Duke DA a naughty boy

[LagomorphPrime]

http://msn.foxsports.com/other/story/6402682
For anyone that remembers this story, it's all been falling apart for the last few months.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - The state bar lodged new and more serious ethics charges Wednesday against the district attorney in the Duke lacrosse case, accusing him of withholding evidence from the defense and lying to both to the court and bar investigators.

Mike Nifong — who withdrew from the case earlier this month — could be disbarred if convicted by a disciplinary board.
The bar previously charged Nifong with making misleading and prejudicial comments about the athletes under suspicion.

The new charges are tied to Nifong's decision to use a private lab for DNA testing as his office investigated allegations three men raped a 28-year-old stripper at a team party last March.

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 that those results were not released to the defense and that Nifong repeatedly said in court he had turned over all evidence that could benefit the defense.

"If these allegations are true and if they don't justify disbarment, then I'm not sure what does," said Joseph Kennedy, a law professor at the University of North Carolina. "It's hard for me to imagine a more serious set of allegations against a prosecutor."

The new charges "have significantly increased the chances for a serious sanction, possibly including suspension or disbarment," said Thomas Metzloff, a Duke law professor and member of the bar's ethics committee, which is not involved in prosecuting the case against Nifong.

Nifong's trial on the ethics charges is set for May, though bar officials said Wednesday they expect it to be delayed until June.

He declined to comment Wednesday.

"I'd say any time any charges are filed with the state bar, they're all serious, and we want to make sure we handle them all properly," said his attorney David Freedman.

Citing the conflict of interest created by the ethics charges, Nifong asked the North Carolina attorney general's office earlier this month to take over the lacrosse case.

Nifong dropped rape charges against the three athletes in December after the accuser changed a key detail in her account, but the players are still charged with sexual offense and kidnapping.

North Carolina's attorney has said he will conduct a thorough review of the remaining charges against Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann.

[Windhaven]

I read through the papers shown on The Smoking Gun, and if they're right this guy deserves to have his family jewels nailed to a wall.

According to the papers filed, the original rape kit was sent to a lab for DNA testing. It found nothing, so it was sent to a second lab to see if they had better equipment or techniques.

The second lab found DNA, but it didn't match any of the Duke players. Some samples had DNA fragments that *might* match some of the players, but which apparently *did* match other, more complete samples that didn't match.

Nifong, according to the paers filed, asked the doctor at that lab to report only on the partials, and leave the rest off the report.

When asked if this was the complete finding, he told the Judge it was. When asked for full results of all tests, not just the ones the Prosecution planned to use, he told them that this doctored report was a complete listing.

It wasn't, and according to the papers filed, he not only knew it but had arranged for it to be that way.

One of the players indicted was elsewhere when the attack was supposed to have taken place, and there was video footage to prove it. Nifong pressed for the indictment anyway.

I can see an overly zealous prosecutor pressing for conviction of people he believes are guilty, even if the evidence is weak. I can see, though I disapprove, someone involved playing fast and loose with evidence rules if they think a crook is about to get away with their crime.

But in this case, the video of the kid, taken at the time the rape was supposed to have happened, should have cleared him in the mind of the prosecutor. And maybe it did. But Nifong went ahead and screwed up the kid's life anyway.

If ( and I mean *IF* ) the reports in TSG are true, this guy is a prime example of how *not* to be a prosecutor.

[StarkDaddy]

The sad part is that the college faculty won't apologize for how they treated the players. I like how the high halls of academia are dead set on due process until it conflicts with one of their biases. :flipoff: