BS: Jail for former DA Nifong?

Subject: BS: Jail for former DA Nifong?
From: Greg B
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 01:21 PM

So it looks like quite a few are calling for the DA that
went after the Duke Univiersity lacrosse players to get
some jail time.

That's on top of firing and disbarment.

They point to the costs:

1. 3 students prosecuted for a year (equal thousands in legal fees)
2. 2 suspended from Duke (1 had already graduated) never to return
3. Lacrosse team suspended from competition for the season
4. Lacrosse coach fired
5. Lots of media frenzy

So what say you--- lock him up for a while, or be satisfied with
the total destruction of his career?

Subject: RE: BS: Jail for former DA Nifong?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 01:48 PM

I think he should be required to make some financial restitution to the families who paid those huge legal fees. That requires having an income, and people in jail don't usually make much money.

Subject: RE: BS: Jail for former DA Nifong?
From: pdq
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 02:11 PM

He can pay the restitution after he gets out of jail.

Subject: RE: BS: Jail for former DA Nifong?
From: Greg B
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 02:15 PM

Ironically, the restitution will probably have to come from
the county for which he was DA. They're legally responsible for
the misconduct of their employees.

I can't imagine him having much of an income following this,
unless some 'old boy' friends of his hire him to do behind-the-
scenes work at their law firm.

Sending him to jail would, to me, be a great 'message' to
over-zealous prosecutors.

Then again, would it make it more difficult for legitimate
victims to obtain justice, putting a 'scare' into prosecutors?

Subject: RE: BS: Jail for former DA Nifong?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 02:52 PM

I don't think this jerk can possibly be punished enough for what he did. As has been pointed out, any financial penalty would be paid by the local taxpayers, not by the perpetrator, so fines and even restitution won't hurt the responsible person. Best to give him a nice long sentence, and make sure he's NOT housed in a minimum-security "country-club" facility for white-collar offenders. He needs to spend some truly hard time in a hellhole where he'd feel just a little nervous about interacting with his fellow inmates.

When this story first broke, I was suckered in just like almost everyone else. Even without the added complication of criminal allegations, there's something just a bit distasteful about rich overprivileged "fraternity-boy" types exploiting working-class girls for purposes of titillation.

Duke, of course, is a highly elite school, and lacrosse is probably the most elitist of all intercollegiate sports. Most American kids wouldn't know a lacrosse stick from a hurley or a jai alai cesta ~ normal public and parochial high schools don't even have lacrosse teams (except maybe in Maryland?): the sport is played at the pre-college level almost exclusively at the nation's most expensive and prestigious boarding schools.

Of course as we now know, the truth of the matter is that the young woman was a lying opportunist, and the student-athletes ~ like them or or not, or their choice of recreational activities ~ were demonstrably innocent of the charges, as was soon-enough proven by DNA evidence.

Nifong's suppression of the DNA results was absolutely criminal. Until then, we might have given him the benefit of the doubt, we could understand that he might believe the accuser ~ and we can certainly understand that he would relish the role of moral crusader on behalf of a majority-black electorate with whom he really had very little previous rapport.

That he continued the prosecution after receving the lab results, and hid the evidence from defense lawyers in defiance of regulations, bespeaks the worst kind of cynicism and betrayal of his office. Hanging would be too good for this creep.

Subject: RE: BS: Jail for former DA Nifong?
From: GUEST,282RA
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 08:50 PM

Suppose it had been black athletes accused of rape by a white stripper.

Subject: RE: BS: Jail for former DA Nifong?
From: CET
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 08:53 PM

Has he actually been charged with a criminal offence, or are people just opining that he ought to go to jail? Does his conduct constitute an offence under state law?

If he really is facing charges, I think some jail time is in order. I think it is quite appropriate that he should have to face rebuilding his life as a convicted felon and having spent time behind bars. This is a much better fate than would have been reserved for the victims of his misconduct. Unlike this prosecutor, they risked facing years, not a few months, in prison.

I'm not worried about the chilling effect on prosecutors. Good prosecutors aren't out to score a victory over the accused at any cost, but to represent the public interest. A little jail time might encourage the ones who haven't quite hoisted that in.

Edmund

Subject: RE: BS: Jail for former DA Nifong?
From: Janie
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 09:50 PM

As it happens, I live right in the middle of all this. My middle school aged son plays lacrosse, has attended Duke summer lacrosse camps since he was 8 years old, and idolizes some of the players, many of whom are involved in the summer camp program..

The Duke lacrosse team has some truly priviledged and arrogant young men, who showed terrible judgement and entitlement, and I am somewhat bothered that the poor judgement, entitlement, and really bad behaviors that precipitated this whole thing are now being completely ignored. (Most top collegiate athletesThe entire team was at that party, and conducted themselves in a manner that makes them terrible role models. My son's father and I had terrible arguments about continuing to send him to Duke camps. (I lost.)

Having got that off my chest, what Nifong has done is, IMHO, criminal, and justice would be served if he were criminally charged, found guilty, and sent to prison. What he did made an absolute mockery of a troubled justice system of which he was the head. The division, pain, and racial division his handling of this case caused, and his absolute disregard for his office, the lives of the people involved and the impact on Durham, in particular, and this entire metro region are dispicable and represent terrible abuse of power and disregard for justice.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Jail for former DA Nifong?
From: wlisk
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 10:14 PM

What should be done about the woman that made the accusations?

Subject: RE: BS: Jail for former DA Nifong?
From: Janie
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 11:16 PM

Legally, I doubt much of anything can be done about her.

Over their life spans, given the disparity in social status, social support, the realities of the long term effects of racism, and the internal and external resources between her and the 3 lacrosse players, she will suffer much more from her choices than will the three lacrosse players. I suspect she already lives in hell on earth.

In our legal system, when accusations of wrong-doing are made, it is the responsibility of the prosecuting attorney's office to determine if enough evidence exists to bring charges. An accusation triggers an investigation, not a charge. It would seem that probable cause was never really established. Nifong is responsible for the decision to charge the lacrosse players.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Jail for former DA Nifong?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Jun 07 - 12:49 AM

She still made false accusations, and despite the distasteful nature or behavior of her intended victims, she seems to have had an agenda in play that the opportunist DA picked up and ran with. She probably deserves to do some time (if she isn't already for something else she has been up to.)

GUEST,282RA asked "Suppose it had been black athletes accused of rape by a white stripper."

But it wasn't, was it? You want to play on the popular "white guilt" that so many in the NAACP rely upon to keep the lucrative white dollars funding their programs? Take a look at Juan William's book Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America--and What We Can Do About It then ask that idiotic question. Here's a link to the book at Amazon and here's a link to an interview and excerpt from the book.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Jail for former DA Nifong?
From: mrdux
Date: 26 Jun 07 - 02:10 AM

An overzealous prosecutor thrown in jail for his overzealousness -- there's a certain delicious irony about it. If he committed a crime under NC law, I'd love to see him prosecuted.

The truth, though, is that Nifong did what many, if not most, prosecutors do with allegations of sex crimes: he took the word of the complainant as the unassailable truth and righteously charged ahead, regardless of how skinny the evidence might have been. As Dave Feige put it in an article in Slate: "The cardinal rule of sexual assault complaints is 'believe the victim,' and since anyone who complains is deemed a victim, even a semi-credible complainant can generate an arrest and prosecution in the absence of physical evidence, additional witnesses, or even a prompt accusation." It's true that he went way over the top with it, but Nifong was supremely unfortunate to have gone after the well-heeled, well-connected and extremely well-represented defendants that he did in this case. The usual result is far different: by the numbers (from the Slate piece) of some 2012 cases overturned by appellate courts for prosecutorial misconduct since 1970, only 44 of the prosecutors ever had to answer any questions from their ethical boards. In Illinois, of 381 murder convictions overturned for prosecutorial withholding of evidence, not a single prosecutor was publicly disciplined, let alone disbarred.

The other sobering thing about it is that it's extremely rare for a case to be untracked pre-trial like this. More often than not, a case like this goes to trial. Had Nifong taken this case to trial he could have won and could have gotten convictions, the factual innocence of the defendants notwithstanding, in which case he'd be portrayed as a hero instead of the unethical slimebag that he (losing does change the spin on things).

My guess is that the prosecutrial community has so distanced itself from Nifong at this point that he could be drawn and quartered and the pieces fed to the fishes, and even that wouldn't act as much of a deterrent or instill the slightest shred of fear in most prosecutors.

michael

Subject: RE: BS: Jail for former DA Nifong?
From: Janie
Date: 26 Jun 07 - 07:42 AM

Nifong was running for re-election in a very tight race. in a town known for it's racial division. All indications, right from the git-go, are that his 'zealousness' had everything to do with getting elected (He was originally appointed to fill a vacated position - and was a controversial choice even then because of evidence of ruthless ambition,) and nothing to do with a desire to see justice done.

SRS - She certainly did bring false accusations for some pretty spiteful and opportunistic reasons. There is no excuse for that. I think the sociopolitical realities of this area are such, however, that no prosecutor would attempt to bring charges.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Jail for former DA Nifong?
From: Grab
Date: 26 Jun 07 - 10:18 AM

Michael, the problem isn't that he went ahead without evidence - that would be understandable. The problem was that he was presented with clear evidence against, and chose to conceal it. Fortunately the defence lawyers were awake.

In the cases of both Nifong and the woman, the charges in the UK would be "perverting the cause of justice". Don't know what the US calls it.

SRS, I think 282RA's point is that had the defendants been poor, they would have got court-appointed lawyers who might not have been on the ball enough to call Nifong on it. They would then have been faced with it being her word against theirs in court. This can go against the woman (sadly in genuine cases too), but attitudes to rape are generally different these days and there would have been a very real risk of them being jailed.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Jail for former DA Nifong?
From: Dickey
Date: 26 Jun 07 - 10:45 AM

"Suppose it had been black athletes accused of rape by a white stripper."
Then the civil rights "leaders" would have been on the side of the atheletes.

Subject: RE: BS: Jail for former DA Nifong?
From: Greg B
Date: 26 Jun 07 - 11:03 AM

The victims in this case have in fact requested that the court find
Nifong in criminal contempt, and give him some time in stir. It is
considered a real possibility that it could occur.

Regarding prosecution of the alleged victim, it almost certainly will
not happen. There is a larger principle at stake here. That is that
victims of sexual abuse will not come forward if there is a real
possibility that coming out on the losing end of a 'he said she said'
sort of case (which many of these cases are). In my experience in
advocating for victims of clergy sexual abuse, I've found that victims
have enough difficulty coming forward, particularly in cases of power
or class disparity.

Note that the finding of prosecutorial misconduct is not based on
the innocence of those he charged but rather on the lack of adequate
evidence to justify the charges in the first place AND the withholding
of exculpatory evidence from their defense.

"But she recanted," you say. That is true, however again recanting
from an accusation either in the interest of justice or for reasons
of her own ought not to expose a victim to risk of prosecution.

In all of this, it is not in the larger public interest to penalize
this accuser, because of the effect it would have on legitimate (for
want of a better word) accusers.

On the other hand, it IS the role of the prosecutor to properly
act according to the determination of whether there is the possibility
of proving his case beyond the standard of 'reasonable doubt.'

Subject: RE: BS: Jail for former DA Nifong?
From: mrdux
Date: 26 Jun 07 - 06:49 PM

Graham -- Sorry if I was elliptical when I wrote "skinny evidence." What I meant to convey by that was the combination of an absence of overwhelming evidence of guilt on the one hand and affirmative evidence of innocence on the other – which, in any event, Nifong sat on. My point -- that far too many prosecutors proceed aggressively with far too many "skinny" cases for all the wrong reasons -- remains.

Having said that, if indeed Nifong violated North Carolina or Federal criminal law, and he were prosecuted, tried, convicted and sentenced to jail, I would shed no tears. I know nothing about the law of North Carolina, but, for what it may be worth, it appears that he is likely to have violated Federal law (18 USC §242 -- deprivation of civil rights under color of law), the penalty for which is up to a year in jail per violation.

michael