Next Up: Disbarring Nifong
CAPTAIN ED
ABC News reports that the North Carolina Attorney General will drop all charges against the Duke lacrosse players originally accused of raping an exotic dancer at a party over a year ago. After the DNA produced no matches for the students and the victim kept changing her story, prosecutors belatedly discovered that they had no case:
"The office of North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper will announce that he is dismissing all charges against three Duke Lacrosse players, ABC News has learned from sources close to the case.
The three players, Reade Seligmann, David Evans and Collin Finnerty, were facing charges of first degree kidnapping and first degree forcible sexual offense. The charges stem from an off-campus party on the night of March 13, 2006. ...
The reasons that will be cited for the dismissal are not yet known, though the case has been riddled with criticism and colored by controversy since its early months. Defense attorneys released documents showing the accuser changed key details of her story in the weeks and months after the alleged assault.
Legal analysts and forensic experts have criticized what they call a critically flawed photo identification lineup — a lineup that led to the identification and indictment of Evans, Finnerty, Seligmann. No DNA evidence was found matching any lacrosse players with samples from the rape kit, while DNA from unidentified men was found on the accuser's body and clothing."
This case has been a travesty since its start. The district attorney, Mike Nifong, made his case in public right from the start, acting very inappropriately and inflaming local passions against the accused. Later, it turned out that Nifong knew about the exculpatory DNA results but conspired with the lab to keep the results from the defendants -- an act that likely violated the law and the civil rights of the defendants, and certainly violated any sense of legal ethics.
The North Carolina Bar already has Nifong under investigation for his many questionable acts in this case. Nifong wanted to ride the Duke players all the way to re-election, and he managed to do that. The state Bar should make sure that Nifong does not profit from his unethical and potentially illegal misconduct. Disbarring him would force Nifong to resign his office, the least punishment he should receive for his actions in a year-long nightmare for three falsely-accused students.
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