Why Nifong felt politically safe to maliciously prosecute these men when he KNEW they were inoccent of the accusations.
i=I
you=your
Where's my coffee?
In a just world, it should end his life.
And the parents so the 'Scottsboro Boys' should have warned them about jumping trains, right?
It's because he never had a case, he just used it to play the race card and get elected. One lie just followed another. Now he's reaping what he sowed and it's well deserved. I'm not a fan of lawsuits but I hope the families sue his pants off.
Who made you the authority over what is decent?
It was very apparent early on that these boys did nothing ILLEGAL. Immoral by YOUR definition perhaps, but not ILLEGAL. On the other hand, it is very apparent that the accusor did do something illegal, and the conduct of Nifong is certainly unethical if not illegal.
The accused have every right to sue, and the accusor and Nifong should spend some time in jail!
His outrageous actions undermine every prosecutor, everywhere. And maybe that's a good thing in that it could bring some folks back to the "presumption of innocence" which is supposed to be guaranteed. I don't know about others, but this has caused me to wonder how many may be in jail because they didn't have the means to fight back the way these families did. I have seen where cops and prosecutors will throw in a felony count on many arrests just as a bargaining chip to get the accused to plead out to a misdemeanor in exchange for dropping the felony. And, for some who are not smart enough to even begin to know how to bargain or lack the funds to hire an attorney to do it for them, the state gets a "freebie" felony conviction which often strips that person of their rights as a citizen for the rest of their lives. And the fewer citizens who can exercise their rights, the greater the power of the government.
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