When her son's name was finally cleared in the wake of an investigation by North Carolina State Attorney General Roy Cooper, "it was an answer to all our prayers," she said. During closing arguments Friday, attorney Doug Brocker of the North CarolinaState Bar said Nifong engaged in a "systematic abuse of prosecutorial power and discretion in the Duke Lacrosse case. Nifong did not act as a minister of justice, but as a minister of injustice," Brocker added.
Brocker argued that the central motive for Nifong's decision to prosecute the case was winning a tightly contested election for district attorney. Just after the first indictments in the case, Nifong won a May 2 Democratic primary by a margin of 3 percent. In his closing statements, Nifong's attorney Dudley Witt admitted that Nifong committed "egregious mistakes" but said his "was not intentional conduct.
Witt also denied Nifong's use of the case to further any political agenda. He specifically cited Nifong's lack of experience in dealing with the media and argued that Nifong didn't realize until December that the withheld DNA was significant to the case. Ann Fawcett, a friend of the Nifong family who attended the trial, called him "an honorable man of great integrity.
Nifong's nearlyyear career as a prosecutor ended over the DukeLacrosse case. During his testimony Friday, Nifong tearfully announcedthat whatever the bar's choice of punishment he intended to step downas Durham County district attorney. Nifong led the prosecution of three Duke Lacrosse players for rape and sexual assault. The case began in March when woman hired to strip at a team party accused three players of attacking her in a bathroom.
In the months that followed, the casefell apart, riddled by a lack of evidence and an accuser who changedher story repeatedly.
From the early days of the case, Nifong was widely criticized for hishandling of the matter. On Friday, Nifong admitted to manymistakes. Nifong also admitted that he should have given defense attorneys allavailable DNA evidence months earlier than he did. He addedthat despite her changing story, Nifong never pushed the accuser toexplain the inconsistencies in her version of events.
By getting disbarred, Nifong lost not just his law license, but his livelihood. Unable to practice law, it's unclear what kind of work, if any, Nifong will do next. I took the responsibility on myself. We'll notify you here with news about. Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? If he finds Nifong in contempt after an Aug.
The case started with a woman's allegations that she was raped at a March lacrosse team party where she was hired as a stripper. Nifong won indictments against three team members, but the charges were later dropped, and state Attorney General Roy Cooper went a step farther by declaring the three men innocent victims of Nifong's "tragic rush to accuse. Seligmann, Mr. Finnerty or Mr. Evans committed any of the crimes for which they were indicted - or any other crimes against the accuser - during the party," Nifong said.
He declined to comment further after the hearing, as did his attorneys. Attorneys for the three falsely accused players, who had previously rejected Nifong's attempts to make amends, accepted his apology. None of the three players was in court. Nifong, for the pain he has caused these families and these young men, the entire Duke lacrosse team, the state of North Carolina and others," said attorney Joseph Cheshire.
Nifong decided to do that today," he said. The men's attorneys had asked Smith to hold Nifong in contempt for telling the court he had provided the defense complete results from DNA testing when he had not.
Nifong learned in April the laboratory found genetic material from multiple males on and about the accuser, but none from the lacrosse players. He didn't provide that information to the defense until October, and only then in the form of nearly 2, pages of raw DNA test data. A disciplinary hearing committee of the state bar stripped Nifong of his law license last month after finding he had committed more than two dozen violations of the state's rules of professional conduct during the case.
Two of the wrongly accused men, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann, declined invitations to return to Duke; Finnerty plans to attend Loyola of Maryland this fall, and Seligmann plans to attend Brown University.
The use of pleas is understandable. Because of the sheer volume of daily cases, the criminal justice system would be backlogged and inefficient if it were exclusively trial-based. In plea bargains, the accused are too frequently coerced into pleading guilty, even when they aren't. A study released by the American Psychological Association found that the earlier a defendant submits to the prosecutor and accepts a plea, the more lenient his punishment will be.
And defendants often aren't privy to the evidence against them during the bargaining phase, making it difficult to make a good-faith decision. What's more important is providing the defendant a fighting chance by eliminating a plea bargaining system that is inherently stacked against them.
The accused need a system of oversight during the bargaining phase — one that includes more than just the relevant attorneys who may or may not be influenced by biases that taint whether a plea is given or how well the accused is defended. Sol Wachtler , a former chief judge of New York state, once said that a grand jury would "indict a ham sandwich.
During grand jury hearings, prosecutors should present a balanced case , which would include some evidence that could exonerate the accused and in some states is required to do so. However, on the federal level and in a number of other states , prosecutors aren't compelled to present exonerating evidence by anything but principle.
The scariest part is the rate at which federal grand juries indict:
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