Tuesday, June 19: Mike Nifong is a true idiot. After being disbarred, he had the nerve to announce he’d remain in office for another four weeks (to collect more money and build up his pension)! The man has been stripped of his license to practice law! He’s a disgrace. Fortunately not everyone is disgraceful. The judge said, “Get out now.” Today, the sheriff served the suspension order and took his badge and office keys.
Monday, June 18: As you know, it’s not over for Nifong. He could face criminal contempt charges and civil lawsuits. The reason things have gotten this bad for Nifong is that he pushed forward a case in which he couldn’t place the accused men at the scene of the so-called crime (in fact, there was no evidence a crime even occurred), hadn’t spoken to the accuser until months after the indictments, intentionally misrepresented evidence, intentionally withheld evidence, and used the case to campaign for office. If he was inexperienced and overwhelmed trying a felony case of this magnitude, he should have asked for help, guidance, something.
Nifong merely is reaping what he’s sown for the past year, and it’s no one’s fault but his own. Check out my Townhall column, Nifong’s Swan Song.
I forgot to mention this yesterday. I believe all three former Duke lacrosse players testified at Nifong’s hearing last week. I read an account of Reade Seligmann’s testimony. He was the only white student in an “African American” studies course. After the accusations, his study partner gave him the cold shoulder and wrote an article about how the sexual assault of a black woman by white men signifies the return of the Jim Crow south, or some such BS. This kind of ignorance flourishes when admissions standards are lowered.
Add these books to your reading list:
- Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case
- It’s Not About the Truth: The Untold Story of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case and the Lives It Shattered
Update (3:03 p.m): Just caught this. Reade Seligmann, the formerly indicted-for-rape lacrosse player with the alibi, says he, Collin Finnerty, and Dave Evans plan to sue Nifong. Good move. File suit against Duke University while you’re at it…
Later…Ha! Just found out via KC Johnson that Duke U has settled with Seligmann, Finnerty, and Evans. Hmmm…how much? 
Even later…And criminal charges, too? Better put Nifong on suicide watch…
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The thing is done. It’s almost anti-climactic.
Former Durham County District Attorney Michael B. Nifong has been stripped of his law license. After a week-long trial and a tearful non-apology apology, Nifong saw his legal career go up in proverbial flames.
Yesterday afternoon, a three-member disciplinary panel found Nifong guilty of lying, misrepresenting evidence, and making inflammatory statements to the media, and they disbarred him.
History professor and blogger KC Johnson blogged from the week-long ethics hearing last week. (Johnson is the co-author of Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case.)
On Friday, Nifong offered a tepid apology: “To the extent that I made judgments that ultimately proved to be incorrect, I apologize to the three students that were wrongly accused” and resigned as DA: “My community has suffered enough… It has become apparent, during the course of this week, in some ways that it might not have been before, that my presence as the district attorney in Durham is not furthering the cause of justice.”
From the Raleigh News and Observer:
At the end of the five-day hearing, Williamson struggled to explain the self-destruction of Nifong, who has spent his 28-year legal career as a Durham prosecutor.
“Why, why did we get to the place we got?” Williamson asked. “At the root of it is self-deception arising out of self-interest. … His self-interest collided with a very volatile mix of race, sex and class, a situation which if it were a plot in a John Grisham novel would be considered to be too contrived.”
According to [Disciplinary Hearing Commission Chairman] Williamson, Nifong grabbed hold of the case in the middle of a hotly contested election campaign. Escort service dancer Crystal Gail Mangum said she was raped by three men at a lacrosse team party. Nifong immediately went on a media blitz without reading police reports, talking with Mangum or waiting for DNA tests. Nifong asserted a racially-motivated assault occurred and labeled players “hooligans.”
The case crumbled, but Nifong continued to press on.
Nifong, desperate to win election in a heavily black city, used the only ammunition at his disposal: a phony, high profile gang rape case bubbling over with race and class tension.
If I were Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty, and Dave Evans, I’d sue Duke University, the Durham Police Department, and Mike Nifong.
News round-up at The Johnsville News.
