Former Duke lacrosse rape prosecutor Mike Nifong has been slapped with additional ethics charges by the state bar association, which has accused him of withholding DNA evidence and making misleading statements to the court.
The new charges by the North Carolina State Bar against Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong were announced Wednesday and could lead to his removal from the state bar, according to a copy of the updated complaint. Nifong last year indicted three men from the Duke lacrosse team on charges that they raped a stripper at an off-campus party in March of 2006.
Since the players were indicted, the rape charges have been dropped – although sexual assault and kidnapping charges still stand – the accuser has changed her story about what happened that night multiple times, and Nifong has come under heavy fire for his handling of the case, withholding evidence from defense attorneys and not coming forward with DNA evidence that may have exonerated the players.
Nifong’s office arranged for a private lab to conduct DNA testing as part of the investigation into allegations the three Duke players raped the 28-year-old woman hired to perform as a stripper at a party thrown by the lacrosse team.
Those tests uncovered genetic material from several men on the woman’s underwear and body, but none from any lacrosse player. The bar complaint alleges those results weren’t released to defense lawyers in a timely fashion and that Nifong repeatedly said in court he had turned over all evidence that would potentially benefit the defense.
Nifong’s actions constitute a “systematic abuse of prosecutorial discretion … prejudicial to the administration of justice,” the complaint read.
Found by Eideard.
He He. I LIKE it.
Disbarment for this pecker is way overdue.
Thats whatcha get for prosecuting shit that doesnt need to be prosecuted.
What I want to know is, with the whole case so irretrievably in the toilet, WTF is the Persecution Dept. doing still pressing the other charges? Haven’t they done enough to ruin these young guys’ futures? Does anyone on the government’s side in this have anything resembling a conscience?
What I want to know is, with the whole case so irretrievably in the toilet, WTF is the Persecution Dept. doing still pressing the other charges? Haven’t they done enough to ruin these young guys’ futures? Does anyone on the government’s side in this have anything resembling a conscience?
The state AGs office took control of the case. I’m sure after they are through reviewing the case, all the charges will be dropped.
Prosecution does not care if you are innocent or guilty they just want a conviction that’s all that matters to them.
A good friend of mine was accused of such a thing by a girl that was crazy and mad at him, after she recanted and there was NO evidence the DA still tried to get him to Plea Bargain after he spent several weeks in jail denying that it ever happened and was abused by the CO’s who believed he was lying.
So if any of you thought the system is screwed up you were right things like this go on all the time because they were ignored for so long and a man could say she was asking for it the system has compensated by taking all accusations serious evidence or no.
PS. what ever happend to innocent till proven guilty!
No, this is what you get when you have a power mad DA who will do anything to get re-elected.
the only thing unusual about this case is that Nifong actually got caught.
#9, once again, doug, you have hit it right on.
A couple of weeks ago when this was last discussed at DU, I suggested that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. In the back of my mind I felt that the “system” should be allowed to play it’s hand. Well, as things have progressed, I was wrong.
I fervently hope that Nifong is disbarred. And as doug mentioned here, I hope this serves as a wake-up to other state Bars who will follow suit with similar travesties of justice,
If the defense has such a good case, why is it afraid to try it?
Its too bad you racists were not around for lynch mobs. I’m sure you would have enjoyed yourselves.
The defense does not try cases. The prosecution tries cases. The defense, defends cases.
“Nifong actually got caught”
What gets me is Nifong tried to get away with that conspiracy to hide the DNA results knowing full well every major news outlet was monitoring his every move.
Podesta: The defense lawyers’ job is to keep a case from going to trial if at all possible.
#11 – podesta
“Its too bad you racists were not around for lynch mobs. I’m sure you would have enjoyed yourselves.”
Ya. You just can’t face the fact that Nifong is the racist, pretending to believe a lying whore in order to get black votes and attempting to lynch factually innocent people solely because of their skin color.
Everyone else has eventually realized that this has been nothing more than a repeat of the Tawana Brawley hoax. Everyone, apparently, except you.
And that shows the world that you, sir, are a flaming moron.
I am very sure that I am the only lawyer on this thread and I repeat: Why is the defense so afraid of this case going to trial that it has engaged in:
1) A smear campaign against the victim;
2) Trying to try the case in the press where there are no rules of evidence; and
3) Efforts to destroy the prosecutor.
If the defense were sure the defendants would be acquitted at trial, they would simply go to trial and offer a viable defense.
The fact the major racists on this site are the ones who rush to these threads confirms that bigotry is what motivates the defenders of the defendants.
1) A smear campaign against the victim;
What smear campaign? That she was an escort? That fact came from the stripper herself in her own newspaper interview. That she had a criminal record? That fact came off the internet. That she had a history of mental illness and a prior unsubstantiated claim of rape? Those facts came from the stripper’s family and were first published by Essence, a black journalism magazine. How could the defense possibly smear the character of someone who herself and her family couldn’t keep their mouths shut?
2) Trying to try the case in the press where there are no rules of evidence;
Do you mean the damage control of the defense lawyers in response to DA Nifong’s initial unethical statements to the press? The defense would not be trying the case in the press but Nifong couldn’t keep his mouth shut.
3) Efforts to destroy the prosecutor.
Nifong destroyed himself. The defense had nothing to do with Nifong giving unsubstantiated statements to the press, Nifong’s conspiracy to withhold evidence, and Nifong’s lying to the court.
Put simply, nobody who had an interest in exacting justice for the accuser – not the prosecutor, not the police, not her family, not even the accuser herself – could keep their silly, stupid mouths shut.
But Podesta, you wanna know something? Some of those jocks may indeed have done something illegal that night, but between Nifong’s screw-ups and the accuser’s lack of credibility, the probability of any criminal case actually being presented to a jury is now, and has long been, virtually nil. In their zeal to hang a bunch of cretinous jocks, they overplayed their hands, tried to cheat the system to win a bigger pot than they deserved, and in the end, they lost everything and got bounced out of the game.
… and Podesta, sweetheart, if you truly are a lawyer, publish your true name and prove it, because if you really were a lawyer, your posts supporting the accuser would be somewhat in the realm of credibility.
Oh, and before you get the wrong idea, Podesta, in virtually any other situation, I would be first in line to smear a bunch of idiot jocks in defense of a sex worker.