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To: Bitter Bierce; Jezebelle

Sorry about the typos in the Nifong post, but I think you can still understand it.

The NC Bar should find:

Aggrevating circumstances:

(B) dishonest or selfish motive;

Clearly this is true although he will deny this. This was all about an election. This was all about Nifong and had nothing to do with anyone else, INCLUDING THE DEFENDANTS. Nifong did not really care which out of state Duke lacrosse student he charged.

(C) a pattern of misconduct;
(D) multiple offenses;

Clearly the volume of charges in this case and the continuing pattern comes into play. He did not make a single mistake or two. He continuously violated the ethics cannons since this case began.


(E) bad faith obstruction of the disciplinary proceedings by intentionally failing to comply with rules or orders of the disciplinary agency;
(F) submission of false evidence, false statements, or other deceptive practices during the disciplinary process;

The Bar has charged this. Surely they will find this aggrevating circumstance too.

(G) refusal to acknowledge wrongful nature of conduct;

If he follows his pattern this will be the case although he will claim differently as I said under mitigating circumstances.

H) vulnerability of victim;

They should find this. He picked on out of state temporary guest in a state with many many college that rely to some extent on out of state students. He picked on young barely adults who were not very experienced in the ways of the world. He picked on college students who would be suspended while the charges were pending. He spilled over onto 50+ people counting lacrosse player and coaches.

(I) substantial experience in the practice of law;

He has been an attorney and ADA about as long as you can.

(J) indifference to making restitution;

He won't be able to make restitution because of potential civil liability.

So that is all but A nd K since he has no priors right now. So the way I see it is that almost all the aggrevating circumstances are there.


275 posted on 01/25/2007 7:45:56 PM PST by JLS
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To: JLS

E & J apply to disciplinary directives already handed down in prior decisions concerning the lawyer at issue. I don't think H applies because the victims - Duke boys - have adequate counsel, are free on bail, not incapacitated, feeble-minded, unfamiliar with the language, or so young or so old or so uneducated that they could not grasp what was happening to them. Besides that, I think it would more commonly apply to representation of a client. The NC Rules are adopted exactly from the ABA model and, although I don't think "vulnerability" is actually defined, my understanding is that it usually applies to such things as I've mentioned. But CA (where I am) has its own Rules (not the ABA model) that don't specifically include the subject, so I'm not sure.


282 posted on 01/26/2007 2:39:00 AM PST by Jezebelle (Our tax dollars are paying the ACLU to sue the Christ out of us.)
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To: JLS
E, H, and J might be pushing it, but all the others you mentioned pretty much appear to be locks, at least based on what we know at this point. If they do it right, the State Bar will probably want to play it safe and only argue the aggravators that are clearly applicable and can't possibly be plausibly denied, thereby coming off as more reasonable as Nifong.

I think it will be interesting to see whether Nifong ultimately takes a hard-line, scorched-earth, "I did absolutely nothing wrong"-type position or throws himself under the fully-loaded bus that is speeding toward him and begs for mercy. If he takes the hard-line approach he already seems to have adopted in large part, he risks losing everything. If he takes the "I'm a poor, pathetic wretch" tack, complete with a carefully negotiated set of stipulated facts to avoid the humiliation of a public trial, he risks having the disciplinary committee reach a different conclusion than he'd like as to the severity of the appropriate punishment. And if he tries something in between, he runs the risk of finding himself in no man's land, with absolutely no certainty of the outcome.

No matter what, I'd hate to be in his shoes (or his bath robe) right now.

294 posted on 01/26/2007 8:35:29 AM PST by Bitter Bierce
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