Former district attorney Mike Nifong was held in criminal contempt of court and sentenced to one day in jail Friday for his actions in the flawed Duke lacrosse team rape case.
Nifong must report to jail September 7, Superior Court Judge W. Osmond Smith III said.
The judge said Nifong’s withholding of DNA evidence from defense attorneys was an affront to the integrity of the judicial system.
A disciplinary committee of the North Carolina State Bar disbarred Nifong in June, concluding after a hearing that he violated the majority of at least 19 ethics offenses in his handling of the case.
Oh, and remember the good citizens of North Carolina re-elected this clown in the middle of the case.
Electing officers of the court is one of the more notably stupid things about America.
This clown will be involved as a defendant in civil suits for a long time. His malpractice insurance will not pay if he intentionally broke the law.
From now on, no more voting for people with funny names like Nifong.
Bye bye Mitt, Giuliani, Huckabee, Dodd, Kucinich, and Barack Obama. Hello John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Fred Thompson, and John McCain.
This guy getting only 1 day in jail is really kind of indicative of our stacked deck legal system.
Everything Nifong did was a violation of the public trust but because he was an elected official gets no real punishment.
Sure he’ll get sued and so forth but that’s just money and he could declare bankruptcy and then that’s over.
And we wonder why so many innocent people get put in jail by guys like Nifong.
Oh, and remember the good citizens of North Carolina re-elected this clown in the middle of the case.
Of course they did. He played the race card. Sometimes it works (OJ) and sometimes it doesn’t.
“Oh, and remember the good citizens of North Carolina re-elected this clown in the middle of the case.”
Well… the citizens of Durham County did. The county is about 50 percent black, which is the whole reason he forged ahead with the prosecution even though he didn’t have any evidence.
Mr. Nifong was never “re-elected” as DA. He was appointed to the postion and was elected BEFORE the revelations of misconduct..
#6. well, there was a woman who said she’d been raped. In the days before serology and DNA, that usually was enough to convict a defendant. interestingly, the effect of such advances is not only to convict defendants when it is present, but to raise doubts when it is absent, such as in this case.
that is not to defend this guy. his first bad was to convict these guys in the media while he ONLY had this woman saying that she’d been raped – and was giving a shaky story at that. as is often said, the duty of a prosecutor is to do justice, not win a case. and then there was the withholding of evidence which is the BIG no-no.
unfortunately, most prosecutors get away with it with no more than a slap on the wrist, if that.
“Oh, and remember the good citizens of North Carolina re-elected this clown in the middle of the case. ”
Isn’t this the same state with the cute but extra dumb miss teen wannabe?
Nah, that was South Carolina.
What was this, a token jail sentence?
Hopefully that will be long enough for him to be Bubba’s bitch.
One day.
Well, lessee: he tried his level best to totatlly destroy the lives of those young men, while in the knowledge that no crime had been committed, solely and only for his personal benefit.
Ruin their lives for the rest of their lives. As an election ploy.
One day.
Folks, justice is a commodity, just like soy beans or pork bellies. The more money or connections, the more justice you get.
Our legal system is a dysfunctional farce, and a national disgrace.
One day.
So people can go to jail nowadays because people don’t like them? What was his crime?
So people can go to jail nowadays because people don’t like them? What was his crime?
MikeN, you might want to try pulling your head out of your ass from time to time to see whats going on in the world.
If he got raped in jail that would be justice.
I’ve heard that he was doing unethical things as a prosecutor, but it’s not clear that there is anything more to do than disbar him. This is entirely a judge deciding to put him in jail because he felt like it. My understanding is judges can order people out of jail with a directed verdict, but they can’t create a guilty verdict.
So it seems we have mob justice going on in this case for the second time. And on top of that, there’s a number of posters that consider prison rape justice.
I suppose in your little world, MikeN, prosecutors should be free to lie, in open court, under oath – to judges! no less – withhold evidence of innocence, when they’re bound by their oath of office to NOT prosecute innocent people…
So you think that the charge of ‘contempt of court’ is some kind of never-before-heard-of original invention, by this judge, to single out poor, innocent Nifong, right? Have you been in solitary confinement in a Russian prison for the last, oh, say 150 years??
How dare a judge, the head of the court, try to discipline an officer of that court for violation the rules of court and those of the office of District Attorney!
Crikey, what a bozo. And I’m not referring to Nifong.
#15, Bill
No, that would be a crime.
#16, Mike,
He lied to the court. That is why he was sentenced to jail.
15 If he got raped in jail that would be justice.
No.
If he was accused of raping a fellow inmate, that would be justice.