Posted on 06/10/2007 5:21:44 PM PDT by SmoothTalker
"[W]hen he faces a disciplinary hearing this week for his handling of the sexual assault case arising from a Duke lacrosse team party last spring, the entire State Bar will face judgment with him."
"As Nifong fights to save his law license, he goes before a bar battling its own image problems.
The State Bar has disbarred about 170 lawyers since 1996. But never has a North Carolina prosecutor been deprived of the ability to practice law, even for a single day, because of prosecutorial misconduct."
:The last charge, withholding evidence, took center stage in the case of former death row inmate Alan Gell, a Bertie County man wrongly convicted of murder in a slaying that happened while he was in jail on unrelated vehicle theft charges.
In that case, two prosecutors from the Attorney General's Office, David Hoke and Debra Graves, withheld statements given by people who saw the victim alive after Gell had been jailed. The prosecutors also withheld a tape recording of the state's star witness saying she had to "make up a story" for the police."
The bar delivered a written reprimand to Hoke and Graves after a two-day hearing on misconduct charges... Dudley Humphrey, then-president of the bar, was met with derisive laughter when he asserted that Gell was not the victim in the prosecutorial misconduct case. "The system was the victim," Humphrey said."
""The difference is that this case really has gotten so much publicity that the elder statesmen of the bar are embarrassed and they're going to demand something different," said Bill Massengale, a Chapel Hill lawyer and former prosecutor. "Mike Nifong's carrying the baggage for the Gell case and the baggage of the Honeycutt and Brewer case.""
(Excerpt) Read more at newsobserver.com ...
Sharpton should stand up for Nifong. After all, this was a lot like Tawana Brawley.
And look how that launched Sharpton’s career.
ping
There is so so much irony in this. Nifong wanted to make an example out of three white boys for his own political purposes. Now he will be made an example so the NC bar can atone for past lapses.
But don’t feel sorry for Nifong because he earned his disbarment on his own merits. He has also earned jail time, we shall see if this hearing leads to a criminal investigation.
State Bars are political cliques.
I will be surprised if nifog gets more than a written reprimand for a “one time deal”
Nifong did this as a matter of routine like all other prosecutors who are drunk on the media.
County attorneys, District Attorneys etc. are to defend the citizens of their specific districts are, in theory, to use their very broad discretion in determining cases that should be prosecuted. Only after that do they become prosecutors and even then their duty is to protect the right of every citizen.
They forget that duty when they are caught up in the numbers game of conviction rates and fines collected and years sentenced
More concerned with reelection or promotion than in justice.
Nifong may have become one of the sacrificial goats to convince Va that the bar really does work.
We can only hope that after he is disbarred each and every parent sue his sorry a## for ruining these boy’s chance at a normal start in life.
Hang him from the yardarm, along with Fitzi.
I think the bar has no choice but to disbar him.
Ordinarily they stick up for their own and scratch each others’ backs. But Nifong went so far beyond the pale that they really have no choice. It’s not so much a matter of justice as a matter of protecting each other. The reputation of the entire state bar and prosecutorial system is at stake, which I believe will take precedence over any impulse to protect Nifong.
He just went too far, and did it too publicly.
“He just went too far, and did it too publicly.”
The publicity is the key point. The Gell cause in the article was equally bad if not worse (trying to execute a guy they knew couldn’t have done it and witholding evidence that he was locked up at the time of the crime) but didn’t have the kind of press the Duke lax case had.
“. The Gell”
Er case. FR needs an edit function
Weasels protect weasels.
I beg your pardon? Va?
FYI, Freeper ‘Howlin’ flew into the Big FR Bug Zapper earlier this year, and is ‘banned or suspended’.
We might light a candle for her.
Citronella of course.
He went well beyond the pale. But I think he will not be disbarred. Written reprimand or suspension of license, yes. Disbarred, no. There is not enough honor in that state bar to do the right thing.
They are exempt from the laws because they "care" so much about minorities, women, the environment, gays, etc.
Nifong has as much chance of being punished as William Jefferson.
Both will walk while Scooter does the full 30. That's just the way it is in this country. Republicans who are accused get the book thrown at them. Democrats who are accused get to write books.
What happened to howlin? Where did she go?
Never underestimate lawyers circling the wagons for one of their own.Liberals protecting liberals.NC is over run with them. I hope Im wrong but, I doubt it.
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