Darryl Howard and the rampaging prosecutor: Durham learns little from Duke lacrosse debacle

The Washington Post ^ | March 20, 2014 | Radley Balko

[abb]

When Darryl Howard was convicted of murder in 1995, he cried out ”I didn’t do it!” then sobbed in open court. He has maintained his innocence ever since.

(snip)

But for all his problems, there has never been much compelling evidence that Howard is a murderer. Howard was convicted of killing a woman named Doris Washington and her 13-year-old daughter Nishonda in November 1991. Despite indications that both women had been sexually assaulted, no DNA or biological evidence connected Howard to the crime scene. He was convicted entirely on eyewitness testimony, much of which was vague, contradictory, or later recanted.

(snip)

But Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project points to the Duke lacrosse case, and what the public would later learn about Nifong. “When you see that kind of misconduct once, it has likely happened before,” Scheck says. “Behavior that egregious is typically the work of a serial offender.”

K.C. Johnson, a history professor at Brooklyn College in New York who co-wrote a book about the Duke lacrosse case, agrees. “I’m absolutely certain that Mike Nifong didn’t just wake up one day during the Duke lacrosse case and decide to start committing misconduct. He must have done it previously.”

(snip)

[Pollster1]

Nifong is enjoying in excess of $100,000 a year in pension funds, and his wife gets an excellent salary working for the state.

I'm not generally a fan of civil lawsuits, and certainly not of strict liability, but this situation is entirely different from the numerous frivolous lawsuits. Nifong maliciously abused his power, and he should be held personally liable in court. His victims should split his entire pension, forever (he won't need it in prison, where he belongs, and he owes it to them to make partial restitution for his evil actions), plus whatever portion the court decides is appropriate from his savings and his wife's salary, and an appropriate amount from the government that was negligent in keeping him in power.

[bigdaddy45]

Its the “no physical evidence” part that worries me. And eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable.

[Ready4Freddy]

From filing:

“Faced with the news that Howard was not the source of the sperm, the State claimed that the homicides did not involve a sexual assault and continued to prosecute the case against Howard.”

Sound like anyone we know, abb?

[robowombat]

‘This guy was railroaded.’
And there is a clear pattern of generalized prosecutorial misconduct over a long period of time. Even the rather flaky novelist Peterson seems to have been a victim of a vendetta and he was certainly crucified by programs like 48 hours.

[jocon307]

“...there is no statute of limitations in North Carolina...”

For anything?