Posted on 12/04/2008 2:59:16 PM PST by abb
A federal judge on Thursday rejected the appeal of fallen prosecutor Mike Nifong to keep his case in bankruptcy court.
The ruling opens the door for the three exonerated lacrosse players to again pursue malicious prosecution allegations against the former district attorney.
In October 2007, Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann filed suit against Nifong, the city of Durham and its police department. The players claimed they suffered personal injury and emotional distress while the prosecutor, police and city pushed ahead with a gang-rape case that was flawed from the start.
In their civil suit, the players allege the concealment and fabrication of evidence, the utterance of false public statements, witness tampering and obstruction of justice.
In a hearing Thursday before James A. Beaty, the federal district court judge assigned to the case, Jim Craven, the lawyer representing Nifong, disputed the players’ claims of personal injury.
It was because of those claims that a federal bankruptcy court judge decided this spring to send the case back to federal District Court, where such issues are usually decided.
Nifong filed for bankruptcy protection on Jan. 15, a legal maneuver that put the players’ case on hold for months.
In the bankruptcy filing, Nifong listed assets of $243,898 and the potential debt of $180.3 million — including $30 million to each of the lacrosse players who had sued him at the time.
Bankruptcy rules would not have protected Nifong if a judge found that he willfully and maliciously prosecuted the players. So attorneys for the players argued that those legal matters should be heard first.
Only three members of the 2006 Duke lacrosse team have not filed suit.
The players spent nearly 13 months fighting charges that were dropped in April 2007 by state Attorney General Roy Cooper.
Cooper took the unusual additional step of specifically declaring them innocent of the crimes alleged by an escort service dancer hired to perform at a lacrosse team party in March 2006
He isn’t the only DA or former DA from Durham that needs to be in jail. Tracey Cline and Jim Hardin tried to do exactly what Nifong did but to a black man. He sat in jail over a year and was found innocent. The jury foreman in the case called the case “a waste of time”. Hardin is now a judge and Cline is now the DA of Durham.
You forgot to add ho!
... along side Johnny Sutton.
I think Nifong was doing CRYSTAL GAIL MANGUM. I feel sorry for his family. He on the other hand can rot in hell. And we talk about sports stars that crash their lives. Well looky here. DUMB A$$
Oh great now you've embarrassed her. Whatever you do, don't point out that the lab tests on her undergarments identified semen samples from 6 unidentified males, none of them from the lacrosse team, because that would be really humiliating for her.
That reminds me, did they check for Nifong's DNA?
CRYSTAL GAIL MANGUM
CRYSTAL GAIL MANGUM
CRYSTAL GAIL MANGUM
CRYSTAL GAIL MANGUM
CRYSTAL GAIL MANGUM
CRYSTAL GAIL MANGUM
CRYSTAL GAIL MANGUM
CRYSTAL GAIL MANGUM
CRYSTAL GAIL MANGUM
CRYSTAL GAIL MANGUM
May her name appear in online searches so future employers and potential boyfriends will know who she is and what she’s done.
This is one of those unusual times when I’d really like to see the lawyers take someone to the cleaners.
That flaglady person is totally whacked.
The guys in this case are of the same class of the hooker. They just have richer parents.
Then, he needs to be in prison (and just subject to civil litigation!!!)...
.....Is that the new PC term for stripper?.....
It is a technical term for Ho
Thanks for the ping, abb. This keeps getting better and better. Rae Evans should be nominated for the Mother Shipton award for her accuracy in foretelling Nifong’s future. On national TV, no less. and these things shall come to pass....
Er......I don't think so. But I bet other Freepers will have stronger comments.
No, they are not. I don't remember the specific details but would imagine that it was quite possible that one or two of the team members planned and executed the details of the party (to include hiring the 'stripper') without telling the rest of the young men what was planned (so as to 'surprise' them).
Did they use poor judgement? Almost certainly. I know that I did things and went places I shouldn't have in my youth; I was lucky I never got in trouble. With the possible exception of occasionally exceeding the speed limit, I never did anything illegal (and these boys didn't either)!
The girl lied about what occurred and swearing out a series of arrest warrants based on a pack of pathological lies (about events that never occurred) out of pure spiteful meanness!
Really whack, and here I was thinking saving some of those stories about what was going on in Durham was a good thing. It’s amazing how some people can make a alternate reality to what whatever they read.
That's an interesting assertion. Perhaps you'd like to expand and explain exactly in what way Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann are like Crystal Gail Mangum?
“The guys in this case are of the same class of the hooker. They just have richer parents.”
I agree-Nifong and the police acted just as perverted as the petri-dish spermsickle who brought these false charges to light in the first place.
Right two of the charged had nothing to do with hiring Magnum. And none of the three charged deserved any of this.
In this regard, I'm completely color blind. Any DA, Prosecutor, or Judge that knowingly allows an innocent man to be railroaded deserves the same treatment that they attempted to give to him.
They deserve to spend several years in prison and possibly become someone's 'girlfriend' - since that's exactly what they tried to do (or in this case, apparently, succeeded in doing) to an innocent man. There should be hard consequences for 'officers of the court' who are willfully negligent in checking their facts.
In their defense, they deal with stupid, lackwitted gobspittles who barely have enough sense to hitch up their baggy pants and think they are some gangsta bad_sses. They see these monsters-in-the-making parade through the court system and think "if you are here, you are guilty of what you are charged with, or something worse." The problem is, they are USUALLY right. So they manufacture evidence, suppress evidence, lie, and suborn perjury, and no one objects because they ARE getting the hoodlums off the street. The real problem comes in one of two ways:
1) A kid like my friend's brother gets railroaded (and this kid was NOT a banger wannabee) and spends 10 years locked up for a crime it was PROVEN he did not commit or
2) The DA tries the same stupid stuff- for political motives - with some rich white kids with money to fight him.
Then the rock gets turned over and the bugs scurry.
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