"Odd that the wouldn't take him up on lying to the judge and conspiring to keep exculpatory evidence from the defence."
Since those are crimes perhaps they dont want to muddy the waters?
Those are recent revelations. Give it time, although I'm not particularly confident that they will.
The NC state bar and legislature have enabled and protected a legal climate in which behavior as outlandish as Nifong's can occur. Think for a moment what would be happening if these were poor white boys on full scholarships with nowhere near the $1,000,000+ means this case has cost these families so far. Nothing. They'd be assigned a public defender and these boys would probably be on their way to prison with Nifong driving the stage and Mangum riding shotgun.
Good gunslingers are expensive.
Nifong's worst miscalculation was money. These boys have the means to expose him. Others don't. It is just fortunate for everybody (except the boys and their families) that Nifong happened onto this case with an extreme motivation to win an election which brought out what he's really all about. My guess is that most of his work has been shoddy in the other direction - easy and sloppy in the prosecution of real criminals.